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.

Do you think the makers of the Connections puzzle keep a notebook, and when they see words containing other words, they write those down, eventually coming up with four of a kind? I bet that’s how they get a lot of the purple categories, like today’s. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now 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 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: Grow.

Green group hint: No more.

Blue group hint: Red cape time.

Purple group hint: Bob the Builder.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Kinds of plants.

Green group: Discontinue.

Blue group: Associated with bulls.

Purple group: Ending with building materials.

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 kinds of plants. The four answers are herb, shrub, tree and vine.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is discontinue. The four answers are dissolve, end, shrub and sunset.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with bulls. The four answers are Michael Jordan, rodeo, Taurus and Wall Street.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ending with building materials. The four answers are Hollywood, hourglass, Kubrick and neuroplastic.

Toughest Connections puzzles

We’ve made a note of some of the toughest Connections puzzles so far. Maybe they’ll help you see patterns in future puzzles.

#5: Included «things you can set,» such as mood, record, table and volleyball.

#4: Included «one in a dozen,» such as egg, juror, month and rose.

#3: Included «streets on screen,» such as Elm, Fear, Jump and Sesame.

#2: Included «power ___» such as nap, plant, Ranger and trip.

#1: Included «things that can run,» such as candidate, faucet, mascara and nose.

Creating a super thin phone is a prime opportunity for compromise. If the goal is to reduce the profile of an already slim device, a bulky camera would naturally be one of the first things to toss overboard.

And yet the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, now officially announced, includes a surprising 200 megapixel (MP) f/1.7 wide-angle camera that shares the same specs as the one in Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra. In fact, you could argue that the 200MP camera alone justifies the Edge’s $1,100 price, with the latest versions of Android and Gemini as added bonuses in a thin and light body. To get that same camera resolution on the S25 Ultra, you’d need to fork over $1,300 or more.

So why did Samsung choose to include a top-tier feature in a phone that sits in the middle of its S25 lineup?

Most phones are cameras with phone features

The difference between phones in the same lineup often comes down what each model adds over the others. 

The Galaxy S25 is a thoroughly capable phone that (to cherry pick specs) runs the latest software on a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, packs a 4,000 mAh battery, has a 6.2-inch display and features the following array of cameras: 50MP wide-angle, 12MP ultra-wide, 10MP 3x telephoto and 12MP front camera. For 256GB of storage, it costs $860. The 128GB base model starts at $800, but I’m using the 256GB version to keep the storage consistent across all our examples.

The Galaxy S25 Plus shares all of those same features in a larger package, with a 6.7-inch screen and — due to its roomier case — a larger 4,900 mAh battery. For that you’ll pay an extra $140 more than the S25 to get the 256GB config at $1,000.

Then you jump $300 for the $1,300 Galaxy S25 Ultra, which boasts several specs such as the aforementioned 200MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide camera, a second 50MP telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom, a slightly larger 6.9-inch screen and a 5,000 mAh battery.

So where does the Galaxy S25 Edge slot into the lineup? For $1,100, it has the same 6.7-inch screen as the S25 Plus with an additional layer of protection (it’s covered with Corning’s Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2), the same Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, a smaller 3,900 mAh battery (to be expected in a thinner case) — and that 200MP wide camera.

Although the camera shares the same specs as the one in the S25 Ultra, it’s not yet clear whether it’s the same hardware. In Samsung’s event video officially announcing the S25 Edge, the company described how it redesigned the camera housing to fit the 200MP camera. I’m assuming it’s the same core hardware, just repackaged to fit a smaller form factor, but a direct photo comparison will be the real test.

Thin isn’t enough on its own

By the name alone, the primary appeal of the S25 Edge is its thin design. The company’s introductory video is full of schematics and computer-generated animations of all the phone’s components slotting together into its svelte body. And thinness does have value — just look at Apple’s obsession with making everything thin and light over the years, including its own rumored iPhone 17 Air.

But thinness as a feature isn’t additive enough (to make the obvious joke, it’s literally reductive). Samsung could have easily included the 50MP wide camera used on the S25 and S25 Plus and focused solely on the phone’s design to set it apart. By including the top-end 200MP camera from the series’ most expensive and premium phone, though, it hits a sweet spot where a customer thinks, «I’m getting a super thin version of the S25 but with the camera of the $1,300 S25 Ultra.»

Decent zoom is still possible, even without a telephoto camera

The other thing that sets the S25 Edge apart is the fact that it does not include a dedicated telephoto camera. Every other S25 model includes at least one telephoto camera to zoom in on distant subjects.

That extra reach is usually the dividing line between «consumer» and «pro» models. For example, the Pixel 9 and 9A and iPhone 16 and 16E all include wide-angle and ultra-wide cameras, but no telephoto. People regularly zoom in when taking photos, so Google and Apple pitch higher-quality optical zoom as a premium feature at the higher price levels of the pro models.

But by including the 200MP camera on the S25 Edge, Samsung can still claim a 2x «optical quality» zoom. Technically that’s a crop into the middle of the sensor, but the high megapixel count means there’s still plenty of resolution to get quality images. You can still zoom at farther ranges, but you’re leaning heavily on image processing to enhance the digitally-zoomed image.

(An important aside about resolution: Keep in mind you’re not always capturing images at 200MP resolution. The default resolution is a pixel-binned 12MP, where the camera groups pixels together on the sensor to act as a larger pixel that gathers more light. So at that resolution, the S25 Edge is likely using AI upscaling to zoom. But at the 50MP and 200MP resolution settings, the 2x zoom is more likely to be a straight crop from what the sensor is recording.)

This also reinforces the fact that phone photography is increasingly buttressed by real-time, AI-supported image processing. Shooting at the full 200MP resolution involves considerable processing to enhance details recorded by such a physically small image sensor. Even with pro phones, I regularly see people use pinch-to-zoom instead of switching among the better quality preset optical options. (Android Authority surveyed its readers and found that about 27% of respondents zoom freely versus sticking to preset zoom levels.)

Will customers specifically buy the S25 Edge because of its camera features? Not entirely, but touting the 200MP camera prominently along with the new thin design gives them extra incentive to choose it.

We’re looking forward to testing the S25 Edge’s camera to see how well it performs. In the meantime, be sure to check out the photos that CNET Managing Editor Patrick Holland made for his Galaxy S25 Ultra review, as well as Andrew Lanxon’s images pitting the S25 Ultra head-to-head against the iPhone 16 Pro.

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 took me longer than usual. 1-Down is tough — hint, there’s an old-fashioned bottled beverage with the same name. 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: Unit of distance that can precede «stone» and «age»
Answer: MILE

5A clue: Kind of powder used for hot chocolate
Answer: COCOA

6A clue: On the button
Answer: EXACT

7A clue: Connections
Answer: LINKS

8A clue: «___ not and say we did!»
Answer: LETS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Gutsy determination
Answer: MOXIE

2D clue: «That’s not gonna work for me»
Answer: ICANT

3D clue: Strands
Answer: LOCKS

4D clue: Has a bite
Answer: EATS

5D clue: Spreadsheet unit
Answer: CELL

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.