President Donald Trump’s reelection stirred concern among many that constitutional protections, including the right to marry, could be put back on the table.

The Supreme Court put those fears to rest Monday when they decided to leave it well enough alone.

At issue was a petition from a former county clerk from Kentucky who had asked the court to revisit its landmark ruling on same-sex marriage.

Former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in 2015 refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, denying residents in her county the ability to marry under civil law. She spent some time in jail for contempt before her office ultimately complied. She was also ordered to pay monetary damages.

If Davis believed the law conflicted with her personal convictions, the appropriate step was resignation, not obstructing couples’ access to a legal right. The issue was not Davis’ faith. The issue was that a public office cannot selectively withhold rights the Constitution guarantees.

Davis’ case now dead, Obergefell stands strong. The precedent remains intact. It’s nice to start off the week with some good news.

Civil law is not the same as religious law, and if you want the government to protect your right to live according to your faith, you must protect others’ rights to live according to theirs.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority in Obergefell, said, “It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. … They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

Yes. The Constitution requires treating people equally under the law, pure and simple.

We have long held that protections and privileges that same-sex couples take for granted — including tax breaks, property rights, child custody considerations, the ability to visit a partner in the hospital or participate in medical decisions — should not be denied by the state on the basis of sexual orientation.

Remember, that’s how it worked before Obergefell.

Dissenting justices in 2015 worried that the court was usurping states’ rights in determining their own rules. We wrote: “That may be true. But waiting for all of America to get on board is not what the Constitution demands. Our rights are not subject to majority rule.”

This time around, with the court declining to hear Davis’ challenge, no justices issued public dissent. The absence thereof is something for all freedom-loving Americans to cheer.

The court’s refusal to take up the case reinforces what the Constitution already demands: equal treatment under civil law.

— The Chicago Tribune

Construction crews have pulled a building permit to add a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility at Holman Field, St. Paul’s downtown municipal airport.

Construction contractor Shaw Lundquist Associates was issued a building permit for the $15.6 million project at 670 Bayfield St. on Nov. 4. The land, currently empty, sits between two 3M hangars and the administrative building that houses the Holman’s Table restaurant and bar on the north end of the airport property.

The facility, spanning 4,800 square feet, will process 100 to 150 international flights per year, for a total of about 200 operational hours annually, according to a permit application on file with the city’s Department of Safety Inspections. Customs and Border Protection staff will travel from Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport to the facility for expected flight arrivals. Planning documents call for a LEED gold certified facility with a green roof.

In a written release last May concerning airport runway and construction projects statewide, the Metropolitan Airports Commission announced it was set to begin construction later in the year on a stand-alone U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in St. Paul “that will improve processing of international passengers and cargo.”

Jeff Lea, a spokesperson for the MAC, said Wednesday that the downtown St. Paul airport receives dozens of chartered international corporate flights, and the new general aviation facility will replace “an extremely small existing CBP location” currently located within the administration building.

In July, Finance and Commerce reported that the MAC had opened five construction bids, each of which came in above the estimated $12.24 million project cost.

Construction, which will be funded with federal and state grants and General Airport Revenue bonds, is expected to include pre-processing and post-processing waiting rooms, a passenger processing area, office space, utility rooms and restrooms.

The building will feature cast-in-place concrete, mass timber columns and beams, a structural wood ceiling and roof, and a 1,000 square foot intensive green roof system. Other sustainability features include geothermal heat pumps, air handlers and solar panels.

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“The building is designed to produce more energy than it uses,” Lea said.

The project also will include new utility connections, new sidewalks, native plantings, decorative metal fencing and additional landscape improvements.

The downtown airport, one of the state’s busiest airports for business aviation, closed its primary runway from June 2 through early August for pavement reconstruction and other airfield safety improvements. The mile-long section modifications included improved lighting and surface drainage in pavement first installed in the 1980s. The runway is the longest general aviation runway in MAC’s airport reliever system.

At age 18 and six months removed from her high school graduation, Jayden Lee Kline was trying to figure out what she wanted to do next with her life.

But she never got that chance, her mother said, because Fenan Abdurezak Uso “played out this act of murder as a result of what he could no longer get from Jayden.”

Uso, then 17, planned to kill Kline after she ended their relationship, prosecutors said last month during his jury trial in Anoka County District Court. He bought a stolen handgun the night before, told her he’d take her shopping and then shot her in his car outside her Fridley home.

