Looking for the most recent regular 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 and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition pays homage to the Winter Olympics. The purple category is tough, as always — and today it expects you to hunt out hidden words inside longer words. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Lillehammer is another one.

Green group hint: Great White North.

Blue group hint: Think Chloe Kim.

Purple group hint: Look for a hidden word.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Previous Winter Olympic hosts.

Green group: Canada men’s hockey players.

Blue group: Snowboarding terms.

Purple group: Ends in a piece of winter sports equipment.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is previous Winter Olympic hosts. The four answers are Albertville, Chamonix, Oslo and St. Moritz.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is Canada men’s hockey players. The four answers are Celebrini, Crosby, Marner and McDavid.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is snowboarding terms. The four answers are cork, frontside, goofy and McTwist.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a piece of winter sports equipment. The four answers are cheapskate, chopstick, Lipinski and milestone.

If you’ve spent more than five minutes on TikTok, you’ve probably heard someone rave about Lola Blankets. They’re draped over couches in Get Ready With Me videos, folded at the foot of perfectly made beds, and name-dropped in podcast ads.

I wanted to be skeptical, but the hype is sadly real; we tested the blankets at WIRED and have included them in multiple gift guides and roundups, from the Best Weighted Blankets to the Best Housewarming Gifts to the Best Gifts for Mom.

From February 14 through February 16, Lola Blankets are 45 percent off with code WINTER45. No exclusions. This is the kind of discount that makes the math very compelling. Buy two, one for yourself and one as a present for a loved one, or a furry loved one (see below).

Lola Blankets come in two styles: the Original and the Weighted Blankets. WIRED reviewer Nena Farrell adores the Original (in Malibu Blue). It comes in an assortment of colors, patterns, and collaborations, plus five sizes: baby, medium, large, Lola XL, and travel. The double-sided fabric is an Oeko-Tex Standard 100-certified faux fur blend of 95 percent polyester and 5 percent spandex, with four-way stretch. It’s zero-shed, stain-resistant, and double-hemmed for durability. I can confirm that durability matters. Mine has survived everyday use and the affections of my cat, who has fully claimed it as her throne BTW.

Courtesy of Lola Blankets

Lola Blankets

Weighted Lola

• China’s strontium optical clock now participates directly in international atomic time calculation
• Optical clocks operate at higher frequencies than caesium, allowing finer measurement resolution
• Accuracy claims reach one second over billions or tens of billions of years

China has received formal international recognition for an ultra precise optical lattice clock after its calibration data was accepted into the global timekeeping system.

The approval allows the country’s NIM-Sr1 strontium atomic optical lattice clock to participate directly in the calculation of International Atomic Time, a role previously dominated by a few nations using caesium based standards.

Samsung will unveil its next flagship smartphone lineup on February 25 at its Galaxy Unpacked event in San Francisco. The company sent out invites earlier this week. The event will begin at 10 am Pacific (1 pm Eastern), and it’ll be livestreamed here.

Rumors abound that suggest the Galaxy S26 series—which will include the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26 Ultra—won’t have any major changes from their predecessors. They’ll likely be powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, with some minor charging speed improvements and minor upgrades to the camera hardware.

Courtesy of Samsung

Artificial intelligence features will likely sit at the forefront, likely with a few new Gemini tricks. However, one big new feature is a privacy screen built into the smartphone itself. It’ll let you selectively block parts of the display from people around you. Unfortunately, even with only minor upgrades, there may be a price increase for these phones stemming from the RAM shortage. As usual, Samsung is letting you reserve a Galaxy S26 device right now. You’ll get a $30 credit to use when preorders open up, and a chance to win a $5,000 gift card at Samsung.com.

Don’t expect to see a Galaxy S26 Edge. Samsung’s super-slim Edge phone from 2025 wasn’t a hit, and leaks suggest a successor has been canceled. Still, the Edge debuted in May 2025, so we could still see a follow-up around then. All we know is that it likely won’t make a showing at this Unpacked event. Samsung usually announces other products outside of smartphones, and this year, that may be a new pair of Galaxy Buds wireless earbuds.

We’ll be on the ground bringing the news to you live.

