Crews have nearly contained a wildfire burning in a North Shore state park, and a portion of the Superior Hiking Trail will reopen Thursday.

The 300-acre Crosby Fire, burning through fallen leaves in and near George H. Crosby Manitou State Park since it was ignited by lightning on Oct. 8, was 95% contained as of Wednesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

That means control lines — either natural or artificial gaps in vegetation — exist around nearly all of the fire’s perimeter and are expected, but not guaranteed, to stop the fire from spreading. It does not mean fire within the perimeter is completely out.

With the help of rain overnight Sunday, the fire has not grown since the weekend, and containment of the fire has grown steadily.

“Things are looking good,” Mary Nordeen, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Incident Command System, said Wednesday.

“The firefighters are just going to be working along the containment line, mopping up hotspots, checking the fire area,” Nordeen said.

The Superior Hiking Trail Association said a section of trail from Caribou Falls State Wayside Rest to Lake County Road 7 (Cramer Road) that was closed because of the fire will reopen Thursday at 8 a.m. Users should stay on the trail and not be alarmed if they see or smell smoke, the association said.

“There are no threats of fire to the trail any longer, however the fire did burn up to, and across the trail,” the association said on Facebook.

More rain is expected Thursday and Friday, said Woody Unruh, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Duluth.

“Conditions are favorable for helping to contain the fire, just given that we’re seeing the precipitation coming in, no dry days and then the winds are also cooperating,” Unruh said.

Although the weather has improved, firefighters will remain on scene.

“We’ll keep crews in the area for a while yet to keep monitoring, patrolling. … That weather has really helped and those crews really worked hard,” Nordeen said.

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By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Brown University is rejecting a Trump administration proposal that would provide favorable access to funding in exchange for a wide range of commitments, saying the deal would curtail academic freedom and undermine the university’s independence.

Brown is the latest university to turn down the proposal, which White House officials said would bring “multiple positive benefits” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants.” The Massachusetts Institute of Technology backed away from the proposal last week after its president said it would restrict free speech and campus autonomy.

Brown President Christina Paxson turned down the proposal on Wednesday in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and White House officials. The Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island is aligned with some of the provisions in the offer, she said — including commitments to affordability and equal opportunity in admissions — but can’t agree to others.

“I am concerned that the Compact by its nature and by various provisions would restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown’s governance, critically compromising our ability to fulfill our mission,” Paxson wrote.

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Brown and MIT were among nine universities invited this month to become “initial signatories” to the proposal. Officials at the University of Texas system said they were honored to be invited, while most others have remained quiet. The Trump administration invited feedback from universities by Oct. 20 and requested decisions no later than Nov. 21.

Brown previously struck a deal with the Trump administration to restore lost research funding and end federal investigations into discrimination.

In that agreement, finalized in July, Brown agreed to a $50 million payout to workforce organizations in Rhode Island. It also agreed to adopt the federal government’s definition of “male” and “female,” to eliminate diversity targets in admissions and to renew partnerships with Israeli academics, among other terms.

Unlike that deal — which includes a clause affirming Brown’s academic freedom — Paxson said the new proposal lacks any guarantee that the university would retain control over its curriculum or academic speech. Her rejection is in line with the views of the “vast majority of Brown stakeholders,” Paxson wrote.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, President Donald Trump suggested other campuses can step forward to participate in the compact. Those that want to return to “the pursuit of Truth and Achievement,” he said, “are invited to enter into a forward looking Agreement with the Federal Government to help bring about the Golden Age of Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

In its letter to universities, the administration said the compact would strengthen and renew the “mutually beneficial relationship” between universities and the government. The compact is a proactive attempt at reform even as the government continues enforcement through other means, the letter said.

The proposal includes several commitments around admissions, women’s sports and free speech. Much of it centers on promoting conservative viewpoints, including by abolishing “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

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.

It’s that time of year again in Minnesota when schools across the state observe the curious holiday known as MEA weekend. That magical four-day break in October where students rejoice, parents panic, and teachers … well, no one’s entirely sure what teachers do.

Officials at MSP Airport always announce they’re “ready for the surge,” as if every Minnesotan simultaneously realized they can only tolerate this much autumn before fleeing to Disney World, Phoenix or the Wisconsin Dells. It’s the closest thing we have to a state-wide migration ritual — like geese flying south, only instead of elegant V-formations, it’s caravans of Dodge Caravans heading east toward giant water slides..

And here’s the odd thing: This time-honored tradition isn’t a thing in most other states. Try explaining it to someone from Nebraska: “Yeah, the entire state takes two days off in October for … reasons. We don’t ask questions. It’s just MEA.”

