Looking for NYT Strands answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, including the spangram.

Thermal pools, hammams, banyas, onsens, shvitzes, cold plunges, steam rooms, and saunas: Hot and cold water, and the communal experience of steam and sweat, has been a pillar of social and wellness cultures across millennia. Now a new crop of brighter and busier spaces known as social bathhouses seek to re-create the benefits of communal bathing with a callout to today’s overstressed, always-connected culture. As one bathhouse owner says, “You’re half naked, your phone’s in the locker, everyone’s going through something together.”  There isn’t a comprehensive count of social bathhouse openings, but there’s a sense that it’s a nascent category in American fitness culture that is ripe for expansion. Market research firm Technavio predicts the sauna market in the U.S. will grow from $390 million in annual sales in 2023 to $526 million by 2028, with similar growth trends predicted for cold-plunge tubs. New spaces from Maine to Seattle are opening to offer modern twists on traditional bathing culture alongside social events, DJ nights, and coffee tastings.   [Photo: Sauna House] A place where your phone will melt Matthew and Gabriella Khalil’s renovations of the old AIG building in New York City into a hip coterie of startups and exclusive parties includes a two-story urban bathhouse. The Schvitz in Detroit resurrected an old Jewish bathhouse that used to host the machinations of Al Capone’s gang. Drip Nordic Sauna in Asheville, North Carolina, is a portable wood-fired sauna that can be rented for events and chill-out sessions. They’ve been dispatched to Airbnbs on mountaintops and a local music festival. Austin has two spa experiences opening soon: Bathe, and Submersive, an immersive spa from the founder of Meow Wolf. This past January, New York City hosted the first Culture of Bathing Conference, with more than 100 attendees, many of whom were opening their own venue.  “This is something that wasn’t here five years ago, and a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon,” says Don Genders, founder and CEO of Design for Leisure, an established player in the spa and wellness worlds. “It surprised me that some of the veterans in the industry haven’t seen this opportunity, or if they have, they haven’t read it properly. A lot of people are missing out.”  [Photo: Sauna House] Often described as another example of the post-COVID 19 push for socializing and community, social bathhouses have been described as “friend-making boxes.” That isn’t wrong, but there’s much more pushing Americans into ice-filled tubs and saunas. Genders attributes it, in part, to the younger generation’s pursuit of experiences and comfort with alcohol-free socialization. There’s also a desire for digital detox; nearly everyone interviewed for this article said the appeal of spaces where phones would literally melt is significant. “The dopamine hit you get from a real Finnish sauna, and the hot-cold relax cycle, is unmistakable,” says Andrew Lachlan, cofounder and CEO of Sauna House, which has four locations in the Southeast. “It’s a healthy form of dopamine, and we’re all dopamine fiends now.” [Photo: Native Dreamer Photography/Sauna House] More than a bath Significant credit is due to wellness influencers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone suddenly had a lot of time to do their own research, or at least listen to the podcasts of those who had. Personalities like Andrew Huberman, Rhonda Patrick, and Susanna Søberg, author of Winter Swimming—all PhDs—helped stoke the attraction to tradition, authenticity, primal health and fitness, and the scientific evidence backing up contrast bathing. “It was hot and cold,” says Othership cofounder Harry Taylor, recounting how he and his partner and cofounder, Amanda Laine, decided to start their international chain, which has a new location opening in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn this summer. “Why is this not more of a thing? This is something the world needs.” [Photo: Ian Patterson/courtesy Othership] Today’s new bathhouse concepts—often bathed in light and light-colored wood—are a reaction to a new generation of sauna fans visiting traditional Russian and Jewish bathhouses and deciding that they wanted something that aligned more closely with the high-design spaces they’re accustomed to in other parts of their lives. Genders says that some of today’s founders thought they could do it better themselves. In the U.S. in particular, where there was once a strong bathhouse culture in the 19th century, modern cultural aversion to the bathhouse as a dirty space—often directly linked to homophobia and a reaction to the AIDS crisis—held back the growth of the industry for decades.  [Photo: Ian Patterson/courtesy Othership] These new bathhouse concepts aim for something bigger, says Matt Aspiotis Morley, founder and director of Biofilico, a design studio focused on this industry. Saunas that fit a handful of people have now been built for 40, with staircase and stadium seating to encourage conversation. Small, subterranean enclaves are making way for bright, lofted, open-air venues with natural light. Operators ask for unisex changing areas and smaller entryways to maximize the space for pools, plunges, saunas, and customers. Elements like conversation pits and communal spaces, says Morley, get extra focus in social bathing sites. [Photo: Sauna House] “It’s kind of a wild, wild west” A key challenge remains finding a space. Communal bathhouses don’t necessarily require an urban storefront with curb appeal, but they do need a location with high ceilings and a lack of columns breaking up the floor plate. Sauna House COO Jen Richter, whose firm is operating and opening a handful of spaces across the Southeast, says the real estate hunt is tough, and they often find winners with old industrial buildings, including an auto shop and fencing academy, both of which they’ve turned into new facilities.   There’s also the challenge of doing things right, as far as health and safety are concerned (see the recent conversation around the sanitary issues of NYC’s Bathhouse). Keeping cold plunges clean and sanitary, without the benefit of heat, remains difficult, says Richter, especially with startup owners improvising larger and larger setups, and the challenges of navigating varied local ordinances. She predicts there’s going to be “flush out” of some locations as this concept becomes a long-lasting trend.  [Photo: Native Dreamer Photography/Sauna House] “It’s kind of a wild, wild west,” says Othership’s Taylor. They made their own cold plunges from scratch, since he says they couldn’t find a commercial grade version of what they needed. Their saunas were so big they basically daisy-chained heathers together to warm the space.  Users often pay monthly fees, and unless they come daily, the per-visit cost remains relatively high. For many operators, it’s sort of like being a spa without the expensive-to-provide services; saunas and bathhouses have lower labor costs, and most of the expenses come from the fixed cost of labor, water, and power. Once the pools and saunas hit a certain number of visitors, everything else is profit (a 10-pack of classes for Othership’s NYC location is $510, though there are other, cheaper monthly membership options). [Photo: Sauna House] A new tradition Traditional saunas have been around for millennia in cultures from Japan to Finland—even the upper Midwest has an established culture from Scandinavian immigrants—but the settings are often more austere. Finland has 3 million saunas for a population of 5.5 million, and they tend to be small spaces at private homes. The ceremonial aufguss, a European tradition, brings a bit of showmanship to the sauna, with an aufguss master utilizing towels, essential oils, and music to create a more ceremonial experience.  There’s no doubt the American version—the first U.S. Aufguss competition is scheduled for late June at Bathhouse in Brooklyn—will be a bit more flamboyant. Taylor says that Othership’s spaces include music, patterned light, guided meditations, and essential oils on snowballs, all meant to be sensory activating and entertaining. He considers it both an evolution of tradition and a new experience altogether. The overlap between psychedelics, spirituality, and what’s being done with hot and cold is all about a state shift, says Taylor, who calls the regulars at his locations “Shipheads.” [Photo: Ian Patterson/courtesy Othership] Mental health can be a magnet for visitors, says Sauna House’s Richter, noting that members of the recovery community often frequent the space, bringing along journals and books.  Perhaps the biggest challenge for the industry’s growth remains funding. Big institutional lenders and private equity firms want tried-and-tested business models, not startups and passion projects without a track record. Genders sees a big opening for someone with industry experience to start a mid-market chain with dozens of locations across the country as a magnet for funding and more expansion.  But that may change soon. The German Therme Group recently announced plans to open a 15-acre resort of spas and saunas in Washington, D.C. Genders expects some of the Canadian chains to start making moves, and Morley, the designer, says he’s working on projects that seek to incorporate more space for saunas and cold plunges in traditional health clubs and gyms. Why not incorporate this experience at a place you’re already paying to attend every month? The boom in bathhouses, which remains heavily fragmented, has gained critical mass. The challenge may be avoiding the typical American fitness hype cycle where trends quickly get commercialized and co-opted.  “This isn’t a trend,” says Drip Sauna cofounder Daniel Ratner. “This is something that’s existed forever and will continue to exist. It’s just a matter of, how can we continue to make this an accessible part of our day-to-day?”

