By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal jury on Monday awarded $500,000 to the widow and estate of a police officer who killed himself nine days after he helped defend the U.S. Capitol from a mob of rioters, including a man who scuffled with the officer during the attack.

The eight-member jury ordered that man, 69-year-old chiropractor David Walls-Kaufman, to pay $380,000 in punitive damages and $60,000 in compensatory damages to Erin Smith for assaulting her husband, Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith, inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They awarded an additional $60,000 to compensate Jeffrey Smith’s estate for his pain and suffering.

The judge presiding over the civil trial dismissed Erin Smith’s wrongful-death claim against Walls-Kaufman before jurors began deliberating last week. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said no reasonable juror could conclude that Walls-Kaufman’s actions were capable of causing a traumatic brain injury leading to Smith’s death.

On Friday, the jury sided with Erin Smith and held Walls-Kaufman liable for assaulting her 35-year-old husband — an encounter captured on the officer’s body camera.

“Erin is grateful to receive some measure of justice,” said David P. Weber, one of her attorneys.

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Walls-Kaufman said the outcome of the trial is “absolutely ridiculous.”

“No crime happened. I never struck the officer. I never intended to strike the officer,” he said. “I’m just stunned.”

After the jury left the courtroom, Reyes encouraged the parties to confer and discuss a possible settlement to avoid the time and expense of an appeal and for the sake of “finality.”

“You guys settle, you can move on with your lives,” the judge said.

Walls-Kaufman’s attorney, Hughie Hunt, described the jury’s award as “shocking.”

“We’re talking about a three-second event,” he told the judge.

“It’s not shocking, Mr. Hunt. A lot of things can happen in three seconds,” Reyes replied.

Jeffrey Smith was driving to work for the first time after the Capitol riot when he shot and killed himself with his service weapon. His family said he had no history of mental health problems before the Jan. 6 riot. Erin Smith claims Walls-Kaufman struck her husband in the head with his own police baton, giving him a concussion and causing psychological and physical trauma that led to his suicide.

Walls-Kaufman, who lived a few blocks from the Capitol, denied assaulting Smith. He says any injuries that the officer suffered on Jan. 6 occurred later in the day, when another rioter threw a pole that struck Smith around his head.

The police department medically evaluated Smith and cleared him to return to full duty before he killed himself. In 2022, the District of Columbia Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board determined that Smith was injured in the line of duty and the injury was the “sole and direct cause of his death,” according to the lawsuit.

Walls-Kaufman served a 60-day prison sentence after pleading guilty to a Capitol riot-related misdemeanor in January 2023, but he was pardoned in January. On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack.

More than 100 law-enforcement officers were injured during the riot. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died a day after engaging with the rioters. A medical examiner later determined he suffered a stroke and died of natural causes. Howard Liebengood, a Capitol police officer who responded to the riot, also died by suicide after the attack.

By JOSEPH KRAUSS and WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As President Donald Trump floats the idea of “regime change” in Tehran, previous U.S. attempts to remake the Middle East by force over the decades offer stark warnings about the possibility of a deepening involvement in the Iran-Israeli conflict.

“If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” Trump posted on his social media site over the weekend. The came after the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear sites but before that country retaliated by firing its own missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar.

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday insisted that Trump, who spent years railing against “forever wars” and pushing an “America first” world view, had not committed a political about-face.

“The president’s posture and our military posture has not changed,” she said, suggesting that a more aggressive approach might be necessary if Iran ”refuses to give up their nuclear program or engage in talks.”

Leavitt also suggested that a new government in Iran could come about after its people stage a revolt — not necessarily requiring direct U.S. intervention.

“If they refuse to engage in diplomacy moving forward, why shouldn’t the Iranian people rise up,” she asked.

That’s a perilous path that other U.S. administrations have taken. And it’s a long way from Trump’s past dismissal of “stupid, endless wars,” and his scoffing at the idea of nation-building championed by his Republican predecessors — including in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. helped overthrow governments.

Some lessons learned from previous conflicts:

Initial success is often fleeting

U.S. special forces and Afghan allies drove the Taliban from power and chased Osama bin Laden into Pakistan within months of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. American tanks rolled into Baghdad weeks after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

But then, both wars went on for years.

FILE – A U.S. Army tank is parked outside the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad on May 6, 2003. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer, File)

The Taliban waged a tenacious, two-decade insurgency and swept back into power as the U.S. beat a chaotic retreat in 2021. The overthrow of Saddam plunged Iraq into chaos, with Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias battling each other and U.S. forces.

Israel has so far largely succeeded in taking out Iran’s air defenses and ballistic missiles and the U.S. strikes on three sites with missiles and 30,000-pound (13,600-kilogram) bunker-buster bombs has wrecked its nuclear program, Trump says. But that still potentially leaves hundreds of thousands in the military, the Revolutionary Guard and forces known as the Basij, who played a key role in quashing waves of anti-government protests in recent years.

