Michael Li has the details in this twitter thread:
North Carolina Republicans have removed the state-court partisan gerrymandering case challenging the state's legislative maps to federal court. Notice of removal here: https://t.co/cNnNyci9bW #fairmaps #ncpol 1/
— Michael Li 李之樸 (@mcpli) December 18, 2018
This seems like a pretty transparent attempt to avoid getting the now-Democratic majority North Carolina Supreme Court to weigh in on the partisan gerrymandering question.