Ever wished your storage solutions could be as beautiful as they are practical? Meet Tronco, the delightfully innovative container that brings the organic charm of forest life into your home. Inspired by the distinctive shape of tree trunks, this clever design transforms everyday storage into a playful statement piece that works hard while looking effortlessly stylish. The cylindrical form with its subtle texture and natural contours creates an immediate connection to the outdoors, bringing a breath of fresh air to interior spaces. What makes Tronco truly special is how it reimagines storage as something to be celebrated rather than hidden away. Crafted from recyclable polyethylene, these containers offer a sustainable solution for organizing your essentials while doubling as display platforms for your favorite objects. The smooth, curved surfaces invite touch, while the hollow interior provides generous space for tucking away everything from bathroom necessities to living room odds and ends—proving that practical storage can also be a joy to look at and use. Designer: Furf for Qeeboo The real magic happens when you start stacking these versatile containers. Multiple Tronco units can be piled vertically to create a sculptural tower reminiscent of a stylized tree, complete with branch-like protrusions perfect for hanging clothes, towels, or accessories. This playful nod to nature transforms a simple storage solution into a functional art piece that becomes a focal point in any room, sparking conversation while keeping your space beautifully organized. I’m particularly excited about how Tronco adapts to virtually any environment in your home. Place a single unit in the bathroom for toiletries and towels, stack a pair in the bedroom for clothing and accessories, or create a mini forest in your living room to corral books, remote controls, and decorative items. The versatile design even works outdoors on terraces and patios, bringing the same organic-inspired organization to your exterior spaces without worrying about weather damage. For those who love customization, Tronco offers clever optional features that enhance its functionality. Add mobility wheels to the base unit for easy repositioning throughout your home—perfect for those who like to refresh their spaces regularly or need flexible storage solutions. The innovative magnet system allows for secure stacking of multiple units into taller columns, ensuring your creative arrangements stay perfectly in place even in busy households with pets or children. The beauty of Tronco lies in its ability to bridge the gap between practical storage and artistic expression. Unlike conventional containers that demand to be tucked away in closets, these tree-inspired pieces deserve to be displayed prominently. Their sculptural quality transforms the mundane act of organization into something joyful and expressive, proving that even the most functional items in our homes can contribute to our aesthetic environment while making our daily lives smoother and more organized. The post Tronco Is A Nature-Inspired Storage Design That Stacks Like Magic first appeared on Yanko Design.

