Watching anyone pursue their passion with unfeigned purity is compelling. Watching the Minnesota Lynx play is highly compelling, because at any given time you're watching five players playing a game with passion and no ulterior motives. No one had to fly in a private jet to Lindsay Whalen's house to ask her to play. Let's not forget that Joe Mauer is not the only homegrown leader of a sports franchise playing in the Minneapolis Warehouse District. And Whalen is earning every penny of her contract. It's hard to imagine Seimone Augustus running over a traffic cop on her way home. Maya Moore is probably OK with any clubhouse food spread. OK, maybe that's a bit much. But the bottom line is that the Lynx are the most compelling sports team in the Twin Cities right now because these athletes are playing the game for the right reasons.ESMOND KIM, ST. PAUL
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Kyiv was targeted with waves of drone and missile attacks overnight into Friday in the largest aerial assault since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began more than three years ago, officials said, amid a renewed Russian push to capture more of its neighbor's land.