A pedestrian was fatally struck by a Green Line train in St. Paul on Wednesday afternoon.

The person was crossing the tracks at a marked pedestrian crossing near University Avenue and Avon Street, said Drew Kerr, a Metro Transit spokesman. Metro Transit officers responded about 1:40 p.m. regarding the crash of the westbound light-rail train.

The pedestrian died at the scene and the train operator was being treated for unknown injuries; no other injuries were reported.

Metro Transit police are investigating how the crash happened, including who had the right of way, Kerr said. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the identity of the person who died.

Buses replaced trains between the Capitol/Rice and Snelling Avenue stations until the scene was cleared about 3:30 p.m.

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By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general, placing President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney in a key Justice Department post at a time of turmoil in the agency.

Blanche, who just months ago was defending Trump against indictments brought by the department, will be the second in command under Attorney General Pam Bondi, another close Trump ally. He was confirmed in a 52-46 vote.

Blanche is entering amid upheaval from firings, resignations and forced transfers of career officials in the Trump administration’s push to purge the agency of employees seen as disloyal to the president’s agenda.

During his confirmation hearing, Blanche sought to assure Democrats that politics would play no role in his decisions as deputy attorney general. Blanche said Trump’s Justice Department will work to restore the “American people’s faith in our justice system” after what he described as “partisan lawfare” targeting the president.

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Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who was a key figure on Trump’s defense team, both in the two criminal cases brought by the Justice Department and the New York hush money case, which ended in a conviction of 34 felony counts.

Special counsel Jack Smith has defended the cases he brought accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Both of those cases were withdrawn after Trump’s November presidential win because of longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the federal prosecution of a sitting president.

Emil Bove, another former Trump defense attorney who has been acting as the Justice Department’s second in command while Blanche awaited confirmation, will now became the principal associate deputy attorney general.

Bove has rattled the department with actions in his first weeks, including demanding the names of thousands of FBI agents who participated in the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, and ordering the dismissal of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case.

“Attorneys serving the public interest are saddled not only with the constant stress of a demanding and under-appreciated profession, but also with the anxiety of whether they’ll be able to afford rising rent prices, inflation-impacted groceries, and hefty student loan payments each month.”

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The first six weeks of the new federal administration have sparked widespread uncertainty, to say the least. The communities served by The Legal Aid Society and similar organizations fear what lies ahead, and rely on us for support.

Amid this unease, public defenders and civil legal service providers have been working tirelessly to provide not only legal representation but also education and resources to help vulnerable people—largely from low-income neighborhoods of color—navigate an ever-changing landscape.

These legal services, which keep people housed, reunite families, and help protect the rights of New Yorkers, are now more critical than ever. 

In addition to being woefully underpaid and under-resourced, the attorneys who provide these vital services are facing another debilitating crisis: crippling student loan debt and a stagnated loan assistance program that has failed to keep up with inflation and New York City’s skyrocketing cost of living. 

Despite recent data showing that the average law student graduates with a whopping $130,000 in student loan debt, under the current program, public interest attorneys in New York can only receive up to $20,400 in total loan assistance—or $3,400 annually—over a six-year period.  

To make matters worse, recent threats to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education could further jeopardize federal loan assistance for these attorneys. 

In the face of this looming crisis—which has the potential to impact attrition rates at legal service organizations for years to come—it is incumbent upon our leaders in Albany to take immediate action to ensure that public interest attorneys across the state receive increased student loan assistance that aligns with the current economic reality. 

Fortunately, a legislative solution already exists: a bill to strengthen the New York District Attorney and Indigent Legal Services Attorney Loan Forgiveness (DALF) program enjoys strong support from district attorneys, public defenders, unions, and members of the State Legislature. 

The legislation, sponsored by State Sen. Jessica Ramos and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, would increase student loan aid for public interest lawyers to $8,000 annually, for up to eight years, or total award eligibility of up to $64,000 in total. 

Current loan assistance amounts place public interest attorneys far behind other vital workers, such as registered nurses on teaching faculties and social workers, who also perform essential work but, on average, carry less debt than public interest lawyers. 

This modest funding increase, which amounts to mere pennies compared to the state’s proposed $252 billion budget, will help nonprofit public interest organizations retain the lawyers whose critical work benefits millions of New Yorkers. 

Attorneys serving the public interest are saddled not only with the constant stress of a demanding and under-appreciated profession, but also with the anxiety of whether they’ll be able to afford rising rent prices, inflation-impacted groceries, and hefty student loan payments each month. 

This constant stress forces an impossible choice: remain in the public sector, making a tangible and valuable difference in the lives of vulnerable individuals, or leave for a higher-paying job. 

Attorneys who choose to leave contribute to high attrition rates at both legal service organizations and district attorney’s offices, resulting in increased workloads for the remaining attorneys and additional court backlogs that negatively impact the people we serve.   

And while the resulting case delays and staffing shortages ultimately harm low-income and marginalized New Yorkers the most, a 2024 study by the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division found that high student debt severely affects the emotional well-being of young lawyers as well.  

For those with more than $200,000 in student debt, 76 percent reported that the burden made them feel stressed or anxious, and 52 percent reported that it made them feel depressed or hopeless. This environment is not conducive to the kind of dedicated, zealous representation New Yorkers need and deserve.  

It doesn’t have to be this way. While Gov. Kathy Hochul left funding for this program out of her Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget, there is still time to right this wrong and increase funding for DALF this session. 

