By DAVID A. LIEB

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The question of whether Missouri’s new congressional districts are in effect for the 2026 elections will be up to a court to decide.

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A lawsuit filed Tuesday on behalf of voters contends the redrawn map backed by President Donald Trump should have been automatically suspended earlier this month when opponents submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures seeking to force a statewide vote.

But Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway says the new districts took effect — and will remain in place as candidates run for office — unless Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins verifies the signatures are sufficient and certifies that the petition meets constitutional muster.

The court battle carries consequences for Trump’s plan to reshape congressional districts in Republican-led states, which could give the GOP a shot at winning additional seats in the midterm elections and retaining control of the closely divided U.S. House. Missouri’s new map is intended to help Republicans pick up a Democrat-held district in Kansas City by splitting off portions and stretching the rest into rural areas that are predominantly Republican.

Nationwide, the unusual mid-decade redistricting battle has so far resulted in a total of nine more seats that Republicans believe they can win in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio — and a total of six more seats that Democrats expect to win in California and Utah, putting Republicans up by three. But the redrawn districts are being litigated in some states, and if the maps hold for 2026, there is no guarantee that the parties will win the seats.

Missouri’s constitution allows voters who are opposed to a new law to gather petition signatures to put the measure to a statewide vote. If they submit about 110,000 valid signatures — meeting minimum thresholds in at least two-thirds of the state’s congressional districts — the law is placed on hold until a referendum can be held at the next November election.

Historically, the state has treated laws as suspended when referendum petitions get submitted. But Hanaway contends a law can be suspended only after the secretary of state determines there is a sufficient number of valid signatures — a process that could conclude long after Missouri’s candidate filing period, which runs from Feb. 24 through March 31.

Local election officials have until July 28 to finish verifying signatures, and Hoskins could make a final decision after that. Missouri’s primary elections are Aug. 4.

“This is a transparent ploy to force the use of HB1’s new congressional map by delaying certification of the referendum’s signatures … until it is too late to change the congressional map for the 2026 midterms,” says the lawsuit, which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two Kansas City-area voters who signed the referendum petition.

The lawsuit comes just one day after the Missouri attorney general released a statement reasserting that the new congressional map “remains in effect” while the petition signatures are reviewed.

To suspend laws immediately upon submitting a petition would “allow anyone to freeze duly-enacted state laws by dropping off boxes of unverified signatures,” Hanaway’s office said in a statement.

The latest lawsuit is at least the ninth related to Missouri’s new congressional map. Some of the lawsuits contend that mid-decade redistricting violates the state’s constitution and that Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe had no legal grounds to call lawmakers into a special session to pass the new map.

By TRÂN NGUYỄN

California officials and weather forecasters urged holiday travelers to avoid the roads on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ahead of a series of powerful winter storms that threatened to slam California with relentless rains, heavy winds and mountain snow through Friday.

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Millions of people are expected to travel across the state. They will likely meet hazardous, if not impossible, traveling conditions as several atmospheric rivers were forecast to make their way through the state, the National Weather Service warned.

“If you’re planning to be on the roads for the Christmas holidays, please reconsider your plans,” said Ariel Cohen, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Los Angeles.

Forecasters said Southern California could see its wettest Christmas in years and warned about flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows in areas burned by last January’s wildfires. County officials said Tuesday they were knocking on the doors of some 380 particularly vulnerable households to order them to leave.

Most areas saw scattered showers Tuesday morning, and the system was expected to pick up in the evening and intensify into Christmas Eve. Some regions will see rain and winds taper off Wednesday before another storm moves in.

Much of the Sacramento Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area were under a flood watch and a high wind warning through Friday. Forecasters warned of heavy snow and gusty winds for parts of the Sierra Nevada starting Tuesday that will create “near white-out conditions” and make it “nearly impossible” to travel through the mountain passes.

There’s also a risk of severe thunderstorms and a small chance of tornadoes along the northern coast.

Heavy rain and flash flooding that started Saturday in Northern California already led to water rescues and at least one death, local officials said.

Southern California typically gets half an inch to 1 inch of rain this time of year, but this week many areas could see between 4 and 8 inches, National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford said. It could be even more in the mountains.

Potential widespread flooding, rockslides and mudslides are highly likely, especially in areas burned by last January’s deadly Palisades fire, he added. Officials expect multiple road closures and airport delays during the storms. Downed trees and powerlines are also possible. Parts of Los Angeles were under evacuation warnings starting Tuesday.

The county had put up K-rails, a type of barrier, around the burn scar to help catch sliding debris during rainstorms. Residents could also pick up free sandbags to protect their homes, said Kathryn Barger, a Los Angeles County supervisor representing Altadena.

