Overall enrollment in the Universities of Wisconsin system’s four-year schools ticked upward this fall compared with last year, data released Tuesday shows.

The system released enrollment numbers as of the 10th day of the 2024 fall semester. They show overall enrollment stood at 164,431 students, up 1.2% from the 10th day of the 2023 fall semester.

UW-Green Bay saw 975 new students for a 10.5% increase in enrollment, the largest percentage jump among the 13 four-year schools. Enrollment at UW-Madison, the system’s flagship university, increased nearly 3%. UW-Superior, the most remote campus, in Douglas County in far northwestern Wisconsin, saw a 3.6% increase.

Five schools saw their enrollment shrink, including Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Parkside, Platteville and Stout.

Overall enrollment at the system’s two-year branch campuses fell 22%. The most dramatic drop-off was at UW-Stevens Point’s Marshfield campus, where enrollment plunged nearly 45% compared with fall 2023.

UW officials have blamed declining numbers of high school graduates and more graduates eschewing college for the workforce for faltering enrollment.

— Associated Press

Federal railroad grants to benefit smaller lines

The federal government is handing out $2.4 billion in railroad grants to help pay for 122 projects nationwide with more than half of the money going to smaller railroads, including in Minnesota.

The grants announced Tuesday by the Federal Railroad Administration will go to projects across 41 states and Washington, D.C. Most of the money will go to track and bridge upgrades. But some of the grants will be used to bolster training and explore cleaner-burning alternatives to the diesel railroads have long relied on. Some small railroads will also get help upgrading to more efficient locomotives.

Much of the money comes from the 2021 infrastructure law that President Joe Biden championed. Last year, the administration handed out $1.4 billion in these rail grants.

“Each project advances a future where our supply chains are stronger, passenger rail more accessible, and freight movement safer and more efficient,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.

Some of the grants will also help address rail safety concerns that have become prevalent since a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023 and spilled a cocktail of hazardous chemicals that caught fire. Regulators have urged railroads to improve safety and the industry has undertaken a number of initiatives on its own. But bigger changes that lawmakers proposed after the disastrous derailment have stalled in Congress and little progress has been made in the current election year.

The biggest single project is a $215 million grant that will help pay to replace a 1901 Hudson River bridge that CSX owns between Albany and Rensselaer, N.Y., that Amtrak relies heavily on.

But the majority of the money — nearly $1.3 billion — will go to 81 projects at smaller short line railroads across the country. Chuck Baker, president of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association trade group, said the grants will help those smaller railroads significantly.

In Minnesota, the Minnesota Commercial Railway will get up to $15.86 million for a locomotive emission reduction project.

Based in St. Paul’s Midway, the railway serves various Twin Cities customers.

Another $37.26 million will go toward boosting capacity, safety and sustainability at Progressive Rail Inc.

Based in Lakeville, Progressive Rail serves various customers in the south metro.

In Wisconsin, nearly $73 million will go to improving the Muskego railyard in Milwaukee.

— Associated Press

City debuts rebuilt Brighton Beach park

After six years of work and a $6.4 million investment, Duluth’s popular Brighton Beach is back.

On Monday afternoon, Duluth officially reopened the reconfigured Lake Superior park with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The project has extended the Lakewalk up the shore, separating it from Brighton

Beach Drive, into which the path previously spilled.

Now the roadway has moved inland, and the Lakewalk has its own space, devoid of motorized traffic.

Prior to the project, Brighton Beach Drive was repeatedly pummeled by storms and repeatedly rebuilt, as Jim Filby Williams, the city’s director of parks, libraries and properties, recalled.

“Our park maintenance and street maintenance staff have probably no more closely identified with Sisyphus as they have in this park,” Filby Williams said, referring to the recurring damage the park has sustained in recent years and the repeated repairs that followed. In the Greek myth, Sisyphus pushes a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back to the bottom each time he nears the top. This happens repeatedly to Sisyphus throughout eternity.

The redesigned park, which serves as a gateway for travelers to the North Shore, offers a far brighter future, in Filby Williams’ estimation.

“I am very confident that this reconfigured park will be resilient and durable, even in the face of the more intense and frequent storms we’re seeing with climate change,” he said.

Filby Williams said the redone park provides a safer environment for walkers, bikers and motorists. It also offers improved access to the lake for the general public.

— Associated Press

Rare virus suspected in Africa traveler’s death

Health officials are investigating the death Monday of an Iowa resident as a suspected case of Lassa fe

ver, a frightening viral disease rarely seen in the U.S., health officials said.

The patient returned to the U.S. from West Africa early this month. The person was not sick while traveling, so the risk to fellow airline passengers is “extremely low,” officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The virus is not spread by casual contact and patients are not believed to be infectious before symptoms occur.

The patient had been hospitalized in isolation at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center. Testing by the Nebraska Laboratory Response Network early Monday showed that the patient was presumptively positive for Lassa fever. If the results are confirmed, the Iowa case would be the ninth known case of Lassa fever since 1969 in travelers returning to the U.S. from areas where the disease is found.

State and local health officials are working to learn how the patient, who they did not identify, became infected. About 100,000 to 300,000 cases of Lassa fever and about 5,000 deaths occur in West Africa each year.

— Associated Press