Today's NYT Strands hints are easy if you've been watching the Olympics.

Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game, 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 preferred pace.

NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Cold competition

The words are related to sports.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

These words describe cold activities.

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 Zodiac Signs.

NYT Strands word list for February 18

• Luge

• Hockey

• Curling

• Winter Sports

• Bobsled

• Snowboarding

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.

Today's Wordle answer should be easy to solve if you're a boss.

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

Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.

Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

A tycoon.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no recurring letters.

Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with…

Today's Wordle starts with the letter M.

The Wordle answer today is…

Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to today's Wordle is…

MOGUL

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

Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

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 Wordle.

Anthropic has just released its latest Large Language Model (LLM), Claude Sonnett 4.6. The Tuesday release quickly follows the launch of Claude Opus 4.6, the company's premium AI model, on Feb. 5.

According to Anthropic, "Claude Sonnet 4.6 is our most capable Sonnet model yet." The company says Sonnet 4.6 has a 1 million token context window in beta. Crucially, Anthropic reports that Sonnet 4.6 performed well on internal safety tests, showing a low tendency to hallucinate and engage in sycophancy.

"Sonnet 4.6 brings much-improved coding skills to more of our users," Anthropic said, referring to Claude's popularity among developers who use AI to code.

If you're looking to use Anthropic's latest AI model, the company has made it really easy. Here's how to access Clause Sonnet 4.6.

How to use Claude Sonnet 4.6

For both free and Pro users, Claude Sonnett 4.6 is available now as the default model on claude.ai and Claude Cowork. Anthropic has also rolled the model out through its API and all major cloud platforms.

Free users will have limited usage rates that depend on current demand. Limits reset every five hours. For those who need higher limits, Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs the same price rate as the previous model. The Claude Pro plan costs $20 per month or $17 per month if paid annual. If going through the API, Claude Sonnett 4.6 starts at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 benchmark performance

According to Anthropic's benchmark tests, Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the company's most powerful model for agentic financial analysis and office tasks, beating out competitors like Google's Gemini 3 Pro and OpenAI's GPT 5.2.

On those tasks, Claude Sonnet 4.6 also beats out Anthropic's own Opus 4.6, Anthropic's most powerful AI model.

In its release announcement, Anthropic said that many developers with early access to Claude Sonnet 4.6 preferred the model — not just to its predecessor, Claude Sonnet 4.5, but also Claude Opus 4.5. According to the Sonnet 4.6 system card, the new model improves on key benchmarks like Humanity's Last Exam, though Claude Opus 4.6 scored higher.

Benchmark performance

• GPQA Diamond: 89.9 percent

• ARC-AGI-2: 58.3 percent

• MMMLU: 89.3 percent

• SWE-bench Verified: 79.6 percent

• HLE (Humanity's Last Exam): With tools 49.0 percent, without tools 33.2 percent

AI-powered insurance company Pace told VentureBeat that Sonnet 4.6 scored the best out of any Claude model on its complex insurance computer use benchmark.

These results are notable as Claude Opus models are generally the more intelligent and preferable for complex reasoning.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is not only more powerful than some Opus models, but more affordable too. As previously mentioned, Claude Sonnet 4.6 is priced at $3/$15, whereas Opus 4.6's rates are $5/$25.