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

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a bit tricky. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: True grit

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: You might find this in a wood shop.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

• SAND, CART, SCAR, SCAT, PAPER, HAVE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

• COARSE, HARSH, SCRATCHY, ROUGH, PRICKLY, ABRASIVE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is SANDPAPER. To find it, start with the S that’s the farthest-left letter on the very top row, and wind down.

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 features a category all about my favorite football team. 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: We’ll be right back…

Green group hint: Run for the roses.

Blue group hint: Skol!

Purple group hint: 

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Break in the action.

Green group: Bets in horse racing.

Blue group: QBs drafted by Vikings in first round.

Purple group: Race ____.

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 break in the action. The four answers are intermission, pause, suspension and timeout.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is bets in horse racing. The four answers are exacta, place, show and win.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is QBs drafted by Vikings in first round. The four answers are Bridgewater, Culpepper, McCarthy and Ponder.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is race ____. The four answers are bib, car, course and walking.

For years, Google has released an A series line of Pixel phones that deliver a lot of features for less money than their more expensive counterparts, and 2026 is no exception. The company’s newly announced Pixel 10A is a capable addition to the Pixel 10 lineup and it starts at only $499 (the base Pixel 10, on the other hand, starts at $799). 

There are tradeoffs made in the 10A to hit its lower price, but compared to its predecessors, the 10A is quite the upgrade. Well, sort of. While the 10A is an improvement over the Pixel 7A and 8A, it’s not too different from the Pixel 9A. 

We’d say 98% of the 10A and its features are the same as the 9A, including the use of Google’s Tensor G4 chip. However the Pixel 10A does include some new hardware improvements, including faster wired charging and Satellite SOS.

Here’s how the Pixel 10A compares with the 9A, the 8A and the 7A. 

Pixel 9A vs 10 series: Display and design

The Pixel 10A looks and feels similar to the Pixel 9A. It has the same measurements, at 6.1 by 2.9 by 0.4 inches. It also has the same display: 6.3-inch OLED with a 60 to 120Hz variable refresh rate. The 8A and the 7A both have slightly smaller 6.1-inch OLED screens, and the 7A’s display variable refresh rate caps out at 90Hz. 

One of the upgrades that the 10A has over the rest of the lineup is that the display glass is Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, which offers better drop and scratch performance over its predecessors. The 9A, 8A and 7A all use Gorilla Glass 3. The 10A is also the brightest of the lot with 3,000 nits of peak brightness. The 9A tops out at 2,700 nits, the 8A at 1,500 nits and the 7A at just 1,000 nits. 

The 10A has much better contrast as well, with a 2,000,000:1 ratio compared to the 9A’s 1,000,000:1 ratio. This should mean that the display will look better with brighter whites and darker black. Both the 8A and 7A have the same contrast ratio as the 9A. 

Google’s Pixel 10A Looks Stylish for a Low-Cost Flagship Phone

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Pixel 9A vs 10 series: Battery

Both the Pixel 10A and the 9A ship with a 5,100-mAh battery, which has a larger capacity than the 8A’s 4,492-mAh and the 7A’s 4,385-mAh battery. However, in our tests, we found that the Pixel 9A’s 5,100-mAh battery lasted about the same as the 8A, due in part to the 9A’s bigger, brighter screen and its more powerful processor. It remains to be seen if the 10A will have the same fate. 

The 10A does have faster 30W wired charging when using a 45W adapter compared to the 23W speed on the 9A. (Both the 8A and 7A have 18W fast charging.) It also supports wireless charging up to 10W (Qi-certified) while the 9A, 8A and 7A have 7.5W wireless charging. 

Pixel 9A vs 10 series: Performance and connectivity

The Pixel 10A and 9A are both powered by Google’s Tensor G4 chip, so there aren’t a lot of changes there. The 8A is powered by Google’s Tensor G3 chip while the 7A uses the Tensor G2. 

As for connectivity, however, the 10A does have a couple of upgrades that the 9A lacks. The Pixel 10A has Satellite SOS, which the 9A doesn’t have. This service lets 10A users send SMS messages to emergency services. The 10A also has Bluetooth 6, while the 9A only has 5.3. Bluetooth 6 promises to reduce latency while also being more power-efficient. 

Check out the below chart to further compare the differences between the Pixel 10A, 9A, 8A and 7A.