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Today's NYT Strands hints are easy if you're a film buff.

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.

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

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.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for March 15, 2026 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for March 15, 2026 NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Best of all

The words are related to film.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

These words describe an iconic film ceremony.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today's NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today's spangram is Academy Award.

NYT Strands word list for March 15

• Director

• Actor

• Sound

• Academy Award

• Picture

• Song

• Actress

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 student.

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.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for March 15, 2026 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.

SEE ALSO: NYT Pips hints, answers for March 15, 2026 Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

A score.

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 G.

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

GRADE

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.

Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times catalogue.

Released in August 2025, the Pips puts a unique spin on dominoes, creating a fun single-player experience that could become your next daily gaming habit.

Currently, if you're stuck, the game only offers to reveal the entire puzzle, forcing you to move onto the next difficulty level and start over. However, we have you covered! Below are piecemeal answers that will serve as hints so that you can find your way through each difficulty level.

How to play Pips

If you've ever played dominoes, you'll have a passing familiarity for how Pips is played. As we've shared in our previous hints stories for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The main difference between a traditional game of dominoes and Pips is the color-coded conditions you have to address. The touching tiles don't necessarily have to match.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for March 15, 2026

The conditions you have to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if it provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to the number provided. It is possible – and common – for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space.

Here are common examples you'll run into across the difficulty levels:

• Number: All the pips in this space must add up to the number.

• Equal: Every domino half in this space must be the same number of pips.

• Not Equal: Every domino half in this space must have a completely different number of pips.

• Less than: Every domino half in this space must add up to less than the number.

• Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the number.

If an area does not have any color coding, it means there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within those spaces.

SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for March 15, 2026 Easy difficulty hints, answers for March 15 Pips

Equal (0): Everything in this space must be equal to 0. The answer is 0-0, placed horizontally; 0-3, placed vertically.

Equal (5): Everything in this space must be equal to 5. The answer is 4-5, placed horizontally; 5-5, placed horizontally.

Number (10): Everything in this space must add up to 10. The answer is 4-5, placed horizontally; 3-6, placed horizontally.

Medium difficulty hints, answers for March 15 Pips

Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 1-2, placed vertically; 5-1, placed vertically.

Less Than (1): Everything in this space must be less than 1. The answer is 0-2, placed vertically.

Equal (3): Everything in this space must be equal to 3. The answer is 1-3, placed vertically; 3-6, placed vertically.

Number (5): Everything in this space must add up to 5. The answer is 1-2, placed vertically; 3-4, placed horizontally.

Equal (2): Everything in this space must be equal to 2. The answer is 0-2, placed vertically; 2-5, placed horizontally.

Greater Than (10): Everything in this space must be greater than 10. The answer is 2-5, placed horizontally; 3-6, placed vertically.

Hard difficulty hints, answers for March 15 Pips

Number (10): Everything in this space must add up to 10. The answer is 5-5, placed horizontally.

Greater Than (2): Everything in this space must be greater than 2. The answer is 3-4, placed vertically.

Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-4, placed vertically.

Equal (4): Everything in this space must be equal to 4. The answer is 3-4, placed vertically; 2-4, placed vertically; 4-0, placed vertically.

Less Than (2): Everything in this space must be greater than 2. The answer is 4-0, placed vertically.

Number (12): Everything in this space must add up to 12. The answer is 6-6, placed vertically.

Number (4): Everything in this space must add up to 4. The answer is 4-6, placed horizontally.

Number (11): Everything in this space must add up to 11. The answer is 4-6, placed horizontally; 5-6, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-6, placed vertically.

Number (12): Everything in this space must add up to 12. The answer is 5-6, placed horizontally; 1-6, placed vertically.

Equal (2): Everything in this space must be equal to 2. The answer is 2-2, placed horizontally.

Equal (3): Everything in this space must be equal to 3. The answer is 3-3, placed horizontally; 3-5, placed horizontally.

Greater Than (2): Everything in this space must be greater than 2. The answer is 3-5, placed horizontally.

Less Than (2): Everything in this space must be greater than 2. The answer is 0-0, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-1, placed horizontally.

Not Equal: Everything in this space must be different. The answer is 0-2, placed horizontally; 1-1, placed horizontally; 6-0, placed horizontally.

Greater Than (2): Everything in this space must be greater than 2. The answer is 6-0, placed horizontally.

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

Today's Connections: Sports Edition is easy for people that watch Conference Championship week.

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.

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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.

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: Basketball no-no's

• Green: Next round of the tournament

• Blue: Women's coaching GOATs

• Purple: CBB conference champions

Here are today's Connections: Sports Edition categories

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

• Yellow: Basketball Fouls

• Green: First Words in NCAA Tournament Rounds

• Blue: Women's College Basketball Coaches

• Purple: Teams Qualified for the 2026 Men's NCAA Tournament

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 #538 is...

What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?

• Basketball Fouls - BLOCK, CHARGE, HOLD, REACH-IN

• First Words in NCAA Tournament Rounds - ELITE, FINAL, SECOND, SWEET

• Women's College Basketball Coaches - AURIEMMA, CLOSE, IVEY, STALEY

• Teams Qualified for the 2026 Men's NCAA Tournament - GONZAGA, HIGH POINT, QUEENS, TROY

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.

