Parts of the Southwest's Four Corners region remained under a flood warning Monday as some saturated neighborhoods began cleaning up, assessing damage and watching out for water that could be contaminated with chemicals and raw sewage.
Flooding caused by excessive rainfall happened Monday along the San Juan River in parts of the Four Corners region, the meeting point of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. The area has experienced unusually heavy rain since Wednesday that caused rivers to surge, flooding homes and forcing water rescues. Storms led to a tornado that touched down in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Saturday night.
One flooding-related death was reported in Santa Fe on Saturday during a water rescue of a family that had attempted to cross a flooded arroyo in their vehicle, the county sheriff's office said. A father and child were able to get onto land, but a female passenger was swept away by the current and was found dead a mile away, the office said.
By Monday morning, the San Juan River was 1 1/2 feet (45.7 centimeters) above the flood stage of 23 feet (7 meters), the National Weather Service said. It was expected to crest to 31 feet (9.4 meters) later Monday, then fall below flood stage by Tuesday morning.
This compares to Sept. 10, 1927, when the river crested at 32 feet (9.7 meters), the weather service said.
Some residents in one community along the river, Bluff, Utah, were evacuated over the weekend but were allowed to return early Monday.
Returning residents and businesses should use caution as several properties were still flooded, county officials said.
“Stay out of the San Juan River,” the weather service said. “Water levels remain elevated, and possible sewage contamination poses additional health risks.”
In the Farmington area of New Mexico, local officials said swollen rivers were receding, but that many people remained evacuated and hundreds were without power.
San Juan County, New Mexico, did not have official figures on the number of homes damaged or how many people were evacuated, spokesperson Devin Neeley told The Associated Press.
“It’s a pretty active disaster zone,” he said.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Major General Miguel Aguilar of the New Mexico National Guard planned to visit the county Monday to survey damage and meet with affected residents.
Officials in the hard-hit counties urged patience and caution. Water could be contaminated with chemicals and raw sewage, and gas and propane lines could be broken, among other hazards.
“The public is anxious to get back in,” San Juan County Fire & Rescue Chief David Vega acknowledged at a news conference Sunday. “But I want the public to know there are still hazards out there.”
Undersheriff Cory Tanner said officials were going from house to house to check for hazards — a process that could take days to complete.
Zach and Abigail Flatt started putting together go-bags after receiving evacuation orders on their phones Thursday evening. Their home in Bloomfield, New Mexico, sits on the San Juan River.
“In 30 or 40 minutes it had jumped about 4 feet,” Zach recalled Sunday. “After I saw that big jump, and how close it was to going over the banks, I said we've got to get out.”
By the time the family was loaded into the car, water was coming up over the tires. They found a hotel room with their two children, ages 2 and 4, and watched via webcams as at least 18 inches (.45 meters) of water inundated their property, washing away 22 of their 24 chickens.
“We watched stuff just float away, off the porch into the front yard,” Zach said.
In the Shiprock, New Mexico, area of the Navajo Nation, wastewater facilities and water holding ponds were damaged by flooding, causing sewage releases into the San Juan River, according to Navajo Tribal Utility Authority Shiprock District Manager Wilfred Franklin Jr.
New Mexico's congressional delegation on Sunday urged President Donald Trump to declare an emergency for the state to release federal assistance funding.
In Colorado, teams created maps of some counties to help identify affected roads, road closures, impacted areas and evacuation zones.
The flooding is just the latest from two months of on-and-off heavy rain in the region caused by tropical moisture coming ashore from the Pacific. After months of drought, other recent deadly flooding struck the Grand Canyon and other areas of New Mexico.
Forecasters said El Niño, the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific, was likely to blame for the latest storm's unusually heavy rainfall.
Associated Press writers Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Anna Wilder in Austin, Texas, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.
Linda Duran embraces her longtime neighbor Medardo Roybal, whose home was damaged, in Santa Fe, N.M., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, following a tornado that touched down in central Santa Fe on Saturday night. (Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP)
Gary Delgado looks at damage of his home including the partially collapsed roof in Santa Fe, N.M., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, following a tornado that touched down in central Santa Fe on Saturday night. (Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP)
Nickolai Pedersen and Julian Gonzales III help cut a downed tree off a roof as residents start to clean up in Santa Fe, N.M., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, after a tornado touched down in central Santa Fe on Saturday night. (Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump suggested on Monday, without providing evidence, that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ’s reelection was “rigged.”
“Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me,” Trump told reporters before flying to Mississippi for a rally. He added, “I thought it had a very bad look, the way it was tabulated.”
Trump also said: “It looked like another rigged election, frankly.”
Lula's comeback to win Brazil’s presidential runoff Sunday is already facing its first hurdle as his competitor, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, challenges the results, setting the stage for a possible showdown between the country’s two polarizing political forces.
Lula, who convinced an extra 10.4 million voters to support him in the runoff, is expected to take office on Jan. 5, 2027, for his fourth non-consecutive term. He will serve as a counterweight in a region where leaders are shifting to the right and aligning with U.S. President Donald Trump. Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, promised to cozy up to the Trump administration.
