Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.I got a kick out of a couple of the categories in today's NYT Connections puzzle. That purple one is a toughie again. Don't think of words with similar meanings, think of words that are hiding similar words within them. Yep, that's how the purple category works. Read on for today's Connections hints and answers.The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. And players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.Read more:Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every TimeHints for today's Connections groupsHere are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest, yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.Yellow group hint: Hot dogGreen group hint: PunchBlue group hint: Used to browsePurple group hint: Raise a glassAnswers for today's Connections groupsYellow group: FrankfurterGreen group: StrikeBlue group: Web browsersPurple group: Ending with beer brandsRead more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English WordsWhat are today's Connections answers? The completed NYT Connections puzzle for Jan. 17, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNETThe yellow words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is frankfurter. The four answers are banger, brat, link and sausage.The green words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is strike. The four answers are bop, hit, knock and tap.The blue words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is web browsers. The four answers are Chrome, Edge, Opera and Safari.The purple words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is ending with beer brands. The four answers are autoharp, contrabass, pepperoni and rosebud.

Games Done Quick unveils full charity speedrunning schedule for this year's Frost Fatales eventRaising money for National Women's Law Center.Image credit: Games Done Quick News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Jan. 16, 2025 With this year's Awesome Games Done Quick (and its impressive Elden Ring sax attacks) officially over, preparations are well underway for Games Done Quick's Frost Fatales charity speedrunning event - and organisers have now revealed its full schedule in the run up to March.Frost Fatales, if you're unfamiliar, is the annual winter version of Games Done Quick's all-women and femmes charity speedrunning event (Flame Fatales is its toastier summer equivalent), and this year's week-long show runs from 9th-16th March.More specifically, things kick off at 5pm BST on Sunday 9th March with a Cuphead Any% No Major Glitches speedrun by Vicky_spleen. Seven days and more than 60 speedruns later, things wrap up with a one-handed Celeste Any% speedrun by SawaYoshi - at 3.23am on 16th March. And between all that, there's a tantalisingly varied selection of other games to look forward to, ranging from big ol' blockbusters and retro classics to indie favourites and leftfield oddities.A quick scan of the newly released schedule reveals, for instance, the likes of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Cult of the Lamb, DuckTales: Remastered, RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, Clock Tower 3, Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS, Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team, Hylics, and more - as well as a three-way "girl squad" Final Fantasy X-2 race using all female characters.Frost Fatales 2025 is once raising money for the National Women's Law Center, a US non-profit that fights for women's and LGBTQ rights through initiatives that change laws, policy, and culture. And if all that's left you suitably intrigued, you can watch the event live on Twitch.

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereThe second half of The First Descendant Season 2 is here! This is the big update 1.2.4 introducing Ines Raya along with an assortment of new skins. Unfortunately, the maintenance downtime has been extended due to an unforeseen, critical incident, and, as an apology to fans, Nexon is gifting The First Descendant players free rewards.Nexon is gifting The First Descendant players free rewards as compensationOn X, Nexon has announced that the maintenance downtime for update 1.2.4 has been extended. This means the release time for Ines Raya is now 10AM PT/1PM ET/6PM GMT on January 16th.As for why maintenance has been extended, Nexon identified a critical issue. Theres no elaboration from the developer, but its ultimately better for Nexon to delay the release of 1.2.4 rather than launch it buggy.Nexon has apologized for the maintenance extension, as