If I want to hear about how billionaire tech bros are making the world worse, I can turn on the news. If I want to hear about how billionaire tech bros are making the world worse and at least laugh about it, I can watch The Audacity.

SEE ALSO: 'The Audacity' trailer skewers the 'billionaire man-children' of Silicon Valley

Created by Jonathan Glatzer, a writer and producer on Succession and Better Call Saul, The Audacity takes a satirical sledgehammer to Silicon Valley. It tears into the tech world with cutting one-liners and a parade of ultra-wealthy, ultra-insecure "billionaire man children" who often feel frighteningly familiar.

What is The Audacity about? Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen in "The Audacity." Credit: Ed Araquel / AMC

Among those man children is Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen), the data mining CEO of tech company Hypergnosis. He's a sleeveless vest stuffed with delusion and insecurity, a man who's convinced of his own genius, yet still needs those around him to validate said genius.

His closest confidante is his strung-out therapist Dr. JoAnne Felder (Sarah Goldberg), who's certainly not getting paid enough to hear about Duncan's fraudulent activity. However, JoAnne's record isn't spotless either. Thanks to information from her sessions with Duncan and the other tech titans she treats, she's picked up enough confidential information to get into some serious insider trading.

When Duncan discovers this, and when his own stock threatens to plummet, he blackmails JoAnne to help him out, resulting in a sharp, self-destructive spiral for both.

SEE ALSO: 'Margo's Got Money Troubles' review: An alien OnlyFans is the highlight of Apple's family dramedy Billy Magnussen and Sarah Goldberg kill it in The Audacity. Sarah Goldberg and Billy Magnussen in "The Audacity." Credit: Ed Araquel / AMC

There are few joys in television greater than watching two great actors have it out, and you'll get plenty of that in The Audacity thanks to Magnussen and Goldberg.

So often a highlight in supporting roles, from Into the Woods to HBO's short-lived The Franchise, Magnussen takes center stage with his usual full-throttle commitment to ridiculousness. His Duncan is someone you love to hate: smarmy, full of himself, and always ready to keep digging deeper into a hole if it means he'll get what he wants. Magnussen channels each of Duncan's flaws with glee, and the result is cringe comedy gold.

SEE ALSO: 'Data' is scarily prescient about AI and immigration. Its team is ready to meet the moment.

While Duncan believes he's on top of the world, Goldberg's JoAnne is all too aware of the fact that she's at the bottom of the Silicon Valley pyramid. That fuels Goldberg's impeccable take on JoAnne's building breakdown, as does Duncan's blackmail and her strained relationship with teen son Orson (Everett Blunck). We've seen Goldberg play a woman losing control before, as Barry's Sally Reed. (Who could forget her Season 3 elevator tirade?) Here, she once again nails that same level of desperation, coupled with JoAnne's more composed therapist persona. Watching her go from therapist mode to panicked mode is one of The Audacity's darkly comic highlights. Watching the two begin to merge is even better.

Magnussen and Goldberg's chemistry is superb, with Duncan and JoAnne wrestling for power in increasingly ridiculous ways. An early season highlight? JoAnne preferring to drive her car off a road in order to avoid interacting with an oncoming Duncan. He pulls into frame with the goofiest smile on his face, acting like her bestie even though he's straight-up using her car data to track her. He believes he's living in a tech thriller, while JoAnne's fully in a horror movie. That imbalance is a core part of why JoAnne-Duncan dynamic works so well, but it's also proof of The Audacity's tech bros' total delusion: They live so far above everyone else that they feel they can do anything.

The Audacity's Silicon Valley is downright sinister. Simon Helberg in "The Audacity." Credit: Ed Araquel / AMC

The Audacity builds out a full, frightening world around Duncan and JoAnne. Disillusioned tech pioneers like Carl Bardolph (Zach Galifianakis) look down their noses at what Silicon Valley has become, all while trying to find a way back in. Parents like Duncan and his wife Lili (Lucy Punch) try to ensure their daughter Jamison (Ava Telek) gets into Stanford by any means necessary, hiring an elite team of coaches even though it makes her miserable. Elsewhere, inventor Martin Pfister (Simon Helberg) works tirelessly on perfecting an AI child, all while neglecting his own daughter Tess (Thailey Roberge).

Don’t miss out on our latest stories: Add Mashable as a trusted news source in Google.

For the show's teen ensemble of Orson, Jamison, and Tess, alienation from their parents is the norm. Through their eyes, Silicon Valley becomes a nightmare place to grow up.

Through the adults' eyes, the Valley doesn't seem so pretty either, despite the lavish mansions or luxury mud baths just a helicopter ride away in Napa. Instead of a tech heaven, it's a surreal tech dystopia, one where a single algorithm can play God and package every bit of a person's data for exploitation. It would almost feel like science fiction if this kind of data mining technology didn't already exist, and that's part of The Audacity's bleak appeal: making us laugh at ridiculousness that's just one step removed from reality.

"The world there is not the world," Orson says of Silicon Valley. He's right. It's a bubble bursting with big net worths and bigger egos. But, The Audacity reminds us, that bubble has a major impact on the real world, and isn't that a silly, frightening thing?

The Audacity was reviewed out of its premiere at SXSW. It premieres April 12 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+.

As we near the 98th Academy Awards, which will air on March 15, prep for the star-studded event is underway. Host Conan O'Brien has rolled out the red carpet, statuettes gleam with fresh polish, and influencers are prepping their interview questions amid viral nominee backlash.