At a news conference Sunday, Bolsonaro said he planned to request an annulment of the election following a chaotic extension of voting at the request of both candidates. However, it's unclear what legal avenue he would have to do that. His father, now serving a 27-year sentence for a coup attempt, unsuccessfully contested his loss to Lula four years ago. Flavio Bolsonaro visited his father, who is under house arrest, on Monday, the younger Bolsonaro's public relations office said.
Early signs from Brazil’s institutions and from leaders across the region, including conservative presidents who oppose Lula, suggest the results will be respected nationally and internationally. Trump has yet to weigh in.
Even with the vote extension, Lula’s win was decisive. The soon-to-be 81-year-old incumbent won more than 64 million votes compared to just under 60 million for Bolsonaro, a margin of nearly 4%.
President of Brazil’s electoral authority, Kassio Nunes, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, was among those who recognized Lula’s victory Sunday.
“This is a really uphill battle for Flavio Bolsonaro. Important Brazilian power brokers are closing ranks behind Lula, sometimes begrudgingly," said Brian Winter, Brazil analyst and editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly.
“I sense that Brazilian power brokers that matter don’t really want to go down the path of a truly contested election,” he said.
The key to Lula’s win was the additional 14.1 million voters who showed up for the second-round election, including those who voted for other candidates in the first round. Analysts say three-quarters of those votes went to Lula, handing him the victory. And notably, the first round set a record for the number of Brazilians who decided not to vote, while the second round had the least number of abstentions ever.
Lula gave his digital campaign to lawmaker André Janones, who mounted a fierce and persistent social media operation that mobilized many of those previously uncommitted voters. Janones' key tool was a channel on messaging app WhatsApp called “Lula's Army,” which gathered almost 11 million people and mobilized them to campaign via social media for the incumbent.
Janones “basically embraced the right’s style of aggressive politics, very intense, constant messaging,” said Oliver Stuenkel, a professor of International Relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas in Sao Paulo.
“The defeat in the first round jolted the Lula campaign into action. The strategy during the first round was lackluster and saw a lot of infighting,” Stuenkel said.
Juliano Cortinhas, international relations professor at the University of Brasília, said Lula's social media initiative in the runoff was also key to pressuring Meta, the owner of Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, to end what the president's campaign denounced as bias helping Bolsonaro.
Brazil’s top electoral court ruled on Oct.15 that Meta must adopt measures that assure equal treatment of the two presidential candidates, which the company later said it addressed.
There was “external interference we were suffering by major platforms,” Cortinhas said. “It wasn't only Meta, many others were using their algorithms to repost many images and many messages of the far-right, and they did not do the same to the left.”
It was the first time since 1989 that a candidate came from behind in the first round to win in the second.
Results show voter turnout surged overall, particularly in wealthier metropolitan centers, but Lula achieved his highest gains in lower-income municipalities where his base was already established. He mobilized former non-voters, those who voted blank in the first round and supporters of third-party candidates.
Jorge Henrique Oliveira Sena, a 26-year-old maintenance worker in Brasilia, was one of those who didn’t vote in the first round. Neither candidate excited him much, but he cast his vote for Lula. “It’s not a question of supporting, but between the two, I had more of a connection with him,” he said.
Brazil holds general elections every four years, and its electronic voting machines have made the tallying process quick and secure.
Brazilian authorities adopted electronic voting machines in the 1990s to combat fraud and the system has been largely reliable since then. Results are usually reported mere hours after polls close.
In the lead-up to the 2022 vote, Jair Bolsonaro repeatedly cast unfounded doubts on Brazil’s electronic voting system. No significant fraud has ever been detected.
But the usually swift voting process was thrown into disarray Sunday after a last-minute decision to extend voting nationwide at both candidates’ requests.
Lula made the request because of issues with public transportation in metropolis, Sao Paulo, and the northeastern city of Salvador, two of his strongholds. Bolsonaro requested it after heavy rains in the south, which he won by a strong margin in the first round.
The decision was made by a Supreme Court justice mere minutes before polls were set to close at 5 p.m. and the speed of Brazil’s counting process meant many polling stations didn’t receive the news until they were already wrapping up.
Yet given the reliability of Brazil's voting system and Lula's win by a significant margin, a path to annul the results could be difficult for Bolsonaro.
Benjamin Gedan, senior fellow and director of the Stimson Center Latin America program, said Bolsonaro's rejection of his loss was not surprising.
“False claims of fraud are becoming commonplace, though that does not make them any less dangerous," he said. He noted “Lula’s margin of victory, and the quick recognition of the result by conservative leaders in the region."
Nevertheless, Lula still faces challenges moving forward, including political polarization in the country, a possible fiscal crisis and a right-wing Congress in which Bolsonaro's party will have more seats than any other. Bolsonaro himself remains a senator, though his term ends in January.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the power of the Bolsonaro family," said Winter, the Brazil analyst. "They can make life difficult for Lula for weeks and months to come.”
Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.
Supporters of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva celebrate after he wins a fourth term in the presidential runoff in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva addresses supporters during a victory rally after winning a fourth term in the presidential runoff on Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Opposition presidential candidate Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro speaks after the presidential runoff in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
Opposition presidential candidate Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro speaks after the presidential runoff in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva addresses supporters during a victory rally after winning a fourth term in the presidential runoff on Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
