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 is a mix of a little bit of everything. It helps if basketball is your game. 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 for 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: Don’t keep playing!

Green group hint: Smash that basketball.

Blue group hint: Hoopster winners.

Purple group hint: Goldy Gopher is another one.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Signal for play to stop.

Green group: Dunks.

Blue group: NBA 3-point contest winners.

Purple group: College mascots.

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 signal for play to stop. The four answers are buzzer, horn, siren and whistle.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is dunks. The four answers are 360, between-the-legs, reverse and windmill.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is NBA 3-point contest winners. The four answers are Herro, Hield, Love and Pierce.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is college mascots. The four answers are Big Al, Brutus, Otto and Rameses.

I’ve had a busy time reviewing Viltrox lenses this year – including a range of primes such as the cheap and characterful ‘body cap’ 28mm f/4.5 lens, my dream reportage photography 35mm f/1.2 lens, the buttery bokeh-delivering 135mm f/1.8 LAB and the lightweight 50mm f/2 Air. Now, it’s the turn of the AF 85mm F1.4 Pro.

It’s designed for full-frame and is currently available for Sony and Nikon cameras only, with no word yet on an L-mount version (Fujifilm‘s X-mount is APS-C, and there’s already an equivalent 56mm F1.2 Pro lens available). It’s the first ‘Pro’ autofocus lens I’ve tested in Viltrox’s range, which also includes the AF 50mm F1.4 and various APS-C lenses, including the 27mm F1.2 and 75mm F1.2 (for Sony E, Fujifilm X and Nikon Z).

In short, it’s the classic portrait lens for pro photographers, with upper-body portraits and dreamy animal portraits (think cats and dogs) being its speciality. I also like the focal length for street photography.

In the hand, the Viltrox 85mm F1.4 Pro’s rugged build quality is immediately evident – this is a weather-sealed metal lens, with a range of external controls for photo and video work, even if it lacks the digital display found in Viltrox’s flagship ‘LAB’ lenses.

The team says this new chemical strategy could avoid some of the typical mechanisms that cancers use to become resistant.

A consortium that includes scientists from Dublin City University (DCU) and the University of Limerick (UL) has developed a new chemical strategy for designing metal-based compounds capable of damaging cancer cell DNA.

The team includes researchers from Chimie ParisTech from France, and Chalmers University of Technology and the Sahlgrenska University Hospital from Sweden.

Led by DCU’s Prof Andrew Kellet, the European consortium has created a series of molecules that cut DNA through a distinct chemical mechanism when compared with existing chemotherapy drugs. Their research focuses on early-stage compounds that could form the basis of future therapies, particularly in cancers that become resistant to treatment.

To achieve their results, the scientists used “click chemistry” – a method used for assembling molecular components – to create a family of compounds known as “tri-click” ligands. When combined with copper ions, these ligands form artificial metal-containing agents designed to cleave DNA.

“Click chemistry has transformed how we build complex molecules, but its potential as a platform to assemble DNA-damaging chemotherapeutics is under-explored,” said Kellet.

“One of the major challenges in cancer treatment is drug resistance. By developing compounds that damage DNA in a different way, we aim to open up new possibilities for overcoming some of the limitations of existing therapies. While this research is still at an early stage, it provides a valuable platform for future drug development.”

Drug resistance remains one of the biggest challenges in cancer treatment. Tumours can adapt by repairing specific forms of DNA damage or by blocking the activity of conventional drugs. According to the team, this new chemical strategy could avoid some of the typical mechanisms that cancers use to become resistant. Their study has been published in the journal Nature.

“This work exemplifies the value of systematic, deep screening of molecular properties in the development of more effective medicines,” said Damien Thompson, the director of SSPC, the Research Ireland Centre for Pharmaceuticals and a professor of molecular modelling at UL.

“Support from SSPC, the Research Ireland Centre for Pharmaceuticals enabled strong collaboration between our experimental and modelling teams and this new design strategy marks a key milestone in developing sustainable, well-tolerated anticancer drugs.”

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LHS 1903 is a tiny red dwarf star in the Lynx constellation, 116 light-years away. This small star is around half the mass of our Sun and emits a faint glow that is scarcely visible against the night sky. Nonetheless, subsequent observations have revealed a system of four planets, and what they’re exhibiting is a pattern that utterly contradicts our assumptions.

