JUIZ DE FORA, Brazil (AP) — Severe floods in southeastern Brazil have killed at least 25 people and left dozens missing in the state of Minas Gerais, officials said Tuesday. Meteorologists warned more rain is expected in the region in the next few days.
The torrential rains began Monday in the cities of Juiz de Fora and Uba, about 310 kilometers (192 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro, forcing about 440 residents to evacuate their homes.
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Firefighters and civil defense workers help at the site where homes collapsed due to heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Residents watch as firefighters and civil defense workers at the site where homes collapsed due to heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Residents watch firefighters and civil defense workers at the site of a landslide caused by heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Residents watch firefighters and civil defense workers help at the site where homes collapsed due to heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Firefighters and civil defense workers help at the site where homes collapsed due to heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Minas Gerais' fire department says it is searching for 43 people who went missing since late Monday. A video shared by the department showed flooded streets in Juiz de Fora and Uba, where a river veered off its course.
Officials have warned residents to stay away from areas that could be prone to mudslides.
Juiz de Fora is a city of 560,000 residents, while neighboring Uba has 107,000, according to Brazil's statistics agency.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on his social media channels that security forces are working on the rescue and providing immediate assistance to the population affected by the rain.
Brazil's meteorology institute Inmet said in a statement that more rain is forecast for the region, which lies close to hills, valleys and slopes.
Juiz de Fora City Hall said in a statement the city experienced double the rain expected for February. Mayor Margarida Salomão said earlier at least 20 landslides were reported.
Firefighter Demetrius Bastos Goulart, 47, said rescue efforts will be slow and lengthy. “It is a high volume (of mud) in the landslides, we have to work with a lot of precision to avoid any damage to potential victims,” Goulard told The Associated Press.
Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Firefighters and civil defense workers help at the site where homes collapsed due to heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Residents watch as firefighters and civil defense workers at the site where homes collapsed due to heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Residents watch firefighters and civil defense workers at the site of a landslide caused by heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Residents watch firefighters and civil defense workers help at the site where homes collapsed due to heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Firefighters and civil defense workers help at the site where homes collapsed due to heavy rains and severe flooding in the Parque Burnier neighborhood of Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is rebounding on Tuesday after getting a reminder that the artificial-intelligence technology boom may also have an upside.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.8%, a day after dropping 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 424 points, or 0.9%, as of 2:53 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% higher.
Advanced Micro Devices helped lead the market and rallied 8.9% after announcing a multiyear deal where it will supply chips to help power Meta Platforms’ AI ambitions. Under the agreement, Meta also got the right to buy up to 160 million shares of AMD stock for 1 cent each, depending in part on how many chips Meta ultimately buys.
It’s a reminder of the excitement that built in recent years about the billions of dollars pouring into AI, which could remake the world and create a more productive economy.
It also helped produce a sharp turnaround from the prior day, when worries about the potential downsides of AI shook Wall Street, particularly companies and industries that investors fear could be made obsolete. Industries as far flung as software, trucking logistics and financial services have recently seen investors suddenly and aggressively punish them for potentially being under threat.
IBM rose 2.9% Tuesday to recover a chunk of its 13.1% drop from the prior day, which was its worst since 2000.
The pain has also filtered out to the private-equity industry, with fears building that loans it made to software companies dependent on recurring revenue may have less of a chance of getting repaid. Blue Owl Capital rose 3.8% and trimmed its loss for the young year so far to less than 30%.
On Tuesday, Anthropic unveiled new tools for businesses to use with its Claude AI assistant. They covered everything from human-resources work to engineering to investment banking.
The event suggested that fears about AI supplanting existing software, rather than merely making it easier to use, may be overblown, according to Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush. “While these use cases are impressive, the reality is that these new AI tools will not rip and replace existing software ecosystems and data environments with these AI tools only as useful as the data it can reach.”
One of the tools announced Tuesday allows users to bring data on financial markets from FactSet into Claude. FactSet Research Systems' stock jumped 6.4% for one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500, though it's still down roughly 30% for the year so far.
Other companies hit hard by worries about AI competition also trimmed their losses for the year. Salesforce climbed 4.2%, and AppLovin rose 3.5%.
Outside of AI worries, big U.S. companies continue to report mostly better profits for the end of 2025 than analysts expected.
Keysight Technologies rallied 21.3% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after topping analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue in the latest quarter. It also said revenue in the current quarter could rise by roughly 30% from a year earlier.
Home Depot rose 2.1% after likewise delivering stronger profit and revenue than analysts expected. That was even with what CEO Ted Decker called “ongoing consumer uncertainty.”
Meanwhile, Coinbase Global bounced back from an early drop to add 0.1%. The crypto trading platform fell earlier as bitcoin dropped back toward $64,000, close to half its record price reached in October.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements in Europe.
The swings were larger in Asia. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.1%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.8%. Stocks in Shanghai rose 0.9% after reopening following a holiday of more than a week.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report said that confidence among U.S. consumers improved by more than economists expected. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.04% from 4.03%, where it was late Monday.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
A pedestrian walks outside the New York Stock Exchange during a snow storm, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Snow falls outside the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Snow falls outside the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader stretches near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