Fitbit’s Personal Health Coach Arrives on iOS

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Months after Fitbit’s Personal Health Coach launched in public preview for Android users, the Gemini-powered health service is now finally available to iOS users. To try it out, you must have an active paid or trial Fitbit Premium subscription and a phone that runs iOS 16.4 or higher. (You can check out the full list of requirements here.) Personal Health Coach is also expanding to English speakers in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

As I mentioned in my preview of the service, I would be wary of divulging too much personal health information to a large corporation, even one that promises not to use it for advertising. I also found that it’s easy to start consulting with the Coach for advice on every part of your day, which your IRL family and friends will find weird and annoying. However, it is the easiest, most helpful, and most accommodating of the AI coach services that I’ve tried so far, and $10/month for Fitbit Premium is cheaper than a real running coach. As always, your mileage (literally) may vary. —Adrienne So

iOS 26.3 Makes It Easy to Switch to Android

Photograph: Simon Hill

Apple released iOS 26.3 this week for the iPhone, and the hot new feature might surprise you. The company is making it easier to switch to Android phones, thanks to a collaboration with Google, which also recently added a similar feature for switching from Android to iPhone.

Elon Musk is “actively” working to make xAI’s Grok chatbot “more unhinged,” according to a former employee who spoke to The Verge about recent departures from Musk’s AI company.

This week, following the announcement that Musk’s SpaceX is acquiring xAI (which previously acquired his social media company X), at least 11 engineers and two co-founders said they’re leaving the company. Some said they’re departing to start something new, and Musk himself suggested this is part of an effort to organize xAI more effectively.

But two sources who left the company (at least one of them before the current wave) reportedly told The Verge that employees have become increasingly disillusioned by the company’s disregard for safety, resulting in global scrutiny after Grok was used to create more than 1 million sexualized images, including deepfakes of real women and minors.

One source said, “Safety is a dead org at xAI,” while the other said that Musk is “actively is trying to make the model more unhinged because safety means censorship, in a sense, to him.”

They also reportedly complained about a lack of direction, with one saying they felt xAI was “stuck in the catch-up phase” compared to competitors.

• OpenAI has officially disabled GPT-4o in ChatGPT
• A lot of users are feeling emotional and upset about the switch
• There’s an official #keep4o campaign underway

We knew the moment was coming, and now it’s happened: OpenAI has officially disabled the GPT-4o model inside ChatGPT, pushing all users towards the GPT-5 alternatives, and it’s hitting a lot of users hard.

A substantial chunk of ChatGPT users prefer the more emotional and warmer ChatGPT-4o experience, as it’s more suited to AI companionship and bonding. Now it’s no longer available, there’s been a widespread outpouring of sadness and anger.

• Holographic tape operated inside a production LTO library without infrastructure changes
• Live application software accessed holographic media using standard tape library workflows
• Cartridge dimensions matched LTO, allowing robotic handling without modification

A UK startup has tested a holographic tape storage system inside a working LTO tape library, showing that it can run within existing data center setups.

The test by HoloMem involved real software writing data to the system and reading it back through normal tape library operations.

The Department of Homeland Security has been increasing pressure on tech companies to identify the owners of social media accounts that criticize Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to The New York Times.

This echoes other recent reporting, with Bloomberg pointing to five cases in which Homeland Security sought to identify the owners of anonymous Instagram accounts, with the department withdrawing its subpoenas after the owners sued. And a Washington Post story described Homeland Security’s growing use of administrative subpoenas — which do not require the approval of a judge — to target Americans.

Now the NYT says a practice that was previously used sparingly has become increasingly common in recent months, with the department sending hundreds of these subpoenas to Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta. The subpoenas reportedly focused on accounts that did not have a real name attached and either criticized ICE or described the location of ICE agents.

Google, Meta, and Reddit have reportedly complied in at least some cases. Echoing past comments, Google said that it informs users of these subpoenas when it can, and that it pushes back when the subpoenas are “overbroad.”

The start of a new year of streaming brims with anticipation for all the great things you’ll watch. You could get hooked on an underrated show, binge the return of a favorite or stream a new Oscar Best Picture winner from your couch. Envisioning upcoming entertainment is better when you don’t factor in how the price to watch it could change — and already is.

2026 has already brought increases to services you might use to stream shows, movies, music and live TV, such as Paramount Plus, Spotify and Sling. Streamflation or not, you probably aren’t going to take a total break from streaming this year, so we’re tracking every price rise from 2025 onward. If you hit your spending limit, you can cancel, rotate services or scout for discounts. 

2026 Streaming Price Hikes

Crunchyroll (February 2026) 

The anime streaming service Crunchyroll announced a price hike on Feb. 2, including an increase to its entry-level Fan subscription for the first time since 2019. Crunchyroll shut down its free, ad-supported tier about a month earlier.

With the increase, which is in effect for new customers and starts March 4 for existing customers, Crunchyroll’s ad-free plans now cost $10 per month for Fan, $14 for Mega Fan and $18 for Ultimate Fan — a $2 increase across plans.