The planets are grouped in the opposite order you’d expect: rocky, gaseous, gaseous, rocky, from innermost to outermost. The innermost planet, LHS 1903 b, is a dense super-Earth roughly 40% larger in radius than our own Earth, and it orbits in a blistering hot loop that lasts a few days. Its neighbor, LHS 1903 c, is joined in its orbit by LHS 1903 d; both are sub-Neptunes with thick gaseous envelopes, but that makes them less dense than rocky worlds of a similar mass, and because they’re a bit farther out, they’re in a cooler zone where the gas probably hung around during their formation.

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Then there’s the surprise: LHS 1903 e, the outermost planet. At approximately 1.7 times the size of Earth, it is classified as a super-Earth, although density data indicate that it is composed of stony material with no major gaseous layer. Overall, it takes around 29 and a half days for this faraway globe to circle its star, which is far enough away to have a rather gaseous atmosphere, according to standard models.

Astronomers discovered three of these planets using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which detects tiny dips in sunlight as a planet passes in front of its star. Ground-based telescopes were then used to pinpoint their presence. However, it took data from the European Space Agency’s CHEOPS satellite to establish the presence of that fourth planet, a precision sensor capable of measuring exoplanet transits and providing a more thorough perspective of faraway worlds.

Thomas Wilson of the University of Warwick, the lead author of a recent study published in Science, sees this arrangement as obvious indication of something unusual going on. Usually, rocky planets appear after gas-rich ones, but this time it’s the opposite. The scientists tested various theories to see if they could come up with a different explanation, such as planets moving orbits or colliding in ways that took away their atmospheres, but they just did not hold up to the evidence.

Instead, what they’re seeing appears to indicate an inside-out formation. Planets most likely formed one at a time from a swirling cloud of dust and gas, rather than simultaneously. The inner rocky planet most likely formed first and absorbed all of the neighboring material, followed by the two gaseous planets, which grabbed some gas while it was still plenty. By the time the outer rocky planet began to develop, the gas had nearly evaporated, leaving it with little alternative but to build entirely from solid material. This makes the outer planet a bit of a late bloomer, a process that previously seemed improbable, but now has direct evidence to back it up.
[Source]

The Razer Kishi Ultra is undoubtedly the best option for anyone who takes mobile gaming seriously, whether on a phone or a small tablet. A variety of features work together to make it seem like a high-end controller. So the full-sized grips on this thing allow your hands to rest comfortably, much like holding a pair of Xbox controllers connected together in the middle. Smaller clip-on alternatives can become cramped after a time, but the Kishi Ultra avoids that. The comfort level is really high, to the point that you can play Genshin Impact, Call of Duty Mobile, or stream from a PC for hours without your hands suffering.

In terms of controls, the Kishi Ultra meets the expectations of serious gamers looking for a professional-grade controller. The analogue sticks feature high-quality sensors that are extremely accurate and can withstand extensive use without drifting. The triggers use Hall Effect technology to provide smooth, precise input, similar to what you’d get from a specialized controller rather than the finicky outdated components found in some other solutions. The mecha-tactile buttons and 8-way d-pad provide excellent response with each press, and the additional programmable buttons on the back allow you to quickly access commands without shifting your grip.

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The Kishi Ultra also provides haptic feedback, adding to the immersion experience. On Android devices, the direction of the vibration corresponds to what is happening in the game, giving you a much better feeling of what is going on. The RGB lighting along the grips is a lovely touch, but it’s modest enough not to distract. The Razer Nexus software allows you to effortlessly map your controls, integrate all of your games across several providers, and manage your streaming setup in one location.

Compatibility-wise the Kishi Ultra is quite comprehensive. It connects directly to iPhone 15 and later models via USB-C, as well as a wide range of Android devices, including latest Samsung and Google Pixel phones, and even the iPad Mini (6th generation). It can be stretched to accommodate tablets up to 8 inches in size. Pass-through charging keeps the device charged while you’re playing. If you’re using a Windows PC, the Kishi Ultra also functions as a wired controller, which means you get a zero-latency connection because it’s connected in straight via USB, with none of the tiny delay that comes with Bluetooth.

