JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri residents denounced a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts on Thursday as Republican lawmakers pressed ahead with President Donald Trump’s strategy to bolster Republicans in next year’s congressional elections.

Dozens of people turned out for the first public hearing on a plan that would split up a Kansas City congressional district to give Republicans a shot at winning seven of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats. Republicans already hold six of those seats.

“Kansas City does not want to be divided. We deserve representation and a voice,” said Kristen Ellis Johnson, an attorney from Kansas City who came to the Capitol with her husband and daughter. “You are dividing the urban-dwelling, liberal-leaning population to purposely change those votes.”

Missouri is the third state to join an emerging national battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking advantage in the way U.S. House districts are drawn.

At Trump’s prodding, Texas redrew its U.S. House districts last month to give Republicans a chance at winning five additional seats. California countered with its own revised map aimed at giving Democrats a shot at winning five more U.S. House seats. The California plan still needs voter approval in November.

The stakes are high because, nationally, Democrats need to gain just three seats in the 2026 elections to take control of the House. And, historically, the party of the president usually loses congressional seats in midterm elections, as happened during Trump’s first term in office.

Missouri’s revised congressional map, as proposed by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, would target a seat held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by stretching it from Kansas City eastward to encompass rural Republican-leaning areas.

Some rural residents said Thursday that they didn’t want to be combined into the same district as Kansas City.

“If they do that, people in Kansas City will not get their needs met in Congress. It totally dilutes their vote,” Glenda Bainbridge, a resident from rural Odessa, told The Associated Press as she waited her turn to testify against the bill.

State Rep. Dirk Deaton, who’s sponsoring the redistricting legislation, described the proposed map as an improvement that splits fewer counties and cities among multiple districts than the current congressional districts.

Deaton didn’t publicly disclose demographic data showing the racial makeup of the newly proposed districts. The Republican said he didn’t have data on the estimated partisan composition of voters.

State Rep. Mark Sharp, of Kansas City, the ranking Democrat on the redistricting committee, denounced the plan as a “morally corrupt” attempt to push Cleaver “into an early retirement.”

Cleaver has said he would challenge the new map in court if it passes.

The Missouri NAACP has already filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to halt the special session. It argues that Kehoe’s call for a special session is unconstitutional because no extraordinary circumstance exists to justify it. It also asserts that the Missouri Constitution prohibits redrawing congressional districts without new census data or a ruling invalidating the current districts.

Under Missouri’s current map, only one district has been even moderately competitive. Republican U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner won her suburban St. Louis seat with about 55% of the vote in each of the past two elections. Cleaver won reelection in both 2024 and 2022 with over 60% of the vote, and most of Missouri’s other districts had even larger victory margins.

David A. Lieb, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will host a high-powered list of tech CEOs for a dinner at the White House on Thursday night.

The guest list is set to include Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a dozen other executives from the biggest artificial intelligence and tech firms, according to the White House.

One notable absence from the guest list is Elon Musk, once a close ally of Trump, whom the Republican president tasked with running the government-slashing Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had a public breakup with Trump earlier this year.

The dinner was expected to be held in the Rose Garden, where Trump recently paved over the grassy lawn and set up tables, chairs and umbrellas that look strikingly similar to the outdoor setup at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

But as rain began falling at the White House Thursday afternoon, officials decided to move the event to the White House State Dining Room because of inclement weather, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The event follows a meeting Thursday afternoon of the White House’s new Artificial Intelligence Education task force, which first lady Melania Trump chaired and some of the tech leaders participated in.

“The robots are here. Our future is no longer science fiction,” she said as she opened the meeting.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna and Code.org President Cameron Wilson were among those participating in the task force.

The White House confirmed that the guest list for the dinner was also set to include Google founder Sergey Brin, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and founder Greg Brockman, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Blue Origin CEO David Limp, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, TIBCO Software chairman Vivek Ranadive, Palantir executive Shyam Sankar, Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang and Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman.

Isaacman was an associate of Musk whom Trump nominated to lead NASA, only to revoke the nomination around the time of his breakup with Musk. Trump cited the revocation of the nomination as one of the reasons Musk was upset with him and called Isaacman “totally a Democrat.”

