By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the appeal of a Black death row inmate from Mississippi whose case was handled by a prosecutor with a history of dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons.

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A federal judge had previously overturned the murder conviction of the inmate, Terry Pitchford, but an appeals court reversed that ruling.

The justices stepped into the case involving the same prosecutor, former District Attorney Doug Evans, who was at the center of a high court case that resulted in a 2019 decision that overturned the death sentence and conviction of Curtis Flowers.

The case will be argued in the spring.

U.S District Judge Michael P. Mills held that the judge who oversaw Pitchford’s trial didn’t give the man’s lawyer enough chance to argue that the prosecution was improperly dismissing Black jurors.

Mills wrote that his ruling was partially motivated by Evans’ actions in prior cases.

Pitchford was sentenced to death for his role in the 2004 killing of Reuben Britt, the owner of the Crossroads Grocery, just outside Grenada in northern Mississippi.

In Pitchford’s case, judges and lawyers whittled down the original jury pool of 61 white and 35 Black members to a pool with 36 white and five Black members, in part because so many Black jurors objected to sentencing Pitchford to death. Then prosecutors struck four more Black jurors, leaving only one Black person on the final jury.

The Supreme Court tried to stamp out discrimination in the composition of juries in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986. The court ruled then that jurors couldn’t be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors.

When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Flowers, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that Evans had engaged in a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.”

Flowers was tried six times in the shooting deaths of four people. He was released from prison in 2019 and the state dropped the charges against him the following year, after Evans turned the case over to state officials.

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and TRÂN NGUYỄN

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The fight over California’s new congressional map designed to help Democrats flip congressional House seats will go to court Monday as a panel of federal judges considers whether the district boundaries approved by voters last month can be used in elections.

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The hearing in Los Angeles sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and political fight between the Trump administration and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s been eyeing a 2028 presidential run. The lawsuit asks a three-judge panel to grant a temporary restraining order by Dec. 19 — the date candidates can take the first official steps to run in the 2026 election.

Voters approved California’s new U.S. House map in November through Proposition 50. It’s designed to help Democrats flip as many as five congressional House seats in the midterm elections next year. It was Newsom’s response to a Republican-led effort in Texas backed by President Donald Trump.

The redistricting showdown between the nation’s two most populous states has spread nationally, with efforts aiming to determine which party controls Congress for the second half of Trump’s term. Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have adopted new district lines that could provide a partisan advantage.

Some plans are facing legal challenges, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month to allow Texas to use its new map for the 2026 election. The Justice Department has only sued California.

The U.S. Justice Department, joining a case brought by the California Republican Party, has accused California of gerrymandering its map in violation of the Constitution by using race as a factor to favor Hispanic voters. Republicans want the court to prohibit California from using the new map. Voters approved the map for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. State Democrats said they’re confident the lawsuit will fail.

“In letting Texas use its gerrymandered maps, the Supreme Court noted that California’s maps, like Texas’s, were drawn for lawful reasons,” Newsom’s spokesperson Brandon Richards said in a statement. “That should be the beginning and the end of this Republican effort to silence the voters of California.”

New U.S. House maps are drawn across the country after the Census every 10 years. Some states like California rely on an independent commission to draw maps, while others like Texas let politicians draw them. The effort to create new maps in the middle of the decade is highly unusual.

Paul Mitchell, a redistricting consultant who drew the map for Democrats, is expected to offer testimony. The Justice Department alleges that Mitchell and state leaders admitted that they redrew some districts to have a Latino majority.

The lawsuit cites a news release from state Democrats that says the new map “retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters” while making no changes to Black majority districts in the Oakland and Los Angeles areas. The federal Voting Rights Act, passed in the 1960s, sets rules for drawing districts to ensure minority groups have adequate political power. The lawsuit also cites a Cal Poly Pomona and Caltech study that concludes the new map would increase Latino voting power.

“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Proposition 50 — the recent ballot initiative that junked California’s pre-existing electoral map in favor of a rush-job rejiggering of California’s congressional district lines,” the lawsuit said.

House Democrats need to gain just a handful of seats next year to take control of the chamber, which would imperil Trump’s agenda for the remainder of his term and open the way for congressional investigations into his administration. Republicans hold 219 seats, to Democrats’ 214.

Nguyễn reported from Sacramento.

