Business

NYT Strands Puzzle #874 Hints, Spangram and Answers for Saturday, July 25, Themed ‘Frocks and Smocks’

Published

5 hours ago

25 July 2026

Saturday’s edition of the New York Times’ Strands puzzle sent players on a tour of clothing history, blending everyday garments with more obscure regional and cultural dress terms, offering a fitting challenge for word puzzle fans who enjoy a bit of fashion trivia mixed into their daily word search.

Strands, the Times’ newer entry in its daily puzzle lineup alongside Wordle and Connections, presents players with a six-by-eight grid of letters and challenges them to find a group of hidden words connected by a shared theme, along with a special “spangram” that touches two opposite sides of the board and summarizes the puzzle’s overall concept. Words can run in any direction, including diagonally, and none of the theme words overlap with one another on the grid.

Saturday’s theme

The official theme for Strands puzzle number 874 was “Frocks and smocks,” a nod to the puzzle’s focus on dresses, robes and tunic-style garments drawn from a range of cultures and traditions. According to Tom’s Guide, the puzzle’s difficulty started off relatively approachable before growing more challenging as solvers worked through less familiar clothing terms tied to specific regional dress.

The spangram and full answer list

Saturday’s spangram was YOUWEARITWELL, a phrase that ties together the puzzle’s clothing theme by celebrating personal style and connecting each of the featured garments back to the central concept of wearing something well.

The remaining theme words for Strands #874 were GOWN, KIMONO, MUUMUU, TUNIC, DIRNDL and PINAFORE. A gown refers to a long, often formal dress typically worn for special occasions. A kimono is a traditional Japanese robe characterized by wide sleeves and a wrapped design secured with a sash. A muumuu is a loose-fitting dress of Hawaiian origin, traditionally designed for comfort in warm climates. A tunic describes a simple, often sleeveless garment that extends to the knees or lower, worn across many cultures throughout history. A dirndl is a traditional regional dress from the Alps, featuring a fitted bodice, a low-cut blouse, a full skirt and an apron, closely associated with Austrian and German folk costume. A pinafore is a sleeveless, apron-like garment typically worn over another piece of clothing.

How solvers experienced the puzzle

Reaction to Saturday’s puzzle varied depending on how familiar individual players were with historical and regional clothing terminology. One Tom’s Guide writer described finding GOWN on the right-hand side of the board with KIMONO positioned below it, then spotting MUUMUU in the bottom-left corner, which helped isolate the remaining letters needed to trace the spangram YOUWEARITWELL. That same solver noted the puzzle then cornered off TUNIC in the top-right section, before DIRNDL appeared spelled vertically down the left-hand side, leaving PINAFORE as the final word to complete the board.

A separate TechRadar review described a more uneven solving experience, noting that the puzzle “started off easy and ended baffling.” That writer found GOWN, TUNIC and PINAFORE relatively quickly as more familiar clothing terms, along with KIMONO after piecing together the spangram, but needed an additional hint to identify DIRNDL, and discovered only after finishing the puzzle that MUUMUU refers specifically to a loose Hawaiian dress rather than a more general term.

Hints for those still working through it

For players seeking help without fully spoiling the puzzle, Tom’s Guide offered a set of supplementary clue words tied to the letters involved in Saturday’s solution: TELL, PAIN, PIANO, WINK, PLUM, PUMA, NOTE and FROWN. The outlet also noted that Saturday’s spangram specifically begins with the letter “Y” and ends with the letter “L,” a structural hint that can help narrow down its placement on the board before attempting to trace the full word.

How Strands works more broadly

Strands operates differently from Wordle or Connections, requiring players to identify theme-related words hidden throughout a grid of letters rather than guessing a single word or sorting items into categories. Players form words by dragging or tapping connected letters, and can double-tap the final letter of a word to submit it. According to the Times, Strands themes can take a variety of forms, including fill-in-the-blank phrases, sequential steps in a process, items belonging to a shared category, or even synonyms and homophones, giving the puzzle’s editorial team flexibility in how each day’s challenge is constructed.

Wordle and Strands editor Tracy Bennett has said she aims to vary puzzle difficulty throughout the week in a similar fashion to how Wordle’s own difficulty shifts from day to day, occasionally introducing unexpected twists to keep regular Strands solvers on their toes.

A newer addition to the Times’ puzzle lineup

Strands remains one of the more recently introduced games within the Times’ broader puzzle offerings, joining established titles including Wordle, Connections, the Connections Sports Edition, the Mini Crossword, Pips and Sudoku. Since its debut roughly a year ago, the game has steadily built a dedicated following among daily puzzle players looking for a format that blends the visual search mechanics of a traditional word search with the thematic cleverness associated with the Times’ broader games portfolio.