“When experts are projecting this type of rain in this short period of time, it’s serious,” Barger said.

Many people in burn scar areas decided not to leave after receiving the evacuation notification, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell said Tuesday. He urged them to reconsider.

“The threat posed by this storm is real and imminent,” he said.

Local and state officials are gearing up to respond to emergencies through the week. The state has deployed resources and first responders to a number of counties along the coast and in Southern California ahead of the storms. The California National Guard is also on standby to assist.

Drivers make their way in the rain on East Palm Canyon Drive, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Palm Springs, Calif. (AP Photo/Pamela Hassell)

An atmospheric river is a long, narrow band of water vapor that forms over an ocean and flows through the sky, transporting moisture from the tropics to northern latitudes.

Earlier this month, stubborn atmospheric rivers drenched Washington state with nearly 5 trillion gallons of rain in a week, threatening record flood levels, meteorologists said. That rainfall was supercharged by warm weather and air, plus unusual weather conditions tracing back as far as a tropical cyclone in Indonesia.

Associated Press writer Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.

The University of Oklahoma has fired an instructor who was accused by a student of religious discrimination over a failing grade on a psychology paper in which she cited the Bible and argued that promoting a “belief in multiple genders” was “demonic.”

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The university said in a statement posted Monday on X that its investigation found the graduate teaching assistant had been “arbitrary” in giving 20-year-old junior Samantha Fulnecky zero points on the assignment. The university declined to comment beyond its statement, which said the instructor had been removed from teaching.

Through her attorney, the instructor, Mel Curth, denied Tuesday that she had “engaged in any arbitrary behavior regarding the student’s work.” The attorney, Brittany Stewart, said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press that Curth is “considering all of her legal remedies.”

Conservative groups, commentators and others quickly made Fulnecky’s failing grade an online cause, highlighting her argument that she’d been punished for expressing conservative Christian views. Her case became a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over academic freedom on college campuses as President Donald Trump pushes to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and restrict how campuses discuss race, gender and sexuality.

Fulnecky appealed her grade on the assignment, which was worth 3% of the final grade in the class, and the university said the assignment would not count. It also placed Curth on leave, and Oklahoma’s conservative Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, declared the situation “deeply concerning.”

“The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and its students’ right to receive an education that is free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative standards,” the university’s statement said. “We are committed to teaching students how to think, not what to think.”

A law approved this year by Oklahoma’s Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by Stitt prohibits state universities from using public funds to finance DEI programs or positions or mandating DEI training. However, the law says it does not apply to scholarly research or “the academic freedom of any individual faculty member.”

Home telephone listings for Fulnecky in the Springfield, Missouri, area had been disconnected, and her mother — an attorney, podcaster and radio host — did not immediately respond Tuesday to a Facebook message seeking comment about the university’s action.

Fulnecky’s failing grade came in an assignment for a psychology class on lifespan development. Curth directed students to write a 650-word response to an academic study that examined whether conformity with gender norms was associated with popularity or bullying among middle school students.

Fulnecky wrote that she was frustrated by the premise of the assignment because she does not believe that there are more than two genders based on her understanding of the Bible, according to a copy of her essay provided to The Oklahoman.

“Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth,” she wrote, adding that it would lead society “farther from God’s original plan for humans.”

In feedback obtained by the newspaper, Curth said the paper did “not answer the questions for the assignment,” contradicted itself, relied on “personal ideology” over evidence and “is at times offensive.”

“Please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs,” Curth wrote.

A St. Paul man convicted of attempted murder after firing multiple shots at his mother in front of Metro State University in May was sentenced to nine years in prison in U.S. District Court.

Elijah D. Lowe (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

On the morning of May 1, 2025, Elijah Dontrel Lowe, 22, and his mother got into an argument and she told her son to leave her house and not return. Lowe gathered his belongings and left on foot.

A short time later, around 12:30 p.m., the mother drove away. She saw her son standing in a parking lot at 674 E. Sixth St., across the street from Metro State University. She rolled down her window and yelled, telling her son not to come home.

Lowe allegedly became angry and pulled out a gun, shooting and striking her vehicle. The shooting led the nearby university to temporarily lock down.

Upon questioning by police, “Lowe claimed he became so upset he blacked out. When asked how many times he had shot at his mother Lowe said he thought 10 or 11 times.”

Lowe has four prior felonies: two possession of a firearm by an ineligible person, one first-degree aggravated robbery, and one robbery. He had been released from the Minnesota Department of Corrections on Feb. 27.

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