• MrBeast buys Step to teach teens how to save, spend, and invest
• Step offers a Visa card and basic banking without monthly fees
• The acquisition gives Beast Industries a fintech team and seven million users

Beast Industries has confirmed the acquisition of Step, a youth-focused financial planning app, adding a regulated money product to its expanding list of business ventures.

Beast Industries, controlled by Jimmy Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast, the world’s largest YouTuber by subscriber count, appears to be extending its activities beyond entertainment and media into financial services.

from the betraying-trust-for-the-clicks dept

A California police department is none too happy that its license plate reader records were accessed by federal employees it never gave explicit permission to peruse. And, once again, it’s Flock Safety shrugging itself into another PR black eye.

Mountain View police criticized the company supplying its automated license plate reader system after an audit turned up “unauthorized” use by federal law enforcement agencies.

At least six offices of four agencies accessed data from the first camera in the city’s Flock Safety license-tracking system from August to November 2024 without the police department’s permission or knowledge, according to a press release Friday night.

Flock has been swimming in a cesspool of its own making for several months now, thanks to it being the public face of “How To Hunt Down Someone Who Wanted An Abortion.” That debacle was followed by even more negative press (and congressional rebuke) for its apparent unwillingness to place any limits at all on access to the hundreds of millions of license plate records its cameras have captured, including those owned by private individuals.

Mountain View is in California. And that’s only one problem with everything in this paragraph:

The city said its system was accessed by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives offices in Kentucky and Tennessee, which investigate crimes related to guns, explosives, arson and the illegal trafficking of alcohol and tobacco; the inspector general’s office of the U.S.. General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings, procurement, and property; Air Force bases in Langley, Virginia, and in Ohio; and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada.

Imagine trying to explain this to anyone. While it’s somewhat understandable that the ATF might be running nationwide searches on Flock’s platform, it’s almost impossible to explain why images captured by a single camera in Mountain View, California were accessed by the Inspector General for the GSA, much less Lake Mead Recreation Area staffers.

This explains how this happened. But it doesn’t do anything to explain why.

They accessed Mountain View’s system for one camera via a “nationwide” search setting that was turned on by Flock Safety, police said.

Apparently, this is neither opt-in or opt-out. It just is. The Mountain View police said they “worked closely” with Flock to block out-of-state access, as well as limit internal access to searches expressly approved by the department’s police chief.

Flock doesn’t seem to care what its customers want. Either it can’t do what this department asked or it simply chose not to because a system that can’t be accessed by government randos scattered around the nation is much tougher to sell than a locked-down portal that actually serves the needs of the people paying for it.

And that tracks with Ron Wyden’s criticism of the company in the letter he wrote to Flock last October:

The privacy protection that Flock promised to Oregonians — that Flock software will automatically examine the reason provided by law enforcement officers for terms indicating an abortion- or immigration-related search — is meaningless when law enforcement officials provide generic reasons like “investigation” or “crime.” Likewise, Flock’s filters are meaningless if no reason for a search is provided in the first place. While the search reasons collected by Flock, obtained by press and activists through open records requests, have occasionally revealed searches for immigration and abortion enforcement, these are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Presumably, most officers using Flock to hunt down immigrants and women who have received abortions are not going to type that in as the reason for their search. And, regardless, given that Flock has washed its hands of any obligation to audit its customers, Flock customers have no reason to trust a search reason provided by another agency.

I now believe that abuses of your product are not only likely but inevitable, and that Flock is unable and uninterested in preventing them.

Flock just keeps making Wyden’s points for him. The PD wanted limited access with actual oversight. Flock gave the PD a lending library of license plate/location images anyone with or without a library card (so to speak) could check out at will. Flock is part of the surveillance problem. And it’s clear it’s happy being a tool that can be readily and easily abused, no matter what its paying customers actually want from its technology.

