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:

The weekend is officially here, and we've rounded up the best deals you can find! Discover the best deals for April 12 below:Save 55% Off The 4K Middle-Earth 6-Film CollectionMiddle-Earth 6-Film Collection (Extended & Theatrical) (4K Ultra HD + Digital)The Lord of the Rings trilogy is simply one of the greatest experiences you will ever have. I try my best to watch through the extended editions once each year, but the fun doesn't stop there. There's also The Hobbit trilogy, which is another incredible set of films. This weekend at Amazon, you can score all six films in beautiful 4K for only $94.68. Previously, both trilogies were priced just below this separately, so this is a great deal.$400 Off Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 RTX 4060 Gaming LaptopAsus ROG Zephyrus G14 14" 3K OLED AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS RTX 4060 Gaming Laptop with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSDGaming laptops can be tricky to buy, as there are many different factors you have to consider. With more power comes worse battery life, and you also have to think about the screen since you won't need a monitor. If you're in the market for a new laptop, this Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is an incredible choice. You can save $400 off this weekend, scoring a device packed with a Ryzen 9 8945HS, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, a mobile RTX 4060, and even 1TB of SSD storage. Plus, did I mention this laptop has an OLED display?Super Mario Party Jamboree for $44.99Super Mario Party Jamboree - Nintendo SwitchWith the recent reveal of Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games, it's no question that you are going to want to save anywhere you can. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Super Mario Party Jamboree is set to cost $79.99, but you can upgrade from a Nintendo Switch copy for presumably $20. This weekend, save your cash and pick up a copy of Super Mario Party Jamboree from Woot for only $44.99.Save on Gaming Monitors at Best BuySamsung - Odyssey G51C 32" QHD FreeSync Premium Gaming Monitor with HDR10Samsung - 27” Odyssey FHD IPS 240Hz G-Sync Gaming MonitorAcer - Nitro 27" IPS LED 180Hz 0.5ms FreeSync Gaming MonitorAcer Nitro-27.0" IPS WQHD 180Hz 0.5ms FreeSync Monitor with HDR 10This weekend, Best Buy has quite a few gaming monitors on sale. You can save anywhere from $50 to $200, depending on the model. Whether you're searching for a higher refresh rate, brighter screen, or bigger display, there are options here. If you're on the hunt for an upgrade to your setup, today is a great day to score a discounted monitor at Best Buy.Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy for $34.39Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy for Nintendo SwitchApollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy combines Ace Attorney 4-6 into one package! This collection features 16 episodes in total, which can easily provide dozens of hours of fun. Some of the new features exclusive to this remastered collection include the Orchestra Hall to listen to in-game BGM, the Art Library to view illustrations, and the animation studio, where you can utilize character animations to create your own scenes!The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II Deluxe Edition for $50.39The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II Deluxe Edition - PlayStation 5The Legend of Heroes, mostly referred to as the Trails series, is growing immensely with each passing year. It's a rarity in the JRPG world, as each entry is directly connected to one another. As of 2024, the series has sold north of 8.5 million copies across its 13 entries. If you're patiently awaiting Trails beyond the Horizon this fall, don't miss out on picking up its prequel at a discount.Pre-Order the Dan Da Dan Season 1 Blu-ray for $24.49DAN DA DAN: Season OneDan Da Dan was one of my favorite anime series of 2024, and the fact that you can take home all of Season 1 for just $24.49 is an absolute steal. Following Momo Ayase and Ken Takakura, Dan Da Dan is a comedic adventure that throws together aliens, spirits, and so much more.