The dinner was first reported Wednesday by The Hill.

Trump’s outreach to top tech executives could deepen emerging divides within the Republican Party.

One of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, Sen. Josh Hawley, delivered a sharp criticism of the tech industry during a speech at a conservative conference in Washington on Thursday morning. He criticized the lack of regulation around artificial intelligence and singled out Meta and ChatGPT.

“The government should inspect all of these frontier AI systems so we can better understand what the tech titans plan to build and destroy,” the Missouri senator said.

Trump has embraced AI-created imagery and frequently shares it online, despite his complaints earlier in the week about the technology being used to create misleading videos.

Late Wednesday night, he posted a string of AI-generated memes and videos, such as one depicting him interacting with the man pictured in the Cracker Barrel logo, one showing California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff with an extremely elongated neck, and one with Trump’s face superimposed on a pole vaulter as it appears to leap over a Cracker Barrel banner, among other postings.

On Tuesday, Trump said a video showing items being thrown out of an upstairs window of the White House must have been created by AI, despite his team seeming to have confirmed the video’s veracity hours earlier.

Trump then said, “If something happens that’s really bad, maybe I’ll have to just blame AI.”

The first lady, at her event Thursday, likewise highlighted both the potential and peril of AI.

“As leaders and parents we must manage AI’s growth responsibly,” she said, calling for both action and caution. “During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat AI as we would our own children — empowering, but with watchful guidance.”

Last month, the first lady launched a nationwide contest for students in grades K-12 to use AI to complete a project or address a community challenge. The project was aimed at showing benefits of AI, but the first lady has also highlighted its drawbacks.

Melania Trump lobbied Congress this year to pass legislation that imposes penalties for online sexual exploitation using imagery that is real or an AI-generated deepfake.

The president signed the “Take It Down Act” in May.

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Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Demolition to build President Donald Trump’s new ballroom off the East Wing of the White House can begin without approval of the commission tasked with vetting construction of federal buildings, the Trump-appointed head of the panel said Thursday.

Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary, said during a public meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission that the board does not have jurisdiction over demolition or site preparation work for buildings on federal property.

“What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” Scharf said. He called Trump’s promised ballroom “one of the most exciting construction projects in the modern history of the district.”

Thursday’s public meeting of the commission was the only one scheduled before crews are expected to break ground on a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom likely to greatly alter the look and size of both the White House’s East and West Wings. The planning commission is responsible for approving construction work and major renovations to government buildings in the Washington area.

But Scharf made a distinction between demolition work and rebuilding, saying the commission was only required to vet the latter.

“I think any assertion that this commission should have been consulted earlier than it has been, or it will be, is simply false,” he said, later adding, “I’m excited for us to play a role in the ballroom project when the time is appropriate for us to do so.”

Asked after the meeting if the eventual approval process might delay work on the ballroom, Scharf said, “Demolition and site preparation work can certainly occur, but if you’re talking about actually building anything, then, yeah, it should go through our approval process.”

“Given the president’s history as a builder, and given the plans that we’ve seen publicly I think this will be a tremendous addition to the White House complex, a sorely needed addition,” Scharf said.

Trump, a building mogul before he was a reality TV star and politician, has relished personally overseeing improvement projects at the White House and walked last month on the building’s roof with construction officials.

It will be the latest change introduced to what’s known as “The People’s House” since the Republican president returned to office in January and the first structural change to the Executive Mansion itself since the Truman Balcony was added in 1948.

Trump has substantially redecorated the Oval Office through the addition of golden flourishes and cherubs, presidential portraits and other items, and installed massive flagpoles on the north and south lawns to fly the American flag. The lawn in the Rose Garden was paved over with stone and patio tables reminiscent of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, complete with exterior speakers.

Scharf also used the meeting to argue that the Federal Reserve had flouted planning board jurisdiction while undertaking major renovations to its building. Trump has for months called on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to resign and has specifically decried the long-planned building project for going well over budget.

Scharf said he’d be sending a letter to the Fed “noting my severe concerns” and accused the Fed of arguing it had the right to do “whatever the heck it wants on its property. They could build an amusement park on their property and no one would have any qualms.”

