Timberwolves coach Chris Finch was asked in early March who would take charge in the team’s attempt to finally be the best version of itself on a night-to-night basis.

The coach noted Minnesota needed “a little bit of a galvanizer.”

Anthony Edwards? Julius Randle? Mike Conley?

Not quite.

“Joe Ingles has been really good,” Finch said. “He’s kind of been a galvanizing voice for us right now.”

Ingles hardly saw the floor last season after signing with Minnesota in the summer of 2024 — a side effect of Minnesota acquiring Donte DiVincenzo via trade on the eve of training camp.

But Ingles didn’t complain and led from off the floor. During the playoffs, Wolves point guard Conley noted he and the 37-year-old wing were instructing their younger teammates at every turn, whenever they say something worth noting.

“We communicate it immediately. It’s not something we wait for the film to say. If I need Ant to do something, I tell him right away, like, ‘You said we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it,’ ” Conley said. “If I’m getting back on defense and guarding a big, I need our bigs to run back and help. We need to all be on the same page. We’re tied to the hip right now. Our communication is at an all-time high. So, we’ve just got to continue to do that.”

That communication and veteran leadership will remain intact next season, as a source confirmed that Minnesota has agreed to a one-year, $3.6 million deal with Ingles.

It’s a veteran minimum contract that will count at $2.2 million against the Timberwolves’ ever-shrinking salary cap space below the dreaded second apron that would severely limit their ability to manage the roster. Minnesota still has two roster spots open, and could fill one or both with the less than $6 million remaining it has in room.

Free agency officially began Monday evening.

Minnesota entered it with most of its core back from the 2024-25 campaign that reached into a second consecutive Western Conference Final. Nickeil Alexander-Walker was the only rotational piece expected to depart. The plan is for the guard’s role to be replaced by a bevy of young guards and wings ranging from Terrence Shannon Jr. to Jaylen Clark and Rob Dillingham.

Helping those guys grow into their likely growing roles? Ingles.

“He’s been everything for us in terms of maturity. He’s helped all the young guys. He’s helped the vets,” Finch said last season. “Everyone always talks about (how) you have to have the vets on your team to help everybody, but the dirty little secret is a lot of vets you may not want to be on your team. They’re trying to hang on to their career. They’re salty, they’re selfish. There are a lot of things. Not all vets are created the same.

“But with Joe, we’ve got an all-star in that capacity. He’s just selfless, direct, has the right approach, the right manner. He’s helped everybody from Rob Dillingham to Rudy. He can talk to Rudy, and Rudy has great respect for him, and it just helps. He’s been seamless and invaluable.”

And he’s not going anywhere.

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Joe Ingles, center, clowns around with Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland, front, as he talks with referee John Goble (10) after a whistle in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Feb. 10, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

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GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — The imprisoned leader of a notorious polygamist sect fraudulently transferred $834,000 to his brother in an effort to hide the money from one of his victims.

That was the verdict reached Friday afternoon by a seven-member Cook County jury in a lawsuit brought against the fundamentalist Mormon leaders over a North Shore real estate transaction near Grand Marais several years ago.

The panel ruled in favor of Elissa Wall, who already holds a $10 million judgment against Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wall says she has yet to collect a cent on the 2017 Utah judgment.

The plaintiff and her attorneys successfully argued that the convicted child sexual abuser funneled assets to his brother, Seth Jeffs, who, in turn, purchased and sold the Cook County property.

Wall, who at 14 was forced to marry her cousin, has spoken out about sexual, physical and emotional abuse suffered within the cult. She is now an author, speaker and advocate for others attempting to leave the FLDS.

“I am deeply grateful to the Cook County jury for their dedication to civic duty,” Wall said in a statement. “This verdict brings a measure of accountability in a long and difficult fight for justice. It marks an important step toward challenging the structures and schemes that have enabled abuse and control within the FLDS for far too long.”

Still, there is likely a long road ahead for Wall in her hopes of collecting funds from Seth Jeffs, 52, as post-trial motions and an appeal are expected.

“I think there are several appealable issues, and that’s what we plan on doing,” said Duluth attorney William Paul, who represents Seth Jeffs.

