Technologies

Aurora Borealis Alert: 21 States Could Marvel at the Dazzling Northern Lights Tonight

A strong G3 magnetic storm is pushing the aurora further south than it’s been since June 2025.

Remember that dazzling night in May 2024, when the aurora borealis lit up states that almost never see its colorful glow? Some of us have been chasing that natural marvel ever since.

Now, the sun is at its solar maximum, and many might get their chance to see the northern lights again. Late Thursday night and early Friday morning, a moderately powerful magnetic storm impacts the Earth’s magnetic field, making the aurora visible in 21 states.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

According to NOAA, the aurora will be visible in Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. Those with a high enough vantage point facing north should also be able to see it in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Vermont. Alaskans and Canadians will have the best view.

This is only a prediction. The aurora could be stronger or weaker depending on how things go. If you’re just south of any of these states, it may be worth seeing if the aurora makes it down to you.

This storm is a continuation of one that hit the US on Wednesday night, for which NOAA initially predicted a G2 magnetic storm but ultimately classified it as a stronger G3 storm.

Both storms come from a pair of X-Class coronal mass ejections, or eruptions of solar material and magnetic field that the sun launched toward the Earth on Nov. 4. X-class is the highest designation, so these ejections were pretty big.

Tips for viewing the northern lights

The methods for viewing an aurora are straightforward.

You’ll want to get as far away from the city and suburbs as you can to minimize light pollution. After that, you’ll want to get as high up as possible and then face north.

The northern states in the US will have the best view, but those further south in the prediction zone may still see something if they’re high enough and it’s dark enough outside.

Avoiding light pollution may be tough because the moon is almost full. It may drown out the aurora along the southern reaches of NOAA’s prediction area.

If you do decide to head out, you also have a pretty good chance at spotting a shooting star since there are four meteor showers active right now, including Orionids, Leonids, Northern Taurids and Southern Taurids. Three of the meteor showers are scheduled to peak in November.

Technologies

Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt Trade Blows in Latest AI Slop Video, and Hollywood Won’t Stand for It

While some Hollywood icons are feeling doom and gloom over the AI-generated clip, labor unions are fighting back with legal threats.

Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are trading blows in a viral AI-generated clip on social media, sparking backlash from the film industry. Chinese company ByteDance’s new video generation model, Seedance 2.0, allowed people to create fictional videos of real likenesses with short prompts. Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson used two lines to generate the clip of Pitt and Cruise fighting.

If ByteDance sounds familiar to you, it’s because the company also owns TikTok internationally, though it recently sold its US ownership of the social media and video-sharing platform to US companies. Oracle, MGX and Silver Lake each hold a 15% stake.

The actors in this latest viral AI slop video still don’t look like perfect re-creations — close-up shots of the fake Brad Pitt’s face, especially, have an «uncanny valley,» dreamlike AI look where the cuts blend into his flesh a little too smoothly. However, a CNET survey from earlier Tuesday showed that while 94% of US adults believe they encounter AI slop on social media, just 44% say they’re confident they can tell real videos from AI-generated ones.

One of the most inflammatory parts of the Pitt-Cruise video is the dialogue, as the computerized facsimiles of the actors fight over a supposed assassination plot regarding Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who maintained ties to rich and powerful people worldwide. The two actors’ likenesses became a vehicle to push conspiracy theories that have been picking up steam as the millions of pages of redacted emails, receipts and other documents that make up the Epstein files continue to trickle out of the US Department of Justice.

Hollywood is fighting back as AI-generated content consumes and spits out actor likenesses and copyrighted content alike. Major studios and their labor forces alike have united to push back against the precedent set by the viral AI video.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Motion Picture Association demanded that ByteDance «immediately cease its infringing activity» through Seedance. SAG-AFTRA, the labor union that represents Hollywood performers, released a statement on Friday saying it «stands with the studios» in condemning the Seedance video generation model.

The Screen Actors Guild specifically pointed to Seedance’s unauthorized use of members’ faces, likenesses and voices as a threat that could put actors out of work.

«Seedance 2.0 disregards law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent,» the actors’ guild said in its statement.

Representatives for the MPA and SAG-AFTRA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Similar videos generated by Seedance have depicted Star Wars characters dueling with lightsabers as well as Marvel superheroes Spider-Man and Captain America brawling. Disney issued a cease-and-desist order to ByteDance on Friday in response to these videos, which it alleges constitute copyright infringement, according to the BBC.

A representative for ByteDance didn’t immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment, but issued a statement to the BBC saying it is «taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.»

Following the viral incident, ByteDance updated its tool to prevent people from uploading images of real people for AI-generated content, but it remains to be seen how effective that policy will be. Certainly, it won’t curb the output of videos depicting fictional masked or anthropomorphic characters like Spider-Man or Mickey Mouse.

As AI models continue to create mediocre copies of cultural icons, this won’t be the first — or last — legal battleground for AI video generation.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 18, #983

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 18 #983.

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.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle was great fun for me, as I’m the co-author of two pop-culture encyclopedias, one about the 1970s, and 1980s and the other about the 1990s. Two of the categories are retro-themed! Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times 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. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the 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 Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here 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: Farrah hair.

Green group hint: Totally tubular!

Blue group hint: Bock-bock!

Purple group hint: Can refer to a dairy product or a cosmetic.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Retro hair directives.

Green group: Retro slang for cool.

Blue group: Chicken descriptors.

Purple group: ____ cream.

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

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is retro hair directives. The four answers are crimp, curl, feather and tease.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is retro slang for cool. The four answers are bad, fly, rad and wicked.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is chicken descriptors. The four answers are bantam, crested, free-range and leghorn.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ cream. The four answers are heavy, shaving, sour and topical.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Feb. 18, #1705

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Feb. 18, No. 1,705.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle answer is a word I thought I’d seen in Wordle before, but I guess not. The letters aren’t super common, so it may take a few guesses. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.