Also on the docket: The annual Golden Raspberry Awards, also known as The Razzies, which dishonorably award the worst Hollywood had to offer in the year prior.

SEE ALSO: How to watch the 2026 Oscars online for free

Many of Hollywood's finest take a Razzie win in stride, including Academy Award winners Halle Berry and Sandra Bullock, who attended the Razzies to accept the dishonor on behalf of Catwoman and All About Steve, respectively.

Alas, this year's virtual parody ceremony didn't feature any in-person Hollywood cameos. You'll also have to stomach some unsettling animated visuals on the YouTube livestream — or just scroll down for the full list.

Worst Picture

The Electric State          
Hurry Up Tomorrow
Disney’s Snow White (2025)   
Star Trek: Section 31
War of the Worlds (2025)

Winner: War of the Worlds (2025)

War of the Worlds, the latest film adaptation of the H.G Wells novel directed by Rich Lee, swept this year's Razzies. It currently has a 2.5-star rating on IMDb, a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a single star on Letterboxd. The movie is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

Worst Actress

Ariana DeBose, Love Hurts
Milla Jovovich, In the Lost Lands
Natalie Portman, Fountain of Youth 
Rebel Wilson, Bride Hard
Michelle Yeoh, Star Trek: Section 31

Winner: Rebel Wilson

Bride Hard is a real movie in which Wilson plays a secret agent whose spy duties are getting in the way of her being a bridesmaid. It has a 4.4 rating on IMDB, a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 1.9 on Letterboxd.

Worst Actor

Dave Bautista, In the Lost Lands
Ice Cube, War of the Worlds
Scott Eastwood, Alarum
Jared Leto, Tron: Ares
Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, Hurry Up Tomorrow

Winner: Ice Cube

Despite widespread panning from critics and viewers, War of the Worlds gave the world at least one good thing: a meme-worthy shot of Ice Cube sitting at a computer monitor, the glow of Zoom tinging his glasses.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. Worst Supporting Actress

Anna Chlumsky, Bride Hard 
Ema Horvath, The Strangers: Chapter 2
Scarlet Rose Stallone, Gunslingers 
Kacey Rohl, Star Trek: Section 31
Isis Valverde, Alarum

Winner: Scarlet Rose Stallone

Stallone is, in fact, the daughter of action star Sylvester Stallone. She stars alongside another famous Hollywood name, Nic Cage, in Gunslingers, which has a 3.6 on IMDB, 5% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 1.8 stars on Letterboxd.

Worst Supporting Actor

All Seven Artificial Dwarfs, Snow White (2025)
Nicolas Cage, Gunslingers
Stephen Dorff, Bride Hard
Greg Kinnear, Off the Grid
Sylvester Stallone, Alarum

Winner: All Seven Artificial Dwarfs

The uncanny, CGI dwarfs of 2025's Snow White took home a joint Razzie, stealing yet another award that could have actually gone to a real-life actor with dwarfism.

Worst Remake / Rip-Off / Sequel

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Smurfs (2025)
Snow White (2025)
War of the Worlds (2025)

Winner: War of the Worlds

Remake or rip-off? How about both...

Worst Screen Combo

All Seven Dwarfs, Snow White (2025)
James Corden & Rihanna, Smurfs (2025)
Ice Cube & His Zoom Camera, War of the Worlds (2025)
Robert De Niro & Robert De Niro (as Frank & Vito), The Alto Knights
The Weeknd & His Colossal Ego, Hurry Up Tomorrow

Winner: All Seven Dwarfs

Let's just use this moment to shout out the real voices behind the digital Razzie winners: Martin Klebba (Grumpy), George Salazar (Happy), Andy Grotelueschen (Sleepy), Tituss Burgess (Bashful), Jason Kravits (Sneezy), and Jeremy Swift (Doc).

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. Worst Director 

Rich Lee, War of the Worlds (2025)
Olatunde Osunsanmi, Star Trek: Section 31
The Russo Brothers, The Electric State
Trey Edward Shults, Hurry Up Tomorrow
Marc Webb, Snow White (2025)

Winner: Rich Lee

Lee's bookshelf will be full of golden raspberries, which are actually really cute decor IMO. In the words of the Razzies, "Own your bad!"

Worst Screenplay

The Electric State, Screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Adapted from the illustrated novel by Simon Stalenhag.
Hurry Up Tomorrow, Screenplay by Trey Edward Shults, Abel Tesfaye, Reza Fahim.
Snow White (2025), Screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson et. al. Drawing from the original fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm.
Star Trek: Section 31, Screenplay by Craig Sweeny with original story concept developed by Bo Yeon Kim & Erika Lippoldt.
War of the Worlds (2025), Screen story and screenplay by Kenny Golde and screenplay by Marc Hyman. Adapted from the novel by H.G. Wells.

Winner: War Of The Worlds (2025) / Kenny Golde, Marc Hyman

Trying to adapt War of the Worlds in the age of TikTok dances and mogging is a doomed enterprise. But with this win, War of the Worlds ties with Cats for the most wins at the Razzies.

Razzie Redeemer AwardWinner: Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue

The Redeemer Award is presented to a previous nominee or winner who has successfully come back from a critical failure. Hudson has multiple Razzie nominations, including My Best Friend’s Girl, Mother’s Day, and, most recently, 2021's Music. However, Hudson redeemed herself with a "pitch-perfect" performance in Song Sung Blue and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

An anonymous group installed an anti-Elon Musk vending machine that dispenses the Epstein Files at SXSW 2026 in Austin, Texas, on Saturday morning.

