“MVP and a championship.”

Those were Anthony Edwards’ stated goals entering the 2025-26 season. There was little reason to doubt his pursuit of either. The Timberwolves guard had made massive strides each season, dragging the franchise along with him in the process.

Why couldn’t he ascend to the sport’s ultimate individual and team heights this year?

This week is why.

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) looks to pass as Dallas Mavericks center Moussa Cisse (30) and guard Max Christie (00), back, defend during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Being the best player in the world – or something very close to it – requires a robotic-level of dominance.

You walk onto the court, you take over the game.

Rinse, repeat – for the 70-plus times you take the floor in the regular season and beyond. There’s no room for duds like the one Edwards delivered in Minnesota’s home win Wednesday over Washington. The guard was aggressive in the first quarter, logging 12 points, two steals, a rebound and a blocked shot.

But then the shots stopped falling, and Edwards stopped impacting the game in any way, shape or form. Minnesota fell off the tracks in the second half, allowing a once 27-point lead to be trimmed to five by the one-win Wizards with fewer than five minutes to play.

“Really (we just lost) our edge and our activity and our aggressiveness,” Wolves forward Julius Randle said. “All that stuff, we kind of just left it in (the locker room) at halftime.”

Edwards led the charge on Minnesota’s relative indifference. He played all 12 minutes in a third frame in which the Wolves were out-scored 36-23. In that quarter, he scored two points on 1 for 7 shooting. On top of the misfires, he accrued a grand total of zero assists, rebounds, steals or blocks.

More of the same came in the closing quarter, where he scored two points to go with an assist and a turnover. Edwards was invisible on offense and not impactful in any other phase of the game. If your shots aren’t falling — Edwards has hit just 3 of his 30 3-point attempts over the past four games — then do something else.

He finished with 18 points on 30% shooting to go with two rebounds and two assists against Washington.

MVP? MVP?

Hey, there are 82 games. You’re bound to be at less than your best at various points throughout the course of a regular season. But the game’s best – the ones who legitimately contend for the ultimate awards – make their presence felt on a nightly basis.

That stat line from Edwards against Washington – shooting 30% or worse from the field on a night where you also grab two or fewer rebounds and dish out two or fewer assists in 30-plus minutes of action – has never been replicated even one time by any of the following players:

-Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

-Giannis Antetokounmpo

-Luka Doncic

-Steph Curry

-LeBron James

-Kawhi Leonard

And many more. Including Randle, who’s had that consistent impact Minnesota has desperately needed all season. Without it, the Timberwolves simply wouldn’t be 10-5 at this point in the campaign.

Forget League MVP, Edwards isn’t carrying the bulk of his own team’s burden at the moment.

Even as a one off, Edwards’ game Wednesday is simply not a performance those other names would accept from themselves. But an even bigger issue is this clunker came directly off the heels of another.

Against Dallas on Monday, Edwards shot 35.7% from the field while recording four rebounds and three assists in 29 minutes. The 24 year old has now shot 36% or worse with four or fewer rebounds and three or fewer assists in 28-plus minutes in consecutive games.

Here’s how many single games in which that’s happened throughout the careers of Doncic and Jokic: Zero.

LeBron James has done it one time in 1,563 career games.

It hasn’t happened to Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum since they were 22 years old, and Gilgeous-Alexander since he was 23.

Those players represent a high bar, but that’s supposedly the air Edwards hopes to occupy. It’s not the stratosphere in which he currently resides. That realm is reserved for those who deliver consistent excellence on a game-to-game basis, something Minnesota’s All-NBA guard is still either unwilling or unable to achieve.

Those are the guys who are able to bear heavy loads deep into the postseason and lift trophies in late May and June. They build up those muscles throughout the season to the point where elite production becomes second nature. Even the exhausted versions of themselves can deliver it, because it’s all they know.

If Edwards can’t do that, then his current goals feel rather unreachable.

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Matt Boldy scored on a backhand shot in the shootout as the Minnesota Wild somehow withstood a relentless offensive effort by the Carolina Hurricanes, seeing a pair of two-goal leads slip away but prevailing for a 4-3 win.

Rookie goalie Jesper Wallstedt was the difference-maker with 43 saves as the Wild improved to 7-1-1 in November.

Wallstedt stopped all three shots he faced in the shootout, improving to 5-0-2 as a starter.