Wisconsin has Oktoberfest. Germany has Oktoberfest. Minnesota, naturally, has MEA. It’s basically the same thing if you think about it. They drink beer out of giant mugs; we drink hotel coffee out of tiny Styrofoam cups. They dance in lederhosen; we stand in line at Perkins wearing fleece. They migrate to Munich; we migrate to Wisconsin Dells. The only real difference is that in Oktoberfest, people actually know what they’re celebrating. With MEA, half of Minnesota thinks it’s short for “Mom’s Extended Aggravation,” and the other half assumes it honors some historical figure named Mr. E.A.

For students, MEA is basically spring break in flannel, a mini spring break dropped in the middle of October. Some of them vanish to Florida, and the others spend four straight days in their pajamas eating pizza rolls, playing Minecraft and forgetting how to read.

Parents, meanwhile, know MEA as the weekend where every hotel in Duluth, Brainerd and Wisconsin Dells triples their rates, Perkins is standing-room only, and every dad in Minnesota is saying, “We should’ve left Wednesday night.” By Sunday night, they’ve had it, most parents come crawling back to Monday’s school drop-off muttering, “Teachers deserve a raise. A big one.”

And the teachers? Officially, MEA is short for “Minnesota Education Association,” which sounds serious and professional. Supposedly, they’re attending conferences and professional development workshops. Unofficially, there are two kinds of teachers:

1.    The noble few who sit through seminars on differentiated instruction.

2.    The others, who can be spotted at the Mall of America on Friday at 10 a.m., wearing sunglasses and nervously whispering, “This is … uh … hands-on economics training.”

And while the kids are off gallivanting and the parents are calculating how much money they just dropped at Great Wolf Lodge, the school itself doesn’t exactly rest. You’d think MEA would be a custodian’s paradise — two quiet days to catch up, refresh, and reset. Maybe even sneak in something that feels like a long winter’s nap.

But no. MEA is when custodians try to cram a week’s worth of buff and shine into forty-eight hours. The floor buffers come out, whining like jet engines in the hallways, erasing over a month’s worth of shoe scuffs that made the place look like the dasher boards at the hockey rink. The cafeteria floors — still sticky from a thousand juice box spills and the great tater-tot avalanche of last Tuesday — get a scrub worthy of a surgical ward. The gym floor, after six weeks of dodgeball, squeaky sneakers, and whatever unidentifiable grit kids manage to track in, finally gets its turn under the polisher.

And just when you think you’ve got a rhythm going, in come the construction crews, or worse — a volleyball tournament where people track in every leaf from a three-county radius. By Monday morning though, the school looks exactly the same as it did on the first day of school. Except now every custodian is walking around like they just ran a marathon in steel-toe boots.

So, in the end, MEA is less about education and more about tradition. It’s Minnesota’s little October holiday — our time-honored reminder that just when you thought the school year had settled into a groove, surprise! It’s time to pack the minivan, eat questionable cheese curds, and join the parade of brake lights on 94, hoping for a pace faster than the line at Culver’s when the Pumpkin Spice shakes come out.

Mark Glende, Rosemount, is an elementary school custodian. “I write about real-life stories with a slight twist of humor,” he says. “I’m not smart enough to make this stuff up.”

 

A year after inheriting the remnants of planning for a long-stalled transit line down West Seventh Street, St. Paul officials have announced that a future bus rapid transit system likely will operate in regular traffic, rather than its own dedicated lane. Also, a full reconstruction of West Seventh Street with utility and pedestrian improvements isn’t likely in the near future.

Ramsey County abandoned planning for the “Riverview Corridor” streetcar a year ago. That left St. Paul to take the lead in a joint effort with Metro Transit and the Minnesota Department of Transportation on a wide range of long-delayed improvements for the lengthy state road, including a possible new bus line. Those efforts have been dealt another setback.

“It was going to require that all the levels of government could agree and bring funding to the table to make it all work, and it’s become clear that we’re not all in agreement,” said Russ Stark, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s chief resilience officer, on Wednesday.

“The thing that became clear is that Ramsey County no longer sees themselves as a significant funder of this corridor,” he added. “Now that they’re not, the other parties are needing to figure out how to make a lot of that investment still work.”

A Metro Transit bus heads west on West Seventh Street in St. Paul on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Transit advocates took that news as a surprise blow to longstanding efforts to better connect downtown St. Paul to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington through 12 miles of improved bus, bike and pedestrian access. Even minor road improvements appear years away.

“It’s kind of the typical finger-pointing that we see now for decades,” said Meg Duhr, president of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation, on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, they’re all public agencies, and West Seventh residents, we pay city taxes, we pay county taxes, we pay state taxes. We need this done.”

“Seeing all the roads rehabbed around the city that were in much better conditions than West Seventh is now, it’s just such a colossal failure of our local governments,” Duhr added.

‘New West Seventh Corridor’

After Ramsey County pulled out of planning for the Riverview Corridor, the city unveiled the “New West Seventh Corridor” concept in early 2025.

