Tuesday morning news: August 22, 2023

Hilary » Driving rain from the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years knocked over trees and flooded homes, and swept people into swollen rivers.

One resident of La Quinta, California near Palm Springs said she’d never seen anything like it.

RESIDENT: It was really scary. I mean, the winds were unbelievable. And the amount of water that came down was just out of this world.

In some desert and mountain areas, the storm dumped half the average annual rainfall in a matter of hours, washing out roads and triggering mudslides.

Big cities were not spared either. Rich Thompson with the National Weather Service:

THOMPSON: Downtown Los Angeles, they recorded 2.48 inches of rainfall yesterday, which beat the old record of 3/100 of an inch that was set in 1906.

In aerial views of LA, floodwaters made Dodger Stadium look like an island.

And as the remnants of Tropical Storm Hilary track north, it has continued to pour heavy rain on much of the Western United States.

Hawaii » President Biden Monday toured the ruins of a Hawaiian town incinerated by a wildfire two weeks ago. He also met with first responders and fire victims.

BIDEN: From stories of grief, we’ve seen so many stories of hope and heroism, of the aloha spirit. Every emergency responder who put their lives on the line to save others. They’re our everyday heroes.

Biden vowed more federal support, and said federal relief agencies will be there as long as it takes to help victims back to their feet.

The flames destroyed Maui’s historic town of Lahaina, leaving thousands homeless.

More than a hundred people are confirmed dead, and as many as 800 others remain missing.

Texas v Biden border case » The Department of Justice heads to a federal courthouse in Texas today. The DOJ wants a judge to order the state to remove a series of large orange water buoys from the Rio Grande. The state deployed them in July as floating barriers to discourage migrants from trying to swim across.

The Biden administration calls the buoys dangerous and inhumane.

But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott fired back:

ABBOTT: The United Nations, an agency of it, declared the border between the United States and Mexico as the deadliest land border in the entire world. Joe Biden is responsible for that deadly border.

The governor charged that it’s Biden’s border and immigration policies that are inhumane.

Traffic at the southern border has shattered all-time records over the past two years. And border arrests surged again last month, with agents making more than 130,000 arrests.

Trump bail » A Georgia state court has set Donald Trump's bond at $200,000. The former president is required to surrender to authorities this week in a case accusing him of scheming to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump is also barred from directly communicating with 18 co-defendants or witnesses, including through social media.

Georgia trans law injunction » Meantime, a federal judge in Georgia temporarily blocked a state law protecting children from transgender interventions. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: District court Judge Sarah Geraghty issued an injunction Sunday, freezing a law that protects minors from cross-sex hormone treatments and puberty blockers.

Republican lawmakers passed the protections earlier this year, and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp signed them into law.

But some parents of children who identify as transgender sued, claiming the new law violated their children’s 14th amendment right to equal protection and due process.

While the ruling allows minors to receive hormones again, it is still illegal to perform gender surgeries on minors in Georgia.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Meta Canada news » Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is blasting Facebook parent company Meta over its decision to block news from Canada from its platforms in response to a new Canadian social media law.

TRUDEAU: In an emergency situation where up to date local information is more important than ever. Facebook's putting corporate profits ahead of people's safety, ahead of supporting quality local journalism. 

Trudeau pointed to news about wildfires currently raging in parts of Canada.

Earlier this year, the Canadian government enacted a law requiring top social media companies like Meta to compensate the writers of Canadian news stories whenever users share their work.

Instead, Meta said it would simply turn away Canadian news altogether.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: A school in New York says “Once a chief, always a chief. Plus, a morning with “the Bike Whisperer.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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