Maybe Anthony Edwards was right — maybe this IS Timberwolves basketball.

No energy on the defensive end, on the glass or through extra actions or passes on offense. The end result was the same as it was when Minnesota was torched by Brooklyn in Minneapolis last Saturday, as the Hawks blitzed the Timberwolves, 126-102 in Atlanta in a New Year’s Eve matinee.

Not exactly how you want to ring in the new year.

After a first half in which Minnesota was outscored 70-49, Wolves assistant coach Micah Nori told the local broadcast those first two quarters marked “probably the worst half of basketball in five years since we’ve been here.”

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch told reporters postgame the team “looked slow everywhere.” Atlanta tallied eight offensive rebounds in the first quarter alone, and finished the game with 16. The Hawks had 64 points in the paint to Minnesota’s 36.

“They took it to us,” Finch said.

Nori had hypothesized that Atlanta would allow Minnesota to get back into the game. This was a Hawks team that entered Wednesday’s tilt as losers of seven straight games and 11 of their previous 13.

The issue, he noted, had nothing to do with making shots or anything of that ilk.

“You hate to say it, but it’s almost like the care factor,” Nori said. “Loose balls on the floor, they get on the floor, we don’t. The offensive rebounds, not hitting people, not getting loose balls and offering no resistance. So, if you want to talk about what we can do better, I hate to say it, but blanket (statement) — everything.”

What does it say about Minnesota that no such comeback occurred?

Minnesota only trimmed the deficit to 14 points in the third quarter, and Atlanta instantly pushed its lead back out from there. The Wolves have rallied to beat some bad teams via strong second halves this season, but there has been no such resilience in recent losses.

Minnesota has now lost three of its last four games, with two of the defeats coming in convincing fashion to relatively bad teams. Finch wasn’t sounding any alarms after the game. He noted there was no need to rip into anyone. Everyone saw the game. Everyone knew they stunk.

He also said the Wolves have “played good basketball most of the season.”

But what’s become apparent is if you’re willing to push pace and play hard, you can beat this not-so-hungry pack of Wolves. Atlanta got at least nine points from seven players on Wednesday, led by 34 points from star forward Jaylen Johnson, who added 10 rebounds and six assists. Nickeil Alexander-Walker had 11 points in his first game against his former team.

The Hawks (16-19) tallied 38 assists Wednesday while running circles around their opponent.

Minnesota next plays in Miami on Saturday.

“Another tough team that plays really, really hard and runs full court,” Finch said, “so we’ve got to regroup.”

Finch noted there are “obviously” things Minnesota (21-13) must address. The recent defensive effort is laughable. But he added there’s plenty of basketball still to be played. While 2025 is now over, there are still 48 games remaining in the regular season.

“We’ve been through stretches like this. Every team goes through it,” Finch said. “They’ll hang together.”

They didn’t appear to Wednesday. Anthony Edwards scored 30 points, but reportedly threw his towel and left the floor after Minnesota’s starters were removed with eight minutes remaining and the game well out of reach.

In a time where leadership is required, the 24 year old isn’t providing it.

“Obviously, (he was) frustrated with the performance and rightfully so,” Finch said, “but he needs to stay out on the floor and root for his team.”

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By STEPHEN GROVES

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has ended the lease agreement for three public golf courses in Washington, a move that offers President Donald Trump an additional opportunity to put his stamp on another piece of the nation’s capital.

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The National Links Trust, the nonprofit that has operated Washington’s three public courses on federal land for the last five years, said Wednesday that the Department of the Interior had terminated its 50-year lease agreement. The Interior Department said it was terminating the lease because the nonprofit had not implemented required capital improvements and failed to meet the terms of the lease.

While it was unclear what the Trump administration’s plans are for the golf courses, the move gives Trump, whose private company has developed numerous golf courses in the U.S. and abroad, the chance to remake links overlooking the Potomac River and in Rock Creek Park and a site that is part of Black golf history.

Officials for the National Links Trust said in a statement that they were “devastated” by the decision to terminate the lease and defended their management of the courses. They said $8.5 million had gone toward capital improvements at the courses and that rounds played and revenue had more than doubled in their tenure managing the courses. The nonprofit has agreed to keep managing the courses for the time being, but long-term renovations will stop.

“While this termination is a major setback, we remain stubbornly hopeful that a path forward can be found that preserves affordable and accessible public golf in the nation’s capital for generations to come,” the officials added.

The Department of the Interior’s decision comes as Trump rebrands civic spaces in Washington and deploys National Guard members to the streets for public safety. The Kennedy Center added Trump’s name this month after the center’s board of trustees — made up of Trump appointees — voted to change the name of the performing arts space designated by Congress as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. Trump is also in the midst of a construction project to build a ballroom on the White House’s East Wing, and he has put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace.

By ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Jan. 6. riot at the U.S. Capitol “does not happen” without Donald Trump, former special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers earlier this month in characterizing the Republican president as the “most culpable and most responsible person” in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

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The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee released on Wednesday a transcript and video of a closed-door interview Smith gave about two investigations of Trump. The document shows how Smith during the course of a daylong deposition repeatedly defended the basis for pursuing indictments against Trump and vigorously rejected Republican suggestions that his investigations were politically motivated.

“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit,” Smith said, bristling at a question about whether his investigations were meant to prevent Trump from reclaiming the presidency in 2024.

“So in terms of why we would pursue a case against him, I entirely disagree with any characterization that our work was in any way meant to hamper him in the presidential election,” he added.

The Dec. 17 deposition was conducted privately despite Smith’s request to testify publicly. The release of the transcript and video of the interview, so far Smith’s only appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving his special counsel position last January, adds to the public understanding of the decision-making behind two of the most consequential Justice Department investigations in recent history.

Trump was indicted on charges of conspiring to undo the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and of willfully retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Both cases were abandoned after Trump’s 2024 election win, with Smith citing Justice Department policy against the indictment of a sitting president.

Smith repeatedly made clear his belief that the evidence gathered against Trump was strong enough to sustain a conviction. Part of the strength of the Jan. 6 case, Smith said, was the extent to which it relied on the testimony of Trump allies and supporters who cooperated with the investigation.

“We had an elector in Pennsylvania who is a former congressman, who was going to be an elector for President Trump, who said that what they were trying to do was an attempt to overthrow the government and illegal,” Smith said. “Our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party.”

Accounts from Republicans willing to stand up against the falsehood that the election had been stolen “even though it could mean trouble for them” created what Smith described as the “most powerful” evidence against Trump.

When it came to the Capitol riot itself, Smith said, the evidence showed that Trump “caused it and that he exploited it and that it was foreseeable to him.”

Asked whether there was evidence that Trump had instructed supporters to riot at the Capitol, Smith said that Trump in the weeks leading to the insurrection got “people to believe fraud claims that weren’t true.”

“He made false statements to State legislatures, to his supporters in all sorts of contexts and was aware in the days leading up to January 6th that his supporters were angry when he invited them and then he directed them to the Capitol,” Smith said.

“Now, once they were at the Capitol and once the attack on the Capitol happened, he refused to stop it. He instead issued a tweet that without question in my mind endangered the life of his own Vice President. And when the violence was going on, he had to be pushed repeatedly by his staff members to do anything to quell it.”

Some of the deposition focused on Republican anger at revelations that the Smith team had obtained, and analyzed, phone records of GOP lawmakers who were in contact with Trump on Jan. 6. Smith defended the maneuver as lawful and by-the-book, and suggested that outrage over the tactic should be directed at Trump and not his team of prosecutors.

Former Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith accompanied by his attorney Lanny Breuer, leave after his closed-door interview with House Republicans at Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

“Well, I think who should be accountable for this is Donald Trump. These records are people, in the case of the senators, Donald Trump directed his co-conspirators to call these people to further delay the proceedings. He chose to do that. If Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would have gotten toll records for Democratic senators.”

The communications between Trump and Republican supporters in Congress were an important component of the case, Smith said. He cited an interview his office did with Mark Meadows in which Trump’s then-chief of staff referenced that Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and current chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had been in touch with the White House on the afternoon of the riot.

“And what I recall was Meadows stating that ‘I’ve never seen Jim Jordan scared of anything,’ and the fact that we were in this different situation now where people were scared really made it clear that what was going on at the Capitol could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was,” Smith said.

Smith was also asked whether his team evaluated former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive claim that Trump that grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the U.S. Capitol building after a rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith told lawmakers that investigators interviewed the officer who was in the car, “who said that President Trump was very angry and wanted to go to the Capitol,” but the officer’s version of events “was not the same as what Cassidy Hutchinson said she heard from somebody secondhand,” Smith said.

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’s dropping — for now — his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks hung up the effort.

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Trump said in a social media post Wednesday that he’s removing the Guard troops for now. “We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again – Only a question of time!” he wrote.

Troops had already left Los Angeles after the president deployed them earlier this year as part of a broader crackdown on crime and immigration. They had been sent to Chicago and Portland but were never on the streets as legal challenges played out.

Trump’s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.

The Supreme Court in December refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area as part of its crackdown on immigration. The order was not a final ruling but was a significant and rare setback by the high court for the president’s efforts.

In the nation’s capital, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen.

In Oregon, a federal judge permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there.

California National Guard troops had already been removed from the streets of Los Angeles by Dec. 15 after a court ruling. But an appeals court had paused a separate part of the order that required control of the Guard to return to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order. That paves the way for the California National Guard troops to fully return to state control after Trump federalized the Guard in June.

Associated Press writer Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles contributed to this report.