By MARYCLAIRE DALE and TASSANEE VEJPONGSA

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A union representing thousands of city workers in Philadelphia and the city have reached a deal to end a more than weeklong strike that halted residential curbside trash pickup and affected other services, officials said Wednesday.

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Nearly 10,000 blue-collar employees from District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees walked off the job July 1, seeking better pay and benefits after negotiations with the city failed.

The tentative agreement gives workers a 3% raise in each of the next three years, far from the union’s quest for 5% annual pay hikes. Half of the members will get an additional 2% raise through an added level on the pay scale, Mayor Cherelle Parker said, and most members will qualify by the end of the contract.

Residential trash collection will resume Monday, according to Parker, who asked for “grace” as pools, libraries, recreation centers and other services get back to normal.

“This is a very significant investment in our employees while at the same time ensuring that we as a city are living by our means,” Parker said at a news conference.

District Council 33 is the largest of four major unions representing city workers. Its membership includes 911 dispatchers, trash collectors, water department workers and many others. Police and firefighters weren’t part of the strike.

Parker said that over her four-year term, DC33 workers will have received a total pay bump of 14%, including a 5% one-year hike she gave all four unions after taking office last year.

Many residents seemed to support boosting the pay of DC33 workers, even as trash piled up in neighborhoods. The union says they earn an average $46,000 a year.

Union members must still ratify the agreement.

Rich Henkels, an actor who just moved into the city, called the settlement “disappointing.”

“The announced raises do nothing for the workers and their families, as the increases will be less than the rate of inflation,” said Henkels, 64.

The settlement was announced early on the ninth day of the strike, a period that included the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Some of the 60 drop-off centers that the city had designated for residential trash were overflowing. Most libraries and some pools across the city were closed, and recreation centers operated on reduced hours.

Last week, judges had sided with the city in ordering some critical employees back to work at the city’s 911 centers, water department and airport.

“We did the best we could with the circumstances we had in front of us,” union President Greg Boulware told reporters in brief remarks Wednesday morning.

Ramsey County has named Patience Ferguson as its next chief human resources officer.

Patience Ferguson

Ferguson starts Aug. 4, taking over for Kristen Schultz, who was named interim chief human resources officer in September. She’ll manage a team of 60 employees and an $11 million budget.

Ferguson has more than 30 years of experience in human resources, most recently as senior vice president of human resources and inclusion at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, leading human capital standards, strategies and policies.

Ramsey County Manager Ling Becker said Ferguson has “extensive experience, strong leadership, and (a) deep commitment to people.”

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DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — The Pennsylvania man charged with fatally shooting then beheading his father and posting it on YouTube said on the stand Wednesday that the killing was “Plan B” after trying to arrest his father for what he called false statements and treason.

This photo provided by the Bucks County, Pa., District Attorney’s Office shows Justin Mohn, the man accused of beheading his father in their suburban Philadelphia home in January 2024. (Bucks County District Attorney’s Office via AP, File)

Justin D. Mohn, 33, took the stand in a suburban Philadelphia courtroom on the third day of his trial on murder and other charges stemming from the Jan. 30, 2024, homicide of his father Michael F. Mohn.

Mohn, dressed in a blue sport coat, shirt and tie, with his arms shackled to his waist, spoke clearly without any apparent emotion for more than two hours of direct testimony and cross examination.

Responding to questions from his attorney, Steven Jones, Mohn said he shot his father in the bathroom of the family’s Levittown home after telling him he was going to arrest him. Mohn said his father, who he said was an experienced martial artist, told him he would kill him before he let that happen and reached for the gun.

“Unfortunately, he resisted,” Justin Mohn said, adding: “I was hoping to perform a citizen’s arrest on my father for, ultimately, treason.”

He described a list from his notebook, shone during the trial, that had the lines “Boom” and “Slice” as his “Plan B,” and said he expected his father to go along with the citizen’s arrest.

He said he differed politically from his parents, describing them as on the left. He told the court he believed his father wanted to stop him from becoming a politician similar to President Donald Trump and that his father gave false statements in an unrelated civil case Justin Mohn brought in federal court.