Carter, in a video promotion, announced the city was working with MnDOT and Metro Transit to roll out a “generational investment in West Seventh Street … Residents will have new sidewalks, and a parallel bicycle and pedestrian trail that links West Seventh to our new Highland Bridge development.”

In addition to bus-only lanes and a guideway for a bus rapid transit system, the “coordinated corridor” concept called for a full road reconstruction, as well as the addition of a new regional multi-use bike and pedestrian trail along a Canadian Pacific rail spur in Highland Park.

Some project partners hoped for bus and pedestrian improvements to the West Seventh Street bridge over Interstate 35E.

City officials updated a corridor webpage this month, and later social media, to say those projects will not progress together, if they progress at all: “A coordinated corridor concept is no longer moving forward. Project partners were unable to reach agreement on a funding plan for this coordinated concept.”

A full reconstruction of West Seventh would require “hundreds of millions of dollars” in investment, Stark said. And, while West Seventh — also known as Minnesota Highway 5 — is technically a state road, the state has limited budget to take the lead in funding reconstruction of streets that do not sit within its freeway system.

Ramsey County has access to funding from a new regional sales tax, Stark noted.

Mill and overlay pushed to 2029

Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, who chairs the county board, said Wednesday that the county could still contribute toward trees and safety improvements at certain intersections like Randolph Avenue, enhancing its connection to the Mississippi River. But with the county-driven streetcar project dead, the county has no interest, he said, in finding funding for a full road reconstruction.

“The road, it belongs to the state, and they’re responsible to do whatever they want to do with it,” said Ortega on Wednesday.

That doesn’t mean that all aspects of the corridor concept are dead. The Minnesota Department of Transportation is still planning a street resurfacing of West Seventh Street, which may be pushed back a year from starting in the fall of 2028 to beginning in the fall of 2029 and wrapping up in the summer of 2030, according to MnDOT project manager Michael Corbett.

That project will include mill-and-overlay treatment, replacing certain traffic signals and street work related to the Americans with Disabilities Act. It does not currently include underground utility work on water mains that in some cases date back to the 1870s.

“MnDOT is moving forward with plans, at the very least, to resurface the street and get it in better shape,” Stark said. “We’re hopeful it can be more than that and we can get fuller investment in West Seventh.”

Bus rapid transit

Metro Transit will continue to study the possibility of adding West Seventh to its growing network of “arterial” bus rapid transit corridors, which are limited-stop bus routes that operate in normal traffic but benefit from certain enhanced amenities, such as paying before boarding at modern stations with electronic signage.

If Metro Transit pursues arterial BRT along West Seventh, the earliest it likely would roll out is between 2030 and 2035. It has competition from other potential routes.

“West Seventh will be evaluated, along with 10 other corridors, to select three going forward — the J, K and L lines,” said Nick Thompson, deputy general manager of planning and capital programs for Metro Transit.

A recommendation to the Metropolitan Council could be ready by January, Thompson said.

Pedestrian improvements up in the air

The timeframe for some major road improvements that had been discussed and debated for years, if not a decade or more, remains up in the air. Among them — the prospect of widening the I-35E bridge for pedestrian access and bus-only lanes; the multi-use bike and pedestrian trail along the CP rail spur; utility work and utility replacements along West Seventh Street.

Also uncertain? Pedestrian improvements such as refuge islands, sidewalks, intersection simplifications and parking triangles. And the replacement of ash trees that MnDOT removed from West Seventh Street in 2018 and 2019.

“All of these setbacks are pushing things back further and further, and it seems like we’re getting less and less out of the project,” said Julia McColley, executive director of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation.

Since at least the late 1990s, transit advocates have pressed Ramsey County and other partners for a dedicated bus, streetcar or light rail transitway down West Seventh Street from downtown St. Paul to MSP and the MOA.

Those plans have lived and died and been resurrected repeatedly. In 2002, state officials took back $40 million for corridor planning in light of community fears that dedicated lanes would eat up space for travel and parking.

Metro Transit later began lining up funding for a bus rapid transitway it hoped to roll out by 2016, but Ramsey County chose to take the lead instead, pushing ahead with discussions around a possible streetcar.

The long-proposed “Riverview Corridor” officially derailed in 2024, when the county declared the $2 billion streetcar project unable to sway key critics, including businessowners worried their storefronts would not survive construction. Members of the Metropolitan Airports Commission had raised red flags over a streetcar accessing the same track as the Blue Line light rail at MSP, as well as necessary road improvements approaching the airport.

Public discussion

State Rep. Dave Pinto and three other state lawmakers are scheduled to join the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation and Highland District Council for a public town hall discussion about the future of West Seventh Street.

The event will take place at 7 p.m. on Oct. 27. Residents are invited to RSVP for the location through the online calendar at fortroadfed.org.

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