Ground forces are key — but don’t guarantee success

Airstrikes have never been enough on their own.

Take, for example, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. His forces withstood a seven-month NATO air campaign in 2011 before rebels fighting city by city eventually cornered and killed him.

There are currently no insurgent groups in Iran capable of taking on the Revolutionary Guard, and it’s hard to imagine Israeli or U.S. forces launching a ground invasion of a mountainous country of some 80 million people that is about four times as big as Iraq.

FILE – A member of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force flashes a victory sign during a military parade outside of Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

A split in Iran’s own security forces would furnish a ready-made insurgency, but it would also likely tip the country into civil war.

There’s also the question of how ordinary Iranians would respond.

Protests in recent years show that many Iranians believe their government is corrupt and repressive, and would welcome its demise. But the last time a foreign power attacked Iran — the Iraqi invasion of 1980 — people rallied around the flag.

At the moment, many appear to be lying low or leaving the capital.

Be wary of exiled opposition groups

Some of the biggest cheerleaders for the U.S. invasion of Iraq were exiled opposition figures, many of whom had left the country decades before. When they returned, essentially on the back of U.S. tanks, they were marginalized by local armed groups more loyal to Iran.

There are several large Iranian opposition groups based abroad. But they are not united and it’s unclear how much support any of them has inside the country.

FILE – Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, holds a news conference in Paris on June 7, 2006. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, File)

The closest thing to a unifying opposition figure is Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the theocracy to power. But many Iranians have bitter memories of repression under the shah, and others might reject Pahlavi over his outreach to Israel, especially if he tries to ride to power on the back of a foreign invasion.

Chaos is practically guaranteed

In Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya — and in Syria and Yemen after their 2011 uprisings — a familiar pattern emerged when governments were overthrown or seriously weakened.

FILE – Hundreds of people desperate to escape Afghanistan run alongside a U.S. Air Force plane as it moves down a runway of the international airport in Kabul, Monday, Aug.16. 2021. (AP Photo, File)

Armed groups emerged with competing agendas. Neighboring countries backed local proxies. Weapons flowed in and large numbers of civilians fled. The fighting in some places boiled over into full-blown civil war, and ever more violent extremist groups sprouted from the chaos.

When it was all over, Saddam had been replaced by a corrupt and often dysfunctional government at least as friendly to Iran as it was to the United States. Gadhafi was replaced by myriad militias, many allied with foreign powers. The Taliban were replaced by the Taliban.

Weissert reported from Washington.

With majority ownership transfer to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez imminent, Glen and Becky Taylor penned a farewell to the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx organization on the Timberwolves’ website Monday.

The title: “Thank you, Minnesota.”

“After 30 unforgettable years, our time as owners of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx has come to a close. This marks the end of an extraordinary chapter in our lives — one filled with purpose, pride, and a deep connection,” the Taylors wrote. “When we kept the Timberwolves from moving to New Orleans in 1994, we did so with the hope of building something that could unite people across Minnesota and beyond. And when we added the Lynx in 1998, it was driven by our belief in supporting women and fully embracing the diversity and promise of the WNBA.”

The Taylors thanked their limited partners for joining them in the ownership journey, the players of past and present who “wore the jerseys with heart and determination,” the staff who “worked tirelessly behind the scenes” and the corporate and community partners who “supported us through the years.”

But their biggest thank you was to the fans.

“Your passion has been the soul of this organization. You welcomed us into your homes, your lives and your hearts,” the letter read. “The roar of Target Center, the sea of jerseys in the stands, the shared highs and lows and the belief in what we could accomplish together — it’s all been nothing short of remarkable.”

The Taylors noted that while their ownership period is coming to an end, their “love for this organization and this community remains as strong as ever.” They said owning the two teams has been “the honor of our lives.”

“We will always be fans, cheering from our seats, celebrating your triumphs,” the letter read, “and believing in what comes next.”

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As a rainstorm rolled in last Friday evening, hundreds of people eagerly filed through metal detectors at an 1,800-seat performing arts center in McAllen—the urban hub of Hidalgo County in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley—ahead of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ 13th stop on his nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.

Normally a stage for orchestra concerts and comedy shows, the venue, located about five miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, filled up now for a different reason: People from every age group, worried about the country’s future under Donald Trump’s control, crowded in to hear Sanders and Austin Democratic Congressman Greg Casar rally up the working class.

“McAllen, Texas, can be the birthplace of a new Democratic Party that puts working people first, kicks out the corrupt politicians regardless of party, and saves our country for everyday people,” Casar said, as he spoke ahead of introducing Sanders. 

