By MARYCLAIRE DALE and TASSANEE VEJPONGSA

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — As trash and tempers heat up across Philadelphia on Day 8 of a strike by blue-collar city workers Tuesday, some residents and small business owners are hiring pop-up hauling services to clear their blocks of garbage, even as they broadly support the union’s quest for higher pay.

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Mayor Cherelle Parker, a Democrat, is standing firm in her offer of raises of about 3% per year over a three-year contract, which comes on top of a 5% raise she gave as an olive branch to all four major city unions after taking office last year.

“I do believe that the mayor has made a gross mistake,” said Jody Sweitzer, who has watched her East Passyunk neighborhood in South Philadelphia gentrify in her 26 years there, leading to higher rents and less diversity. Sweitzer owns a popular downtown bar called Dirty Frank’s.

“Forty thousand dollars cannot cut it in Philadelphia, you know,” she said, referring to striking workers’ pay. “You can barely rent an apartment with that kind of money. So I feel as a resident of Philadelphia that she’s doing injustice to those (workers) who actually live here.”

The strike by District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees involves nearly 10,000 workers, although judges have sided with the city in ordering some critical employees back to work at the city’s 911 centers, water department and airport. Judges have also decreed a temporary halt on evictions.

The two sides have met only intermittently since the strike began, but there was hope they would return to the bargaining table on Tuesday. In the summer of 1986, a citywide trash strike went on for three weeks, leaving 45,000 tons of rotting garbage in the streets.

Trash is cleaned up at a drop-off site in Philadelphia as thousands of city workers remained on strike Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (WPVI-TV via AP)

Terrill Haigler, 35, a former sanitation worker who now does private hauling under the handle “Ya Fav Trashman,” said stress was on the rise Tuesday along with the 94-degree temperature.

“It’s like Gotham City with water ice,” he said, referencing a local treat that is famously mispronounced “wooder ice” by natives.

“We support District Council 33 100%,” Haigler said. “They deserve everything that they’re asking for, but we also have to think about the residents on the other side. There are some people — elderly, mothers who have children — who can’t let the trash sit for five, six, seven and eight days.”

A shop owner on Sweitzer’s street hired Haigler to clear the block Tuesday. In turn, he hired two teenagers to help him while he drove a rental truck down the narrow, one-way street that ends at Pat’s King of Steaks.

”Our goal is to hopefully relieve some of that tension by cleaning as many blocks as we can, picking up as much trash as we can for customers, just to give some ease and some peace,” Haigler said.

The city has designated about 60 sites as drop-off centers for residential trash, but some are overflowing, while striking workers on hand ask residents not to cross the picket line. Most libraries across the city are also closed, with support workers and security guards off the job.

While Sweitzer hoped the strike would encourage more people to cut down on their trash through composting, city officials said other residents were taking advantage of the situation and discarding mattresses and other bulk items. Offenders in the city’s northeast even put out rotten chicken and cooking oil. The chicken tossers were arrested and face $5,000 fines, according to Carlton Williams, director of the city’s Office of Clean and Green Initiatives.

“This is not a free pass for illegal dumping around the city of Philadelphia,” Williams said Monday.

Rob Dillingham was rolling in January. The rookie point guard was getting more opportunities and taking advantage of them on a night to night basis, flashing his abilities to score and make plays.

Finally, after a 19-point, eight-assist showing in a win over Utah at the end of the month, Timberwolves television analyst Jim Petersen asked the teenager: “Is the game easy for you, Rob?”

“It is pretty easy,” Dillingham said with a big smile, “I’m not gonna lie.”

Then basketball did to Dillingham what it tends to do to players, particularly early in their professional careers – it humbled him.

In February, the guard shot just 36% from the field and 11% from distance. He looked like a different player from one month to the next.

What happened?

“It’s just a mental thing,” Dillingham said. “There was no difference from January to February – other than how I’m thinking about it.”

When he first got his opportunity in January after watching much of the first two-plus months of the season from the bench, Dillingham entered the situation thinking, “What do I have to lose?” He played free, and he delivered some of his best basketball because of it.

But as the calendar flipped, Dillingham noted he started to think about the imminent returns of injured players. Suddenly, every time he’d rise up for a shot, he’d think “Oh, I’ve got to make this to keep playing.”

