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 NYTStrandspuzzle was a bit challenging. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, and some are long, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about therules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visitCNET’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:We’ll be there

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Admirable traits

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:

• REAL, TUNE, TUNED, GOOD, ROOD, GULR, GULP, PEWS, STUN, STUD

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:

• LOYAL, CARING, HELPFUL, RELIABLE, TRUSTWORTHY

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is GOODFRIENDS. To find it, start with the G that’s three letters down on the far left, and wind over and then down.

The reboot of the classic Xbox series is now coming out in February 2027.

Chrome Holding Co., the company formerly known as23andMe, is facing a lawsuit filed by California AttorneyGeneral Rob Bonta over a massive security breach in 2023 that compromised millions of people’s sensitive data. Bonta is accusing the company of misleading customers and failing to protect their”sensitive personal information and genetic data related to their health, genetic predispositions and risk factors, biological relatives, ancestry and ethnicity.” The incident had affected 7 million users across the US, the lawsuit said, 855,541 whom were California residents.

23andMe, which offered customers DNA testing kits so they can find out their ancestral origins and genetic health risks, admitted back in 2023 that bad actors were able to access users’ accounts through credential stuffing. Bonta argued that companies, especially one that collects genetic data, should know to guard against such a common method of cyberattack.

It wasn’t just credential stuffing that allowed the bad actors to steal millions of private information. After using the attack method to break into14,000 accounts, they then exploited a vulnerability in the website’s DNA Relatives feature to access data from more customers. Bonta said the company’s security measures were so lax, the hackers were able to operate undetected inside its system for five months. He added that the company only started investigating after the bad actors had already started selling stolen user data on the dark web and demanding a ransom.

Bonta accused 23andMe of omitting critical information when it informed customers about the breach. He said the company downplayed the sensitivity of the stolen data and claimed that the DNA Relatives feature was “essentially public,” all while it was secretly negotiating with the bad actors who were highlighting the inclusion of information about Asian American and Pacific Islanders, as well as Jewish users, in the dataset they were selling.

“The sale of this data on the dark web took place amidst a period of mounting anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander and antisemitic hate and violence — and explicitly called attention to the deeply personal and identifying nature of that information,” Bonta wrote. “This is disturbing and incredibly dangerous.”

23andMefiled for bankruptcy in March 2025. As notes, it also faced a class-action lawsuit that accused the company of failing to protect its customers, and a judge overseeing its bankruptcy had proved a $50 million settlement earlier this year.

Looking forthe most recentMini 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? I thought 1-Across and 5-Across were a bit tricky. 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 visitCNET’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: “Whatcha ___?”
Answer: DOIN

5A clue: “Whatcha ___?”
Answer: UPTO

6A clue: Ecosystem that includes the bristlemouth, the most common vertebrate on Earth (roughly 1 quadrillion organisms)
Answer: OCEAN

7A clue: Marx who wrote “Das Kital”
Answer: KARL

8A clue: Period at a hotel
Answer: STAY

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Old gold coin of Europe
Answer: DUCAT

2D clue: Performance at Milan’s La Scala or Nles’s Teatro di San Carlo
Answer: OPERA

3D clue: Home to Milan and Nles
Answer: ITALY

4D clue: Prefix with starter or smoker
Answer: NON

6D clue: proves
Answer: OKS

The company was doing a hotfire test to prepare for New Glenn’s next mission.