A Iran returns to an uneasy calm after protests led to a violent crackdown, a senior cleric is calling for the death penalty for detained demonstrators. His sermon Friday also threatened U.S. President Trump.
(Image credit: Ebrahim Noroozi)
A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Friday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Friday, January 16 (game #684).
Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.
Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
• Today's NYT Strands theme is… That's putting it mildly!
Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.
• Spangram has 11 letters
First side: bottom, 1st column
Last side: top, 4th column
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
The answers to today's Strands, game #685, are…
I love a polite swearword. If you hear someone curse “fudge” or “sugar” it is firstly very funny, but secondly also pointless because everyone knows what you are really trying to say.
Perhaps a better option is to come up with something a bit more creative, like calling someone the son of an aardvark or yelling peanuts when you accidentally hurt yourself. There is a brilliant story a UK journalist called Jon Ronson wrote about being asked by his son what the worst swearword in the world was, and he randomly replied “limone” – it worked, for a while, until one day he returned home from school and called his father a very, very rude word for lying to him.
Anyway, I digress. A great, fun search in which I thankfully was not FOILEDAGAIN.
Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.
A South Korean court has sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison, the first verdict in eight criminal trials for allegations that include his 2024 martial law decree.
(Image credit: Lee Jin-man)
Apple is known for being one of the most secretive companies in tech, rarely confirming projects in development and typically announcing new hardware or software only when the timing is right. Entire initiatives can live – and quietly die – inside Cupertino without ever being publicly acknowledged.
That’s why it’s notable that, after years of rumors surrounding Apple’s work on autonomous vehicles, an unexpected confirmation appears to have come from Airbnb.
As part of a publicly shared internal announcement naming Ahmad Al-Dahle as Airbnb’s new Chief Technology Officer, a memo sent to employees states:
“In 2014, Ahmad created and led Apple’s autonomous technology group, responsible for developing the core AI systems for the company’s self-driving car project.”
While Apple has never formally confirmed the project, the statement closely aligns with long-standing reporting and offers one of the clearest acknowledgements yet that the effort existed in a serious, sustained way.
The memo also highlights the length and breadth of Al-Dahle’s time at Apple. He joined the company two years before the first iPhone shipped, working on multitouch and display systems, then contributed to the development of the Apple Watch and other hardware initiatives, before eventually leading Apple’s autonomous systems work.
Al-Dahle left Apple in 2020 and joined Meta, focusing on AI and, since 2023, working within Meta’s Generative AI group. There, he helped launch Llama and roll out AI features across Meta’s suite of apps.
What makes the disclosure particularly striking is not just what it reveals, but how it surfaced. Rather than an official Apple announcement or regulatory filing, confirmation arrived via Airbnb’s hiring announcement – an unusual but revealing route for such a high-profile effort.
The timing also adds context to Apple’s broader AI strategy, including its recent partnership with Google to use Gemini as the foundation for the next-gen Siri and other AI-powered features. Viewed together, these developments suggest less of a retreat and more of a recalibration.
Autonomous vehicles are one of the most complex intersections of hardware, software, and AI, and Apple’s decision to wind down the project appears consistent with a renewed focus on areas where it can ship products at scale within its existing ecosystem.
Partnering with Google on foundational AI models similarly reflects a pragmatic approach, one in which it can accelerate and potentially offload some of its AI capabilities, while also focusing on the finished product, the user experience, and putting user privacy at the center internally.
For Airbnb, the hire underscores how central AI has become to its future. Al-Dahle brings experience building large AI systems and scaling them, which aligns with Airbnb’s expanding use of the tech across its platform.
In 2025, Airbnb rolled out a comprehensive redesign of its iOS and Android apps, emphasizing cleaner navigation, improved discovery, and expanded experiences beyond just rentals. The company has also introduced AI-powered customer service tools and personalized recommendations, while continuing to experiment with social features.
Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky has been increasingly vocal about AI’s role in daily life. In the same employee communication, he emphasized a human-first approach:
“In a world becoming more artificial, people are craving what’s real: real connection with real people in the real world. No company is better positioned to meet this need than Airbnb.”
Chesky added that Al-Dahle “shares our belief that technology should serve people – not the other way around – and that its highest purpose is to bring us closer together.”
Airbnb is unlikely to venture into autonomous vehicles, but it’s clear from Chesky's statement that it intends to remain focused on the customer experience and on encouraging people to connect in the real world.
Chesky’s announcement of the CTO hire also offers a rare window into Apple’s past ambitions and the evolving ways major tech companies approach AI. Although the confirmation came in a unique way, it’s still unconfirmed by Apple.
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Palestinians say they're suffering as they wait for progress in next phase of U.S.-backed ceasefire.
NPR's Michel Martin talks to Vali Nasr, a professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, about how President Trump's threats against Iran are escalating regional tensions.
Spanish prosecutors are studying allegations that Grammy-winning singer Julio Iglesias sexually assaulted two former employees at his residences in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.
(Image credit: Carlos Giusti)