That mindset rarely works in your favor. Even in the moment, Dillingham was able to attribute some of his struggles to his thought process. But it’s one thing to diagnose it, and it’s another to be able to actually correct course amid the grind that is the NBA season.

“That’s what I’ve learned, for real,” said Dillingham, who will open his second Summer League season on Thursday. “You just have to keep your mentals steady.”

It’s a lesson he partially learned from plane rides sitting by Nickeil Alexander-Walker. The guard, who departed to Atlanta via a sign-and-trade deal this offseason, was previously in a similar spot as Dillingham – coming off the bench, unsure of how many minutes he’d play or what his role would be. It’s a situation most players find themselves in early in their NBA careers.

Alexander-Walker often spoke of the mental challenges that came with the job, particularly the pressure you put on yourself to not mess up, for fear of losing playing time.

How do you deal with the anxiety of knowing a missed shot can lead to a spot on the pine?

“How he fixed it was just to keep doing it,” Dillingham said. “If you mess up, you mess up. What is there to lose, for real?”

Trust in the work. Trust in yourself. The now 20-year-old has buried himself in the gym this offseason. He has put an emphasis on doing what the Timberwolves need from him to be successful. He has taken every opportunity to work on his ability to “run a team” from the point guard spot.

Defense will always be a question mark for the guard, but Wolves Summer League head coach Kevin Hanson was impressed by the way Dillingham dug in on that end, even as a rookie.

Any shortcomings from Dillingham won’t be due to a lack of effort. He can control that.

“It’s not a lot of things you can fully control. When you try to control things, it don’t go your way,” Dillingham said. “When I get an opportunity, try my best and go as hard (as I can). I feel like when you’re scared of failure, that’s when you don’t even exert what you know you’ve got.”

Dillingham admits last season was difficult. He was a teenager who moved to a different part of the country and had to adjust to a new team, a new home and a new lifestyle – one that suddenly included less time playing competitive basketball.

“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Dillingham said. “Imagine you’ve been doing something your whole life, and then it just stops. You’re still doing it, but (not in the same way). That’s a terrible feeling sometimes.”

And there are very few familiar things around you to provide comfort.

“Obviously it’s hard, stressful,” Dillingham said. “You don’t know what to think sometimes. It makes you angry.”

But Dillingham hit a point where his perspective shifted. He started to view the situation as a challenge from God. He realized such challenges were a part of life that would aid in his elevation. How he handled it would determine his trajectory.

“I try to do my best every day. Obviously, I fall back into negative patterns sometimes. But humans do that. If you’re human, you’re going to mess up,”  Dillingham said. “Just keep going. No matter what we’re going to go through, you’ve just got to keep going and keep going, keep going. That’s how I look at it.”

And, eventually, you’ll come out on the other side. That’s where Dillingham may be now. He’s set up with a real opportunity to earn consistent playing time next season for the Timberwolves after leading the Summer League team this month as his comfortable, confident self.

“That’s really the main thing I’m focused on,” Dillingham said. “I’ve been working hard, and I feel like I do feel like a chance is coming. So it’s up to me to make the most of it.”

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Rob Dillingham (4) shoots over Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon, center left, during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

By KATE BRUMBACK

ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has ordered a mental evaluation of the Venezuelan man convicted of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.

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A judge in November found Jose Ibarra guilty of murder and other crimes in Riley’s February 2024 killing and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ibarra is seeking a new trial, and his lawyers asked the judge to order a mental evaluation as part of that process.

Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard’s order for a mental evaluation was sent to the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Tuesday, according to a letter filed with the court.

Riley’s killing became part of the national debate about immigration during last year’s presidential campaign. Ibarra had entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was allowed to stay while he pursued his immigration case, federal immigration authorities said after his arrest.

President Donald Trump in January signed into law the Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of unauthorized immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes.

Prosecutors said Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus on Feb. 22 and killed her during a struggle. Riley, 22, was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles east of Atlanta.

In a court filing last month, Ibarra’s post-conviction attorneys, James Luttrell and David Douds, said they believe Ibarra suffers from “congenital deficiency” that could make him “incapable of preparing a defense and standing trial.” Ibarra “lacks the mental capacity” to understand the proceedings, and his attorney wrote that he believes that was the case at the time of the killing and at the time of trial.