well as the inconvenience caused to in-game event participation after the update. As compensation for the delay, Nexon is gifting players the following free rewards:Gold Boost (30%)Kuiper Shard Boost (30%)Descendant EXP Boost (30%)Weapon Proficiency Boost (30%)40 2025 TokensNexon will provide details regarding the compensation schedule in a separate notice once the maintenance is complete. Its likely the above rewards will be sent to your in-game inbox once or soon after maintenance ends, but make sure to follow the games official account on X for the necessary details.Image credit: @FirstDescendant on XIn more The First Descendant news, players can check out the 2025 roadmap, and the new Season 3 character promises to be hot in first official details.The First DescendantPlatform(s):PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series XGenre(s):Action, Adventure, RPG5VideoGamerSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

One might assume that Mark Zuckerbergs houses consist primarily of sleek Silicon Valley mansions. Thats not wrongthe Facebook (now known as Meta) founder does own a compound not far from his officebut as his fortune has grown over the years, so has his real estate portfolio, encompassing additional properties in California as well as a much-talked-about Hawaiian compound. The worlds third richest man, according to Forbes, Zuckerberg ranks just behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and boasts a net worth of around $214 billion.In classic Zuckerberg fashion, every house he owns is massive, considerably upgraded, and oftentimes saddled with complaints from the general public. Furthermore, Zuckerberg has been known to buy up neighboring homes to make sure that he and his family have the utmost privacy. Below, we recap all the places the Zuck, his wife, Priscilla Chan, and their two young children now call home.Tricked-out Palo Alto compoundAbout a year before he and Chan said I do in 2012, Zuckerberg set down roots in Palo Alto with the purchase of a 5,617-square-foot home just a short 10-minute drive from Facebooks Menlo Park campus. The tech maven reportedly paid $7 million for the five-bedroom, five-bathroom mansion, and then paid a pretty penny to have it outfitted with some nifty technological upgrades, including a custom-made artificially intelligent assistant called Jarvis, according to CNBC. (Among its tasks: helping Zuckerbergs daughter with her Mandarin lessons, identifying visitors at the door, and supplying clean gray T-shirts from a rigged-up T-shirt cannon.) Other features of the home include a saltwater pool, a glass-enclosed sunroom, and a huge backyard pavilion.The following year, the couple began buying up the four homes surrounding their original Palo Alto house. In all, they reportedly spent an estimated $43 million on those properties. The Wall Street Journal reported that the couple initially leased the homes back to their former owners, with plans to eventually demolish all four to build something new in 2016. The city voted against Zuckerbergs plans, however, so he had to settle for just renovating two of the four homes in order to create a compound situated on a lot measuring 1.83 acres.San Francisco pied--terreIn late 2012, the Facebook founder spent $10 million on a pied--terre town house in the Dolores Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, reportedly shelling out an additional $1.8 million to renovate the brick and stucco home. SF Gate reported that renovations included the addition of a first-floor office, a media room, a laundry room, a wine room, and a wet bar. Reportedly, there was also a $65,000 bathroom and kitchen remodel and the addition of a greenhouse on the premises. Not much else is known about the property, except that it presently measures 7,368 square feet. Zuckerberg and Chan sold the place for $31 million in an off-market deal, according to the New York Post, in July of 2022.Kauai, Hawaii, estateZuckerberg began what has now been a years-long love affair with Hawaii in 2014, when he snapped up 707 acres on the island of Kauai for about $116 million. His first purchase, according to local newspaper Garden Island, included most of Pilaa Beach and the Kahuaina Plantation, and posed an issue for locals who complained about the walls the tech magnate put up around his property, which ultimately blocked beach access. According to the paper, Zuckerbergs first Hawaii purchase included plans for a 6,100-square-foot main house with a 16-car garage and a structure that would serve as security headquarters for his $23 million security team.