Google's Rodolpho Henrique explains the role of typefaces in shaping brand perception and the typography trio that guarantee a good user experience.

From dog beds to pup backpacks, we’ve had our furry best friends try it all. These dog accessories lead the pack.

A long list of electronic products got a reprieve for now from at least some of the levies on China, which had been expected to take a toll on tech giants like Apple.

Bungie has officially revealed that Marathon, its sci-fi PvP extraction shooter and spiritual reboot of the 1994 classic, will launch on September 23, 2025 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC. The announcement came alongside the game’s first full gameplay trailer, showcasing fast-paced, high-tech action in a visually arresting sci-fi world. Described as a “massive ghost ship” orbiting the planet Tau Ceti IV, the game’s setting is rich with mystery. Players assume the role of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries who venture into the abandoned colony to retrieve valuable artifacts and survive deadly encounters against other teams. Key Features Revealed: PvP Extraction Gameplay: Think Escape from Tarkov meets Destiny with faster movement and stylized visuals. Crossplay and Cross-Save: Fully supported across all platforms at launch. Alpha Access Now Live: Players can register for a closed alpha via Bungie’s Discord, available on PS5, Xbox, and PC. Emergent Storytelling: Bungie hints at player-driven narratives and evolving world states. As a spiritual successor to the original Marathon trilogy, this reboot embraces its roots while modernizing its design for today’s extraction shooter landscape. With Bungie now under Sony’s wing, but the game launching day one on Xbox, Marathon also serves as a key example of multiplatform strategy in the current-gen console wars.

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, planter, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Following the American Revolutionary War and before becoming president in 1801, Jefferson was the first United States secretary of state under George Washington, and then the second vice president under John Adams. Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and he produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels. This line-engraved portrait of Jefferson was produced by the United States Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents. The same portrait appears on the obverse of the two-dollar bill. Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva Recently featured: Bali myna The Jewish Cemetery Gatekeeper Archive More featured pictures

April 13 Van Cliburn 1777 – American Revolutionary War: British and Hessian forces conducted a surprise attack against a Continental Army outpost at Bound Brook, New Jersey. 1829 – The Roman Catholic Relief Act received royal assent, removing the most substantial restrictions on Catholics in the United Kingdom. 1958 – In the midst of the Cold War, American pianist Van Cliburn (pictured) won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. 2009 – Twenty-three people died in a fire at a homeless hostel in Kamień Pomorski; it was Poland's deadliest fire since 1980. 2017 – War in Afghanistan: In an airstrike in Nangarhar Province, the U.S. military dropped the most powerful conventional bomb used in combat. Henry De la Beche (d. 1855)Annie Jump Cannon (d. 1941)Günter Grass (d. 2015) More anniversaries: April 12 April 13 April 14 Archive By email List of days of the year About