Ibarra, 27, had waived his right to a jury trial, meaning it was up to Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard alone to hear and decide the case.

“A criminal defendant must personally and intelligently participate in the waiver of the constitutional right to a trial by jury,” Luttrell and Douds wrote, noting that Ibarra’s trial attorney did not ask for a competency evaluation.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross wrote in a court filing responding to the request that there were “no challenges or concerns” about Ibarra’s competency prior to trial and that “there is nothing in the trial record that would suggest that Defendant was not competent during his trial.” But she wrote that she does not oppose the request for a competency evaluation.

Haggard last week filed an order asking the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities to evaluate Ibarra with the aid of a Spanish-language interpreter.

He asked for findings on whether Ibarra was capable of understanding the pretrial proceedings involving the waiver of his right to a jury trial, as well as the trial itself, and whether he was capable of assisting his attorney to prepare his defense. He also wants to know whether Ibarra understands the post-conviction proceedings and can aid in preparing his defense.

Ibarra was convicted on Nov. 20 and his attorneys filed a motion for a new trial on Dec. 2. Under Georgia law, a notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days of a conviction becoming final, which is the date of sentencing or the denial of a motion for a new trial, whichever is later. Therefore, the filing of a motion for a new trial effectively extends the deadline to file an appeal.

Ramsey County has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a woman’s lawsuit after she was raped by the driver of an Arkansas-based prison transport company contracted by the county.

Jennifer Seelig sued Ramsey County last year in U.S. District Court in Minnesota. She alleged the county and Inmate Services Corporation knew or should have known ISC’s transport officers had sexually assaulted female detainees before and during the county’s contract period with ISC as they had resulted in numerous lawsuits and were heavily publicized.

The settlement came after U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan denied the county’s motion to dismiss the case.

Ramsey County contracted with ISC to transport individuals to the county to appear on arrest warrants.

Employee Rogeric Hankins sexually assaulted Seelig in April 2020 in a Missouri rest stop bathroom while transporting her to St. Paul from Washington state, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Hankins pleaded guilty in federal court in Missouri in 2023 and was sentenced to nine years in prison for violating Seelig’s civil rights.

“Despite an ISC employee raping a Ramsey County detainee in 2019, just one year before Hankins raped Seelig, Ramsey County did nothing to prevent future rapes or sexual assaults. It maintained its contract with ISC and, in doing so, maintained a policy of deliberate indifference to the constitutional violations happening under its nose,” Seelig’s complaint stated.

2nd case still active

Another former Ramsey County inmate, Danielle Sivels, said she was raped by another employee of the same transportation company in 2019.

In a 2023 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, Sivels said she is one of at least 15 women Marquet Johnson sexually assaulted during inmate transports. She too faults Ramsey County officials for hiring ISC despite prominent media coverage about the company’s misconduct and despite knowing about the 2016 sexual assault of a Ramsey County inmate by a different transportation contractor.

In denying the county’s motion to dismiss Sivels’ lawsuit last year, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank wrote last year that it was a “close call at best” but “the totality of the allegations plausibly show that Ramsey County had notice of issues of sexual abuse by their transport contractors.”

That case still is pending.

Johnson was sentenced last year in U.S. District Court in New Mexico to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of willful deprivation of civil rights.

According to Seelig’s complaint, Ramsey County failed to perform its duties by contracting with ISC when it wasn’t licensed as a protective agent, which is required by state law. The county also was obligated to ensure that ISC always had “a custodial escort of the same sex” or maintained operational video and audio recording equipment for the entire transfer. When ISC transported Seelig, it did not have “a custodial escort of the same sex” or maintain operational video and audio recording equipment, according to the complaint.

Ramsey County commissioners unanimously approved the settlement Tuesday.

“Jennifer is a brave and strong woman who went through a terrible ordeal and has come through still fighting,” said J. Ashwin Madia, Seelig’s attorney, on Tuesday. “This settlement can’t undo what happened, but it at least allows for some closure so she can move forward with the next chapter of her life.”

Ramsey County officials declined to comment on the settlement Tuesday. A phone number connected to ISD appeared to no longer be in use.

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