Save me from rich, white men who insist they and their kind are being discriminated against. Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, majority owner (not the founder) of SpaceX, Tesla, and numerous other leading companies, insists that DEI [Diversity, equity, and inclusion] is just another word for racism. He screams, DEI must DIE.The point was to end discrimination, not replace it with different discrimination.Really? Im an older, relatively well-off, straight white man, and I know darn well that I owe a lot of my success to the fact that, except for my age, everything in the US economy has been set up to benefit me.In baseball terms, I started the game on first base. Black men have to get a hit to get on base. Black women step to home plate for their at-bat with two strikes against them.Musk and his ilk? He grew up with a millionaire, emerald-mine-owning father in South Africa and started on third base.It used to be worse in this country. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, while the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 laid the groundwork for equal employment opportunities and non-discrimination in the workplace.The laws were one thing. Making it a workplace reality was another.Over the next few decades, dedicated diversity professionals began emerging within organizations, often holding titles like Chief Diversity Officer. As businesses became more diverse, companies also started recognizing that diversity is good for business.While DEI is also about basic fairness, it turns out that businesses that adopt it tend to do better than their rivals. Dont believe me? How aboutGoldman Sachs would you believe it?The global investment banking giant decidednot to take companies public without diverse board representationin 2000. The financial powerhouse did so because evidence showed that companies with diverse boards outperformed those with all-male boards. Specifically, Goldman Sachs noted that companies with at least one woman on their board performed significantly better in their IPOs than those without women. Since then, the company has increased its minimum number of women board members to two. The company has also continued tosupport black women business ownersfor solid business reasons, not warm fuzzy feelings.This is nothing new. In 2012, the global management companyMcKinseyfoundthat US companies with diverse boards had a 95% higher return on equity.Get the picture? DEI helps businesses do well, and the results are right there in the balance sheets.Facts, even accounting facts, count for little asAmerican technology leaders bow to Donald Trump. For some, like Musk and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, its all about rising to power on the right-wing wave. For others, its simply about preserving their billions. Preserving the gains of blacks, gays, older workers whoever is not on their priority list.So,Amazon has halted some of its DEI programs,Meta is killing them, andMicrosoft has quietly shuttered its DEI efforts. While this trend has become more obvious since Donald J. Trump won the 2024 election, its been coming for a while now.Google and Meta have both shut their doors to diverse employeessince 2023.That year, theSupreme Courts Trump-friendly majority struck down affirmative action in college admissions. That decision prompted Republican activists and some state attorneys general to target corporate DEI initiatives as discriminatory. Given a choice between fighting a political battle and quietly shutting down their diversity efforts, all too many businesses have folded their DEI tents.Others, such as Meta where Zuck is suffering from a middle-aged crisis with his gold chain, newly curled hair, and sudden weird fascination with masculine energy appear to be on their way to getting rid of their existing diverse workforce. He says he wants to move out low performers faster. I expect the upcoming 5% cut to come mostly from people of color, older workers, and LGBTQ+ staffers.You get the picture.What it all comes down to is that if youre not a straight white guy, the job market is going to become a lot harder for you. As for companies? Theyll suffer as well. I fear, though, that were stuck with this trend until cold, hard financial facts convince corporate leadership that right-wing politics leads to poor business decisions.

Gad DamnOlaf was iced so brutally in the original Frozen 2 cut that Disney CEO Bob Iger was scared of unlocking a fear of death in children everywhereIt destroyed adults and kids alike.Image credit: Disney News by Fran Ruiz Contributor Published on Jan. 16, 2025 I gotta be honest with you: I barely remember anything that transpired in Frozen 2 even though I really enjoyed the original. I do remember Olaf temporarily dying and the scene being very sad though. Well, it turns out it could've been much worse, especially for the youngest members of the audience.Via Entertainment Weekly, we've learned about a major creative rework that took place after some test screenings ended with kids "very confused and very, very sad." This new bit of information arrived through Josh Gad's memoir and collection of essays In Gad We Trust.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. According to the actor, Olaf's original death scene was more hard-hitting: "Jenn and I started recording the dialogue and I couldn't get through it without sobbing. Those first recordings were brutal, and I remember feeling that we were doing something that was going to pack a serious punch," he recalled. That's usually a good feeling to have while working on fiction that millions of people are gonna experience, but it's also good to be mindful of the limits of Disney movies aimed at kids.In Avengers: Infinity War, a movie that grossed over $2 billion worldwide, the final 5 minutes or so are spent killing off half the main cast (as well as half the universe), including a confused and genuinely scared Peter Parker who'd just joined the party. Much like Parker's, Olaf's death scene in Frozen 2 has him slowly fading away. However, he's at peace... in the cut that everyone saw. It wasn't always like that."In the first version, Olaf himself was scared and confused by what was happening... We had made our intended audience (children) scared for Olaf, rather than emotional." Disney CEO Bob Iger, who at the time hadn't left yet (only to return after Bob Chapek fumbled the bag), hit the nail on the head according to Gad and writer and co-director Jennifer Lee: "Olaf is a child. You can't just willy-nilly kill a scared child, because the children watching will see themselves in him." Iger might be more of a ruthless, effective executive, but considering he made Disney the biggest it's ever been during the 2010s, he knows a thing or two about what audiences want and reject.In the end, the scene went through rewrites and was re-recorded, though it sounds like Disney's top brass asked for Olaf not to be killed. According to Gad, Lee "fought to do an altered version in which Olaf isn't scared, but instead is at peace and comforts Anna before he leaves. It was one of the lightbulb moments and creatively brilliant pivots that Jenn and the Frozen team are known for at this point." The movie went on to make nearly $1.5 billion worldwide, topping the original's already massive haul.Frozen 3 is now on the way, but still a ways off: It will arrive on November 24, 2027.