The Federal Reserve did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Will Weissert, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal magistrate judge on Thursday angrily accused Justice Department prosecutors of trampling on the civil rights of people arrested during President Donald Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the nation’s capital.

Judge Zia Faruqui, a former federal prosecutor, said leaders of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office have tarnished its reputation with how they are handling the deluge of cases. He said Pirro’s office is routinely bringing cases that don’t belong in federal court and needlessly keeping people in jail for days while they evaluate charges.

“It’s not fair to say they’re losing credibility. We’re past that now,” Faruqui said. He later added, “There’s no credibility left.”

The judge lambasted Pirro’s office during a hearing at which he agreed to dismiss the federal case against a man accused of threatening to kill Trump while in police custody. The defendant, Edward Alexander Dana, spent more than a week in jail before a federal grand jury refused to indict him.

It is extraordinarily rare for a grand jury to balk at returning an indictment, but it has happened at least seven times in five cases since Trump’s surge started nearly a month ago. Faruqui said it is ironic that “an occupying force is at the mercy of the occupants” serving on the grand juries.

Faruqui — one of four magistrates at the district court in Washington — said there is no precedent for what is happening at the courthouse over the past few weeks. He said Trump administration officials are frequently touting the arrest figures on social media with seemingly no regard for how the arrests are affecting people’s lives.

“Where are the stats on the people illegally detained?” he asked.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe said prosecutors from Pirro’s office are working around the clock on the influx of new cases.

“You are busy because you all have created this mess,” he told Mulroe. “I’m not saying it’s your problem. It’s your office’s problem.”

Mulroe was the only representative of Pirro’s office who attended Thursday’s hearing. Faruqui questioned why Pirro or her top deputies “don’t have the dignity to come here” and defend their charging decisions.

“That’s what leaders do,” he said.

A spokesperson for Pirro’s office didn’t immediately comment on Faruqui’s latest remarks, but Pirro criticized the judge last week after he upbraided prosecutors for how they handled a case involving “the most illegal search I have ever seen in my life.” Pirro, a former Fox News host whom Trump appointed in May, said in a statement that Faruqui “has a long history of bending over backwards to release dangerous felons.”

The White House says over 1,800 people have been arrested since the operation started Aug. 7. Over 40 cases have been filed in district court, which hears the most serious federal offenses, including assault, gun and drug charges.

Dana was jailed for approximately a week after his arrest on Aug. 17. A different judge ordered his release on Aug. 25. On Thursday, Pirro’s office opted to drop the federal case against Dana but charge him with misdemeanors, including destruction of property and attempted threats, in D.C. Superior Court.

Dana’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Elizabeth Mullin, said prosecutors should have known that this case didn’t belong in federal court.

“A 15-year-old would know,” she said. “It was obvious from the outset.”

Dana was arrested on suspicion of damaging a light fixture at a restaurant. An officer was driving Dana to a police station when he threatened to kill Trump, according to a Secret Service agent’s affidavit. Dana also told police that he was intoxicated that night. Mullin said Dana’s “hyperbolic rambling” didn’t amount to a criminal threat.

Faruqui ordered prosecutors to file a brief explaining why they didn’t immediately inform him of its charging decisions in Dana’s case. The judge apologized to Dana “on behalf of the court” and suggested that Pirro’s office also owes Dana an apology.

Pirro said in an earlier statement that a grand jury’s refusal to indict somebody for threatening to kill the president “is the essence of a politicized jury.”

“The system here is broken on many levels,” she said. “Instead of the outrage that should be engendered by a specific threat to kill the president, the grand jury in D.C. refuses to even let the judicial process begin. Justice should not depend on politics.”

Michael Kunzelman, The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general moved Thursday to have the state’s highest court reinstate President Donald Trump’s staggering civil fraud penalty, appealing a lower-court decision that slashed the potential half-billion dollar penalty to $0.

Attorney General Letitia James’ office filed a notice of appeal with the state’s Court of Appeals, seeking to reverse the mid-level Appellate Division’s ruling last month that the penalty violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on excessive fines.