Mashable witnessed a group of four men installing the piece of guerrilla protest art at the corner of Red River Street and 4th Street in downtown Austin. After a brief installation, passersby started collecting DVDs titled "Elon's Epstein Files." The vending machine is covered with anti-Elon Musk slogans, and messages on the machine say "Grok makes AI child porn free!" and "Our founder Elon Musk is in the Epstein Files."

A group of unidentified men install an anti-Elon Musk art project at SXSW 2026. Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

Grok has been the subject of global investigations after the AI chatbot was accused of generating nude images of children. The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and the New York Times found that Grok created an estimated 3 million sexualized images, which included 23,000 images depicting children, during an 11-day period between December and January.

When Grok Imagine first launched, Mashable reported that the tool lacked basic safety guardrails to prevent sexual deepfakes.

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A QR code inside the DVD takes you to Jmail, a site that lets you search through Epstein's emails in a Gmail-like interface. (Exercise caution when scanning QR codes from unknown sources.) Specifically, this code links to a search in Jmail that shows emails between Musk and Epstein. What Mashable has covered previously: Jmail is the brainchild of Riley Walz, a digital "prankster," and developer Luke Igel. However, it's unclear if this Elon Musk vending machine is associated with the Jmail project.

The men setting up the vending machine refused to say who they were or who hired them. Two men who described themselves as the "security detail" said the vending machine would be up until Wednesday. A photographer and the man installing the machine told Mashable they were hired by a company that was hired by another company, and refused to provide identifying details.

An Anti-Elon Musk vending machine appears in downtown Austin during SXSW 2026. Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

The men installing the machine also claimed responsibility for the Epstein Walk of Shame art installation, which appeared in downtown Austin earlier in the week.

The annual SXSW festival takes place in Austin, Texas, where it runs from March 12 to 18.

Meta is pulling its end-to-end encryption option on Instagram DMs.

The company announced the change in an update to its support page and via alerts to users in the app, writing:

End-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after May 8, 2026.

If you have chats that are impacted by this change, you will see instructions on how you can download any media or messages you may want to keep.

If you're on an older version of Instagram, you may also need to update the app before you can download your affected chats.

Meta spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby Luce told The Verge that the company was discontinuing the feature because "very few people" were using it. With end-to-end encryption enabled for both users, DMs and calls aren't visible to outside actors, including Meta, unless they're shared.

SEE ALSO: Child safety group blasts YouTube for million dollar gamble on AI content for kids

Meta and other tech leaders have come under fire for turning over user communications to outside entities, including law enforcement. But they have also received flak for offering end-to-end encryption to users across the board, with some critics saying that the feature enables child predators to target and communicate with minors undetected.

TikTok, for example, does not offer end-to-end encryption for user DMs and explained to the BBC that the decision is the result of numerous safety considerations. The company told the outlet that providing law enforcement and internal training teams with chat data keeps users safe.

For users who still want end-to-end encryption, Meta's spokesperson says to turn to WhatsApp — but the Meta-owned messaging service isn't entirely safe from intrusions, either. Meta says end-to-end encryption will still be available on Messenger.

Ask ChatGPT to make you a short film, and it soon may be able to do just that.

Inside sources told The Information that OpenAI is planning to integrate its video generator tool, Sora, directly into ChatGPT, only a few months after launching Sora's standalone app.

SEE ALSO: Child safety group blasts YouTube for million dollar gamble on AI content for kids

While the TikTok-style app would still remain available to users, insiders say, the move suggests OpenAI is putting most of its effort into beefing up ChatGPT. Sora's integration and the processing demands that come with it would cost the company money — OpenAI estimates it will spend $225 billion to run its models between now and 2030 — but it would stand to recoup those costs if ChatGPT remains the dominant chatbot on the market. OpenAI could also monetize video generation itself, a strategy they floated to users on the Sora app.

Sora 2 has had its highs and lows since its launch last year. OpenAI received a $1 billion investment from Disney in a deal that included licensing the entertainment giant's characters for use by ChatGPT and Sora users. This followed widespread criticism of the model after it generated numerous problematic deepfakes of historic figures and infringed on Hollywood IP.

In February, a judge ordered OpenAI to cease using the term "cameo" to describe its in-app AI likeness tool after it was sued by the eponymous social media app Cameo. Broadly, the app has seen a dip in popularity among users.

The company has adjusted its priorities for its tentpole chatbot over the last few months, including pivoting away from its proposed shopping integration and launching native advertising for ChatGPT as a reinvestment aimed at boosting the chatbot's user base and profits. The company is pushing ChatGPT's multimodal capabilities. Last week, OpenAI announced new dynamic visuals for chatbot users, providing more detailed, interactive visual references for math and science questions.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times catalogue.

Released in August 2025, the Pips puts a unique spin on dominoes, creating a fun single-player experience that could become your next daily gaming habit.

Currently, if you're stuck, the game only offers to reveal the entire puzzle, forcing you to move onto the next difficulty level and start over. However, we have you covered! Below are piecemeal answers that will serve as hints so that you can find your way through each difficulty level.