Jurors agreed and found the 19-year-old guilty of first-degree murder for shooting Kline the afternoon of Dec. 21, 2023, rejecting his claim that she was shot accidentally.

Jayden Lee Kline (Courtesy of Curt Gray)

On Wednesday, Judge Jenny Walker Jasper handed down Uso’s mandatory sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. He will be eligible for parole in 15 years, under a 2023 state law regarding juveniles certified as adults and serving a life sentence.

“As a judge, I always sit and think of something that I can say that will have an impact on this to lighten the load of grief for the family and the community and friends,” Walker Jasper said. “But this case is just so senseless and violent and tragic and sad. All I can say to you folks is, I am so sorry.”

Uso, of Fridley, was charged by juvenile petition with second-degree murder five days after the killing. A jury indicted him on a charge of first-degree murder in July 2024, four months after he turned 18.

‘I look for her every day’

Kline’s mother and her two older brothers told the court how the family struggles every day with with the pain of her killing.

“My sister should have had the opportunity to leave her mark on the world,” her brother Tristan Kline said. “Because I know she would’ve helped change it.”

Brandon Kline said he always made sure that his sister was safe and taken care of, ever since they lost their father, David, in 2014, when she was 8.

“I owed that to my dad, who couldn’t take care of her anymore,” he wrote in a statement, which was read by Assistant Anoka County Attorney Brenda Sund.

Uso is “an incredibly selfish and greedy human being,” Kline wrote, adding that Uso “always had a problem with Jayden’s attention being on anyone but himself.”

Jennifer Kline said her daughter “completed our family in many ways” and had an outgoing, friendly personality. She was a 2023 graduate of Columbia Heights High School, where she competed on the swim and synchronized swimming teams, and loved to spend time with her friends, playing games, watching movies, making videos and just hanging out.

“I look for her every day,” she said, “waiting for her to come bouncing down the hall from her bedroom, usually being followed by her dog and cat.”

A gunshot rang out

According to charging documents, police and emergency workers were sent to the 4500 block of Third Street Northeast just before 4 p.m. Dec. 21, 2023, on a report of a hit-and-run crash that injured a pedestrian. Kline was found lying unresponsive in the street near her home’s driveway with a head wound. She was pronounced dead at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale.

Kline’s mother told police her daughter had been at the Roseville mall that afternoon.

Fenan Abdurezak Uso (Courtesy of the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office)

Brandon Kline told police he heard a loud noise, looked out a window and saw his sister on the ground. He said he was told by a neighbor that a gold minivan sped away from the scene and that he assumed she had been struck.

He said his sister and Uso had dated on and off for about a year and that she had recently broken up with him because he lied to his family about the relationship.

A neighbor’s doorbell camera showed a gold minivan slowly approaching the home and stopping. A gunshot rang out, the front passenger door opened and Kline fell out and was not moving. Her brother confirmed to police that it was Uso’s minivan.

Investigators later determined she had been shot in the back of the head at close range.

Police tracked the location of Uso’s phone, learned he was in the Burnsville area and notified city police, who located the minivan at a gas station about 6:30 p.m. Officers saw a .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun in the minivan’s center console, and Uso was detained.

In an interview with investigators, Uso said he and Kline had broken up two weeks prior. He said they got into an argument at the mall. He said “he thought he pulled out the gun” when dropping her off at her house, “pointed it at her, pulled the trigger once and drove off fast,” the charges read.

Uso said he drove away quickly because “he realized he did something dumb” and “was shaking as he drove away and dropped the gun in the van.”

Uso went on to say he had obtained the handgun from “unknown persons” the day before. Police said the serial number matched a gun stolen in Marshalltown, Iowa.

‘Great big, beautiful smile’

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Uso testified at his trial that he had been distraught after their breakup. He said Kline was shot accidentally when she grabbed the gun to try to stop him from killing himself.

But Uso knew what he did, Kline’s brother Brandon said Wednesday in his victim impact statement, “and sat on the stand, lying and being a coward again, saying he wanted to kill himself.”

Uso, when given the opportunity to address the court, said: “I just want to say I’m extremely sorry from the bottom of my heart for Jayden’s family.”

Judge Walker Jasper, before imposing the sentence, recalled a photo of Kline that was introduced as an exhibit during the trial, showing her “great big, beautiful smile that she had.”