This morning, Bloomberg reported that tech imports would be excluded from the Trump administrations 125% “reciprocal” China tariff. To be specific, this includes “smartphones, laptop computers, hard drives and computer processors and memory chips.” In short, Apple doesn’t really have something to worry about anymore – at least for now. The initial 20% tariff for the “fentanyl crisis” is still in place, however. While we are safe from imminent price hikes for now, an additional 125% tariff on China would’ve been extremely damaging. Here’s a quick overview bullet we just dodged. Tariff overview Tariffs are applied on top of the declared value at the time of import. This means that tariffs would hurt Apple’s margins, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee price hikes – at least in low increments. For example, an iPhone 16 Pro 256GB costs Apple $580 in parts, assembly, and testing. With the initial 20% China tariff, that would mean that the effective cost would be $696. While Apple certainly wouldn’t want their margins to be hurt, it would still be viable for the phone to be sold at the current $1099 price point. However, with a 145% tariff (or even the initial 54% reciprocal tariff) – price hikes would’ve been inevitable: iPhone 16 Pro 256GB parts cost with 54% tariff applied – $893 iPhone 16 Pro 256GB parts cost with 125% tariff applied – $1305 iPhone 16 Pro 256GB parts cost with 145% tariff applied – $1421 As a reminder, the iPhone 16 Pro 256GB is currently sold at $1099. Apple isn’t in the business of selling products at low profit margins, so there inevitably would’ve been a multi-hundred dollar price hike with any of these more extreme tariffs. Theoretical prices with tariffs baked in Some Apple products, like AirPods and Apple Watch, are already widely manufactured in Vietnam, where a 90-day tariff pause was authorized. Many countries are attempting to work out trade deals, so ideally there’d be a zero tariff situation there. Some newer Macs are manufactured in Vietnam as well. However, Apple is still heavily reliant on China, so it’s still worth highlighting what we could’ve had if nothing had changed. For another example, let’s use the M2 MacBook Air. According to TechInsights, the bill of materials for an M2 MacBook Air is roughly $506, for both hardware and assembly. Obviously, that’s now 2 generations behind, but it serves as a decent point of reference since the MacBook Air is still largely the same. With 145% added on top of that, you’re looking at $1239 before margins for a 13-inch MacBook Air with 256GB of storage. For a last example, we’ll take the 2021 12.9-inch iPad Pro. According to Nikkei Asia, that has a parts cost of roughly $510. With a 145% tariff, the pre-margin parts cost could’ve been as high as $1250. That’s far in excess of the $1099 retail price that it started at. Granted, that last one was just for the sake of example, as Apple has since redesigned the iPad Pro. Wrap up It goes without saying – a 145% total tariff on imports from China simply wasn’t viable for the pricing of new tech products. These are very much so rough estimates, but it illustrates how bad things could’ve potentially become. So, at least for now, we can enjoy current Apple product prices. For at least a couple weeks, this will be the end of speculating on the possibility of imminent Apple product price increases. In case the pricing uncertainty has you frightened, and you’re interested in some of the best Apple product deals right now, here they are: MacBook Pro (M4, 14-inch, 512GB/16GB) – $1469 on Amazon ($130 off) iPad 11 (A16, 128GB) – $329 on Amazon Mac mini (M4, 256GB/16GB) – $557 on Amazon MacBook Air (M3, 15-inch, 512GB/16GB) – $1099 on Amazon ($200 off) AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C) – $199 on Amazon ($50 off) Given how frantic everything with the Trump administration and tariffs has been, I wouldn’t hold my breath on this news lasting forever. My favorite Apple accessories on Amazon: Follow Michael: X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Image by Getty / FuturismDevelopmentsResearch on the medical effects of marijuana use have been a mixed bag over the last few years; it doesn't seem to be terrible for you, but it's not without health — or social — concerns, either.But now we've got some dope news from the world of medicinal pot smokers, suggesting that taking cannabis on the doctor's orders significantly improves the symptoms of multiple ailments, including anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain, while providing an overall boon to your quality of life.That's according to a new study published in the journal PLOS One, which found that medical cannabis patients in Australia maintained a bevy health of improvements over the course of a full year."This is promising news for patients who are not responding to conventional medicines for these conditions," the authors said in a statement. The patients were all adults with various chronic conditions who were recruited as part of a previous study that tracked how they responded to a prescribed cannabis oil. To build on that work, the authors of this latest study followed up with most of these same patients — 2,353 of the original 2,744 returned — for another twelve months, gauging their progress with questionnaires.What they found was encouraging: the patients' initial three-month boost to their health-related quality of life (HRQL), a metric for assessing how someone's health affects their daily life, persisted for an entire year. That included abating the symptoms of anxiety, depression, insomnia, and chronic musculoskeletal pain. While the data is self-reported, the improvements were clinically meaningful, the authors wrote.In short, the findings suggest that medicinal weed's benefits stretch to the long term. A big caveat, though, is that the study had no control group, meaning that the benefits can't confidently be attributed to the green stuff.Another recent piece of observational research, however, echoes some of the findings here. In a survey of 1,000 people, 70 percent of respondents said that taking medical cannabis helped them sleep better than actual prescription sleep aids, . An even higher 91 percent said that cannabis was more effective than over-the-counter sleep solutions. But this work, too, calls for a major disclaimer: it was conducted by a Germany-based medical cannabis company, Bloomwell Group — so make of that what you will. Nonetheless, the company claims it's the largest survey in Europe to explore medical cannabis as a sleep aid to date.  "This survey goes a long way in both legitimizing the severity of sleep disorders and the toll these conditions take on people's lives, as well as providing real-world patient evidence that medical cannabis is a highly effective treatment," Julian Wichmann, managing director of Bloomwell, told Forbes in a statement.With all that said, it's too early to hail weed, medicinal or not, as a bedtime cure-all. The literature is mixed: some randomized control trials have found that weed does improve sleep in adults with insomnia, but other research suggests that regularly relying on the substance to get shuteye . It's usefulness as a way of making the burden of countless chronic medical conditions more tolerable, though, is hard to deny.Share This Article

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle No. 1,394 for April 13.