How to play Pips

If you've ever played dominoes, you'll have a passing familiarity for how Pips is played. As we've shared in our previous hints stories for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The main difference between a traditional game of dominoes and Pips is the color-coded conditions you have to address. The touching tiles don't necessarily have to match.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for March 14, 2026

The conditions you have to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if it provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to the number provided. It is possible – and common – for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space.

Here are common examples you'll run into across the difficulty levels:

• Number: All the pips in this space must add up to the number.

• Equal: Every domino half in this space must be the same number of pips.

• Not Equal: Every domino half in this space must have a completely different number of pips.

• Less than: Every domino half in this space must add up to less than the number.

• Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the number.

If an area does not have any color coding, it means there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within those spaces.

SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for March 14, 2026 Easy difficulty hints, answers for March 14 Pips

Greater Than (4): Everything in this space must be greater than 4. The answer is 6-5, placed horizontally.

Equal (5): Everything in this space must be equal to 5. The answer is 6-5, placed horizontally; 5-1, placed vertically.

Equal (1): Everything in this space must be equal to 1. The answer is 5-1, placed vertically; 4-1, placed horizontally.

Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-3, placed vertically.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-0, placed vertically.

Number (8): Everything in this space must add up to 8. The answer is 4-4, placed vertically.

Medium difficulty hints, answers for March 14 Pips

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-4, placed horizontally.

Equal (4): Everything in this space must be equal to 4. The answer is 3-4, placed horizontally; 4-4, placed horizontally.

Number (14): Everything in this space must add up to 14. The answer is 4-4, placed horizontally; 5-5, placed horizontally.

Number (15): Everything in this space must add up to 15. The answer is 6-6, placed vertically; 3-3, placed vertically.

Number (9): Everything in this space must add up to 9. The answer is 4-5, placed vertically; 0-3, placed vertically.

Greater Than (2): Everything in this space must be greater than 2. The answer is 0-3, placed vertically.

Hard difficulty hints, answers for March 14 Pips

Number (15): Everything in this space must add up to 15. The answer is 5-5, placed horizontally; 5-6, placed vertically.

Number (9): Everything in this space must add up to 9. The answer is 5-6, placed vertically; 2-1, placed horizontally.

Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-3, placed vertically.

Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 2-3, placed vertically; 0-3, placed horizontally.

Number (5): Everything in this space must add up to 5. The answer is 5-3, placed vertically.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 5-3, placed vertically.

Number (5): Everything in this space must add up to 5. The answer is 5-4, placed vertically.

Number (8): Everything in this space must add up to 8. The answer is 2-6, placed vertically.

Number (9): Everything in this space must add up to 9. The answer is 6-3, placed horizontally.

Number (7): Everything in this space must add up to 7. The answer is 0-1, placed vertically; 2-4, placed vertically.

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

Today's Connections: Sports Edition is easy for people who like golf.

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.

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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.

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: Baseball no-no's

• Green: Teams in the Peach State

• Blue: Winners on the green

• Purple: Famous college matchups

Here are today's Connections: Sports Edition categories

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

• Yellow: Banned in Baseball

• Green: A Georgia Athlete

• Blue: Golf Awards

• Purple: College Football Rivalries

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 #537 is...

What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?

• Banned in Baseball - BETTING, CORKED BAT, SPITBALL, STEROIDS

• A Georgia Athlete - BRAVE, FALCON, HAWK, YELLOW JACKET

• Golf Awards - CLARET JUG, GREEN JACKET, SOLHEIM CUP, WANAMAKER TROPHY

• College Football Rivalries - BACKYARD BRAWL, BEDLAM, EGG BOWL, THE GAME

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.

We all tend to imagine ourselves as the hero of our stories. The trouble with that is it requires someone to be the villain. That way of thinking can get dangerous when tumbled into our personal wells of prejudice, paranoia, and need for validation. From this well of mind-bending emotions springs The Saviors, a clever genre thriller with a lot to say beneath its slippery surface. 

Following in the footsteps of eavesdropping-centric thrillers like Rear Window and The 'Burbs, The Saviors begins with a middle-aged white man with too much time on his hands. In an average suburban American town, Sean Harrison (a smartly cast Adam Scott) is unemployed and on the verge of divorce from his wife, Kim (Till's Danielle Deadwyler). He's hungry for a purpose when he meets Muslim siblings Amir (Theo Rossi) and Jahan (Nazanin Boniadi), who are renting the Harrisons' guest house for a few days. So, when Sean notices some strange things around his home after their arrival, his suspicious eye travels to the guest house's door. 

What follows is a provocative tale with a sharp sense of humor and an ending that'll make you want to watch it again — immediately. 

The Saviors blends sci-fi spookiness with comic paranoia. 

Co-written by Travis Betz and Kevin Hamedani, and directed by the latter, The Saviors begins with a trippy dream sequence. Sean and Kim awake in a crisp, white bedroom, whispering sweet nothings to each other as if this were the final act of a Nancy Meyers rom-com. Then a strange sound draws them away from the bliss of their bed. 

In the blink of an eye, the tone shifts from serene to panicked. Sean is bleeding. The future is uncertain and threatening, and then he wakes up for real. This time he's on the couch. He's rumpled, real, and really annoying his wife, who's readied herself to welcome their Airbnb guests to the house out back. 