During Hochul’s January State of the State address, she emphasized the importance of increasing affordability, as well as getting and keeping more New Yorkers safely and stably housed.  

The individuals on the front lines—the ones actually delivering on the services that will make these goals possible—are public interest attorneys.  

In 2025—with so much on the line for low-income New Yorkers—Gov. Hochul and the New York State Legislature must prioritize funding for the DALF legislation and ensure its inclusion in the budget.  

Twyla Carter is the attorney-in-chief and chief executive officer at The Legal Aid Society. Lisa Ohta is president of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (UAW Local 2325) 

The post Opinion: Crippling Student Loan Debt Threatens the Work of New York’s Public Service Lawyers appeared first on City Limits.

By JACK BROOK, Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets of New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras with parades and partying, leaving behind an avalanche of waste.

At dawn Wednesday, a motley waste management crew embarked on the unenviable mission of cleaning up tens of thousands of pounds of detritus spread across the city’s historic French Quarter.

Waste from Mardi Gras awaiting collection in the French Quarter of New Orleans, on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Riding through a sea of waste

Leander Nunez, 54, steered a massive truck onto Bourbon Street just after 5 a.m., spraying water onto the piles of waste so they could be more easily swept up. He’s a supervisor for IV Waste, the company contracted by the city to help clean up many of its most popular streets over the 58-day Carnival season.

Beaded necklaces, tossed from balconies and floats, crunched beneath wheels as the truck passed daiquiri bars, strip clubs and fried chicken joints.

Piles of Mardi Gras detritus accumulated from Mardi Gras celebrations lies in the French Quarter in New Orleans, on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Waves of trash that included cans, wrappers and neon green plastic cups for “hand grenade” drinks rippled out from the front of the truck as if before the bow of an ocean liner.

With the sun rising, people stumbled out of bars and saluted the trash collectors. A drunken couple shrieked and leaped onto sidewalks to escape from the cascade of waste as Nunez muttered about Bourbon Street’s “typical foolishness.”

From the perspective of the grizzled veteran Nunez, the cleanup was a lighter lift than in previous years, likely due to the chilling effect of a Jan. 1 truck attack on Bourbon Street and storms that cut short Tuesday’s parades.

“Only thing I can judge it by down here is by the trash,” Nunez said. “There was people down here for Mardi Gras, but I don’t think the trash is the way it used to be.”

Leander Nunez, 54, navigates a truck down Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025, as part of post-Mardi Gras clean up efforts beginning before dawn. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

IV Waste has the logistics down to a science to get the French Quarter fully cleaned up by around 10 a.m. each day, said owner and president Sidney Torres.

After wetting down the trash, teams wielding pressure washers spray garbage off the sidewalks. Tractors bearing bristles and nicknamed “toothbrushes” scrub the asphalt, targeting beads. Bulldozers plow into the piles and dump them into trucks capable of bearing 40,000 pounds of waste at a time. Small teams on foot armed with brooms sweep anything left over into dust bins.

A trash collecting machine operated by IV Waste, the company tasked with cleaning up with the French Quarter in New Orleans, Wednesday, March 5, 2025, gathers detritus the day after Fat Tuesday. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Then comes the final touch: a citrus spray Torres calls “lemon fresh.”

“It’s not just fragrance like putting perfume on a pig. It has enzymes in it that kill the bacteria,” Torres said. “You can have a clean street, but if you smell the puke and the stale beer and liquor that’s washed out onto the streets, it’s a foul odor and people remember that.”

A water truck spraying lemon fragrance washes down Bourbon Street in New Orleans, the day after Mardi Gras, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Sustainability efforts on the rise

Over the past three years, a collection of organizations has stepped up efforts to improve the sustainability of Mardi Gras and cut down on the more than 2 million tons of waste generated during the heart of the city’s Carnival season.

“It’s almost an unfathomable number and feels like an uphill battle,” said Franziska Trautmann, cofounder of the glass recycling company Glass Half Full. “But the team is noticing a difference.”

Detritus from Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans, lies scattered in the French Quarter on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Partnering with the city and other groups, Glass Half Full collected more than 33,000 pounds of glass from nearly two dozen bars as part of a “Bar Wars” contest and at recycling stations along parade routes, Trautmann said.

Anna Nguyen, a spokesperson for the city’s Office of Resilience & Sustainability, said the city is working with community groups to engage and incentivize recycling, with groups offering rewards for anyone who turns in bags of beads, cans or bottles and an artist building a mosaic from them.

A pile of trash awaiting clean up in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Wednesday, March 5, 2025, the day after Mardi Gras. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

This year, the city had earmarked $50,000 to support Mardi Gras recycling for the first time and has increased that budget by fivefold for next year’s season, Nguyen said. Convention planners and groups looking for cities to host events are increasingly prioritizing sustainability, she added.

But it’s also part of a cultural shift toward greater sustainability among social clubs and parade-goers during Mardi Gras, according to Kevin Ferguson, vice president of external affairs for New Orleans & Company, a nonprofit dedicated to boosting the city’s tourism: “What we’re building is more of a movement than an individual project.”

A positive sign, he says, is that “throws” — the trinkets that float riders toss to spectators — are evolving to feature more items that people want and are likely to keep.

“That’s just not happening with beads anymore. No one’s picking that up off the ground,” Ferguson said. “I think you’re seeing riders are buying less of that and more of other things.”

Associated Press reporter Stephen Smith contributed to this report.