Start your engines.Well, folks, the Nintendo Switch 2 is real finally! In addition to its confirmation via the debut trailer, Nintendo also revealed a brand-new Mario Kart title, which we're going to simply refer to as Mario Kart 9 until Nintendo says otherwise.Footage from the game was pretty scarce, to say the least, but we've still noticed a few things that might be notable as we look forward to its upcoming launch whenever that may be!Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Jeff Horings Insight Partners is to New York venture capital what Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia are to Silicon Valley. And its a status that has been cemented with Insights latest closing. As expected, Insight Partners announced Thursday that it closed another giant flagship fund, known as Fund XIII, along with its second Opportunity fund, collectively $12.5 billion in new capital. An opportunity fund is generally money set aside to reinvest in existing portfolio companies when they raise new rounds.In September, it was rumored to be working on a $10 billion-plus fund. Insight clearly achieved that target, and then some. With this fund it now has $90 billion of assets under management.An Insight spokesperson declined to divulge how many billions are in each new fund but part of the money is also in what it calls a dedicated buyout co-invest fund. The spokesperson said this money will be used for buyout software investments, an established area for the 30-year-old firm.This raise signals that Insight has no intention of ceding the top dog spot to upstart New York powerhouse VC, Thrive. In 2024, Josh Kushners Thrive led and co-led many of the biggest deals from OpenAIs $6.6 billion round to the $100 million Series B of Anysphere, the maker of AI coding assistant Cursor.Insight isnt ceding any ground. For instance, the VC firm won the co-lead of Databricks record-breaking $10 billion fundraising deal in December, alongside Thrive. It tapped into funds from its Partners Public Equities fund to do so, a fund set up to buy public stocks. This fresh capital will help it pursue, perhaps even lead, more deals.Interestingly, in a year where the locked IPO market means lagging returns for many VCs, Insight said it did well with its portfolio companies logging over $8 billion on exits in 2024, largely through acquisitions. These included Recorded Future to Mastercard for $2.65 billion, Own to Salesforce for $1.9 billion, WalkMe to SAP for $1.5 billion, and Jama Software to private equity for $1.2 billion.

TheAmerican Society of Cinematographers(ASC) has announced the nominees for its 2025 OutstandingAchievement Awards, spanning feature films, documentaries, television and music videos. Winners will be honored at the 39th Annual ASC Awards on February 23, 2025, at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. The ceremony will also be live-streamed on theasc.com. 2025 honorees were previously announced.Below is a complete list of this years nominees:Theatrical Feature Film (Sponsored by Keslow Camera)Jarin Blaschke for Nosferatu (Focus Features)Alice Brooks, ASC for Wicked (Universal Pictures)Lol Crawley, BSC for The Brutalist (A24)Stphane Fontaine, AFC for Conclave (Focus Features)Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS for Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros. Pictures)Edward Lachman, ASC for Maria (Netflix)Phedon Papamichael, ASC, GSC, GCA for A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures)Episode of a Half Hour Series (Sponsored by Nanlux)Adam Bricker, ASC for Hacks - Episode "Just for Laughs" (Max)Carl Herse for The Franchise - Episode Sc 31A: Tecto Meets Eye (HBO)Richard Rutkowski, ASC for Sugar - Episode Starry-Eyed (Apple TV+)Seamus Tierney for Emily in Paris - Episode Masquerade (Netflix)Kyle Wullschleger for Only Murders in the Building - Episode Once Upon a Time in the West (Hulu)Limited or Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television (Sponsored by Arri)Adam Arkapaw, ASC for Masters of the Air Episode Part Three (Apple TV+)Michael Berlucchi for Interior Chinatown - Episode Generic Asian Man (Hulu)Robert Elswit, ASC for Ripley - Episode Lucio (Netflix)Jonathan Freeman, ASC for The Penguin - Episode Homecoming (HBO)Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC &Bruno