Dressed primly, Amir and Jahan are polite and warm, expressing appreciation for two strangers giving them space in their home. Through sign language, Jahan praises Sean's cooking, the smell of his chili lighting up her face with a broad smile. But as they share a meal, Sean finds some of their comments strange, like their unfamiliarity with the sound of crickets. Soon, a hummed melody ("Seven Nation Army") spurs him to suspect Jahan isn't deaf as her brother claims. Then there are the tremors that shake their house, and the inexplicable green lights that suddenly pierce their windows. Things are getting undeniably strange, in a Twilight Zone way. 

Still, Sean's uneasy about broaching the topic with a wife who already finds him ridiculous. But neither does he want to confide in his parents (Colleen Camp and Ron Perlman), who've fallen down a right-wing conspiracy rabbit hole. His construction worker sister, Cleo (Kate Berlant) isn't much better, and eagerly fans the flames of Sean's paranoia. After all, isn't the president coming to their cozy town for a visit? And isn't he visiting a landmark near Sean and Kim's home? 

While Kim initially dismisses Sean's suspicions, demanding he think outside his "white bubble," TV news hums about increased security and fear of terrorist threats. Before long, she too grows nervous about their guests. From there, the couple plays amateur spies, and the adventure of it all has reignited their connection — and their sex lives. But at what cost?

The Saviors delivers a surprising parable without getting preachy. 

Hamedani doesn't shy away from modern American politics through ambiguity. Though he avoids dropping the names of real politicians, his characters speak frankly about neo-Nazis, Islamophobia, and white privilege — particularly when it comes to life in suburbia. Yet, the film never veers into feeling like a lecture, because of the propulsive thrust of its central mystery: What are these guests up to? 

Some clues are strange, but potentially innocuous. However, a second act sequence that reveals a peek into what even Sean and Kim can't see dares the audience to buy into Sean's suspicions. After all, the film is bound to his perspective, setting him up as the hero of The Saviors. But this movie would be boring if things weren't what they seem. Still, even if you'd guessed that, I doubt you'll predict where Hamedani and Betz's sci-fi story winds up. I was not just surprised, but elated to be surprised. Watching the clues stack up, I was confident — cocky, even — that I'd unlocked the mystery that The Saviors ticks down to in its climax. I was wrong, and so I wanted to see The Saviors again to see where I, like Sean and Kim, went wrong. 

The first time through The Saviors works as a solid genre thriller. The deceptively simple story is about a couple torn apart by ennui, but reunited through an adventure built on voyeurism and paranoia. But the sci-fi flourishes of unworldly glows, bizarre devices, and mysterious visitors heighten the stakes beyond divorce to life and death. Our imaginations are tantalized, enticing us to seek out exotic elements, and thereby ignoring more domestic red flags.

Like a great whodunnit, The Saviors opens up on reflection, blooming with the clues we overlooked the first time. The story shifts as our understanding of Amir and Jahan has. So, in a sense, you get two movies in one, just by watching The Saviors a second time. Better yet, the performances work both ways. All four leads — Scott, Deadwyler, Rossi, and Boniadi — are tasked with playing performances that work in two contexts. Some scenes that were once funny, flip to become menacing, and vice versa. It's all about perspective. 

A true find out of SXSW, The Saviors is a marvel. Hamedani and company have carefully constructed a film that's part dark comedy, part sci-fi thriller, part cautionary tale. And yet for all this, it never feels muddled or messy. Keenly helmed and sharply performed, The Saviors is a must-see. 

The Saviors was reviewed out of its world premiere at SXSW. 

TL;DR: Banish ads with a lifetime subscription to the AdGuard Family Plan, now just $19.97 through April 16.

Opens in a new window Credit: AdGuard AdGuard Family Plan: Lifetime Subscription $19.97
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You can’t escape ads. They’re on your laptop, your smartphone, and even your tablet, disrupting your flow and popping up everywhere. If you want to take back your peace and browse the web without interruptions, AdGuard can help.

Right now, you can even secure a lifetime subscription that works on nine devices for just $19.97 until April 16.

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It’s time to browse the web as it was meant to be experienced — ad-free. AdGuard makes it happen, thanks to its advanced ad-blocking module. It eliminates all types of ads that can appear on your screen, allowing you to enjoy the internet without distractions.

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Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple MacBook Air 2017 (Refurbished) $199.97
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Not all laptops are created equal. While they’re all meant to be portable, the MacBook Air weighs less than three pounds, so it’s a breeze to take along anywhere. The only problem? It usually comes with a hefty price tag. Fortunately, you can snag a 13-inch MacBook Air for only $199.97 (reg. $999) until March 22, while supplies last.

If you’re in the market for a laptop you won’t mind bringing along everywhere, the MacBook Air is an excellent option. This Apple laptop weighs only 2.96 pounds, letting you tackle your to-do list from anywhere. But don’t think this means it skimps on power — a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM help you get everything done efficiently.

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Get this Apple MacBook Air for only $199.97 (reg. $999) through March 22.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

TL;DR: Make your workday a little easier with this Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows lifetime license, on sale now for just $39.97 through April 12.

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License $39.97
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One of the most common questions asked about AdultFriendFinder is also one of the most basic: is the site safe to use? Everything from the dating site interface and design to the ubiquity of adult content sets off some understandable warning bells in veteran internet users, so the question makes a lot of sense. 