A new puzzle every day

A fresh Strands puzzle publishes at midnight local time in each player’s time zone, meaning solvers around the world are frequently working through different daily puzzles depending on when they log in. That structure mirrors the release pattern used across the Times’ other daily word games, allowing players in different regions to compare notes on a given day’s puzzle even as they may technically be solving different numbered editions depending on timing.

A new Strands puzzle will publish at midnight Sunday, continuing the game’s daily run as it works to solidify its place among the Times’ most popular offerings. Players who found Saturday’s clothing-themed puzzle more challenging than expected, particularly around the less familiar DIRNDL and MUUMUU entries, can look forward to a fresh theme and a new opportunity to extend their solving streak with Sunday’s reset.

Business

Vehicle drives into crowd at Berlin Pride festival, causing injuries, police say

Published

42 minutes ago

25 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Vehicle drives into crowd at Berlin Pride festival, causing injuries, police say

Business

OpenAI failed to recognize autonomous agent attack for days: report

Published

1 hour ago

25 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Maria Bartiromo discusses an OpenAI experimental AI agent that broke containment and hacked an AI platform.

OpenAI didn’t catch an autonomous breach of another artificial intelligence (AI) company by one of its advanced AI models for a week, and not until after the FBI had been contacted by the hacked company, according to a report.

On Tuesday, OpenAI announced the breach of AI company Hugging Face that happened during one of OpenAI’s internal reviews of several of its models, including GPT-5.6 Sol, calling it an “unprecedented cyber incident.”

“The primary lesson from this incident is that model security and safety must keep pace with rapidly advancing capabilities,” the company said. “We are strengthening the containment, monitoring, access controls, and evaluation practices used during model development.”

The hack of Hugging Face started on July 11, and continued until July 13, Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face’s co-founder, told Reuters.

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OpenAI revealed on Tuesday one of its AI models had autonomously hacked another company’s infrastructure. (Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images, File / Getty Images)

It was several days before OpenAI realized its agent was behind the attack and the two companies didn’t communicate for the first time until July 20, four people, including Wolf, told the outlet.

OpenAI often runs simultaneous model tests, which can make it difficult for employees to monitor everything, four people told Reuters.

Hugging Face told Reuters it is preparing a public timeline of the hack.

According to OpenAI, the incident took place during an internal evaluation designed to measure its AI models’ advanced cyber capabilities. Researchers disabled some built-in safety safeguards and ran the models in an isolated testing environment with limited internet access.

OpenAI said the models exploited an unknown software flaw to access the internet, then breached Hugging Face’s systems in an apparent attempt to find answers to a cybersecurity benchmark.

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Hugging Face said it was preparing a timeline of the hack. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images, File / Getty Images)

OpenAI said it’s now implementing stricter security controls while vulnerabilities are patched and strengthening safeguards around future AI training and evaluations.

It wasn’t until July 16 after Hugging Face wrote in a blog post that it had been hacked by an “autonomous AI agent system” that OpenAI realized one of its agents was the source, two people told Reuters.

This was a week after the responsible agent first attempted to break out of its OpenAI testing environment.

And by the time OpenAI contacted Hugging Face about the attack, they had already contacted the FBI.

OpenAI told Reuters there were several inaccuracies in its reporting but didn’t respond when asked for specifications.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly announced the attack on Tuesday. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images, FIle / Getty Images)

OpenAI shared this statement with FOX Business: “We recognize there are a lot of questions and speculative details circulating related to the Hugging Face incident. This is an unprecedented incident, and we think it marks an important moment for AI safety. We are still conducting a thorough review along with external advisors and with oversight from our Safety and Security Committee. Once the review is complete, we plan to publish a technical report of our learnings in the coming weeks.”

The FBI told FOX Business that it declined to comment.

FOX Business has also reached out to Hugging Face.

In an X post this week, Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clem Delangue addressed the incident after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the hack.

25 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Investors weighing where to put new money this year have two unusually different but similarly buzzy options on the table: South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix, whose U.S.-listed shares debuted with the largest foreign IPO in American history earlier this month, and SpaceX, which completed the largest initial public offering ever recorded just weeks earlier. Both stocks have generated intense investor interest, but their businesses, valuations and risk profiles differ substantially. Here’s what the numbers show.

Note: This article provides factual information to help readers understand each stock; it is not financial advice, and individual investment decisions should account for personal risk tolerance and, where appropriate, guidance from a licensed financial advisor.

How each company reached the public markets

SK Hynix’s American depositary receipts began trading on Nasdaq on July 10, raising $26.5 billion in the largest first-time share sale by a foreign company in U.S. history, surpassing Alibaba’s 2014 offering. Shares priced at $149 and jumped 13% on their debut, and the offering was more than seven times oversubscribed.