I know, I know. It’s become a bit of a faux pas to describe one game using another and yet I am compelled. After a few hours with Blue Prince, I realized this game elicits the same feelings in me as Balatro. Not because it has anything to do with cards or passive-aggressive clowns named Jimbo, but because those hours I played passed as breezily by completely unnoticed as they did when I was knee deep in the poker roguelike. Blue Prince is a time-stealer and as with Balatro, you will be happy to be robbed.Blue Prince is an architectural puzzle mystery game from developer Dogubomb. In it you play as a young man who inherits his uncle’s magical mansion. On your first day at the house you receive a note laying out the rules by which you will earn your inheritance. This house has 45 rooms. Find the secret 46th room that’s not displayed on any of the mansion’s blueprints (get it, Blue Prince / blueprints) and the house is yours. To find the 46th room you must create or “draft” rooms one after the other connecting them via their doors. You start each day with 50 steps and passing into a room takes one step (or more depending on the type of room). When you run out of steps you are exhausted and forced to retire for the day. At the end of every day, the layout you drafted is reset and you must start all over again with a blank mansion.Every time you come to a door, you draft a room from a pool of randomized options. Image: DogubombAt its heart, Blue Prince is a roguelike puzzle game laid over an overarching narrative involving the secrets of your extended family. Its main mechanic is drafting rooms and laying them out over the mansion’s 5x9 grid. Each room comes with any number of doors that open in one of the four cardinal directions. You build your map each day by trying to connect as many rooms with as many doors while avoiding dead ends as much as possible. There are so many different types of rooms to draft with their own strengths and weaknesses. Bedrooms, for example, reward you with additional steps extending your day. Closets yield goodies like keys to unlock doors but are dead ends. Drafting a puzzle room early, like the billiard room or the parlor, rewards you with gems to draft higher quality rooms like the library or the laboratory. The more rooms you draft, the more likely you are to encounter rooms you haven’t seen before revealing secrets and clues that will help you in your journey. On top of trying to draft rooms that will yield you the most benefits, you’re also trying to draft rooms in the correct sequence. Tinkering with the breaker box in the circuit breaker room, will let you open the door in the garage, bringing you that much closer to finding the 46th room. It’s all an interconnected, incredibly dense puzzle game that makes use of every ounce of your brain power to solve and then some. You will need to take notes – the game tells you as much. And any time I need to write stuff down to play a game effectively, it is cooking with the highest quality gas.Solving puzzles in Blue Prince brings all my powers of spatial, mathematical, narrative, and memory reasoning to bear. And the thing I love about it, something I don’t think I’ve ever said about a video game ever, is its pacing. Blue Prince unfolds almost infinitely — solving one puzzle leads to the next and on and on like a fractal of overlapping mysteries. Some of those mysteries are easy and satisfying to figure out. When I first encountered the darkroom, the lights went out. Not only could I not see what was in there, the darkness forced me to draft the next room without seeing what it was or if it was a dreaded dead end. But I remembered from the circuit room seeing a darkroom setting on the breaker box.On my next run, I made sure to draft the circuit room and flip on the power before drafting the darkroom. When I went in, voila, the power stayed on and I collected a treasure trove of new clues. Turning on the lights in the darkroom will reveal more clues. Image: DogubombBut the game’s other mysteries are less intuitive and can lead to frustration that no amount of note taking can assuage. The dartboard in the billiard room is a mathematical puzzle with different colors on the board corresponding to different functions. At first it was easy enough to figure out: blue next to a number means addition, yellow is subtraction, pink is multiplication, and purple is division. Instead of recalling the elementary lesson of PEMDAS, order of operations is determined by working from the inside of the dartboard out.After about 20 or so days, when I had everything down pat, the dartboard began throwing new symbols and colors that were far less intuitive. I just could not figure out what to do and it got so frustrating that I avoided drafting the billiard room altogether, locking me out of obtaining valuable keys.(Author’s note: another extremely frustrating and frankly unacceptable thing about the billiard room is that solving the puzzle requires the ability to see in color and as of this writing there are no colorblind settings. From comments about this on social media, the developers are working on deploying colorblind options, hopefully soon.)There is a story in Blue Prince but from what I’ve seen so far, it has little bearing on the puzzles and isn’t all that interesting. There’s a mystery involving members of your family’s political leanings, a missing author, and a disgruntled employee, but I’m so hungry to figure out how to open the door to the basement that I don’t pay it much mind. I’m about 27 hours in, which feels pretty hefty for a puzzle game. And I feel with all that I’ve uncovered and all I think I have left to uncover, I could go 30 hours more and it would pass in the blink of an eye.Blue Prince is out now on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.See More: