Looking for help with today's NYT Mini Crossword puzzle? Here are some hints and answers for the ... [+] puzzle.Credit: NYTIn case you missed Fridays NYT Mini Crossword puzzle, you can find the answers here:Look at that. Were already well past the halfway mark this January and time, as usual, waits for no one. We just have to do our best to keep up. Its not easy! In any case, Im back at the helm of our NYT Mini Crossword guides once again, having taken over for my colleagues Paul Tassi and Kris Holt. We rotate, you see, and Ive just been passed the baton. Lets solve todays!The NYT Mini is a smaller, quicker, more digestible, bite-sized version of the larger and more challenging NYT Crossword, and unlike its larger sibling, its free-to-play without a subscription to The New York Times. You can play it on the web or the app, though youll need the app to tackle the archive.Answers to todays Mini Crossword below . . . .Spoilers ahead!MORE FOR YOUACROSS1- Worked in Microsoft Word TYPED6- With 14-Across, comedy writer who takes a road trip with Will Ferrell in a 2024 Netflix documentary HARPER8- Pseudonyms ALIASES10- Director Burton TIM11- "Oh, there ___ again!" IGO12- 10-legged marine crustacean SEACRAB14- See 6-Across STEELE15- Like the firstborn of two children ELDERDOWN1- "___ all there is to it!" THATS2- Ivy Leaguers in Connecticut YALIES3- Man or mandrill PRIMATE4- Org. concerned with clean air and water EPA5- Wished for DESIRED7- Lavishly entertain (with) REGALE9- Not drinking any alcohol SOBER13- Collectible cartoon image sold at Disney World CELToday's MiniScreenshot: Erik KainThis was a bit of a tricky Mini Crossword, though some of it was stuff I knew right away. I remembered the Will & Harper Netflix documentary so that popped in nicely. I guessed ELDER and new TIM for BURTON. From here, it was just a matter of bouncing back and forth. SOBER was easy enough for 9-DOWN. I always have the most trouble with combined words like 11-ACROSS, despite it only being three letters. IGO is just not something I think of naturally. This took me 2:01 today.How did you do? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.If you also play Wordle, I write guides about that as well. You can find those and all my TV guides, reviews and much more here on my blog. Thanks for reading!

The Nintendo Switch introduced many innovations when it was released, with the most prominent being the ability to play the console as a handheld or docked in a TV. What isnt talked about as often is how amazing the Joy-Con controllers are for enabling split-screen play. Thanks to each one being able to function as a full controller, you can start playingthe best Switch games with a friend without investing in more hardware. With such a deep library of games, many of which are multiplayer, you have an overwhelming number of options for the best split-screen games. If youve got a partner ready to play, well help you pick the best split-screen games you can play today.There arent a ton ofupcoming Switch games left, but you should still browse that list for more options while we wait for the Switch 2.Recommended VideosRelatedBreath of the Wild. The amount of content in this game is frankly staggering, so if you fall in love with the thrill of thrashing hundreds of enemies with crazy attacks, doing it with a friend is even sweeter.[/dt_media]Editors Recommendations

Companies update their apps all the time. This one annoyed customers, cratered the stock and cost the CEO his job.

Many modern and popular parenting techniques place a high emphasis on attending to our kids' emotions.I give my daughter space when she experiences big emotional outbursts.I want her to learn that emotions are passing sensations.I could see the emotional monsoon coming from a mile away. That's why, as we approached the house, I gently warned my daughter that we would need to take her rainboots off before going inside. She continued splashing through the puddles in our driveway, either unable or unwilling to hear me. Sure enough, when we entered the garage and sat down to take off our shoes, a torrent of tears erupted."No, you're NOT taking my boots off!" she screamed. Days earlier, her daycare teacher informed me that she even refused to remove them during naptime.I briefly considered allowing her to wear the boots inside just to avoid the fight. But glancing down at our muddy footprints only strengthened my resolve.I breathed in, took her tear-streaked face in my hands, and explained why the boots needed to stay outside. More shrieks. I slipped off her shoes (narrowly avoiding a kick to the face) and carried her thrashing body into the kitchen, where I placed her on the ground. She curled into a ball, threatening to explode again at any moment."I love you," I reassured her, patting her back. "I'm sorry we had to take off the boots. We can put them back on later. Right now, I need to cook dinner. Can I give you a hug?""NO!" She spat. "I want my boots!" She scrambled back toward the door, slamming her tiny fists against it. "Give me my boots!" she wailed.Her outburst continued to escalate, but I started making dinner anyway.I ignored her and carried on with the evening to-dosModern parenting philosophies (like gentle parenting) would advise me not to leave her side. These "big emotions" deserve our utmost attention and investigation, according to gentle parenting experts. Many millennial parents have fallen into this "pendulum parenting" trap. We were raised to suppress our own emotions, so now we're over-correcting that mistake by giving our kids' emotions all the power.But here's the mistake I think we're making as parents in this gentle parenting era: we need to go beyond identifying the emotion and teach our kids how tomove pastit.We need to teach our kids how to move past their emotionsStopping everything to comfort a child for 45 minutes over something like rainboots or rice crackers does not increase their emotional competence. It's communicating that, despite whatever else is going on, their emotions reign supreme. Nothing and no one else matters; plans get lost in the wake.Oftentimes (especially when it comes to toddlers), emotions do not represent reality. So, instead of validating our kids' emotions, we validate their outsize reactions to trivial matters. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Havard-trained neuroscientist, explains that the physical sensations of emotions pass after 90 seconds. Our feelings persist because we choose to dwell on whatever caused them in the first place. The solution is to acknowledge the emotions and allow them to move through us without continuing to react.All emotions will pass once I stop giving them my attentionI don't expect my daughter to understand or comprehend what took me years of therapy and practice to figure out. She's only 2, after all. But if I can show her that our emotions don't have all the control, I think it will save her a lot of heartache in the future.So when a toddler tornado hits, I get out of the way.After labeling her feelings and offering comfort (if she wants it), I give her time and space to express her emotions in a safe environment. But I don't add fuel to an already-raging fire by giving it more of my own energy and attention. Even the worst storms will eventually pass.Emotions are a sometimes delightful and sometimes distressing part of the human experience. But they are only onepart there's so much more to life, and the actions that we take in response to our circumstances (and feelings) matter more than anything else.

30 of the exocomet belts, as imaged in this study, showing the extreme variation in such belts. (Credit: Prof Luca Matra, Trinity College Dublin.)NewsletterSign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsAstrophysicists have taken images of a large sample of exocomet belts for the first time, imaging the bands along with the tiny pebbles that orbit within. The images were published in a study in Astronomy and Astrophysics, showing bands of a variety of structures. The images reveal a remarkable diversity in the structure of belts, said Sebastin Marino, a study author and an astronomer at the University of Exeter, according to a press release. Some are narrow rings [] but a larger number of them are wide, and probably better described as disks rather than rings. Read More: How Are Exoplanets Discovered?Exploring Exocomet BeltsIn our own Solar System, comet belts are bands of comets and other objects that orbit the Sun. The Kuiper Belt is one such band, orbiting the Sun beyond the reach of Neptune. Formed from the remnants of the birth of the Solar System, the Kuiper Belt is basically a band of frozen leftovers.But the Kuiper Belt isnt the only band of frozen leftovers out there. Similar bands surround other stars, too, in solar systems other than our own. These exocomet belts are a lot like the comet belts in our own Solar System, featuring exocomets and other objects, frozen at temperatures of around negative 420 degrees Fahrenheit to negative 240 degrees Fahrenheit.Exocometary belts are found in at least 20 percent of planetary systems, said Luca Matr, another study author and an astrophysicist at Trinity College Dublin, according to the release. Surprising SizesSetting out to survey a large sample of exocomet belts for the first time and dubbing the survey REASONS (REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars) a team of astrophysicists imaged 74 exocomet belts of various structures. Some were narrower, some were broader, and some werent alone, belonging to systems with multiple bands.The power of a large study like REASONS is in revealing population-wide properties and trends, said Matr in the release.One of these trends, for instance, related to the broadness of the belts, which tended to be wide, not narrow like our own Kuiper Belt. Another related to the objects inside the belts: Older belts tended to contain fewer pebbles, which form when exocomets collide. Exocomets are boulders of rock and ice [] which smash together within these belts to produce the pebbles that we observe here, said Matr in the release. The number of pebbles decreases for older planetary systems as belts run out of larger exocomets smashing together. [] This decrease in pebbles is faster if the belt is closer to the central star.A Telescopic TeamTo image these exocomets, which also varied in age from young to old, the team turned to the ALMA and SMA telescope arrays. Comprising 66 radio telescopes in the Atacama Desert in Chile and 8 radio telescopes on Maunakea in Hawaii, the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Submillimeter Array (SMA) were capable of capturing these exocomet belts in crystal-clear resolution, revealing their impressive range of sizes. Arrays like the ALMA and SMA used in this work are extraordinary tools that are continuing to give us incredible new insights into the universe and its workings, said David Wilner, another study author and an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, in the release. The REASONS survey required a large community effort and has an incredible legacy value, with multiple potential pathways for future investigation.New insights could come from the same telescopes, or from others, like the James Webb Space Telescope. The REASONS dataset of belt and planetary system properties will enable studies of the birth and evolution of these belts, as well as follow-up observations across the wavelength range, said Wilner in the release, to zoom even further onto the details of these belts.Article Sources:Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Astronomy and Astrophysics. REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars (REASONS)NASA. The Kuiper BeltSam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Nature, Published online: 15 January 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00092-5Promoting mutually beneficial relationships between plants and soil microbes that enhance nutrient acquisition by plants could improve crop production without increasing inorganic-fertilizer use. A mutation that causes an amino-acid substitution in a channel called CNGC15 in the plant cells nucleus boosts the formation of such endosymbiotic relationships.

Researchers discovered long-lost computer code and used it to resurrect the early chatbot ELIZA.

Fields of Mistria developer NPC Studio has revealed its upcoming roadmap of future content, as well as what's coming to the game in its second major update in March.The March 2025 update for Fields of Mistria will introduce a new character named Caldarus and a mechanic that allows players to gossip with Elsie in order to discover a character's preferred gifts. More NPC dialogue and schedules will be added too. There are also several new unlocks, including spells and mines, as well as a Fire Seal quest and the next mine biome. Fields of Mistria's latest Roadmap is here!Our 2nd Major Update will be coming in March! Here's a look at everything we have planned for it, as well as what to expect from future updates! Details: https://t.co/ueEJKH6EaM pic.twitter.com/Nb5YS284oW Fields of Mistria Out Now in Early Access (@FieldsofMistria) January 17, 2025 More requests and museum rewards will come to the town, and the Renown level cap will be raised by 20 levels. Farmland expansions, new furniture decor, and cosmetics will also be included. As for what comes next after March, the studio is working on various other features such as marriage and children mechanics. However, the developer notes that the release schedules of these upcoming features are in no particular order.Continue Reading at GameSpot

If there are awards for good movies, such as the Oscars or the Golden Globes, then there has to be an equivalent for bad movies. These would be the Golden Raspberry Awards, also known as the Razzies, and they've recognized and "awarded" bad movies since the event was founded in 1981.