WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior State Department official said Tuesday that Flávio Bolsonaro and his family will be granted U.S. visas after his weekend loss to incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a hotly contested race that bucked a trend of conservative electoral results in Latin America.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to visa privacy laws, said “the State Department will issue visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States.”

Bolsonaro, who had President Donald Trump’s tacit support, had been under investigation for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in Brazil and had been ordered to surrender his passport.

The State Department official did not say if Bolsonaro had already left Brazil or if he and his family were en route to the U.S.

Bolsonaro’s campaign manager, Rogério Marinho, said he hadn’t spoken to the defeated candidate since early Tuesday morning.

“We had no news from Flávio or his lawyers about what happened,” Marinho said. “I received a text message from him, he said he wanted to take a break and then he would talk to us. That’s the only message I had from him.”

Bolsonaro’s brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in Texas, had publicly encouraged him to leave Brazil if he lost the election.

Bolsonaro has touted his relationship with Trump and visited the White House in May. The family connections go deeper: Brother Eduardo Bolsonaro was convicted in absentia in June of illegally lobbying the Trump administration and sentenced to four years in prison. A warrant was recently issued for his arrest.

Trump did not offer a full-throated endorsement of Bolsonaro in the runoff against Lula, as he has with some other right-of-center candidates in Latin America. But he suggested on Monday, without providing evidence, that Brazil’s election was “rigged.”

Bolsonaro’s decision to leave Brazil came as a deadline for him to surrender his regular and diplomatic passports expired at noon Tuesday. It remained unclear whether he had complied.

Bolsonaro was served with the order to surrender his passports Monday, a day after his stunning loss. Bolsonaro said he received it outside the home where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup following his 2022 election loss to Lula. After that defeat, Jair Bolsonaro fled Brazil for Florida. He returned three months later.

The sealed Supreme Court order, viewed by The Associated Press, was issued Sunday. Bolsonaro has refused to concede defeat and has made unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud.

Bolsonaro raises questions about election he lost

Bolsonaro initially asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that prompted authorities to extend voting by two hours.

On Monday, he urged the electoral court to investigate alleged election fraud and nullify Lula’s and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin’s candidacies, which the electoral court has never done before.

“I never thought about leaving the country,” Bolsonaro said in a video published on his social media channels. “I will hand over my passports and I will defend myself from this aberration. It is a clear attempt to intimidate me. But I will not be silenced.”

To overturn the result, Bolsonaro would have to present evidence of fraud affecting Lula’s 4.4 million-vote margin and convince the eight-member electoral court before the results are certified on Dec. 18.

Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, received more than 64 million votes, compared with fewer than 60 million for Bolsonaro, a margin of nearly 4%.

A Brazilian diplomat who was not authorized to speak on the matter said his country’s government was aware that Bolsonaro had left the country.

Outside the presidential residence in Brasilia, Lula told a few dozen supporters he did not have precise information of Bolsonaro’s whereabouts, but said he had left Brazil.

Brazil is “the second country” of the Bolsonaro family, Lula added.

“The first is licking American boots,” the reelected president said. “Those who are not liable do not fear. A fellow that secretly leaves his country, that’s because he is liable for something.”

Bolsonaro said in a video posted Monday on his social media channels that he was attempting to organize opposition among his congressional colleagues to the election results. His eight-year term as a senator expires Jan. 31, 2027, which will also cause him to lose special jurisdiction at the country’s Supreme Court.

Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil’s Supreme Court for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in two cases. In one, he’s accused of using a sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions from government pensions paid to senior citizens. In the other, he is accused of accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker.

He has denied any wrongdoing in both cases, and has claimed Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is heading one of the investigations, is a Lula ally. Prosecutors suspect the funds from the banker were used to pay his brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro’s, expenses and to promote Flávio Bolsonaro’s political agenda with the Trump administration, documents show.

Mauricio Marcon, a lawmaker of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, also questioned de Moraes’ objectivity on Tuesday. “Seven minutes after the election, Alexandre de Moraes ordered his passports to be seized,” Marcon said. Bolsonaro “will represent us in a free country. He will continue to be our leader.”

Brazilians had earlier taken to social media to ask where Bolsonaro was. Reporters gathered outside his home in the capital, Brasilia, but he did not appear.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Security of Argentina denied reports the Brazilian senator had entered the country. Brazilian media outlets reported that many Bolsonaro allies had been unable to reach him.

Paulo Figueiredo, a close ally of Bolsonaro’s who lives in the United States, was asked about the senator’s whereabouts and did not answer directly.

“At this moment — following months of intense work that were unfairly thwarted — I have no desire to speak with the press. I kindly ask that you do not persist. Should I have a statement to make on any matter, I will reach out,” Figueiredo said.

