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 has a tricky topic. 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: On key

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Special characters.

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:

• RISE, TEAR, RILE, RILES, RILED, DESIRE, DESIRES, BRAT, BRATS, RACK, RACKET, TACK, BACK, HASH, BASH, RASH, RISK, RISKS

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:

• CARET, TILDE, BRACKET, HASHTAG, ASTERISK, UNDERSCORE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is SYMBOL. To find it, start with the S that is five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down and up.

Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest.

#1: Dated slang. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT. 

#3: Off the hook. Again, it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.

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.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s a bit challenging, so read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

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 to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: «That’s incredible!»
Answer: WOW

4A clue: Makes a mistake
Answer: ERRS

6A clue: «Piece of cake» or «spill the beans»
Answer: IDIOM

8A clue: Cool in a throwback kind of way
Answer: RETRO

9A clue: See 1-Down
Answer: DREAM

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: With 9-Across, something you might wake up from and go «Huh?!»
Answer: WEIRD

2D clue: What’s spoken into a fast-food intercom
Answer: ORDER

3D clue: Pen
Answer: WRITE

5D clue: OpenAI product that creates video clips based on prompts
Answer: SORA

7D clue: 1-Across, flipped upside down
Answer: MOM

When I flew in the first mainline United Airlines aircraft equipped with Starlink Wi-Fi last year, I was amazed to discover that the satellite-based in-flight internet service felt like… the regular internet. I streamed movies, accessed the web and held a video call (which is not normally legal) that had better quality than some of my everyday remote meetings when I’m at home.

Since then, United says roughly 1,200 daily departures, more than a quarter of its schedule, now have Starlink Wi-Fi. It hit its goal of outfitting its entire regional fleet (two-cabin aircraft such as the Embraer E175) of more than 300 aircraft and is on track to equip 500 mainline craft (like the Boeing 737-800 I was on) by the end of 2026. If it meets its mainline goal, three out of four United flights will be set up with the new service.

On my test flight, I tried to saturate the data of as many devices as possible, from my laptop to an iPad and a couple of phones. Now that customers are using the service, I wanted to know what that looks like in real-world use. The company said in a press release that 7 million passengers across 129,000 flights have flown on Starlink-equipped aircraft.

«The [data] consumption is through the roof,» said Grant Milstead, vice president of digital technology at United Airlines. «It’s at least 100 times what we were seeing on our old aircraft, and a lot of that is driven by stage length.» Longer flights see more data usage, not just because of the extended flight times, but because those are the flights on which people are streaming more movies, live sports and other content.

He said passenger feedback indicates families aren’t spending time pre-loading devices with movies, because they know they can stream anything on the plane.

«This isn’t ‘airplane Wi-Fi’ anymore,» he said. «It’s Wi-Fi like your home. And now people are starting to treat it like that.»

Starlink Wi-Fi is free for members of its United MileagePlus program (which itself is free to join).

In addition to United, Starlink service is available on some flights operated by Hawaiian Airlines, Alaska Airlines, airBaltic, Air France, Qatar Airways, WestJet and Emirates. In the coming year, Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, Level and Vueling will include satellite internet. 

Some of this uptake can be attributed to the higher performance, but it’s also a matter of cost and equipment: the hardware itself is smaller, lighter (especially important for aircraft) and less expensive to install than other onboard Wi-Fi system.