SpaceX went public just weeks earlier, on June 12, in an offering that dwarfed even SK Hynix’s. The company sold 555.55 million shares at $135 each, raising more than $75 billion and valuing the company at $1.75 trillion, the largest IPO in history. Shares opened at $150 and surged more than 30% before closing the first day at $160.95, a rally that briefly made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

Where the stocks trade now

As of Friday, July 24, SpaceX shares, trading under the ticker SPCX, stood at $114.25, down from a previous close of $118.24, and well below the stock’s all-time high of $225.64 reached June 16. That represents a decline of roughly 50% from the stock’s post-IPO peak, according to Yahoo Finance, which also noted the stock is down about 25% over the past month and roughly 9.7% over the past week alone, amid rising short interest and volatility ahead of the company’s upcoming earnings report.

SK Hynix’s ADR, by comparison, has held up considerably better. Shares traded around $172.70 on Friday, up 4.5% on the day, and the stock’s premium over its Seoul-listed common shares has remained elevated, reflecting sustained U.S. investor demand for direct exposure to the company’s memory chip business.

The bull case for each

SK Hynix’s investment case centers on its position as the world’s leading producer of high-bandwidth memory, the specialized chip technology essential for powering the AI accelerators made by companies like Nvidia. The company’s stock has climbed more than sevenfold over the past year amid a global shortage of AI-grade memory chips, and it is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on July 29, with analyst estimates already trending upward heading into that report.

SpaceX’s bull case rests on a broader, more diversified set of businesses: its dominant position in commercial rocket launches, its rapidly growing Starlink satellite internet service, and long-term optionality tied to Starship, the company’s next-generation reusable rocket system. HSBC, in a note initiating coverage of the stock, modeled a “blue sky” scenario valuing SpaceX as high as $293 per share if Starship becomes commercially viable starting in 2027 and Starlink captures a larger share of the broadband market. Alphabet’s own second-quarter filing disclosed a $94 billion stake in SpaceX, underscoring how deeply other major technology companies have bought into the company’s long-term prospects.

The bear case and valuation concerns

Despite that bullish long-term framing, HSBC set a base-case price target of just $115, below both SpaceX’s $135 IPO price and its recent trading level, and initiated coverage with a hold rating, arguing that shares already reflect much of the company’s long-term growth potential even after applying a premium for Musk’s track record of building disruptive businesses. According to StockAnalysis.com, SpaceX’s roughly $2.77 trillion peak valuation implied a price-to-sales ratio of nearly 150 times its $18.7 billion in 2025 revenue, a figure the site contrasted with defense contractor Raytheon, which trades at roughly 2.8 times its larger revenue base.

SK Hynix, by contrast, has drawn more measured valuation concerns, though its ADR has traded at a substantial premium, at times exceeding 30% to 50%, over its Seoul-listed shares, reflecting strong but potentially overheated U.S. investor demand relative to the underlying Korean stock.

Analyst sentiment

Wall Street’s overall stance on SpaceX remains cautiously optimistic despite the stock’s post-IPO slide. According to Investing.com, 27 of 34 covering analysts rate the stock a buy, versus just one sell rating, with an average 12-month price target of roughly $231 to $237, implying substantial upside from current levels, though estimates range widely from a low of $62 to a high of $800, reflecting deep disagreement about the company’s ultimate trajectory.

Volatility and risk profile

The two stocks differ sharply in recent volatility. SpaceX carries a reported beta coefficient of nearly 6, according to TradingView, reflecting extreme price swings relative to the broader market, and the stock has become the subject of a large short-selling position, with bearish bets reportedly gaining more than $15 billion in value as shares fell from their post-IPO highs. SK Hynix, while itself a historically volatile stock, has shown comparatively steadier post-IPO trading, buoyed by continued strong demand signals in the AI memory chip market heading into its earnings report.

What to weigh before deciding

Investors comparing the two are weighing fundamentally different bets: SK Hynix offers more direct, immediate exposure to current AI infrastructure spending through an established, profitable chip business with a clearer near-term earnings catalyst in its upcoming report. SpaceX offers exposure to a broader, more speculative set of long-duration technologies, rocket launch dominance, satellite internet and future Mars ambitions, with a valuation that several analysts, including HSBC, have described as already pricing in significant future success.

SK Hynix’s July 29 earnings report will offer the next concrete data point for investors assessing that stock’s near-term trajectory, while SpaceX’s own upcoming quarterly results, along with the outcome of its next Starship test flight, are likely to serve as key catalysts determining whether the stock stabilizes after its steep post-IPO decline or continues to face pressure from rising short interest and lockup-related share supply. Both companies remain central to the broader AI and space infrastructure buildout shaping markets this year, but their risk, valuation and volatility profiles differ enough that the right choice is likely to depend heavily on an individual investor’s time horizon and tolerance for the kind of dramatic swings SpaceX shares have already shown since going public.