FILE – In this July 28, 2011 photo, Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs arrives at the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo, Texas. An internal struggle for control of Jeffs’ polygamous church could soon be settled by Utah commerce officials. In April, William E. Jessop filed papers with the state ousting Jeffs as president of the corporations that comprise the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011 is the deadline set by the Utah Department of Commerce for the sides to provide a resolution, or a court order settling the dispute. Jeffs has led the church since 2002. He’s currently on trial in Texas on sexual assault charges. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

The lawsuit, filed nearly two years ago, stemmed from Seth Jeffs’ controversial purchase and sale of a 40-acre property. Plans to build on the site never materialized, but his presence in the remote community attracted significant public outcry.

Jeffs and his attorney argued he received the funds from the construction work he did through his company, Emerald Industries, primarily at a cabin in Lutsen.

Warren Jeffs, 69, is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison. However, he reportedly continues to exert control over the cult.

Wall said the cult operates “almost exclusively in cash transactions” and that Seth Jeffs “acts as a conduit for funds from Warren Jeffs and his agents.” She claimed Emerald is one of many shell companies that make up a “loosely knit, shadow organization” controlled by Warren Jeffs after FLDS lost control of its financial arm due to a series of lawsuits.

Warren Jeffs was served with the lawsuit in prison but never responded and was ruled in default.

Paul, the attorney for Seth Jeffs, had called the case “weak and frivolous” and said Wall had not provided “a scintilla of evidence” that Warren Jeffs had anything to do with the Cook County transaction. Among other evidence, he cited a $62,000 check Seth Jeffs received for work at the Lutsen property shortly before buying the land for $54,000.

But Wall’s attorneys, Richard Furlong and Tyson Smith, noted Seth Jeffs acknowledged not having a paying job from 2007 to 2016, with any bills covered by the cult, and pointed to old ledgers that showed cash transfers to him.

Private investigator Sam Brower, who has spent 20 years tracking the Jeffs brothers and the FLDS, also alleged that Seth Jeffs is a “trusted courier” for the cult and that leaders were directed to acquire properties around the country as “places of refuge.”

Seth Jeffs sold the Cook County property for $130,000 in July 2023 — just hours before Wall obtained an emergency order from the court in an attempt to prevent the sale. About $60,000 has remained frozen in his bank account pending resolution of the lawsuit.

The FLDS, which has its largest base at the Utah-Arizona border, is well-known for its polygamy — a practice that was abandoned by the mainstream Mormon church in 1890.

FLDS entered the national spotlight two decades ago after a series of allegations were made against Warren, who was charged with several crimes, including Wall’s arranged marriage.

While his Utah conviction was later overturned by a higher court, he was successfully tried in Texas for raping two girls, 15 and 12, and handed a life term plus 20 years.

Seth Jeffs, too, has faced legal troubles, pleading guilty in 2006 to harboring his brother, who was then on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted,” and admitting to his role in a massive food stamp fraud while leading an FLDS compound in South Dakota in 2016.

Wall authored a book, “Stolen Innocence,” about her experience, and the cult has been featured in recent documentary miniseries on Peacock, Netflix and Discovery+.

Seth Jeffs testified pretrial that he had no contact with his brother from 2016 until 2023, when he started writing monthly letters to him in prison. He said he never received a response, but does continue to follow his prophet brother’s “revelations.”

The jury found Warren Jeffs liable for transferring $250,000 worth of assets to Seth Jeffs and $584,000 to Emerald. Both were done with “actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud” Wall, the panel concluded.

“There is still much work ahead to dismantle the grip of FLDS and Warren Jeffs,” Wall said, “but I will keep shining light in dark places and standing with those still finding their voice and the freedom to live life on their own terms.”

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By NICHOLAS RICCARDI

Immigration and administration lawyers on Monday battled over whether President Donald Trump can use an 18th century wartime act against a Venezuelan gang in a case that is likely to ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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The attorneys sparred before a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the latest step in a tangled legal battle over Trump’s March invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against the Tren de Aragua gang.

The law has only previously been used during World Wars I and II and the War of 1812. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told the three-judge panel that Trump’s use of it is inappropriate. “This has only been invoked three times in major, major wars, and now it’s being invoked in connection with a gang,” Gelernt said.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign, arguing for the administration, said that courts cannot second-guess a president’s determination that the U.S. faces a threat from abroad and requires extraordinary measures to protect itself. He noted that the only time the high court weighed in on the act was in a case that dates from after fighting in Europe ended in World War II, when the court said it could not second-guess then-President Harry Truman’s assertion that suspected Nazis should still be held under the act because the war was still continuing.

“The president is due the utmost deference” in matters of foreign affairs and security, Ensign said.

Trump’s invocation has already been twice before the nation’s highest court on more technical issues. First, the court found that those accused of being TdA members deserved a “reasonable” amount of time to challenge that designation in court, but that their deportations could only be challenged in the locations they were held. That eliminated a national bar against deportations under the act issued by a federal judge in Washington, who later found the administration possibly committed contempt when it disregarded his orders and continued to fly some held under the AEA to a prison in El Salvador.

Then, after the ACLU and its allies began filing suits all around the country and winning rulings barring deportations under the measure, the high court stepped in a second time. In April it issued an unusual post-midnight ruling stopping the administration from deporting people from a slice of north Texas where there was yet no active ruling against removal.

As multiple lower court judges found the AEA couldn’t be used against a gang, the high court directed the 5th Circuit to consider the issue and how much time those held should have to challenge their designation.

The government, which initially provided minimal notice, now says the standard should be seven days to file an appeal. The ACLU argued for 30 days, the amount of time given to suspected Nazis held during World War II.

The panel that heard Monday’s arguments was comprised of one judge appointed by Trump, one by former President George W. Bush and one by Biden. Whatever it rules can be appealed to either the entire 5th circuit — one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the country — or directly to the high court.

Trump has argued that TdA is acting at the behest of Venezuela’s government. The Act allows its use to combat either an “invasion” or a “predatory incursion.”

But the ACLU argues that the connection between the gang and the Venezuelan government is tangential at best, and that an assessment by 17 different intelligence agencies found little coordination between TdA and the government in Caracas. Gelernt contended that, by the standards laid out by the administration, the AEA could have been used against the mafia or any other criminal organization with tangential ties to other countries that has operated in the United States over the past 200 years.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday questioned when the Trump administration will try to enforce its birthright citizenship executive order and asked if the government would attempt to deport U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally or temporarily before restrictions on birthright citizenship might take effect in late July.

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Justice Department attorney Brad Rosenberg told U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman that the administration doesn’t intend to deport any children covered by President Donald Trump’s executive while the Supreme Court has suspended its enforcement for 30 days. He called it a “hypothetical” question.

The judge gave Rosenberg until Tuesday to submit a written summary of what the administration believes it “can and can’t do” after last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling. She asked if the government would be “seeking to deport babies” before July 26. The judge said her question referred to children who were born after Feb. 19 and are covered by Trump’s executive order but aren’t plaintiffs in litigation challenging the order.

“No,” Rosenberg said. “I just want to be clear. I am responding to the court’s characterization of what it believes the United States might do after 30 days from the date of the Supreme Court’s decision. But, again, I would note that (federal agencies) have all been tasked with developing guidelines for implementation of the executive order. So I view that as a hypothetical.”

“I take the government at its word that the United States does not intend to do that and it is not doing that,” Boardman said.

Plaintiffs’ attorney William Powell said their clients are experiencing “incredible stress, anxiety and fear” after the Supreme Court’s decision.

“They’re not lawyers. It is confusing to them exactly what these things mean,” Powell told the judge. “We can’t really assure them, ‘Oh, no, the order is fully blocked,’ because it’s not.”

Powell said deportation isn’t the only “irreparable harm” that plaintiffs’ attorneys are concerned about.

“We’re obviously also concerned about other potential ways in which the (executive) order could be enforced to deprive newborns of potential rights,” he said.

Boardman, who sits in Greenbelt, Maryland, isn’t the only district court judge grappling with how to tailor their orders to comply with the Supreme Court decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Judges in Massachusetts and Washington state have issued a a separate orders on birthright citizenship, as has a judge in New Hampshire, though that order applied more narrowly and wasn’t nationwide.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, who along with other states and cities brought a case in Massachusetts federal court, said in a letter Monday he was seeking a hearing on whether a nationwide order blocking the president is warranted. Platkin said the nationwide injunction in New Jersey’s case doesn’t run afoul of the Supreme Court’s recent opinion but added the high court offered “alternative forms of relief” while leaving debate over what those could be to lower courts.

The high court’s majority ruled that federal judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, but the decision left unclear whether Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship could soon take effect in parts of the country.

Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship is applied.

Trump and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen.

Associated Press writers Mark Sherman and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.