To better understand the risks of using AdultFriendFinder, we consulted Anna Larkina, Web Data and Privacy Analysis Expert at Kaspersky, one of the leading cybersecurity services in the world, about the nature of the threats users might face and the ways they can mitigate the risks.

Opens in a new window Credit: AdultFriendFinder AdultFriendFinder   Learn More Understanding the risks of online dating

First off, understand that there is a risk inherent to using any online service, and that even the most reputable websites have experienced major hacks or exploits. “Users should remember that any service can potentially encounter various cybersecurity issues,” Larkina told us, including “data leaks, attacks on third party contractors, or issues related to the human factor.” 

But the stakes are higher for some websites than others. For example, with a typical merchant website, you’re only providing them with your credit card information, but on a dating site, you’re potentially providing your credit card details and crucial personal information, from your date of birth to your phone number, that can all be exploited by bad actors. 

SEE ALSO: Is Hinge really 'designed to be deleted'? I tested it to find out.

While this is a risk you take with any dating service, AdultFriendFinder is perhaps more vulnerable than most dating sites, so it’s important to understand the potential pitfalls.

What risks are specific to AdultFriendFinder?The “adult content” angle

While there is absolutely no obligation for AFF users to share nude photos of themselves, or get naked on a webcam feed, many, many people opt to do so, and while we have no objection from a moral perspective — let your freak flag fly — it’s important that you know you’re risking more than an awkward conversation with the odd coworker or family member who comes across your account.

Unfortunately, bad actors who wish to do you harm can use your personal information against you. “Data from services with adult content or dating services can be especially sensitive for users, because it’s more personal,” warns Larkina. “If fraudsters somehow obtain such private data, they can use it for more ‘efficient’ blackmailing or targeted phishing.” Needless to say, you should be wary of how you use the site and what information you share, especially if you have a public-facing job.

AFF security breaches

While dating sites invest heavily in cybersecurity protections, another unfortunate reality of the online world is that the threats are constant and ever-evolving, and hackers eager to discover treasure troves of personal and financial information will always be incentivized to target online dating sites.

AdultFriendFinder has had two major security breaches in its 30-year history, which actually demonstrates a very stellar record of security, but it’s still worth being aware of these events. In 2016, hackers managed to gain access to the personal information of four million AFF users before the breach was found and stopped, while a larger breach occurred in 2016, impacting 300 million AFF accounts, including 15 million accounts that had been officially deleted by the user but whose data had not been properly expunged from their servers.

Phishing scams

Another common hacking technique, and one particularly effective on dating websites is phishing, which is when a bad actor assumes a false identity to gain your trust and deceive you into revealing compromising or sensitive information.

SEE ALSO: All your Tinder questions, answered

To combat phishing, AFF offers users the ability to verify their identities using government-issued identification, but this verification process is still an optional extra on the site rather than a mandatory step towards account creation.

Can your AFF account be found?

While the private information you offer to AFF during account creation (your real name and email address, for example) is not public-facing, that doesn’t mean no one will ever discover your account. AFF’s dating profiles are public by default, so if you include a picture of your face (as many accounts do), you can be recognized by friends, co-workers, and family members. 

Additionally, because AFF has had two major hacks before, you should assume there’s at least an outside chance that the site is hacked in the future, which may result in your email address ending up in a hacked database.

How to protect your online identity when using AdultFriendFinder

Does all of the above mean you should never use an online dating website, or never use AdultFriendFinder in particular? Absolutely not. We shared the risks to make you aware of them, and to better help you protect yourself, not to discourage you from signing up. 

To help you protect yourself, Larkina shared a list of best practices that will help you mitigate your risks while still having fun, on AFF or any other dating site:

1. Don’t use a professional email address to sign up for a dating site. If you’re especially nervous, consider creating a new email address just for the purposes of signing up.

2. To protect your accounts, use strong and unique passwords, change them regularly, and if possible, enable two factor authentication

3. Be extremely cautious with what you share with strangers, especially when it comes to sensitive information or intimate photos. “Always assess reputational and other risks before posting or sending anything,” cautions Larkina.

4. When using AFF in particular, limit your interactions to users who have verified their identity

Summing up her advice, Larkina urges online dating service users to treat these “platforms as public spaces, not as private ones” as far as possible, and be ever mindful that “every piece of data you provide — email, phone number, username, etc. — becomes part of your digital footprint.” If you’re careful about what you share and who you share it with, you can safely enjoy AdultFriendFinder as you would any other dating site.

What if a flock of ballerinas were stranded in a dive bar, where they must fight a vicious mob boss to get out alive? That's the premise of Pretty Lethal, the new action comedy starring Lana Condor (To All the Boys I've Loved Before), Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place), Avantika (Mean Girls 2024), Iris Apatow (The Bubble), and Maddie Ziegler, who was the center of such iconic Sia music videos as "Chandelier" and "Elastic Heart."

The plotline seems like something out of a '70s exploitation film, where ultra-femininity collides with gruesome, graphic violence. However, the cast feels more in line for a reboot of Sugar & Spice or Bring It On, teen comedies that relied on charming ingenues and high-energy antics. Like exploitation movies that capitalized on emerging media trends, Pretty Lethal seems to walk in the footsteps of recent ballerina-does-violence movies, like the 2024 horror-comedy Abigail, about a pint-sized vampire girl who paired her fangs with a tutu, and 2025's Ballerina, a John Wick spinoff starring Ana de Armas. Notably, Pretty Lethal is produced by John Wick helmer David Leitch. So, audiences might well expect the kind of sleek style and jaw-dropping violence of that franchise.