In recent years, focus on career and delayed marriage age is driving some women to consider preserving their fertility through egg freezing. But the steep cost of the procedure, estimated at $10,000 to $15,000 per attempt, means many women can’t afford it during their most fertile years: 20s and early 30s. Cofertility, a startup founded by former Uber executive Lauren Makler and health tech angel investor Halle Tecco, offers women no-cost egg freezing in exchange for donating half the retrieved eggs to those unable to conceive. The three-year-old startup just raised a $7.25 million Series A round led by Next Ventures and Offline Ventures, with participation from Initialized, Gaingels, and several other investors. This financing round brings Cofertility’s total funding to $16 million. The idea for Cofertility stems from Makler’s fertility and health scare. A 2018 diagnosis of a rare abdominal disease led to multiple surgeries that threatened the loss of her ovaries. In such situations, doctors sometimes suggest egg freezing for young women who want to have children, but that was not an option for Makler. So, she started to learn as much as possible about egg donation. Makler knew donors were compensated for their eggs, but she was shocked to learn how expensive the eggs could be. If she wanted an egg from a Jewish donor to match her background, it would cost more. The price increased further if she sought an egg from an educated woman. “It felt sort of like surge pricing for egg donors, which felt icky to me,” she said, referring to Uber’s approach for charging for rides during peak-demand times.   Luckily, Makler ended up conceiving a child naturally, but that experience led her to want to build a business that matches young women who wish to preserve their fertility with people who need a donor egg. While the concept of egg sharing is not new, Makler claims that Cofertility is the only company that offers eggs at scale through its “Split” program. “At any given time, we have hundreds of donors that are available for intended parents,” Makler said, adding that most clinics will have only a handful of donors, which is unlikely to result in a match. Makler says that Cofertility’s egg donors come from diverse backgrounds and that about 55% of them have graduate degrees. Intended parents cover the egg retrieval costs and Cofertility’s coordination fee, similar to standard egg donation. However, they don’t have to compensate the donor, lowering their out-of-pocket expenses. While Makler doesn’t want to call Cofertility a marketplace, she agrees that it works like one and that her company is solving a big structural problem. “The big vision and the goal is removing the taboo of egg donation,” she said, “There is zero shame in however you become a parent. Doing that with the help of a donor who’s also interested in freezing her own eggs is a really exciting option.”

The Center District Schoolhouse of Canterbury, Connecticut, sits behind the village church and is the town’s best-preserved example of a district schoolhouse. Built c.1860, the vernacular, Greek Revival one-room schoolhouse served the central village through the 19th and into the 20th centuries with its twin entry, double-hung windows to allow light and air into the classroom, and a belfry with bell to notify pupils when class was about to start. Like many similar one-room schools in rural New England, pupils attended class with neighbors and siblings in the small, intimate classroom of varied ages. 

Looking for help with today's New York Times Wordle? Here are hints, clues and commentary to help you solve today's Wordle and sharpen your guessing game.

Subaru is finally accelerating into the EV fast lane. The automaker is officially teasing the 2026 Trailseeker, an all-new electric SUV set to debut at the New York International Auto Show next week. While details are still scarce, the Trailseeker marks Subaru’s long-awaited second entry into the EV space, joining the Solterra — and the expectations couldn’t be higher. The teaser image offers only a glimpse of the Trailseeker’s rear badge and taillight, but the name alone suggests rugged ambitions. It’s a clear nod to Subaru’s outdoorsy heritage. But in the EV space, the outdoors belongs to brands like Rivian, whose upcoming R2 compact SUV is already turning heads. The Trailseeker is Subaru’s chance to reassert its identity in an electric age. Recommended Videos Currently, Subaru’s only EV is the Solterra, a joint venture with Toyota that shares a platform with the bZ4X. While the Solterra nails some Subaru essentials — all-wheel drive, spaciousness, and off-road capability — it falls short on key EV metrics. Reviewers have pointed to its modest 225-mile range, slow 100kW charging, and unremarkable acceleration, especially compared to rivals like the Hyundai Ioniq 5  or Ford Mustang Mach-E. The hope is that Subaru has learned from these criticisms and is poised to deliver a more competitive product. The Trailseeker could either be a variation of a newer Toyota EV (possibly the next-gen C-HR+), or something entirely new under the shared platform strategy. Subaru previously announced that its next three EVs would be co-developed with Toyota, before launching four in-house EVs by 2028. Given how long Subaru has waited to expand its EV offerings, the Trailseeker has to deliver. It’s not just about adding a second electric model — it’s about keeping pace with a market rapidly leaving legacy automakers behind. If the Trailseeker can improve on the Solterra’s shortcomings and channel that classic Subaru ruggedness into a truly modern EV, it might just be the spark the brand needs. Editors’ Recommendations Toyota shifts gears: 15 New EVs and a million cars by 2027