Right about the time the clock struck 9 p.m., with the game less than two minutes old, the Wild extended their franchise record and scored first in a 10th consecutive game. Brock Faber’s fourth goal of the year came on a precise redirect of a Mats Zuccarello shot.

While the Wild’s penalty kill, cumulatively, has hovered among the bottom five in the NHL all season, they mustered the best outcome available while rookie Zeev Buium was in the penalty box. Popping on a turnover at the far blue line, Boldy’s low shot gave Minnesota its first short-handed goal of the season, and the Wild’s first at home in nearly two years.

By late in the second period, Wallstedt’s shutout streak had stretched to nearly three full games. But with the Hurricanes’ offense coming in waves, the run was in obvious jeopardy.

Former Eden Prairie prep star Jackson Blake clanked the post in the latter half of the middle frame, then got the visitors on the board a few minutes later. The shutout streak of 175 minutes, 12 seconds was the fourth-longest in franchise history.

It was also the first five-on-five goal allowed by the Wild in more than 302 minutes.

With the disastrous second period behind them, Zuccarello’s breakaway goal just 15 seconds into the third gave the Wild some needed breathing room. It was Zuccarello’s first goal of the season, and gave him six points in six games since returning from an injury that had him out of the lineup for the first month.

But third-period goals by Sebastian Aho and Blake ,again — with 66 seconds left in regulation — and the Carolina goalie on the bench, forced overtime. Wallstedt’s body of work included stopping Blake on an overtime breakaway.

Frederik Andersen had 16 saves for Carolina, which beat the Wild 4-3 in Raleigh two weeks ago — Minnesota’s only regulation loss of the month.

The Wild next head out on a three-game, pre-Thanksgiving road trip starting Friday evening when they make their only visit to Pittsburgh this season.

Briefly

With the PWHL’s Minnesota Frost beginning their drive for a third consecutive Walter Cup title on Friday when they open the season at Grand Casino Arena versus Toronto, members of the Wild showed support for their co-tenants in the downtown St. Paul rink before facing Carolina. Matt Boldy, Jake Middleton, Brock Faber and several other Wild players made their entrance to the locker room wearing the distinctive purple and white Frost sweaters on Wednesday. Frost stars Taylor Heise and Grace Zumwinkle, holding the team’s two Walter Cup trophies, led the “Let’s Play Hockey!” cheer before the game’s opening faceoff.

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In March, Patrick Bollom sued the city of St. Paul, as well as the director of the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections and a plan review supervisor, claiming he had been overcharged for $1,960.78 in building permits to perform construction on his Berkeley Avenue home.

Rather than simply demand a partial refund on his own behalf, the Macalester-Groveland homeowner has maintained that his case forms the basis of a class-action lawsuit that could force the city to rewrite its permitting fees and possibly return $1.5 million to $6.6 million in overcharges per year to permit holders.

The cumulative citywide overcharges, according to his lawsuit, total more than $22 million from 2018 to 2023 alone, and were documented in the city’s own building reports to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Bollom, a self-described “serial entrepreneur” and former sales manager for technology consultants, has called for refunds, in essence, for everyone.

The city has denied Bollom’s claims and maintained that they’ve acted within their rights and duties to collect permit fees, including remittances required for state coffers. Still, City Hall’s efforts to get his lawsuit dismissed in Ramsey County District Court have been unsuccessful to date. In August, the city requested and received a 120-day pause in legal proceedings, given the impact of a weeks-long cyberattack that had made accessing city records difficult, if not impossible.

Continuance sought

On Nov. 10, St. Paul City Attorney Lyndsey Olson asked Judge Leonardo Castro for another 120-day stay in legal proceedings, given that most permitting records have yet to be transferred to the city’s new record-keeping software known as PAULIE. The judge’s response has yet to be filed. On Tuesday, Shawn Raiter, Bollom’s attorney with the St. Paul law firm of Larson King, filed a response indicating they were open to a partial stay on some aspects of the case but “there are numerous other things that can be accomplished without that data.”

If granted by Ramsey County District Court, the continuance would push the case into February, leaving unanswered legal questions in the lap of a new mayoral administration, and possibly a new city attorney, just as a new city budget rolls out amid federal funding cuts and other fiscal challenges.

State Rep. Kaohly Her this month won election as mayor over incumbent Mayor Melvin Carter, who had sought a third term in office. Her has not indicated whether she will replace all or most of the city’s department leaders and other top City Hall staff, but some officials have said they have no illusions that their time may be limited.

Pass-through fees or revenue generators?

The city council held a closed-door meeting last week to discuss Bollom’s litigation.

Building permit costs are determined by the city’s fee schedule and required for new construction and building additions, including certain plumbing, mechanical and electrical installation, as well as construction removal, remodeling or repair.

Bollom’s lawsuit notes that a state rule governing building permits says the fees must be “proportionate to the actual cost of the service for which the fee is imposed,” but some cities use building permit revenue to pad their general funds. The issue has been highlighted by some state lawmakers and housing advocates such as the Housing Affordability Institute.

Bollom maintains permit fees are intended to be a pass-through of actual costs related to permitting, and not a way to generate new general revenue. He noted that in October 2024, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed new licensing fees related to carbon dioxide pollution, noting the fees would expose the city to legal action because they did not appear to be calculated around actual costs of service and likely would constitute, in the eyes of the law, an unauthorized tax.

Bollom said he was charged by the city for electrical permits, warm air permits, mechanical permits, a plumbing permit and a building permit, all of which added up to $1,960.78. His lawsuit does not specify the degree of refund he maintains he is entitled to. A call to his attorney was not returned Friday and efforts to reach him directly were unsuccessful.

He contends, however, that in the case of his Berkeley Avenue home, his permit costs “exceeded the actual cost St. Paul incurred to perform the services needed to review and approve the applications,” which he maintains violates the Minnesota Constitution, amounts to unlawful taxation, a due process violation, unjust enrichment and disgorgement.

Lawsuit

Filed March 11, his eight-count, 63-page lawsuit is seeking a “writ of mandamus” — or court order to the city to perform a legally required duty — and declaratory and injunctive relief. The city has denied all of his claims, including that they form the basis for a class action.

In addition to the city and the director of DSI, Bollom’s lawsuit specifically lists plan review supervisor James Williamette as a defendant. Williamette, a past chairman of the Association of Minnesota Building Officials, was featured in a 2019 investigative story by the Minnesota Star Tribune, which had uncovered an email that he had sent to fellow association board members — most of them municipal building officials — acknowledging that overcharges were both illegal and widespread.

“We all have to agree we know it has been happening. We all know that when we said something about it (it) fell on deaf ears,” said Williamette in the email, which is quoted at length in Bollom’s lawsuit. “We all know that pushing this issue with management was always difficult and a few of our peers were let go over this.”

Williamette said in the email that municipal building officials had little control over how the money is allocated, and “the fact is most cities depend on permit revenue to help balance the budget.”

Defendants released from case

In June, Castro granted the city’s request to release Williamette and DSI Director Angie Wiese as defendants in the case, as well as other unnamed city building officials, noting the lawsuit failed to state specific claims against them.

The city has rolled out the new online permitting and record-keeping software known as PAULIE, and it has yet to absorb all of the records that were stored in the previous interfaces, known as AMANDA and ECLIPS, according to the city attorney’s memorandum in support of a possible legal continuance.

PAULIE only contains complete records for permit applications submitted after July 25, as the city is still in the process of transferring older documents.

“DSI relies heavily on its digital portals relative to permit and plan reviews. The cyberattack severely impacted DSI in its ability to administer permits and review plans,” reads the legal memo. “Because of the cyber-attack’s impact on those systems, to date, the city has been unable to successfully transfer that data to PAULIE.”

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office declined further comment, noting the city generally avoids commenting on pending litigation.

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For every man older than 110, there are nine women. Before she died in August at age 117,  supercentenarian Maria Branyas — the world’s oldest verified person — credited her bonus years not to any high-tech interventions but to eating lots of plain yogurt.

Her successor is also a woman, 116-year-old Ethel Catherman. And the record for longevity is held by another woman, Jean Calment, who lived to see her 122nd birthday.

Scientists still don’t fully understand why women live longer than men. The aging process differs between the sexes, and in most mammals, females tend to live longer than males. Understanding the roots of these biological differences could help researchers better understand aging in both men and women — and perhaps even reveal new clues to slowing it down.

For example, it remains unclear why women who undergo menopause later in life tend to live longer — and stay healthier. The answer isn’t just relevant to women’s health: a man’s longevity also appears to correlate with the age at which his sisters undergo menopause. Scientists likewise don’t fully understand why women worldwide live, on average, a few years longer than men, yet are more likely to suffer from debilitating conditions such as arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease.

What researchers do know is that the human ovary follows its own clock and, unlike other organs, begins to age early. When women are still relatively young — in their late 30s and 40s — their ovaries undergo rapid aging, with cellular damage comparable to that in other organs decades later, in our 60s, 70s and 80s.

And yet, until relatively recently, research on aging — like most medical research — was traditionally focused on males.  Male humans and even male lab animals were long thought to be equivalent to females, just without the “complications” of fluctuating hormones or pregnancy. That bias began to shift in the 1990s when researchers started enrolling more women in clinical trials. Then, over the last decade, several new initiatives prompted the National Institutes of Health to require the use of more female lab animals and female cells in research.

“And surprise — it turned out there’s a huge difference based on sex, no matter what you do,” said Yousin Suh, a professor of reproductive sciences at Columbia University.

Pushing for the inclusion of female animals and humans has not only made medical research fairer to women, but it has also given scientists new insights into how the body works, insights that may be lost on the current administration, which is canceling research it deems connected to diversity initiatives.

That’s unfortunate for everyone — women and men alike. Suh is leading a study using the human ovary as a test case for anti-aging drugs. Scientists have had considerable success slowing aging in mice, but those same techniques have not translated to humans. Ovaries may offer a better model because they consist of human cells programmed to age faster than those in other organs.

Suh’s earlier research showed that ovarian cells undergo the same aging-related steps as the rest of our bodies: DNA accumulates mutations; the “epigenetic” system that activates and silences genes becomes scrambled; cellular “power plants” known as mitochondria lose function; and stem cells lose their ability to regenerate tissue.

She’s currently co-leader of a clinical trial enrolling young and middle-aged women to investigate the effects of a potential anti-aging drug called rapamycin. The drug, derived initially from soil collected on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), is currently approved to suppress immunity and prevent rejection of transplanted organs.

Multiple studies have shown that rapamycin can dramatically slow aging in mice, and while some researchers suspect it could extend the human lifespan too, proving it would take decades, given how long humans live.

A faster timescale is one big advantage of studying human ovaries. Researchers are monitoring the effects of rapamycin on various markers of ovarian health, aging and fertility, Suh said, noting that any improvements in fertility could reflect broader anti-aging effects.

Other lines of research are exploring why women, on average, live about five years longer than men. A 2020 study found that in animals with sex chromosomes, the sex with a matching pair — such as our XX — lived about 18% longer on average than those with mismatched chromosomes, such as our XY.

A study published last month in Science Advances reported that females have a higher life expectancy across most mammalian species. In contrast, males have a longevity advantage in most bird species, where they carry matching ZZ chromosomes and females have mismatched WZ pairs.

Another driver of sex differences in aging is the force of sexual selection — the evolution of traits that boost reproductive success, sometimes at the cost of survival. Males might die earlier, for example, if they’ve sunk lots of energy into developing physical traits for display or combat against rivals — such as bright coloration, large horns or antlers, or greater body size.

And then there’s the mystery of menopause — a rare phenomenon in the animal world. Most female animals remain fertile until they are nearing the end of their lives, while only humans and a few marine mammals experience an extended healthy post-fertile phase. In some whale species, males die around the same age that females reach menopause — yet the females go on to live almost twice as long.

For all the centuries that people have yearned to live longer, we’ve only just begun to understand why and how we age. Scientists still don’t know why nobody — male or female — lives beyond about 120 years, or what it will take to surpass that apparent barrier.

However, maintaining better physical and cognitive health as we get older looks both achievable and imperative with an aging world population. Only through more targeted and sustained research will we discover how to do that — whether with anti-aging drugs or even advanced probiotic formulations of something as simple as plain yogurt.

The Trump administration’s war on diversity and inclusion in science rests on the notion that helping or studying some groups necessarily puts others at a disadvantage. That logic falls apart in biology, where diversity is fundamental to how life evolves and thrives — and ignoring it isn’t good for anyone.

F.D. Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering science. She is host of the “Follow the Science” podcast.