Filed Under: alpr, atf, california, defense department, gsa, mountain view, surveillance, trump administration

Companies: flock safety

As the Bristol Hi-Fi Show gears up for 2026, early announcements are beginning to surface, and the first one worth paying attention to comes from Ultrafide Audio. The UK manufacturer will unveil its new ENSO INT-125 integrated amplifier, a deliberately traditional design that leans into core amplification fundamentals rather than chasing the current obsession with built-in streaming platforms. The ENSO is confirmed to include an internal DAC, but this is not a network amplifier, not a lifestyle hub, and not trying to replace your music app of choice. It is, quite unapologetically, an integrated amplifier built for people who still care about signal paths more than software updates.

That positioning makes sense once you understand Ultrafide’s roots. Still relatively unknown in North America, the brand is the hi-fi division of MC² Audio and XTA Electronics, two names with serious credibility in the professional audio world. Products are designed and manufactured in East Devon, England, under the guidance of lead engineer Alex Cooper, whose résumé includes MC² Audio’s Delta Series, XTA’s MX36 console switch, and custom guitar amplifiers built for Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, and Mick Moody.

Ultrafide spent 2025 quietly expanding its footprint with the DIAS high-power amplifier and the more approachable SP500, exporting to over 20 countries. The ENSO INT-125 looks like a natural next step: a stripped-back, musically focused integrated aimed at listeners who want modern digital compatibility without surrendering control to a streaming ecosystem. 

Ultrafide ENSO INT-125 Power, Topology, and Core Functionality

The ENSO is designed to serve as the true center of a system. Its name is drawn from the Japanese enso circle, a symbol of completeness, unity, and balance, themes that carry through both its sonic goals and its restrained, minimalist aesthetic.

Power output is rated at 125 watts per channel into 8 ohms, rising to 2 × 250 watts into 4 ohms, delivered via Ultrafide’s proprietary UltraSigma output topology.

Additional features include full preamplifier controls, tone adjustment options, an OLED display for clear system feedback, and a built-in stereo Class A/B headphone amplifier.

Inputs include two RCA and one balanced XLR analog input, along with one optical and one coaxial digital input. A dedicated moving-magnet phono stage is also included for direct turntable connection.

On the output side, the ENSO offers traditional loudspeaker terminals, a configurable preamp/power-amp loop with bypass capability, and a front-panel headphone output.

At its core is a linear toroidal power supply, with circuit design informed by technologies developed for Ultrafide’s U500DC and SP500 power amplifiers. The emphasis here is on clean power delivery, generous headroom, and maintaining musical integrity under real-world loads.

The preamplifier section features an OLED display with full remote control, derived from Ultrafide’s U4PRE, and includes ±8 dB bass and treble adjustment. These tone controls are designed by pro-audio EQ specialist Alex Cooper, who oversees all Ultrafide product development.

A key differentiator is the ENSO’s send/return pre-out and power-in architecture, which allows the amplifier to scale with a system. It can be used as a conventional integrated amplifier with passive loudspeakers, or reconfigured for multi-amplified or fully active systems with external equalisation, offering unusual flexibility at this level.

The amplifier is housed in Ultrafide’s clean, understated chassis and follows a standard 17-inch (42 cm) width, ensuring straightforward integration into most hi-fi racks and systems.

“The ENSO (INT-125) is a huge moment for the Ultrafide brand,” said Mark Bailey, product specialist at Ultrafide Audio and MC² Audio. “It’s a flexible and powerful integrated amplifier that lets you focus on the music. Having been asked for this by many customers since our inception, we are pleased to offer a competitive price point, driven by our mission to make exceptional audio accessible.”

The Bottom Line 

Priced at £3,500, the Ultrafide ENSO INT-125 is aimed squarely at listeners who want a serious, UK-built integrated amplifier with real power, a proper internal DAC, phono support, and system-scaling flexibility without being locked into a streaming platform that will feel obsolete in five years. It’s for traditional hi-fi users who already own a streamer, CD transport, or DAC and would rather choose those components themselves.

What it deliberately omits is just as telling: there’s no built-in streaming, no app ecosystem, no HDMI eARC for TV integration, and it’s unclear whether a dedicated subwoofer output is provided. In a segment crowded with do-everything amplifiers, the ENSO takes the contrarian route; fewer features, more focus, and a clear bias toward sound quality over convenience.

Pricing & Availability

The Ultrafide ENSO (INT-125) is priced at £3,500 (inc. VAT) and is available through authorized Ultrafide dealers. It is not known yet if this product will become available in the North American market.