Asked why he beheaded his father, he said he wanted to send a message to federal government workers to meet his demands, which included their resignation as well as the cancellation of public debt, among other things. He said he didn’t do it out of hatred for his father or to cause trauma to his family. His mother, Denice Mohn, cried in court at the end of the direct questioning from his attorney.

“I knew something such as a severed head would not only go viral but could lessen the violence,” Justin Mohn said.

Prosecutors said Mohn shot his father with a newly purchased pistol, then decapitated him with a kitchen knife and machete. The 14-minute YouTube video he posted was live for several hours before it was removed.

FILE – Flowers rest at the front door of the Mohn residence in Upper Orchard section of Levittown, Pa., on Feb. 2, 2024. (Tyger Williams/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP, File)

Mohn was arrested later that day after scaling a fence at Fort Indiantown Gap, the state’s National Guard headquarters. He said in court he knew it was wrong to jump the fence at the site. Prosecutors said he called for others to join him in attempting to overthrow the U.S. government.

Mohn had a USB device containing photos of federal buildings and apparent instructions for making explosives when he was arrested, authorities said.

He also expressed violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online, going back several years. Earlier in the trial, the judge heard from Justin Mohn’s mother, who said police came to the house he shared with his parents and warned him about his online postings before the killing.

Denice Mohn testified that she and her husband had been offering financial support and guidance as Justin Mohn looked for a job.

Prosecutors described the homicide as “something straight out of a horror film.” They said Justin Mohn killed his father — who had been an engineer with the geoenvironmental section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Philadelphia District — to intimidate federal workers, calling it a “cold, calculated, organized plan.”

The YouTube video included rants about the government, immigration and the border, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.

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In court, Michael Mohn was remembered as a good neighbor and supportive father. In the video posted on YouTube, Justin Mohn described his father as a 20-year federal employee and called him a traitor.

During a competency hearing last year, a defense expert said Mohn wrote a letter to Russia’s ambassador to the United States seeking to strike a deal to give Mohn refuge and apologizing to President Vladimir Putin for claiming to be the czar of Russia. The judge ruled Mohn was competent to stand trial.

Evidence presented at the trial included graphic photos and the video posted to YouTube. The judge warned members of the public at the trial about the images and said they could leave before the photos were shown. The proceedings are known as a bench trial, with only a judge, not a jury.

A second teenager has died after an Eagan crash in which the Minnesota State Patrol suspects drivers were racing each other, according to a court document filed this week.

Troopers responded to Minnesota 55 and Minnesota 149 about 11:20 p.m. June 14.

Multiple videos that captured the crash showed a Jeep Compass, Honda Accord and Dodge Durango heading south on Minnesota 149. Witnesses reported they “were together and had been racing at high speeds which led to the crash,” according to a search warrant affidavit.

The three vehicles were traveling over 100 mph in the 45 mph zone when the drivers of the Jeep and Honda lost control and went over the median into the northbound lanes of the highway just before the Minnesota 55 intersection, the affidavit said.

The Jeep struck a traffic light pole at the northeast corner of the intersection and split in half. The Honda continued through the intersection and landed in the southeast ditch.

The driver and passenger in the Jeep were both found unconscious and taken by ambulance to Regions Hospital.

The 19-year-old driver, Reed Robert Schultz of Savage, died soon after. He graduated from Burnsville High School in 2024 and was working for a landscaping company in Shakopee “as he was finding what direction he wanted to take into adulthood,” his obituary said.

The 18-year-old passenger, Finnian Thomas Cronin of Edina, died at the hospital on July 1, according to a separate search warrant affidavit, which was filed Monday for his hospital medical records.

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The Honda’s driver left the scene. Troopers identified the registered owner as a 20-year-old from White Bear Lake. They contacted him and he said he was on the way to the hospital. Troopers found him at M Health Fairview St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood, where he said he had collarbone pain.

The 20-year-old told troopers he had been driving. He “did not call 911, provide medical care to the injured parties, or stay on scene,” the affidavit said. He said he drove 90 mph, drank alcohol and had been a “dumb (expletive),” the affidavit continued.

The investigation is ongoing.

Nick Ferraro contributed to this report.