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LONDON (AP) — Two men were charged Tuesday with national security offenses over a suspected plot against RAF Fairford, a U.S.-run military air base in England, U.K. police and prosecutors said.

British nationals Mohmed Ahmad Abdulkarim and Nouman Essghir, both aged 24 and from London, were charged under the National Security Act, the Crown Prosecution Service said. They were due to appear in a London court on Tuesday.

Abdulkarim is charged with assisting Iran’s intelligence service, and Essghir is charged with entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the U.K.

RAF Fairford, in western England, has been used by American bombers to strike Iran during the U.S. war with the country.

Essghir was arrested outside the base on Sept. 27, when police officers and army bomb-disposal experts swarmed the rural area and searched for explosives. Scores of residents were evacuated from their homes.

Police later said they had found an accelerant — gasoline — in vans at the scene but no explosives.

Essghir was initially released on bail before being re-arrested last week. Abdulkarim was arrested in the past week. Six other men have been arrested and released on bail as investigations continue.

British authorities have linked Tehran to the incident, which led the U.S. to pull its bombers from RAF Fairford. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said that the suspected plot was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Iran has denied involvement, although it has said that it considers any base used to attack its territory a legitimate target.

Earlier this month, the head of Britain’s MI5 spy agency warned that both Iran and Russia were expanding their attacks against the U.K., and that the RAF Fairford incident was not unique.

Ken McCallum, who leads the U.K.’s domestic security service, said Tehran is seeking to intensify its attacks in Britain beyond the traditional targets of Iranians opposed to the country’s Islamic authorities. He said more than 50 people have been arrested over Iran-linked plots in the past year.

Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, the head of National Counter Terrorism Policing in the U.K., said, “We have seen a range of incidents in recent months that we believe have been directed by the Iranian state … [and] we are working together to intervene, identify and respond to that threat”.

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israelis are voting in a pivotal election Tuesday as their country is embroiled in unresolved wars, still reeling from Hamas’ 2023 attack and deeply divided over the character of the state and the right person to lead it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces off against a coalition of parties seeking to oust the longtime leader from power. Opinion polls have suggested a tight race with his main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot.

In Israel’s fragmented parliamentary politics, no single party has ever won an outright parliamentary majority, so political leaders must forge coalitions.

But in a tight race in which nonaligned Arab parties are pushing for heavy turnout, there is a chance that neither Netanyahu’s religious and ultranationalist coalition nor the group of parties looking to remove him has enough support to win a parliamentary majority. That could set off weeks of negotiations before a leader is declared.

Israel’s Arab-led parties could emerge as kingmakers if they agree to support one candidate over the other.

Hanging over the election are lingering tensions with Iran, and Netanyahu has ramped up threats against the country ahead of the vote. He appeared in a video this week standing beside a missile-defense battery and warned Tehran it would face “a devastating blow” if it attacked Israel.

The election is Israel’s first national vote since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war in Gaza and related conflicts across the region. The vote serves not only as a referendum on Netanyahu’s lengthy leadership but also on what kind of country Israel should be — heavily influenced by religious and nationalist forces, or more firmly anchored in liberal and secular values.

At stake is the fate of a country whose policies and leadership are being scorned by traditional allies. Since Hamas’ 2023 attack, Israel has found itself increasingly isolated over its conduct in Gaza and in the West Bank, where violence by Jewish settlers has intensified. Public support among Americans has plummeted and stalwart partners in Europe and elsewhere have slapped sanctions on Israel in recent months.

For Israelis, the election presents a chance at charting the country’s course after Netanyahu’s turbulent four-year term.

Netanyahu’s supporters see him as a steady hand and a consummate statesman who they believe has triumphantly guided Israel through multiple wars. They think he is protecting Israel’s Jewish identity while keeping in check what they see as an interventionist judiciary.

His Israeli detractors see him as a polarizing leader who, beset by an ongoing corruption trial, dragged on the war in Gaza and the Oct. 7 hostage crisis for political reasons. They say he is undermining the country’s independent judiciary and weakening its democratic underpinnings. And they accuse him of abetting a system that has allowed ultra-Orthodox religious Jews to avoid enlistment in Israel’s compulsory military.

Eisenkot is viewed by supporters as a capable leader with sterling security credentials who, along with his likely governing partners, could act as a bulwark against creeping illiberalism. As someone personally touched by the conflict — his son and two nephews were killed in Gaza — his backers believe that he feels deeply the pain that still courses through Israel three years after the attacks.

Parties that would likely throw their support behind Eisenkot have vowed to improve Israel’s international standing and work to conscript ultra-Orthodox men while bolstering the independence of the judiciary.

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