STEWARTVILLE, Minn. — The man who shot and critically injured a student on Friday and then is believed to have taken his own life outside of Stewartville High School has been identified as 19-year-old Logan Moyer, a 2024 graduate of the school.

Officials from the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office and Stewartville Public Schools spoke at a press conference about the investigation Monday morning.

The motive for the shooting remains unclear.

“We don’t know, and we might not ever know why,” Sheriff Kevin Torgerson said.

Authorities still are not releasing the name of the injured student, but he was a part of the Stewartville wrestling team, Torgerson said. As of Sunday night, he said, the student remains hospitalized in critical but stable condition.

Torgerson said Moyer was not a coach, volunteer or paid staff member of the wrestling program.

Although Moyer was a member of the school’s wrestling team when he was a Stewartville student himself, officials were not able to confirm whether he was on the team at the same time as the injured student.

Torgerson said the investigation will continue and that authorities will be reviewing video footage and relying on interviews, among other resources, as they move forward.

The shooting happened at about 5 a.m. Friday, Dec. 12, as the wrestling team was preparing to travel to Grand Forks, North Dakota, for a two-day wrestling meet. There were approximately 40 students and coaching staff at the school at the time.

“One of the teammates was walking in the parking lot when a gunshot was heard by others,” Torgerson said on Friday. “The victim was located on the ground in the parking lot by coaching staff. As other staff and students were looking around at that moment to see what had happened, they heard a second shot.”

An autopsy was performed Friday afternoon by the Southeastern Minnesota Medical Examiner’s Office. The results so far are consistent with suicide, Torgerson said.

When asked on Monday, Torgerson estimated that the shooting took place 100 to 200 yards away from the bus and the rest of the activity surrounding the trip.

Torgerson said he could not comment on the nature of the injuries for either Moyer or the student. However, he said the firearm found with Moyer was a .223 caliber, bolt-action “hunting-style” rifle.

It is unclear what the immediate plans for the school’s wrestling team are, but the team does plan to continue its season, said Superintendent Belinda Selfors. Classes resumed on Monday.

The district will be providing resources for the students including support from chaplains from the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office, the Southeast Minnesota Crisis Team, Zumbro Valley Mental Health Services, as well as the district’s own counseling and social work staff.

“Several school districts in the area have offered to send their counseling staff to support us,” Selfors said. “We are well staffed in the area of providing support for our students and our staff.”

This is a developing story. Check back later for more updates.

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By MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday blamed Rob Reiner’s outspoken opposition to the president for the actor-director’s killing, delivering the unsubstantiated claim in a shocking post that seemed intent on decrying his opponents even in the face of a tragedy.

The statement, even for Trump, was a shocking comment that came as police were still investigating the deaths of the beloved director and his wife as an apparent homicide. The couple were found dead at their home Sunday in Los Angeles. Investigators believe they suffered stab wounds and the couple’s son Nick Reiner, was in police custody early Monday.

Trump has a long track record of inflammatory remarks, but his comments in a social media post were a drastic departure from the role presidents typically play in offering a message of consolation or tribute to the death of a public figure. His message also laid bare Trump’s unwillingness to rise above political grievance in moments of crisis.

Trump, in a post on his social media network, said that Reiner and his wife were killed “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

He said Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.”

Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has bucked much of his party’s lockstep agreement with the president, criticized Trump for the comment.

“Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered,” Massie wrote in a post on X. “I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican whom Trump branded a “traitor” for disagreeing with him, responded to Trump’s message by saying, “This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies.”

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Reiner was one of the most active Democrats in the film industry, regularly campaigning on behalf of liberal causes and hosting fundraisers. He was a vocal critic of Trump, calling him in a 2017 interview with Variety “mentally unfit” to be president and “the single-most unqualified human being to ever assume the presidency of the United States.”

The unsympathetic message was the latest example of Trump’s unsparing prism through which he views those he perceives as enemies.

He made retribution against political enemies a prime focus of his campaign for the White House last year. And he has in the past made light of violence when it’s befallen those on the other side of the political aisle.

When Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder looking for the former House speaker at the family’s San Francisco home in 2022 and beaten over the head with a hammer, Trump later mocked the attack.

That’s in despite of his comments after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this year. Trump said Kirk’s killing was “the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree.”

His administration then sought consequences for people who were critical of Kirk or even celebrated his killing.

When Trump spoke at Kirk’s memorial service, he used his remarks to underline how he views his adversaries.

“I hate my opponent,” the president said.