The Valley, the four-county region of around 1.4 million mostly Latino residents at Texas’ southern tip, is no stranger to the controversial influence of billionaires like Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX has taken over what used to be Boca Chica Village and turned it into Texas’ newest city, Starbase, now mainly inhabited by SpaceX employees. Destroyed rocket parts litter Texan and Mexican beaches, and a recent SpaceX test ship exploded late at night startling nearby Brownsville residents and littering debris.

“Elon Musk does not own the Valley,” Casar—a second-term U.S. House member representing a district stretching from the capital city to San Antonio who was recently minted chair of the body’s progressive caucus—declared to the crowd.

Attendees at the McAllen event (Michael Gonzalez)

Sanders’ nationwide tour to mobilize individuals especially in conservative regions comes amid increased uncertainty about further impacts of Trump’s policies on the working class. During a time of restructuring in the Democratic Party, following last year’s presidential election defeat, Sanders pushed a populist message urging unity and action against oligarchic control and highlighted the profound impact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have had in communities like the Valley.

“Right now in McAllen and other parts of this country we’re seeing what authoritarianism is about in its ugliest way,” the senator said. We’re seeing people being stopped on the street being picked up at their workplace, thrown into vans and taken God knows where without due process.”

Sanders continued: “What Trump is doing is not just waging an attack against the working class of this country. He is moving America very rapidly and dangerously into an authoritarian form of society.”

Since 2016, support for Donald Trump has increased steadily throughout previously deep-blue far South Texas. In that year’s presidential election, Hillary Clinton won all Rio Grande Valley counties in a landslide. In Hidalgo County, Clinton prevailed over Trump by 40 points. But, in 2020, Biden carried the county by only 17, and in 2024 Trump won it by three—part of a stunning sweep of all four Valley counties.

Jon Taylor, chair of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s political science and geography department, believes that despite Trump’s electoral performance in last year’s election, the Democratic Party still has ample opportunity to seize the narrative and use populism to appeal to voters’ frustrations and anger. 

“Trump had this appeal to South Texas voters apparently because he’s strong, or he’s forceful,” Taylor told the Texas Observer. “I think Bernie might be really good at being able to just drive home that point about: What has it meant to you by voting for this guy? [Trump] cares about billionaires; he cares about megacorporations. He cares about giving all of them tax cuts and benefits.”

Despite increased support for Republicans in the region for almost ten years, Sanders was extremely popular during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, in which he won every populous border county in Texas.

Hidalgo County Democratic Party Chair Richard Gonzales describes himself as a moderate Democrat and personally views the region’s makeup as conservative and family-based. The area’s long-time Democratic elected officials at all levels tend to be conservatives on issues ranging from fossil fuels to guns to abortion. No local elected officials spoke at the Sanders rally.

But Gonzales sees the appeal of progressive policies, saying he thinks they may be part of the recipe for turning his county blue again. “When we look at what Senator Sanders stands for, I think it’s starting to become more okay to kind of buy into that idea, because we’re seeing what the opposite can do to us down here,” he told the Observer. 

Life in the Valley is largely a quiet existence, but near-daily ICE raids on local communities and workplaces have changed that. These aids have targeted businesses and construction sites from Brownsville to South Padre Island to McAllen. Notably, a bakery in Los Fresnos was targeted by ICE and HSI agents around mid-February, leading to multiple arrests including the owners. Pulgas once packed with people buying and selling goods including produce, antiques, and second-hand items are now oftentimes empty due to the fear of arrests by ICE agents. The Republican mayor of McAllen, Javier Villalobos, recently posted on Facebook that immigration enforcement is “negatively impacting all sectors of our economy” and called for the Trump administration to relax enforcement on all industries in need of labor.

Some locals at the Friday rally, like Michael Dutcher, expressed deep concern that their way of life is being threatened under Trump’s second administration. “Being a part of something to counter that is important to me,” Dutcher said. He had only heard of Sanders’ event hours before the start time and immediately made plans to attend.

Congressman Greg Casar (right) with Senator Bernie Sanders (Michael Gonzalez)

Sergio Salinas, a business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1015 in McAllen, showed up to the rally with several union members who sat on the stage behind the lectern. He referenced how Donald Trump threw around the word “union” on the campaign trail during last year’s election, yet he doesn’t believe that Republicans truly have the backs of unions. “The Republicans say that the unions are good, but where are they at?” Salinas said.

Standing beside vendors selling Bernie merch, attendee Danny Diaz, a local democratic precinct chair and longtime political organizer, said he hopes that change in the Valley’s political scene is soon to come. 

“I don’t think Latinos in South Texas are married to the Republican Party,” he said. “I think people respond well to Bernie Sanders down here. … I am willing to bet that if we really absorb the energy like the energy that we saw tonight, that we could bounce back and sweep these counties back to the Dem side.”

The post Can Economic Populism Win Back the Rio Grande Valley? appeared first on The Texas Observer.