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Today’s Mini Crossword wasn’t too tough, although there are a couple of different ways to go on some of the clues. Need the answers? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

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

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

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Clean with elbow grease
Answer: SCRUB

6A clue: Fruit to which wrinkly fingers are compared
Answer: PRUNE

7A clue: «Meenie miney» preceder
Answer: EENIE

8th A clue: Light bulb units
Answer: WATTS

9A clue: «Meenie miney» follower
Answer: MOE

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Erupt with force
Answer: SPEW

2D clue: Doughnut filling
Answer: CREAM

3D clue: Total, as expenses
Answer: RUNTO

4D clue: Come together as one
Answer: UNITE

5D clue: They’re often abuzz about coneflowers
Answer: BEES

Amazon’s fleet of warehouse robots just hit a new milestone. The company announced Monday that it deployed its millionth bot to begin operations at a fulfillment center in Japan.

Amazon’s ambitions for robot use have long surpassed the company utilizing them for delivery service. The business juggernaut is the world’s leading manufacturer of mobile robotics, and aims to sell them to you for use at home as well — if you have $1,600 to spare.

The robotic workers operate in over 300 Amazon warehouses across the world, creating an ever-expanding automated delivery network. More than 75% of Amazon’s global deliveries are assisted in some way by robot automation, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

Amazon has also developed a new generative AI model called DeepFleet to make the robots in the delivery system «smarter and more efficient.» According to Amazon, this new model will coordinate robots across the fulfillment network to improve package travel times by 10%.

The company’s robots currently lift thousands of pounds of packages at a time, integrate conveyor belts to move along individual items and move autonomously around the warehouse with heavy carts. 

The most recent fleet upgrade, Vulcan, uses force feedback sensors to create a sense of touch, physically lifting and moving items all by itself.

Amazon’s robots work in tandem with more than 1.6 million human workers worldwide. The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon is on track to have more automated workers than employed humans, while Amazon workers have begun to unionize in recent years.

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

Marvel Rivals is gearing up for the start of season 3 next week, and we got our first look at some of the upcoming changes, including glimpses at the two new fan-favorite Marvel heroes, Phoenix (Jean Grey) and Blade. The season trailer also heavily teased that the villain Knull might be making his way to the game in future seasons.

Season 3 is a major turning point for the hero shooter, marking the start of its new two-month seasons and the start of the era where we’ll be getting new heroes every month (one at the start of the season and one at midseason). Previously, seasons were about three months long, with new heroes coming out roughly every six weeks. The new cadence is an aggressive pace for expanding the game’s roster, and threatens to keep the metagame churning even faster, assuming those new heroes are relevant at launch. 

It’s once again a high-stakes season for Rivals, which has been bleeding active players since launch. Based on SteamDB data, the start of each new half-season brings in fewer players than the previous (for example, fewer players joined for season 2.5 than for 2.0). 

More concerning, is that even the the start of each half-season doesn’t bring in enough players to reach the lowest amount of players from a full season. Season 2.0’s peak count of 315,000 players sits below season 1.0’s low point of 331,000 players, and season 2.5’s peak of 190,000 is just below the season 1.5 valley of 196,000. That means the start of new seasons — the most exciting moments for the game — are losing their ability to bring in new players or bring old players back. Steam numbers don’t include console players, but it’s difficult to imagine the story there looking much different.

Rivals is probably hoping that the official launch of two long-awaited heroes and a faster seasonal rotation will reverse that trend. Here’s everything we know about Marvel Rivals season 3.0 so far.

When does season 3 start?

Marvel Rivals season 3.0 is scheduled to start on Friday, July 11 UTC. Typically, this involves servers going down for a few hours around midnight PT before being turned back on for the new season in the very early morning.

New Marvel Rivals heroes

It’s finally happening — after half a year of being rumored additions to the roster, Jean Grey and Blade are officially joining the party. Jean Grey, wielding the powerful Phoenix Force, joins at season start. While we’ll have to wait another day for a hero trailer to see her kit and abilities, the devs teased Phoenix’s AOE damage through a chain-reaction mechanic and her mobility. They also said that Phoenix’s ultimate deals massive damage and gets rid of enemy summons on the battlefield — great news if you’re facing down any combination of Namor’s turrets, Moon Knight’s ankhs, Peni’s nests and Rocket’s beacon (the latter of which have a team-up together). 

Rivals continues to make Blade fans wait, since that hero won’t be added to the roster until season 3.5. But at least that’s only a month away under the new season structure. 

Rivals season 3 balance changes

Rivals devs gave us a quick breakdown of the upcoming balance changes, though we’re still waiting on full details from official patch notes. Here’s the quick breakdown, with any confirmed details in parentheses. 

Buffs:

• Venom
• Thing (gains a new ability to jump to enemies, possibly knocking down fliers)
• Namor (primary fire)
• Scarlet Witch (ultimate)
• Invisible Woman (healing efficiency)
• Mantis (healing and ultimate utility)

Nerfs:

• Emma Frost
• Iron Man (poke potential)
• Punisher (turret)
• Mister Fantastic (survivability) 
• Loki (ultimate charge)
• Ultron

Team-up changes

Rivals is adding two new team-ups, tacking heroes onto two existing ones and removing two others (Storming Ignition and ESU Alumnus) from the game. It’s also nerfing another. Here’s the quick rundown:

• New — Primal Flame: Phoenix anchors to add damage over time and lifesteal to Wolverine’s attacks after his leap. 
• New — Ever-Burning Bond: Human Torch anchors to let Spider-Man shoot a burning web with a flaming tracer. (The flaming tracer stacks with Spidey’s regular tracers, devs said.)
• Updated — Symbiote Shenanigans: Adds Hela, giving her Soul Drainer Hel Sphere slowing tendrils.
• Updated — Stark Protocol: Adds Squirrel Girl, giving her an explosive, homing gauntlet. 
• Updated — Guardian Revival: Devs said they’d be nerfing some element of the Guardians’ team-up.

Other things coming in season 3

The battle pass is getting some adjustments to account for shorter seasons. Battle passes still offer 10 skins, but you’ll earn tokens at a faster rate to make it easier to progress through the entire battle pass in the shorter time period. Daily missions are also going away, with weekly missions shifting to permanent quests instead of being time-limited. Seasonal missions that offer large batches of tokens are also being added.

Rivals devs also announced a new competitive mode coming in season 3.5 but said we’d have to wait for any details about it.

The game is also adding accessories (which appear to be animated stickers that float above the KO notifications), new chroma options and visual effects for ultimate abilities. Perhaps the nicest quality of life change is the ability to mix & match MVP animations with any skins, instead of having certain MVP animations locked to specific skins.