Two University of Wisconsin-Platteville students died in what officials said Monday was a “targeted and isolated” shooting on campus.

The two 22-year-old students, Kelsie Martin and Hallie Helms, were the only people involved in the incident at an on-campus residence hall, the university said.

Martin, a psychology major and assistant resident director at Wilgus Hall, was airlifted to a University of Wisconsin hospital after she was found with a gunshot wound, according to the statement.

She was later pronounced dead, the school said.

A preliminary autopsy found that Helms, who lived at Wilgus Hall and was an elementary education major, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the school said in a statement Tuesday night.

Helms was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the statement.

The statement did not provide additional details about the nature of the shooting and asked for people with information to share it with the school’s police department.

Earlier, UW-Platteville Police Chief Joe Hallman said that authorities quickly determined there was no ongoing threat after receiving a 911 call about an incident at Wilgus Hall shortly before 4 p.m. A shelter-in-place order was lifted just after 5 p.m.

Sophomore Eric Sperduto, who lives in Wilgus Hall, told NBC affiliate WMTV of Madison that he saw two girls running from the building after 4 p.m. Monday. He also saw law enforcement in the building.

“It’s just really sad and just sad to think about the families that are affected by this and people that were their friends and stuff that, I guess, that are students just like me that are changed now,” Sperduto told the station.

In a statement, Chancellor Tammy Evetovich mourned the loss of Martin, of Beloit, Wisconsin, and Helms, of Baraboo, Wisconsin, and said the well-being of their community was top of mind.

“Please take the time to take care of yourself and others,” she said.

The university, which has a student body of more than 6,000, canceled final exams and is offering counseling services this week for members of the community, according to the statement.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988, or go to 988lifeline.org, to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.

Call it the “Kermencement” at the University of Maryland, where the graduation stage Thursday night will feature a froggy favorite: Kermit the Frog, delivering what will be his first commencement address in nearly 30 years. 

“I’m so humbled by it,” Kermit said. “I’m kind of taking this seriously — as seriously as a singing, dancing frog can take anything.”

Maryland knows Muppets well: Their creator, Jim Henson, earned his degree there in 1960, majoring in home economics. He and his wife, Jane, met on campus in a freshman puppetry class. Henson is honored with a statue at the university’s College Park campus, alongside his amphibian sidekick.

Kermit’s message to grads this year? Take the proverbial “leap” into opportunity and remember that this big step into adulthood doesn’t mean leaving behind their inner children.

“Maybe we’re at our best when we allow ourselves to continue to grow and learn something new every day,” Kermit said.

“I kind of hope these graduates keep that sophisticated childlike sense of curiosity and imagination and innovation as they travel down their paths.”

WASHINGTON — Oklahoma will not be able to launch the nation’s first religious public charter school after the Supreme Court on Thursday deadlocked 4-4 in a major case on the separation of church and state.

The decision by the evenly divided court means that a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court that said the proposal to launch St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School violates both the federal Constitution and state law remains in place.

As there was no majority, the court did not issue a written decision, and the case sets no nationwide precedent on the contentious legal question of whether religious schools must be able to participate in taxpayer-funded state charter school programs.

A key factor in the outcome was that conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who would have been the deciding vote, did not participate in the case. She did not explain why, but it is likely because of her ties with Notre Dame Law School. The law school’s religious liberty clinic represents the school.

The one-page decision did not say how each justice voted. During oral arguments last month, most of the court’s conservatives indicated support for the school while liberals expressed concern. At least one conservative is likely to have sided with the liberals, most likely Chief Justice John Roberts.

The court will likely be asked to weigh in on the issue in future cases.

St. Isidore would have operated online statewide with a remit to promote the Catholic faith.

The case highlights tensions within the Constitution’s First Amendment; one provision, the Establishment Clause, prohibits state endorsement of religion or preference for one religion over another, while another, the Free Exercise Clause, bars religious discrimination.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court had cited the state’s interest in steering clear of Establishment Clause violations as a reason not to allow the proposal submitted by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa to move forward.

A state board approved the proposal for St. Isidore in June 2023 despite concerns about its religious nature, prompting Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond to file suit.

The case saw Drummond on the opposite side of fellow Republicans in the state who backed the idea, but he prevailed at the Oklahoma Supreme Court the following year.

The Supreme Court, when Barrett is participating, has a 6-3 conservative majority that often backs religious rights. In recent years it has repeatedly strengthened the Free Exercise Clause in cases brought by conservative religious liberty activists, sometimes at the expense of the Establishment Clause. Some conservatives have long complained that the common understanding that the Establishment Clause requires strict separation of church and state is incorrect.

Lawyers representing the school and the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board sought to portray the dispute as similar to a series of recent rulings in which the court said that under the Free Exercise Clause, states cannot bar religious groups from government programs that are open to everyone else.

During the oral argument, Roberts pushed back, indicating that he saw the schools case as different from the previous decisions.

Those cases, he said, “involved fairly discrete state involvement” compared with Oklahoma’s charter school program.

“This does strike me as a much more comprehensive involvement,” he added.

The push for religious public charter schools dovetails with the school choice movement, which supports parents using taxpayer funds to send their children to private school. Public school advocates see both efforts as broad assaults on traditional public schools.