James, a Democrat, had previously said she would appeal.

Trump declared “TOTAL VICTORY” after the Appellate Division wiped away his fine, but the five-judge panel left other punishments in place and narrowly endorsed a trial court’s finding that he committed fraud by padding his wealth on financial paperwork given to banks and insurers.

Trump, a Republican, filed his own appeal last week, asking the Court of Appeals to throw out those other punishments, which include a multiyear ban on him and his two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., from holding corporate leadership positions in New York.

Those measures have been on hold during the appellate process and the Appellate Division judges said Trump can seek a court order to extend the pause pending further appeals.

James’ appeal is the latest twist in a lawsuit she filed against Trump in 2022, which alleged that he inflated his net worth by billions of dollars on his financial statements and habitually misled banks and others about the value of prized assets, including golf courses, hotels, Trump Tower, and his Mar-a-Lago estate.

After a trial that saw a sometimes testy Trump take the witness stand, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled last year that James had proven he engaged in a yearslong conspiracy with executives at his company to deceive banks and insurers about his wealth and assets.

Engoron ordered Trump to pay $355 million — payback of what the judge deemed “ill-gotten gains” from his puffed-up financial statements. That amount soared to more than $515 million, including interest, by the time the Appellate Division ruled.

The five-judge Appellate Division panel was sharply divided on many issues in Trump’s appeal, but a majority said the monetary penalty was “excessive.”

“While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award,” two of the judges wrote.

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Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press

As the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis prepares to make Florida the first state to remove school vaccine mandates, deep concern is spreading among doctors, parents and public health workers for the safety of children, their families and others who might be vulnerable in a disease outbreak.

They fear that dreaded diseases, held in check for decades by vaccines, could flare up again if too many people in Florida aren’t immunized. Here’s what to know about Florida’s plan:

DeSantis calls this ‘medical freedom’

While states traditionally follow federal guidance when it comes to vaccines, school mandates are set by state health departments. Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced Wednesday that the health department would begin taking steps immediately to eliminate these mandates, calling them “immoral” intrusions on people’s rights that hamper parents’ ability to make health decisions for their children.

“We’re going to end it,” Ladapo said, without providing details or a timeline.

The Health Department also did not immediately respond to questions about other vaccine requirements, such as for certain workplaces. Many such requirements are enshrined in state law and would require legislative approval. DeSantis appointed Ladapo and his wife Casey DeSantis to a commission that’s drafting a broader “medical freedom” measure expected to be introduced in the next legislative session.

School nurses sound alarm

“If they’re able to go through with it, they’re just opening a door to a health crisis that’s 100 percent preventable,” said Lynn Nelson, president of the National Association of School Nurses.

Schools are a microcosm of society, and when students go home, they can bring diseases to vulnerable people such as infants and the elderly, Nelson said.

Measles, mumps and pertussis – also known as whooping cough — are among the preventable diseases Nelson is most concerned about if Florida’s plan succeeds. Measles, a highly contagious illness, can create life-threatening situations for infants and small children, she said.

“There are outbreaks all over the country right now, and they will spread in any state or community where the vaccine rate drops,” she said.

Florida already lags nation in vaccination rates

Even before Wednesday’s announcement, Florida lagged the rest of the United States when it came to kindergarteners being immunized for diseases like measles, mumps and rubella, with 88.7% immunized in 2025, compared to more than 92% nationwide, according to state and federal health statistics.

New religious exemptions to vaccines have also increased, to 6.4% among children age 5-17 years old, and as much as 15% in some counties, as of April 2025.

That’s according to the Florida Health Department’s monthly online “Vaccine-Preventable Disease Surveillance Report,” which was last updated on May 29. At the time, it showed cases of hepatitis A, whooping cough and chickenpox were increasing in Florida.

Why are vaccines needed?

Since the first safe and effective polio vaccine was released for use in the United States in 1955, vaccines have become a cornerstone of public health, keeping schoolchildren and adults safe from infectious diseases that had afflicted populations for centuries.

Timely and up-to-date required vaccinations “are essential to protecting school-age children, youth, and the public from preventable, serious infectious diseases,” according to a recent position paper from the National Association of School Nurses.

