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A phone displaying the New York Times game 'Connections.'

Today's Connections: Sports Edition is easy for people who watch women's sports.

As we've shared in previous hints stories, this is a version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.

Like the original Connections, the game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier — so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for the latest Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

What is Connections: Sports Edition?

The NYT's latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication's sports coverage. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.

If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake — players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL.

Here's a hint for today's Connections: Sports Edition categories

Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

  • Yellow: Centennial State teams

  • Green: Midwest football cities

  • Blue: Racecars

  • Purple: Colorado coach

Here are today's Connections: Sports Edition categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

  • Yellow: A Colorado Athlete

  • Green: NFC North Cities

  • Blue: Types of Racing

  • Purple: Coach___

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to today's Connections: Sports Edition #532 is...

What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?

  • A Colorado Athlete - BRONCO, BUFFALO, NUGGET, ROCKIE

  • NFC North Cities - CHICAGO, DETROIT, GREEN BAY, MINNEAPOLIS

  • Types of Racing - BMX, DRAG, HORSE, STOCK CAR

  • Coach___ - CARTER, K, PRIME, SPEAK

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new sports Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Connections.



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Adjani Salmon creator at the junket for 'Dreaming Whilst Black'

Back for Season 2, Dreaming Whilst Black is a sharp, must-watch satire about the entertainment industry, and the barriers blocking Black artists in TV and film.

Co-created by, co-written by and starring Jamaican-British filmmaker Adjani Salmon, the show's timeliness cannot be understated. As Robert Daniels writes in his Season 1 review for Mashable, "While Black directors like Jordan Peele, Ava DuVernay, Ryan Coogler, Barry Jenkins, and Steve McQueen are respected, award-winning auteurs, the film industry hasn’t become that much easier for young Black directors. Black creatives are largely still shut out of filmmaking because of institutional racism, economic hardship, or by simply not knowing the right people."

SEE ALSO: The cast of 'American Fiction' on the importance of telling diverse stories in Hollywood

Dreaming Whilst Black Season 1 focused on Salmon's protagonist, aspiring filmmaker Kwabena Robinson, as he tried to get a foot in the industry door and make Jamaica Road (a film inspired by his grandparents of the Windrush generation) without "selling out." Season 2 looks at the immense pressure he's under once he's in the door.

"I feel like Season 2 for us, especially seeing the landscape and especially being a show that's about the industry, it just felt right to reflect the times and reflect our peers," Salmon tells Mashable.

"It felt like a fun challenge to tackle the present in terms of when you get these big opportunities, or when Black or brown creatives get these opportunities, is it as good as it's made out to be? Or when something's given with a good intention, does that mean that it always turns out, which you've seen play out more recently — intention versus impact. So we just thought it would be best to tackle that in a comedy. How else?"

"...being a show that's about the industry, it just felt right to reflect the times and reflect our peers."

This season, Kwabena takes on his first TV job, Sin and Subterfuge, which is a "genre-busting Regency drama" with colorblind casting, which may or may not be related to a show that actually exists. And through Kwabena's highly stressful experience with casting, rewrites, shoots, and micromanagement from the top, the show raises interesting questions around historical context, limited resources, on-set politics, and the realities of colorblind casting itself.

"It felt like the easiest thing to call out, to visualise what we're talking about," Salmon says. "Because I know which show you referring to, but actually, there are quite a few shows that have done this, where they've done colorblind casting. I think especially with conversations with our casting director, is that idea that maybe we should move towards color-conscious casting, which is something that we do, where not everybody who we write do we write them the same race that we cast. For example, Alexandros in Season 2, initially he was written British, but a Greek actor came in and he was great, but then we had to rewrite. So, I guess the consciousness in the casting was rewriting the script to acknowledge the actor that we have."

In Season 2's first episode, we get a glimpse into the industry's weak attempts at inclusive storytelling with a string of fictional TV shows that Kwabena turns down, including Mandem in Outer Space and Grime and Punishment. And according to Salmon, the list of potential fictional TV shows the writers came up with was long (and not so fictional).

"Oh, man, we had loads. I will say, because we like to joke that Dreaming Whilst Black's a documentary, and we don't make up race-related jokes, I will say a lot of the shows that we came up with are shows that we either know about, or that had existed, or had been pitched," says Salmon. "We may have reworded stuff — you know, copyright infringement — but it just represented, again, this idea of intention versus impact, when it's like, 'Oh, we need more diverse content. Great. What do we do?' and you just start throwing ideas out there. What you see is probably not the craziest of ideas that we came up with, but the ones that were safest to play out."

You can watch Salmon's interview with Mashable above.

Dreaming Whilst Black is now streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S. and BBC iPlayer in the UK.



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Charles Leclerc of Monaco

TL;DR: You can sign up for a 7-day free trial of Apple TV+ through Prime Video Channels. This lets you watch select F1 races live with the Prime Video app.

