AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Trump says he will surrender Thursday on Georgia charges tied to efforts to overturn 2020 election

Former President Donald Trump says he will surrender to authorities in Georgia on Thursday to face charges in the case accusing him of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED,” Trump wrote on his social media network Monday night, hours after his bond was set at $200,000.

It will be Trump’s fourth arrest since April, when he became the first former president in U.S. history to face indictment. Since then, Trump, who remains the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has had what has seemed like an endless procession of bookings and arraignments in jurisdictions across the country. His appearances in New York, Florida and Washington, D.C., have drawn enormous media attention, with news helicopters tracking his every move.

Trump’s announcement came hours after his attorneys met with prosecutors in Atlanta to discuss the details of his release on bond. The former president is barred from intimidating co-defendants, witnesses or victims in the case — including on social media — according to the bond agreement signed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Trump’s defense attorneys and the judge. It explicitly includes “posts on social media or reposts of posts” made by others.

Trump has repeatedly used social media to attack people involved in the criminal cases against him as he campaigns to reclaim the White House in 2024. He has been railing against Willis since before he was indicted, and singled out Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp — a Republican who rebuffed his efforts to overturn the election — by name in a social media post Monday morning.

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Hilary left California desert roads covered in water and mud. Now it’s threatening Oregon and Idaho

CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. (AP) — Hilary, the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years, flooded roads, toppled trees and forced a rescue by bulldozer of more than a dozen older residents trapped by mud in a care home Monday as it marched northward, prompting flood watches and warnings in half a dozen states.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Hilary had lost much of its steam and only vestiges of the storm were heading over the Rocky Mountains, but it warned that “continued life-threatening and locally catastrophic flooding” was expected over portions of the southwestern U.S., following record-breaking rainfall. Forecasters said the threat for flooding in states farther north on Monday was highest across much of southeastern Oregon into the west-central mountains of Idaho, with potential thunderstorms and localized torrential rains on Tuesday.

Hilary first slammed into Mexico’s arid Baja California Peninsula as a hurricane, causing one death and widespread flooding before becoming a tropical storm, one of several potentially catastrophic natural events affecting California on Sunday. Besides the tropical storm, which produced tornado warnings, there were wildfires and a moderate earthquake north of Los Angeles. So far, no deaths, serious injuries or extreme damages have been reported in the state, though officials warned that risks remain, especially in the mountainous regions where the wet hillsides could unleash mudslides.

In one dramatic scene, rescue officials in the desert community of Cathedral City, near Palm Springs, drove a bulldozer through mud to the swamped care home and rescued 14 residents by scooping them up and carrying them to safety, Fire Chief Michael Contreras said. They were among 46 rescues the city performed between late Sunday night and the next afternoon from mud and water standing up to 5 feet (1.5 meters.)

“We were able to put the patients into the scoop. It’s not something that I’ve ever done in my 34 years as a firefighter, but disasters like this really cause us to have to look at those means of rescue that aren’t in the book and that we don’t do everyday,” he said at a news conference.

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Biden says federal government will help Maui ‘for as long as it takes’ to recover from wildfire

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday told survivors of Hawaii’s wildfires that the nation “grieves with you” and promised that the federal government will help Maui “for as long as it takes” to recover from damage caused by the United States’ deadliest wildfire in more than a century.

Biden arrived in Maui 13 days after the wildfires that have taken at least 114 lives ravaged the western part of the island. Standing near a severely burned 150-year-old banyan tree, the president acknowledged the “overwhelming” devastation but said that Maui would persevere through the tragedy.

“Today it’s burned but it’s still standing,” Biden said of the tree. “The tree survived for a reason. I believe it’s a very powerful symbol of what we can and will do to get through this crisis.”

Biden and first lady Jill Biden got a close look at the devastation, seeing for themselves the hollowed homes, structures, charred cars and singed trees left in the wake of the blaze.

The Bidens lingered briefly on the tarmac after arriving at Kahului Airport to console Hawaii Gov. Josh Green and his wife Jaime Green as well as members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation who came to the airport to greet them. The president and first lady embraced each of their greeters before boarding Marine One for an aerial tour of the damage.

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Alabama can enforce ban on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children, court says

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Alabama can enforce a ban outlawing the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender children, the second such appellate victory for gender-affirming care restrictions that have been adopted by a growing number of Republican-led states.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a judge’s temporary injunction against enforcing the law. The judge has scheduled trial for April 2 on whether to permanently block the law.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall called the ruling a “significant victory for our country, for children, and for common sense.”

“The Eleventh Circuit reinforced that the State has the authority to safeguard the physical and psychological wellbeing of minors,” Marshall said.

In lifting the injunction, the judges wrote that states have “a compelling interest in protecting children from drugs, particularly those for which there is uncertainty regarding benefits, recent surges in use, and irreversible effects.”

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Divisive Thai ex-Prime Minister Thaksin returns from exile as party seeks to form new government

BANGKOK (AP) — Divisive ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned to Thailand on Tuesday after years of self-imposed exile to face criminal charges on the same day that a party affiliated with him plans to start forming a new government.

Thaksin has said his decision to return has nothing to do with an expected vote in Parliament later in the day on a candidate from the Pheu Thai party for prime minister. But many believe his arrival is connected to the party’s pursuit of power.

Thaksin flew from Singapore in his private jet and landed at Don Mueang International Airport around 9 a.m. local time. Thai broadcasters aired live footage of him walking out of the airport’s private jet terminal with his daughter, key Pheu Thai member Paetongtarn Shinawatra, and greeting his supporters.

After walking out, Thaksin placed a flower wreath and prostrated before a portrait of Thailand’s king and queen at the gate of the terminal.