“Vaccine exemptions should be eliminated, except when necessary for validated medical contraindications,” the group said.

How could this affect Florida’s tourism industry?

It’s unclear how a decline in vaccinations might affect Florida’s top business – its $128 billion tourism industry. Florida is among the top U.S. destinations, with 143 million visitors last year.

Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and other Orlando theme parks no longer require proof of vaccinations for employees, due to Florida laws passed in 2021 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that limit employers’ power to require such protection. Representatives for Disney and Universal didn’t respond to inquiries Thursday asking them about the potential impact of more unvaccinated children.

Florida also is home to a cruise line industry with a $24 billion economic impact, according the Cruise Lines International Association. Most cruise lines don’t have any vaccine requirements. But the CDC has recommended that passengers be vaccinated against COVID and the flu, and that they check which other vaccines may be recommended based on the countries they’re visiting.

Jeff Martin, Mike Schneider And Daniel Kozin, The Associated Press

Northwestern University President Michael Schill announced Thursday that he will resign, ending a three-year tenure marked by the freeze of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding by the Trump administration and heated criticism from House Republicans over the university’s response to campus protests.

In a statement announcing his resignation, Schill acknowledged those challenges directly.

“It is critical that we continue to protect the University’s research mission and excellence while preserving academic freedom, integrity, and independence,” he said.

Northwestern emerged as a prominent target of President Donald Trump’s campaign to reshape elite colleges he has derided as hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism. In April, the administration froze $790 million in federal funding for the school in Evanston, Illinois, which is among dozens of colleges that have been under investigation over claims they did not do enough to protect Jewish students during campus protests.

During the wave of pro-Palestinian protests in spring 2024, Northwestern drew ire from conservatives over an agreement it struck with demonstrators to take down their encampment. In exchange, Northwestern pledged to reestablish an advisory committee on university investments and other commitments.

Schill defended the arrangement during an appearance in May 2024 before a House committee investigating campus antisemitism.

“We had to get the encampment down,” Schill said. “The police solution was not going to be available to us to keep people safe, and also may not be the wisest solution as we’ve seen at other campuses across the country.”

Supporters of Israel and the administration officials have framed the protests at Northwestern and other schools as antisemitic and “pro-Hamas.” But people involved in the demonstrations reject that characterization. They say advocating for Palestinian human rights and territorial claims, or criticizing Israeli military action, is not antisemitic.

Schill will continue as president until an interim leader is chosen, Northwestern said. He also will work with the Board of Trustees on efforts to restore the university’s frozen federal funding, the school said.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Annie Ma, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department urged a federal judge on Thursday to allow the immediate removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while she fights to keep her job, dismissing as “baseless” Cook’s claim that the president is attempting to fire her so that he can seize control of the independent central bank.

Trump said he was firing Cook on Aug. 25 after one of his appointees alleged that she committed mortgage fraud related to two properties she purchased in 2021, before she joined the Fed. Cook is accused of falsely listing two properties as “primary residences.” Down payment requirements are often more lenient and mortgage rates lower for primary residences versus a second home or investment property.

In a filing in U.S. District for Washington D.C. this week, Cook’s lawyers argued that firing her was unlawful because presidents can only fire Fed governors “for cause,” which has typically meant inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance while in office. They also said she was entitled to a hearing and a chance to respond to the charges before being fired, but was not provided either. Attorneys said in the court filing that Cook never committed mortgage fraud.

Responding on Thursday, the Justice Department said the president has the discretion to fire Cook for cause and that his decisions cannot be reviewed by the courts.

The case could become a turning point for the 112-year old Federal Reserve, which was designed by Congress to be insulated from day-to-day political influence. Economists prefer independent central banks because they can do unpopular things like lifting interest rates to combat inflation more easily than elected officials.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the other members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee for not cutting the short-term interest rate they control more quickly.

Many economists worry that if the Fed falls under the control of the White House, it will keep its key interest rate lower than justified by economic fundamentals to satisfy Trump’s demands for cheaper borrowing.

The Associated Press