The ENSO will be shown publicly for the first time at the 2026 Bristol Hi-Fi Show from 20–22 in Room 314 and will be demoed using Kudos Titan 505 loudspeakers.

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from the copyright-reform-is-antitrust dept

Copyright owners increasingly claim more draconian copyright law and policy will fight back against big tech companies. In reality, copyright gives the most powerful companies even more control over creators and competitors. Today’s copyright policy concentrates power among a handful of corporate gatekeepers—at everyone else’s expense. We need a system that supports grassroots innovation and emerging creators by lowering barriers to entry—ultimately offering all of us a wider variety of choices.

Pro-monopoly regulation through copyright won’t provide any meaningful economic support for vulnerable artists and creators. Because of the imbalance in bargaining power between creators and publishing gatekeepers, trying to help creators by giving them new rights under copyright law is like trying to help a bullied kid by giving them more lunch money for the bully to take.

Entertainment companies’ historical practices bear out this concern. For example, in the late-2000’s to mid-2010’s, music publishers and recording companies struck multimillion-dollar direct licensing deals with music streaming companies and video sharing platforms. Google reportedly paid more than $400 million to a single music label, and Spotify gave the major record labels a combined 18 percent ownership interest in its now- $100 billion company. Yet music labels and publishers frequently fail to share these payments with artists, and artists rarely benefit from these equity arrangements. There’s no reason to think that these same companies would treat their artists more fairly now.

AI Training

In the AI era, copyright may seem like a good way to prevent big tech from profiting from AI at individual creators’ expense—it’s not. In fact, the opposite is true. Developing a large language model requires developers to train the model on millions of works. Requiring developers to license enough AI training data to build a large language model would  limit competition to all but the largest corporations—those that either have their own trove of training data or can afford to strike a deal with one that does. This would result in all the usual harms of limited competition, like higher costs, worse service, and heightened security risks. New, beneficial AI tools that allow people to express themselves or access information.

Legacy gatekeepers have already used copyright to stifle access to information and the creation of new tools for understanding it. Consider, for example, Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence, the first of many copyright lawsuits over the use of works train AI. ROSS Intelligence was a legal research startup that built an AI-based tool to compete with ubiquitous legal research platforms like Lexis and Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw. ROSS trained its tool using “West headnotes” that Thomson Reuters adds to the legal decisions it publishes, paraphrasing the individual legal conclusions (what lawyers call “holdings”) that the headnotes identified. The tool didn’t output any of the headnotes, but Thomson Reuters sued ROSS anyways. A federal appeals court is still considering the key copyright issues in the case—which EFF weighed in on last year. EFF hopes that the appeals court will reject this overbroad interpretation of copyright law. But in the meantime, the case has already forced the startup out of business, eliminating a would-be competitor that might have helped increase access to the law.

Requiring developers to license AI training materials benefits tech monopolists as well. For giant tech companies that can afford to pay, pricey licensing deals offer a way to lock in their dominant positions in the generative AI market by creating prohibitive barriers to entry. The cost of licensing enough works to train an LLM would be prohibitively expensive for most would-be competitors.

The DMCA’s “Anti-Circumvention” Provision

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “anti-circumvention” provision is another case in point. Congress ostensibly passed the DMCA to discourage would-be infringers from defeating Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other access controls and copy restrictions on creative works.

In practice, it’s done little to deter infringement—after all, large-scale infringement already invites massive legal penalties. Instead, Section 1201 has been used to block competition and innovation in everything from printer cartridges to garage door openers, videogame console accessories, and computer maintenance services. It’s been used to threaten hobbyists who wanted to make their devices and games work better. And the problem only gets worse as software shows up in more and more places, from phones to cars to refrigerators to farm equipment. If that software is locked up behind DRM, interoperating with it so you can offer add-on services may require circumvention. As a result, manufacturers get complete control over their products, long after they are purchased, and can even shut down secondary markets (as Lexmark did for printer ink, and Microsoft tried to do for Xbox memory cards.)

Giving rights holders a veto on new competition and innovation hurts consumers. Instead, we need balanced copyright policy that rewards consumers without impeding competition.

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: ai, anti-circumvention, competition, copyright, dmca, dmca 1201, fair use