Amazon Music (February 2026)

Amazon Music Unlimited Individual plans recently rose to $13 per month (or $12 per month for Prime members — both $1 bumps). Family plans increased by $2 to $22 per month. Prices went into effect Feb. 3 for new customers, and current subscribers will pay more on or after March 5. Amazon Music Unlimited also adjusted prices in 2025.

Paramount Plus (January 2026)

If you missed Paramount Plus’ mid-January price increase, it might be because the details emerged two months earlier, in November 2025. When the hike did arrive, it brought ad-supported Essential from $8 per month or $60 per year to $9 per month or $90 per year. Paramount Plus‘ ad-free version, Premium, rose from $13 per month to $14 and $120 per year to $140. 

Spotify (January 2026)

Spotify added to the price hike pile with its announcement on Jan. 15. The updates included a $1 bump to the Premium Individual plan, effective right away for newbies, and in February for existing subscribers. The prices increased for Individual to $13 per month, Premium Duo to $19, Premium Family to $22 and Premium Student to $7.

Sling TV (January 2026)

Live TV streaming service Sling changed rates on its Blue packages in some regions. It’s increased in markets where at least one local ABC, Fox or NBC station is available. Blue now costs $9 extra (up from $5) if you have all three locals, and $4 extra (up from no charge) if you have one or two. While newcomers saw the change in January, existing customers won’t be affected until their billing date on or after Feb. 20.

2025 Streaming Price Hikes

HBO Max (October 2025) 

HBO Max raised prices on Oct. 21, right around the launches of new series It: Welcome to Derry and I Love LA. The ad-supported basic tier rose by $1 to $11 per month, and the ad-free Standard tier increased by $1.50 to $18.50 per month. The ad-free Premium tier jumped $2 to $23 per month. 

The hike affected new customers immediately and existing customers on their first billing cycle on or after Nov. 20. Disney streaming increases took effect the same day, hiking the price of HBO Max, Hulu and Disney Plus bundles.

Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN Select, Hulu Plus Live TV (October 2025) 

The most monster hike of 2025 probably belonged to Disney. Its increases extended to standalone Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Select plans, as well as bundle plans and Hulu Plus Live TV plans. Notably, ad-free Hulu and the ad-free Disney Plus and Hulu bundle didn’t see a hike. The changes went into effect on the same day as HBO Max’s increase — Oct. 21 — applying to existing customers on or after that date.

DirecTV (October 2025)

Price increases may have affected DirecTV customers’ bills on or after Oct. 5, according to a support page that instructs customers to sign in to learn more. A DirecTV representative told CNET that the company was communicating the update directly to customers and did not have a breakdown to share.

Philo (September 2025)

On Sept. 30, the budget live TV streamer Philo increased the price of its Core plan and added access to ad-supported HBO Max and Discovery Plus. Its subscription price rose by $5 to $33, with existing Core customers paying more on or after Oct. 30.

Apple TV (August 2025) 

Before its rebrand to Apple TV, the streamer formerly known as Apple TV Plus got a $3 hike on Aug. 21. The ad-free service now costs $13 per month. 

Peacock (July 2025)

The ad-supported and ad-free versions of Peacock rose $3 in July, bringing Premium to $11 per month and Premium Plus to $17 per month. Peacock also began testing a new $8-per-month Select tier with current seasons of NBC and Bravo shows. Annual plans increased by $30, and changes took hold for current customers on or after Aug. 22. 

Netflix (January 2025)

It’s been more than a year since Netflix last raised prices. The popular streaming service updated the price of its ad-based plan in 2025 for the first time since its 2022 launch — increasing it by $1 to $8 per month. The streamer also increased its ad-free Standard plan by $2.50 to $18 per month, and upped its ad-free Premium plan by $2 to $25 per month.

Streaming Price Decreases

Fubo (January 2026)

A much less common occurrence in the streaming world, Fubo initiated some price cuts amid its carriage dispute with NBCUniversal. Fubo reduced its Pro and Elite monthly subscriptions by $11 to $74 and $84, respectively, with existing customers paying less on or after Jan. 1. Here’s more on the dispute and loss of NBCUniversal channels from Fubo.

• SSHStalker uses IRC channels and multiple bots to control infected Linux hosts
• Automated SSH brute-forcing rapidly spreads the botnet through cloud server infrastructures
• Compilers are downloaded locally to build payloads for reliable cross-distribution execution

SSHStalker, a recently discovered Linux botnet, is apparently relying on the classic IRC (Internet Relay Chat) protocol to manage its operations.

Created in 1988, IRCwas once the dominant instant messaging system for technical communities due to its simplicity, low bandwidth needs, and cross-platform compatibility.