Supreme Court rebuffs Missouri's push to use new US House map backed by Trump in November

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rebuffed an appeal from Missouri officials who wanted to use new congressional districts backed by President Donald Trump in the November election, a defeat for Republicans who had hoped the new map could help them hold onto their slim House majority.

The justices let stand a decision by Missouri's top court, which said the new districts were automatically suspended by a citizen petition demanding a statewide vote.

The ruling marks a rare setback for Republicans in a nationwide redistricting battle that Trump urged Republicans to launch last year.

Missouri’s new districts were used in the August primaries. But the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in September that the state must revert to districts adopted after the last census.

Republican state Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who appealed, had argued it would violate federal rights to switch districts for voters between the primary and general elections. She also said it would cause confusion.

Missouri currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats who were elected under districts that Republican state officials approved in 2022.

But at Trump’s urging, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe called the Legislature into a special session last year to redraw congressional boundaries to their advantage ahead of the midterms.

The revised map targeted the 5th Congressional District, held by longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. It reassigned portions of Kansas City to two neighboring districts represented by Republicans and stretched the remainder of Cleaver’s district far eastward into rural Republican areas.

Cleaver was unopposed in the Democratic primary. State Sen. Rick Brattin won the Republican primary in the reshaped district.

On the same day as the primary, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected a petition with thousands of signatures seeking to force a November referendum on the map. Hoskins asserted that Missouri’s Constitution doesn’t allow a referendum on congressional redistricting. A lower court agreed, but the state Supreme Court reversed Hoskins’ decision.

The state’s top court said the new districts were retroactively frozen in December, when the petition signatures were submitted, and thus never became law. Hoskins on Tuesday assigned the redistricting referendum as Proposition A on the November ballot, in compliance with the state court order.

The Missouri Constitution does not specifically say that a referendum can be used for congressional redistricting. But the state Supreme Court said a constitutional provision allowing a referendum on “any act” of the Legislature encompasses congressional redistricting legislation.

Missouri was the second Republican-led state, after Texas, to respond to Trump’s call last year to redraw congressional districts. Several other states followed. All told, Republicans had hoped to win as many as 16 additional seats from new House maps enacted in eight states — Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats, whose counterattack faced several setbacks, think they could win up to six additional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

It remains to be seen whether the redistricting works as intended for Republicans. The president’s party historically has lost congressional seats in the midterms, and Trump’s poor approval ratings could provide an extra hurdle for Republican candidates.

This photo taken with a smartphone shows Steve Perry, of Kansas City, holding a sign in opposition to Missouri’s congressional redistricting plan on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, outside the state Capitol, in Jefferson City, Mo. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

LONDON (AP) — An air traffic control problem disrupted travel across Britain on Tuesday, canceling more than 1,000 flights and leaving passengers stranded for hours on airport runways and in terminals, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

Britain’s National Air Traffic Services said it had resolved a problem in its flight processing system in the evening but delays rippled across 15 U.K. airports and beyond as airlines and airports worked to clear a huge backlog of delayed flights.

Josie Donoghue spent three hours stuck on a plane at Gatwick before her Ryanair flight to Ireland was canceled.

“Getting through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz," she said, referring to the notorious former island prison in San Francisco Bay. “It’s just an absolute nightmare down there. It’s the only word I can use to describe it.”

Departures at London Heathrow resumed but the busy airport suspended arrivals for the rest of the night because of the disruption and warned of further delays.

Passengers on a British Airways flight that had been due to fly to Baltimore disembarked after four hours on the ground at Heathrow. During the long delay, flight attendants served pasta and chicken curry while patient passengers watched movies or strolled up and down the aisles.

But passengers then learned their problems were far from over. There was mayhem at the baggage claim area and they were told no one could help them and to file claims for their bags.

British Airways said it was forced to cancel or divert more than 100 flights. Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted and it had canceled more than 50 scheduled flights.

“The severity of the issue means there will be a significant knock-on impact,” a British Airways spokesperson said. “This incident was entirely out of our control and incredibly frustrating for our customers and colleagues, with aircraft and crews ending up out of place."

Some passengers took to social media to complain about being stuck on planes for hours and expressed frustration about a lack of communication from airlines.

Affected airports included Stansted and City in London, as well as those in Manchester, Birmingham, Gatwick and Scotland. They warned passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline.

Budget airline EasyJet said some of its flights were “unable to operate” and that the system failure caused “delays to flights across Europe.”

Passengers at Gatwick Airport's South Terminal form a line after flights were cancelled on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026 because of a technical issue in Britain's air traffic control system, near Crawley, south of London. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Passengers at Gatwick Airport's South Terminal sit after flights were cancelled because of a technical issue in Britain's air traffic control system Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Crawley, south of London. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Passengers walk through Terminal 5 of London Heathrow Airport after flights were cancelled because of a technical issue in Britain's air traffic control system Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in London. (Ellie Crabbe/PA via AP)

FILE- Heathrow Airport is seen from an airplane, Oct. 6, 2025, in London. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)