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Watch the Australian GP for free with a 7-day trial

I consume sport like water. If there's something big taking place, you best believe I'm watching. It doesn't matter if it's in the early hours of the morning or late night on a Saturday — I'm clearing my schedule to follow along.

The problem with this habit is that it's increasingly expensive to watch everything I want to watch. I've come to terms with this sad reality, but that doesn't mean I'm not constantly on the lookout for ways to watch for free. And no, I'm not talking about anything dodgy. I don't want to sit through a constantly buffering stream that floods my screen with extremely dodgy ads. I want a legit stream that doesn't cost anything.

So imagine my glee when I stumbled upon a way to watch select F1 races for free. I've followed F1 for as long as I can remember, and I don't recall a season starting with as much uncertainty. Due to a major set of regulation changes, it truly feels like anyone's title to win. I've been stung before by F1. I've been ready to experience an evenly-matched grid with unpredictable racing, only to be left with the same handful of drivers winning every week. But I refuse to lose faith. This is the year when it all changes.

And everything begins at the Australian GP. Ferrari and Mercedes have shown good pace in testing, but you never really know how things will pan out until the lights turn green.

If you want to watch F1 2026 for free from anywhere in the world, we've got all the information you need.

When is the Australian GP?

The Australian GP is the first race of the 2026 F1 season. Here's the full schedule from the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne:

  • Practice 1 — 8:30-9:30 p.m. ET on March 5

  • Practice 2 — 12-1 a.m. ET on March 6

  • Practice 3 — 8:30-9:30 p.m. ET on March 6

  • Qualifying — 12-1 a.m. ET on March 7

  • Race — 11 p.m. ET on March 7

The great news for fans is that it's never been easier to follow all the action without spending anything.

How to watch the Australian GP for free

I am, like a lot of people, a paid-up member of Amazon Prime. That subscription comes with a lot of benefits, including fast shipping, exclusive Prime Day deals, and access to Prime Video. Honestly, I don't watch a lot of Prime Video. I'm really in it for the fast delivery. We buy a lot of "essential" stuff and if it isn't going to come the next day, I don't want to know.

But now that the new F1 season is starting, I'm suddenly a lot more interested in Prime Video. That's because you can now sign up for a 7-day free trial of Apple TV+ through Prime Video Channels. F1 is now exclusive to Apple TV in the U.S., so by gaining access to this free trial, you can watch select races for free this season. The subscription typically costs £9.99 per month after the trial ends, but you can cancel at any time. So there's no obligation to pay anything.

I pay for Amazon Prime, so you could make the argument that this isn't really a free hack. But I was always going to subscribe to this service. And anyway, you can make use of Amazon Prime's 30-day free trial period (if you're new to the service) to gain access to Apple TV without spending anything at all. This is sneaky, but I suspect millions of fans will be using this exact method this season.

It truly has never been easier to watch F1 for free. You can follow in my footsteps and use Prime Video, or you can go directly through Apple TV. Either way, you don't need to pay to watch Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, and Charles Leclerc battle it out in 2026.

How to live stream 2026 F1 for free in 2026
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Spider-Man for Playstation

It seems Sony has been experimenting with dynamic pricing across the PlayStation Store, apparently since as early as November of last year, targeting discounts to specific player regions. This is according to the website PSPrices, which has closely tracked trends in Sony’s pricing over time, and it recently reported an increase in the number of games undergoing dynamic pricing. 

In 68 regions and across 139 games, including first-party AAA titles like God of War, Spider-Man, HELLDIVERS 2, and Stellar Blade, Sony offered average discounts ranging from just over 5 percent at the low end to nearly 18 percent at the high end. PSPrices even discovered that personalized discounts were being offered, with some lucky accounts receiving a massive 56 percent off the regular price of the popular Helldivers 2 game.

SEE ALSO: Sony’s first clip-style buds sound fabulous, but is that enough to justify their price?

Currently, both the United States and Japan are exempt from the experiment, likely due to stricter market regulations, but that still means that millions of customers in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa

If Sony embraces dynamic pricing across the board, it may also seek to selectively raise prices on its most popular or in-demand titles, a practice known as "surge pricing." Furthermore, learning that one player in a gaming lobby paid full price for a game while another player from a different country received a 50 percent discount may not sit well with some gamers, and is likely to provoke some backlash if or when the dynamic pricing policy becomes standard store-wide.

As of this writing, Sony has not publicly commented on the experiment. At a time of economic uncertainty and general consumer anxiety, gaming companies have faced heightened scrutiny over their pricing, so it will be interesting to see whether they move forward with dynamic pricing.



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man on bed looking at computer screen

Some people have apparently fallen for chatbots so hard that there's a new sexuality forming: "AI-sexual."

That's according to AI companion company Joi AI. In a survey the company conducted last month of 2,500 Gen Z and millennial adults who actively use AI tools, 55 percent report considering themselves AI-sexual, or "more than open to experimenting with AI in a sexual or intimate context."

SEE ALSO: My awkward first date with an AI companion

The dominating reason why these folks turn to AI for sexual exploration is that it feels easier and more comfortable to express their desires with AI as opposed to a human being (60 percent of participants said this).

