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 is a fun mix of topics, especially if, like me, you’re rooting for a Pacific Northwest team in the upcoming Super Bowl. 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: If the shoe fits.

Green group hint: Run for the roses.

Blue group hint: The 12th man.

Purple group hint: Soccer.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Parts of a sneaker.

Green group: What a jockey wears.

Blue group: Seattle Seahawks.

Purple group: Former MLS team names.

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 parts of a sneaker. The four answers are eyelet, laces, sole and tongue.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is what a jockey wears. The four answers are boots, breeches, goggles and silks.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Seattle Seahawks. The four answers are Barner, Love, Walker and Woolen.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is former MLS team names. The four answers are Burn, Clash, Fusion and Impact.

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

Google announced on Thursday that it’s widening access to its experimental research prototype, Genie 3, to its AI Ultra subscribers. The experiment allows users to generate 3D worlds and navigate through them. 

Google gave the world a glimpse of Genie 3 back in August and opened it up to users participating in its Trusted Testers program. Now, Genie 3 will be available on the highest tier of Google’s AI subscription plan, limited to users 18 and up. 

Google calls Genie 3 a general-purpose world model that lets users generate dynamic worlds, which can be navigated in real time. Seeing the demos in action, it’s like creating a video game on the fly. 

Powered by Gemini, Nano Banana Pro and Veo 3, Genie 3 is backed by some of the best of Google’s AI products. 

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

Google breaks down Genie 3’s functions in three ways.

World sketching: Using text prompts and uploaded images, users can craft a world as they see fit, along with the character that will navigate it. You can choose how the character navigates the world, whether that be walking, flying, or something else, and you can even select the perspective of the character, like first-person or third-person views. 

World exploration: With your world built, Genie 3 will generate the path ahead in real time based on your interactions and movements. You can also adjust the camera view and angle as you navigate through the world.

World remixing: Google will allow users to remix worlds by building on top of the prompts that created them. Genie 3 offers a curated gallery of worlds to choose from. You can then download videos from your world explorations. 

Since Genie 3 is still an early experimental release, it’s not without a few limitations.

• Worlds generated may not look completely true to life or adhere perfectly to the user prompts.
• Some characters created to navigate the worlds might be less controllable than others, and some may have higher latency in control.
• Limitations in generations to 60 seconds.

Google says that Project Genie will expand to more territories in «due course.» For now, unless you’re a Google AI Ultra subscriber or a part of the Trusted Testers Program, you’ll have to wait until the experiment expands to more people. 

Google says it’s exploring the option of letting publishers opt out of having their website content used to generate AI Overviews at the top of search results.

In a blog post published on Thursday, the company addressed its approach to the controls it provides to websites in order to manage how their content appears in Search AI features. The post was Google’s response to the fact that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has opened a consultation into potential new requirements for Google.

Google introduced its AI Overviews features, which places AI-generated summaries at the top of search results, in summer 2024. The company relies on information scraped from websites to generate Overviews, and websites have been unable to opt out of Google using their content for this purpose.

As a direct result of this, many publishers and media organizations around the world have reported massive drops in click-through traffic, which has a domino effect on revenue and their ability to the produce the original content Google relies upon for Overviews.

Citing Google’s dominant position in the online search world, the CMA proposed a package of measures on Wednesday designed to ensure news and content producers get a fairer deal over how their content in used by the company. These measures include allowing publishers to opt out of their content being used to power AI features, such as AI overview, or to train AI models outside of Google Search.

In its blog post, Google said it was «now exploring updates to our controls to let sites specifically opt out of Search generative AI features.» It didn’t say whether these controls would be available to publishers based outside of the UK.

«Our goal is to protect the helpfulness of Search for people who want information quickly, while also giving websites the right tools to manage their content,» the company said. «We look forward to engaging in the CMA’s process and will continue discussions with website owners and other stakeholders on this topic.»

The company also stated that any new controls it added needed to avoid breaking Google Search «in a way that leads to a fragmented or confusing experience for people.» Its overall goal is to protect «the helpfulness» of Search.

It should be noted that Google’s AI Overviews have, on many occasions, provided inaccurate information, including in the above screenshot, which erroneously identifies CNET’s parent company as Red Ventures. (CNET is currently owned by Ziff Davis.) It could be argued that this represents an example of the «fragmented and confusing experience» Google says it wants to avoid.

The CMA said it would wait a year to announce the results of the consultation and whether it planned to take further action. In the meantime, Google said it hopes it can find a path forward «that provides even more choice to website owners and publishers.»