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

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword is one of those nice solid blocks, so if you get all the Across answers, the Downs fill themselves in, and vice-versa. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Opposite ends of the earth
Answer: POLES

6A clue: Animal with «white» and «black» varieties (really, they’re both gray)
Answer: RHINO

7A clue: Plant deeply
Answer: EMBED

8A clue: What’s coming to you
Answer: KARMA

9A clue: «No» vote
Answer: NAY

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Program for kids aged 3-5, informally
Answer: PREK

2D clue: «That’s crazy, dude!»
Answer: OHMAN

3D clue: Sign after Virgo
Answer: LIBRA

4D clue: Sworn ___
Answer: ENEMY

5D clue: Pop bottles, e.g.
Answer: SODA

How to play more Mini Crosswords

The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

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.

When you start seeing obvious last names in Connections: Sports Edition, you might think it’s an easy grouping of four. But today, there are eight names, so you need to know how they relate in order to put them in the right groups. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app, but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to 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: Show me how.

Green group hint: Numbers for outfielders, etc.

Blue group hint: City of Brotherly Love.

Purple group hint:  Not Johnny or Billy, but…

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Teach.

Green group: Baseball fielding stats.

Blue group: Current Philadelphia sports stars.

Purple group: Jimmy ____

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 teach. The four answers are coach, drill, instruct and manage.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is baseball fielding stats. The four answers are assist, error, fielding percentage and putout.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is current Philadelphia sports stars. The four answers are Barkley, Harper, Hurts and Maxey.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Jimmy ____. The four answers are Butler, Garoppolo, Graham and Rollins.

Lifetime means lifetime. Except when it doesn’t. That has been the dilemma of some VPNSecure customers, whose lifetime subscriptions were canceled by the new owners of the VPN provider — without the customers being told in advance that the subscriptions would end. 

A Reddit user posted a copy of a message they said they received from VPNSecure’s new owner. In that message, the company tells customers that it did not know about the lifetime deals when it purchased the company in May 2023.

A VPN, or virtual private network, encrypts your internet traffic and masks your IP address, which can make your physical location detectable. A VPN enables you to keep your online activity private and trick apps and websites into thinking you’re in a different state or even country. For an in-depth look at VPNs, check out CNET’s guide to everything you need to know about VPNs and how they work.

In its email to customers, VPNSecure outlined the situation regarding the lifetime deals. The email said that the owner bought «the technology, domain, and customer database-but not the liabilities. Unfortunately, the previous owner did not disclose that thousands of Lifetime Deals (LTDs) had been sold through platforms like StackSocial.»

According to the email, the company deactivated accounts that had been dormant for six months or more, then later canceled all the lifetime deals as of April 28.

In the email, VPNSecure said that its «resources were strained by these LTD accounts» that «provide no sustaining income to help us improve and maintain the service.»

A representative for VPNSecure did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Customers are not happy

Several miffed customers weighed in with angry comments on Trustpilot.

«I had bought a ‘lifetime’ subscription a few years ago,» one person wrote. «Horrible new owners come in and cancel everything claiming ignorance. Either they’re idiots or they’re scammers — not sure which is worse.»

In response to customer reactions, VPNSecure is offering discounted new subscriptions to users whose lifetime deals were canceled. They can pay $1.87 for a month (instead of $9.95), $19 for one year (instead of $79.92), or $55 for three years (instead of $107.64). The deals are available until May 31, according to the email that was posted on Reddit.