While concerning, this makes sense given the research. Last year, when discussing why some Gen Z-ers would marry AI bots, clinical neuropsychologist Shifali Singh told Mashable that young adults with social anxiety may turn to AI to have a judgment-free interaction.

But as Kinsey scientist Justin Garcia told Mashable earlier this year, an important component of human relationships is the give-and-take. AI relationships are likely more transactional.

Joi AI found that AI-using young adults don't just get freaky with AI because it's less stressful than human interaction, though. Thirty-seven percent use it to practice flirting and dating scenarios, while 31 percent explore new kinks before trying them IRL. A quarter (25 percent) explore kinks they'd never try offline, too.

More than half of respondents (61 percent) said sexually exploring with AI has actively improved their "actual" sex life, while 65 percent said it's made them feel more sexy IRL.

It's also being used as a discovery tool, as 60 percent said AI has helped them discover sexual interests they didn't know they had. Twenty-nine percent said they use it to get ideas for partnered sex. Meanwhile, some people are into the sci-fi element of getting dirty with an AI (28 percent) — which is the Her factor of it all. Nearly half (49 percent) said they'd definitely consider having sex with an AI if the tech allowed for it.

Seeing as some AI users (even with human partners) are hooking up with their bots, it was only a matter of time before it became part of their sexual orientation. Even still, though, take this survey with a grain of salt — it was done by an AI companion company and a survey of those who actively use AI, after all.



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OpenClaw logo

OpenClaw has taken the AI industry by storm over the past few months, inspiring a new AI term for personal AI agents — claws. It's now so popular that even Google can't ignore it.

If you're a Google Workspace user, Google has now released a command-line interface (CLI) that officially gives developers a way to integrate third-party AI agents like OpenClaw into the Workspace platform. This means that OpenClaw and other AI assistants can connect to a user's Google Workspace services such as Gmail and Google Drive.

Google published the Google Workspace CLI on Github just days ago alongside specific documentation on how to integrate OpenClaw. The documentation also includes guidance on how to connect MCP (Model Context Protocol) compatible apps such as the Claude Desktop app and the Gemini CLI.

As PCWorld noted, OpenClaw and similar claws could already connect to Google Workspace. However, this involved workarounds and the use of multiple APIs to integrate AI assistants into Google's services and platforms.

While the Google CLI is an official Google release, the company shared that it's “not an officially supported Google product" and is more for developer use than the average Google user.

Still, this is a notable move from Google. It's a first step in Google basically embracing claws and giving developers a legitimate way to integrate them into their Google Workspace account.

OpenClaw went viral earlier this year and basically became the standard-bearer for agentic AI tools. Last month, OpenAI hired OpenClaw's founder Peter Steinberger, who joined the company with a goal "to build an agent that even my mum can use."



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President Trump grimaces in front of a U.S. flag.

The White House is using clips from popular video game Call of Duty in official posts about the war with Iran, just days after the U.S. entered an armed conflict in the Middle East.

The footage is seen amid a compilation of images of U.S. warfare posted to the official White House X account. The clip begins with gameplay from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, a scene depicting a kill streak animation in which a user unlocks the ability to launch a nuclear arsenal. The video is accompanied by the text "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue."

SEE ALSO: Disinformation on U.S.-Iran war takes over the internet

To many, the post was an unsettling portrayal of a military strike that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iranians, according to reports. A girl's elementary school in Minab was hit in an attack, killing dozens of children, and it's not clear if the school was an intended target by U.S. or Israeli forces.

In a reply to the White House's post, Chance Glasco, founding developer of the Call of Duty franchise, said: "This doesn't surprise me. I remember after Activision took over post-Respawn formation there was a very awkward pressure from Activision for us to make the next CoD about Iran attacking Israel. Luckily the vast majority of our devs were disgusted by the idea and it got shot down."

The internet has been rife with misinformation surrounding military operations and counterattacks in Iran, including posts intending to exaggerate or mislead users about the country's response to American and Israeli strikes.

Known political bots began posting decontextualized images and videos, including video game and flight simulator screenshots, just hours after news broke of the coordinated attacks. AI-manipulated images and videos had garnered millions of impressions on X, Instagram, and Facebook in a handful of days, according to researchers. With no sign that the posts would slow down as strikes continued, X announced it would be suspending users from its monetized Creator Revenue Sharing program if they posted AI-generated content depicting armed conflict without proper labeling. 

Video game footage has become a tool for U.S. propaganda, and has been used repeatedly by agencies of the Trump administration.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security used images from Xbox game Halo in social media posts, emblazoned with the phrase "Destroy The Flood" and a link to an ICE recruitment page. The department had previously posted videos of immigration raids with the Pokemon tagline "Gotta catch 'em all." The posts came amid escalating operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including Minnesota-based "Operation Metro Surge," which would result in the killings of Minneapolis residents Rene Good and Alex Pretti, and Los Angeles resident Keith Porter. All three were U.S. citizens.



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