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 an extra-long one, as it always is on Saturday, but the clues are pretty straightforward. 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: Spring Cleaning Box 1: I still love it!
Answer: KEEP

5A clue: First name of poet Poe
Answer: EDGAR

7A clue: Let ___ be ___
Answer: BYGONES

9A clue: Gorilla or chimpanzee
Answer: APE

10A clue: Clock setting in the U.K.: Abbr.
Answer: GMT

11A clue: Eugene Levy, to Dan Levy
Answer: DAD

12A clue: ___ G BIV (color mnemonic)
Answer: ROY

13A clue: Spring Cleaning Box 2: Someone else will love it!
Answer: DONATE

15A clue: «If you don’t like it, that’s your problem!»
Answer: SUEME

16A clue: Spring Cleaning Box 3: It’s worthless!
Answer: TOSS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Panels of buttons on which passcodes are entered
Answer: KEYPADS

2D clue: Just barely defeated
Answer: EDGEDOUT

3D clue: A narcissist has a big one
Answer: EGO

4D clue: High-scoring words in Spelling Bee
Answer: PANGRAMS

6D clue: Channel changers
Answer: REMOTES

7D clue: ___ Bunny, musician known as the «King of Latin Trap»
Answer: BAD

8D clue: Painful eye malady
Answer: STYE

14D clue: Prefix for a modern genre
Answer: NEO

In the Windows Insider Blog on Friday, Microsoft outlined some of the upcoming changes that its Insiders — beta testers — should expect in the next few months. Among them are less intrusive Windows Update operations, improvements to Copilot integration, streamlining of the start menu and taskbar, fewer notifications, a smaller memory footprint, greater stability and more. They’re all welcome — and overdue.

Microsoft plans to be «more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows, focusing on experiences that are genuinely useful and well‑crafted.»

In addition, widgets will provide information «more intentionally by default, keeping content glanceable and reducing unnecessary interruptions.» The whole point of widgets is to give the user the ability to understand information at a glance and to be nonintrusive. It means you’ll be able to personalize or turn them off more easily and generally reduce the number of notifications.

One of the big performance updates will be a reduction in the operating system’s memory usage, leaving more available for the programs you run. This is huge, not just because Windows is a memory hog, but because for the next couple of years at least, it won’t be practical to simply configure a new system with more memory. 

Microsoft says it will increase the allowable interval for an Update pause, make them more predictable and add the ability to restart or shut down without a surprised forced install if you’ve forgotten to postpone. Plus, the company promises fewer automatic restarts and notifications. 

You’ll also be able to skip updates when you’re setting up a device for the first time, which is an interesting change since it’s something most people only do once. But at the very least, it should provide a better out-of-the-box experience for newbies.

That’s also a welcome, if tiny, step forward in making Windows handhelds (like the ROG Xbox Ally X) feel more like gaming devices and less like poorly performing laptops, as is adding support for controller-based navigation to create a PIN during setup and in settings.

Microsoft also promises faster, more consistent and more fluid performance overall, including much more streamlined File Explorer operation. The company says that Bluetooth and USB will provide more stable connections, fewer operating system crashes and more consistent wake-from-sleep behavior.

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 some pretty funny answers. 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: Sniff sniff

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Some people keep them to the grindstone.

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:

• SENT, POST, STOP, STOPS, TOPS, POTS, ROBE, BORE, HORN, HONK, HONKS, THEN, PROBE

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:

• BEAK, SNOUT, HONKER, MUZZLE, PROBOSCIS, SCHNOZZLE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is ONTHENOSE. To find it, start with the O that’s four letters to the right on the top row, and wind down.