Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that's captured the public's attention. 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 today's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections?

The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

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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.

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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.

Here's a hint for today's Connections categories

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

• Yellow: Within reach

• Green: Mailing essentials

• Blue: Seen on a passageway

• Purple: Found in the Constitution

Here are today's Connections categories

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

• Yellow: Conveniently located

• Green: Needs for sending a letter

• Blue: Words on a door

• Purple: First Amendment freedoms

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 #799 is…

What is the answer to Connections today

• Conveniently located: ACCESSIBLE, CLOSE, HANDY, NEARBY

• Needs for sending a letter: ADDRESS, ENVELOPE, NAME, STAMP

• Words on a door: EXIT, OPEN, PUSH, WELCOME

• First Amendment freedoms: ASSEMBLY, PETITION, PRESS, SPEECH

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new 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?

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.

Vicky

If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game.

Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.

By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.

If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle, we've got all the NYT Strands hints for today's puzzle you need to progress at your preferrined pace.

NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Think again!

The words are psychology-related.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

These words are ways brainpower is used.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today's NYT Strands spangram is vertical.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today's spangram is Right Brain.

NYT Strands word list for August 17

• Intuition

• Creativity

• Feelings

• Spontaneity

• Right Brain

Looking for other daily online games? Mashable's Games page has more hints, and 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 Strands.

Vicky

A day after Reuters reported that Meta's AI rules permitted children to have "sensual" chats, a Republican senator launched an investigation into the tech giant.

On Friday, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley posted a letter he sent to Mark Zuckerberg along with the announcement of the investigation.

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"Is there anything – ANYTHING – Big Tech won't do for a quick buck?" Hawley asked on X. "Now we learn Meta's chatbots were programmed to carry on explicit and 'sensual' talk with 8 year olds. It's sick."

The letter goes into more detail on this point:

To take but one example, your internal rules purportedly permit an AI chatbot to comment that an eight-year-old's body is "a work of art" of which "every inch… is a masterpiece—a treasure I cherish deeply." Similar conduct outlined in these reports is reprehensible and outrageous—and demonstrates a cavalier attitude when it comes to the real risks that generative Al presents to youth development absent strong guardrails. Parents deserve the truth, and kids deserve protection.

Further in the letter, Hawley demands that Meta produce every draft of its AI standards, products involved, risk reviews, and incident reports, communications with public claims and regulatory agencies like the FTC, and the individuals involved in changing the policy by Sept. 19.

Hawley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, wrote that the subcommittee will look into whether Meta's generative AI products "enable exploitation, deception, or other criminal harms to children, and whether Meta misled the public or regulators about its safeguards."

Reuters also reported other disturbing rules in Meta's AI policies, such as allowing users to argue racist beliefs about Black people. Hawley's letter doesn't call this out explicitly. It does note that the rules "green-[light] other harmful content behind legal word games."

Meta declined to comment on Hawley's letter to Mashable, but sent a statement about the Reuters article:

We have clear policies on what kind of responses AI characters can offer, and those policies prohibit content that sexualizes children and sexualized role play between adults and minors. Separate from the policies, there are hundreds of examples, notes, and annotations that reflect teams grappling with different hypothetical scenarios. The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed.

This isn't the first time Hawley has targeted tech. Earlier this year, the Republican introduced a bill to make downloading DeepSeek, the Chinese AI app, a crime. In 2023, he supported banning TikTok and had criticized TikTok for years prior. In 2019, Hawley introduced a bill to ban autoplay videos and infinite scrolling.

Vicky