Supporters of him gathered outside of the airport hours ahead of his arrival, donning red and holding sign with welcoming messages. Core members of the Pheu Thai party were also seen at the airport.

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Female soldiers in Army special operations face rampant sexism and harassment, military report says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Female soldiers face rampant sexism, harassment and other gender-related challenges in male dominated Army special operations units, according to a report Monday, eight years after the Pentagon opened all combat jobs to women.

U.S. Army Special Operations Command, in a lengthy study, reported a wide range of “overtly sexist” comments from male soldiers, including a broad aversion to females serving in commando units. The comments, it said, are “not outliers” but represent a common sentiment that women don’t belong on special operations teams.

“The idea that women are equally as physically, mentally and emotionally capable to perform majority of jobs is quite frankly ridiculous,” said one male commenter. Others said they’d quit before serving on a team with a female, and that serving in such a situation it would create problems and jealousy among their wives.

The blunt and sometimes crass comments ring familiar to many who have watched the difficult transition as women moved into the military’s front line combat jobs. And they paint a disturbing, challenging picture for leaders.

The exhaustive report surveyed more than 5,000 people assigned to Army special operations forces units, including 837 female troops, 3,238 male troops and the rest defense civilians.

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FDA approves RSV vaccine for moms-to-be to guard their newborns

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators on Monday approved the first RSV vaccine for pregnant women so their babies will be born with protection against the scary respiratory infection.

RSV is notorious for filling hospitals with wheezing babies every fall and winter. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s maternal vaccination to guard against a severe case of RSV when babies are most vulnerable — from birth through 6 months of age.

The next step: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must issue recommendations for using the vaccine, named Abrysvo, during pregnancy. (Vaccinations for older adults, also at high risk, are getting underway this fall using the same Pfizer shot plus another from competitor GSK.)

“Maternal vaccination is an incredible way to protect the infants,” said Dr. Elizabeth Schlaudecker of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, a researcher in Pfizer’s international study of the vaccine. If shots begin soon, “I do think we could see an impact for this RSV season.”

RSV is a coldlike nuisance for most healthy people but it can be life-threatening for the very young. It inflames babies’ tiny airways so it’s hard to breathe or causes pneumonia. In the U.S. alone, between 58,000 and 80,000 children younger than 5 are hospitalized each year, and several hundred die, from the respiratory syncytial virus.

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Cambodian Parliament approves longtime leader’s son as prime minister as part of generational change

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The son of longtime autocratic Cambodian leader Hun Sen was approved by Parliament on Tuesday as the country’s new prime minister, part of a generational change in top positions in the Southeast Asian nation.

Hun Manet, 45, won his first seat in the National Assembly in July elections and takes over from his father, who had been Asia’s longest serving leader with nearly four decades in power, after serving as Cambodia’s army chief.

He was approved by lawmakers unanimously and is to be officially sworn in later Tuesday.

Even though he’s at the head of a Cabinet made up of about 3/4 new face s, most are the children or are otherwise related to those they are replacing, and experts caution against expecting broad changes in the country where human rights have been under attack and dissent suppressed.

“There is not a big difference between the generations in political outlook, including in terms of how open or how competitive politics should be,” said Astrid Norén-Nilsson, a Cambodia expert at Sweden’s Lund University.

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Japan to start releasing Fukushima plant’s treated radioactive water to sea as early as Thursday

TOKYO (AP) — Japan will start releasing treated and diluted radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean as early as Thursday — a controversial but essential early step in the decades of work to shut down the facility 12 years after its meltdown disaster.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gave the final go-ahead Tuesday at a meeting of Cabinet ministers involved in the plan and instructed the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, to be ready to start the coastal release Thursday if weather and sea conditions permit.

Kishida said at the meeting that the release of the water is essential for the progress of the plant decommissioning and Fukushima prefecture’s recovery from the March 11, 2011, disaster.

He said the government has done everything for now to ensure the safety, combat the reputational damage for the fisheries and to provide transparent and scientific explanation to gain understanding in and outside the country. He pledged that the government will continue the effort until the end of the release and decommissioning, which will take decades.

A massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s cooling systems, causing three of its reactors to melt and contaminating their cooling water. The water is collected, filtered and stored in about 1,000 tanks, which fill much of the plant’s grounds and will reach their capacity in early 2024.

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Angry reaction after Spanish soccer leader kissed a Women’s World Cup star on the mouth

MADRID (AP) — The leader of Spain’s soccer federation marred the country’s Women’s World Cup victory after kissing a player on the lips during the medal ceremony, drawing criticism for inappropriate conduct in a sport that has struggled to overcome sexism.

The Spanish government and the world players’ union condemned the behavior of Luis Rubiales on Monday, a day after Spain’s 1-0 win over England. The soccer federation led by Rubiales sought to downplay the incident through a statement it attributed to the player he kissed, then later released a video in which Rubiales apologized.

Immediately after Spain’s victory, Rubiales grabbed his crotch in a victory gesture — seemingly oblivious to 16-year-old Princess Infanta Sofía standing nearby. He later kissed player Jenni Hermoso on the lips during the medal and trophy ceremony on the field, drawing unwanted attention away from the celebration and souring the country’s biggest day for women’s soccer.

The kiss was shocking given the sport’s long-standing allegations of sexual misconduct by male soccer presidents and coaches against female players on national teams. Two of the 32 World Cup teams, Haiti and Zambia, had to deal with the issue while qualifying for the tournament co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

Spain’s acting minister for sports and culture Miquel Iceta told public broadcaster RNE “it is unacceptable to kiss a player on the lips to congratulate her.” The world players’ union called the kiss “deeply lamentable.”