Delbonnel, AFC, ASC for Disclaimer - Episode I (Apple TV+)Zo White, ASC for Hold Your Breath (Hulu)Episode of a One-Hour Regular Series (Sponsored by Panavision)Adriano Goldman, ASC, ABC, BSC for The Crown - Episode Sleep, Dearie Sleep (Netflix)Catherine Goldschmidt, BSC for House of the Dragon - Episode The Queen Who Ever Was (HBO)Baz Irvine, BSC, ISC for Silo - Episode The Engineer (Apple TV+)Alejandro Martinez, AMC for House of Dragon - Episode Rhaenyra the Cruel (HBO)Sam Mccurdy, ASC, BSC for Shgun - Episode Crimson Sky (FX)Christopher Ross, BSC for Shgun - Episode "Anjin" (FX)Spotlight Award (Sponsored by Panavision) Michal Dymek for The Girl with the Needle (MUBI)Jomo Fray for Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM Studios)Klaus Kneist and Renata Mwende for Nawi (MUBI and Baobab Pictures)Documentary Award (Sponsored by Canon)Michael Crommett for Photographer: Dan Winters Life is Once. Forever. (National Geographic)Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw for Gaucho Gaucho (Jolt)Andrey Stefanov for Porcelain War (Picturehouse)ASC Music Video Award (Sponsored by Red Digital Cinema)Pepe Avila del Pino, AMC for 313 (Performed by Residente, Slvia Prez Cruz and Penelope Cruz)Scott Cunningham, ASC for Rebound (Performed by Jennifer Lopez)Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC for Fortnight (Performed by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone)Source: The ASC Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

At the Des Moines Art Center, a sprawling land art installation by Mary Miss installed in 1996 will be dismantled. A settlement reached this week between the artist and art center that houses Greenwood Pond: Double Site decided its fate once and for all.Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the artist will receive $900,000 from the Des Moines Art Center, and the center will be permitted to go about its previous plans to dismantle the piece from its property. A joint statement from the artist and Des Moines Art Center stated: The settlement will end a breach of contract lawsuit filed by Miss on April 4, 2024, and allow the Des Moines Art Center to proceed with previously stated plans to remove the artwork in its entirety.Miss was notified of the artworks demolition in December 2023 after the art center had already begun installing fencing around the piece to make way for its removal. The Des Moines Art Center was prompted to destroy Greenwood Pond: Double Site because its wood and other building materials were deteriorating due to exposure to water and other environmental conditions.The piece conceived by Miss as a green city comprises a covered pavilion, a sunken seating area, wood trellis, bridge, and tiered terrace. The structural integrity of many of these components was at risk. In a statement, the Des Moines Art Center declared sections of the installation were dangerous and unsalvageable. On April 4, 2024, Miss filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Art Center in federal court. She claimed the museums actions go against the terms outlined in the 1994 contract signed by the artist prior to its installation. The Des Moines Art Center had failed to protect the piece from the ravages of time and the elements, Miss said. As per Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) of 1990RA, through the lawsuit Miss sought monetary damages.A judge subsequently ordered a temporary stop order on the dismantling of Greenwood Pond: Double Site, a ruling which went into effect on April 8, 2024. In the months after, the public was made aware of the potential loss of the artwork. Other museums, artists, architects, and art enthusiasts then wrote to the Des Moines Art Center making clear their dissatisfaction with the decision to demolish the structure. The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), which had previously named the work on its Landslide list of at-risk landscapes, was also integral in leading the charge to save the installation.Following the recent settlement, Miss said in a statement: I hope the resurrection and reconsideration of this project will lead to further reflections on the relationships between artists, environmental issues, communities and our public cultural institutions. I trust this experience can help to develop stronger bonds moving forward.