By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers on Wednesday reported two promising new approaches to counteract malaria’s growing resistance to medication — one involving a new class of drugs.

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Switzerland-based Novartis released results of what it called a next-generation treatment. A study of its experimental drug in 12 African countries found it works well against the mosquito-borne parasite that causes malaria and seems to block spread.

The drug, called GanLum, is not yet licensed and more than a year away from being available.

It’s needed, said Dr. David Sullivan, a malaria expert at Johns Hopkins University.

The parasite that causes the disease is developing resistance to existing drugs, meaning “the ice is thinning,” Sullivan said. “It hasn’t given way, but we’re concerned.”

GanLum has been given as a packet of tiny powder-like granules, once daily for three days. But getting people to take malaria drugs over several days has been challenging — some stop after one or two doses makes them feel better. Experts say a third or more of malaria patients fail to complete the current standard three-day treatment course, a problem that can encourage drug resistance and allow curable cases to intensify.

In an effort to offer a one-time treatment, another team of researchers said an experiment in West Africa found a single dose of four widely available malaria drugs proved to be an effective cure.

The two studies were presented Wednesday at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference in Toronto.

Parasite has repeatedly developed drug resistance

Malaria is caused by a parasite that spreads through mosquito bites. Infected people can suffer fever, chills and flu-like illness that, if left untreated, can lead to severe complications and death. It’s mainly found in tropical and subtropical climates. The largest death toll in recent years has been seen in children in sub-Saharan Africa.

The medical battle against malaria has ebbed and flowed, as new drugs come along, but the parasite gradually develops the ability to resist them.

At the beginning of this century, for example, resistance to the drug chloroquine was widespread and malaria killed more than 1.8 million people per year. But then came a class of drugs known as artemisinins, which worked well and helped drive a dramatic decline in global malaria death rates.

Artemisinin-based compounds remain the first-line treatment in most cases. But signs of partial resistance have been reported, and — for several reasons — malaria death rates have plateaued or even started to rise in some parts of the world.

Study tested 4-drug combo

Dr. Ghyslain Mombo-Ngoma led a study in Gabon in which researchers gave a single-dose treatment combining an artemisinin with three other antimalarial medications — pyronaridine, sulfadoxine, and pyrimethamine.

From May 2024 to October 2025, he and his colleagues treated more than 1,000 patients, half of them younger than 10, who were sick with malaria but not suffering life-threatening symptoms. A little over half got the four-drug, one-time treatment. The rest got a standard, artemisinin-based treatment.

Blood tests 28 days later showed 93% of patients who received the one-time treatment were free of parasites compared with 90% who received the standard three-day course.

Mombo-Ngoma said there are discussions underway with a drug manufacturer to produce a single capsule or packet of pills to help create an inexpensive, easy-to-take cure.

Sullivan, however, noted that resistance is already established to some components of the treatment, meaning it likely will prove to be “a short-term fix.”

Experimental treatment shows promise

Novartis’ GanLum is a combination of a new drug, ganaplacide, and an existing long-acting medication, lumefantrine.

In a study involving about 1,700 adults and children in 12 African countries, GanLum was found to have a cure rate of better than 97%, which was a little higher than a common artemisinin-based treatment. It was also highly effective against mutant malaria parasites with partial drug resistance, Novartis officials said.

Side effects included fever and anemia — similar to what’s seen in patients who take some of the current antimalarials, Novartis officials said. There was a higher level of vomiting right after the drug was given, which company officials say may stem from its taste. The company is exploring flavoring or sweetening, a spokesman said.

Novartis officials said they are working toward regulatory approvals. George Jagoe of the Medicines for Malaria Venture, which collaborated with Novartis, said he hopes to see GanLum begin rolling out to patients within 18 months.

The new treatment approaches can complement other efforts against malaria, including treated mosquito bed nets and new vaccines, said Dr. Andrea Bosman, a malaria expert with the World Health Organization.

But the promising news comes at a time when funding from the United States and some other sources is being cut, which could impact the ability of scientists to monitor drug resistance or make prevention and treatments available to people who need them, Bosman noted.

“The eyes on the problem are going to be blinded” as aid to malaria-stricken countries declines, he said.

The Associated Press receives financial support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Gates Foundation, among others. The 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.