Unfortunately, Pretty Lethal pales in comparison to all of these potential inspiration points. It's just not outrageous or surprising enough to rise above feeling like an imitator. 

Pretty Lethal feels pretty basic.  Uma Thurman plays a bar owner with a ballet past in "Pretty Lethal." Credit: Prime Video

Written by Kate Freund and directed by Vicky Lewson, Pretty Lethal begins in a ballet studio, where an American troupe of teen ballerinas is preparing for a big competition overseas. 

Faster than they can pirouette, their personalities are clear. Condor is the rich and privileged mean girl who feels entitled to the principal dancer role. Naturally, her name is Princess. And she absolutely loathes Bones, who is poor, tough as nails, and the best dancer, so she's played by Ziegler. Sweet, good girl Grace (Avantika) is deeply Christian and wishes the girls wouldn't fight — and would find Jesus as their personal lord and savior. Meanwhile, sisters Chloe (Simmonds) and Zoe (Apatow) are low-key fighting because Chloe, who is deaf, doesn't appreciate Zoe's overeager babying of her at every turn.

They're struggling to come together as a dance troupe. But when their bus breaks down in Hungary on the way to the competition, the five girls and their instructor stumble across a decadent bar called the Teremok Inn. Inside, they find mementos from the owner's (Uma Thurman) time as a ballet dancer. But the whole place, once luxurious, is stained by years of neglect, bar fights, and resentment. 

It's not long before a confrontation with a handsy patron leads to their instructor being murdered before their very eyes. Can these ballerinas put their personal issues aside and turn their art into a martial art to survive? 

Pretty Lethal lacks a distinctive style. 

There's promise in the Teremok Inn, as its interior immediately suggests a time of splendor and possibility long eroded by something ugly. However, Lewson falls into the tiresome color palette of dingy greens tinting mustards, magentas, and teals. This look has become tediously standard in any action movie trying to affect a chic John Wick vibe (see also: Hotel Artemis). 

Beyond that, though, even the ballerina's outfits are frustratingly expected. When they arrive, soaked to the bone from walking in the rain, a snarling bartender demands they put on dry clothes. Obviously, that means their meticulously white uniforms, complete with pointe shoes and long tutus. Now, a white dress (like a white T-shirt) is a perfect canvas for the anticipated sprays of blood as they'll brawl with dangerous Hungarian goons. But the simple design of these dresses does nothing to distinguish the girls from one another or to add panache to the film's production design. 

These uninspired visuals don't help the screenplay, which reads like a mediocre '90s teen comedy. The familiar archetypes of tough girl, mean girl, good girl, and bickering sisters is one thing, but the lack of zinging dialogue is another. None of Princess' barbs are stinging enough to remember. The battling between sisters is frustratingly surface-level. And halfway through, the "good girl" act gets so tedious that Grace is forced into a psychedelic drug trip. There, at least we get some unexpected visual flair, as towering nutcrackers come to life to warn her to run. 

Yet in the midst of those hallucinations, I wondered if the movie would be more visually exciting if Lewson had rejected the cool-toned approach and embraced the brightly colored, high-saturated, ultra-femme color palettes of films like Mean Girls, Bring It On, or But I'm a Cheerleader. Rather than undercutting the grime of the Hungarian bar, such a palette might have made the turn to violence less telegraphed. And to see blood spray in such a vivid setting would have been more surprising and even funnier. 

Pretty Lethal has solid action. 

Be warned: It takes a while to get to the ballerinas-fight-back stage of the movie. Freund attempts some semblance of realism by having the girls scream, run, and panic for quite a while before they decide to weapon up and fight back. However, when we finally get to this point, Pretty Lethal is pretty fun. 

It's not just that a razor blade at the point of a ballet slipper turns out to be the perfect way to slit an enemy's throat with a proper fouetté turn. It's also that seeing one of their number pull this off strengthens the others' confidence. They finally begin to come together, and the energy of the film finally musters excitement. However, because it takes so long to get going, the final act feels chaotic. The turns it takes feel like shortcuts instead of earned. So, even when I enjoyed the bonkers action (like a bunch of ballerinas leaping away from an enormous explosion), I felt disconnected from the vicarious thrill of it all. 

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There's potential in the set pieces of Pretty Lethal, including a sequence where the girls perform ballet on a stage, their once pristine costumes grungy in blood and muck. But Lewson's approach lacks punch in color, attitude, and music. The right song could have made this sequence rousing, but a simple piano isn't enough to sell the undercurrent of emotions that are given a place to explode here. So, it's more a whimper than a roar of a performance. 

Speaking of performances, they're all over the place. Perhaps that's intentional, to illustrate how different these girls are from each other. To Condor's credit, she successfully shakes off the rom-com heroine cheeriness of To All The Boys, recreating herself as a seething bitch. Ziegler, who shone in The Aftermath opposite Jenna Ortega, is solid as the guarded tough girl, but is at her best in the dance/fight scenes where she can rely on physicality to speak for her. As was true in 2024's Mean Girls, Avantika's role was thin, but she's solidly amusing as a clueless hanger-on. Simmonds is the best of the bunch, however, managing to work in teen lust and angst, even within a flimsy subplot. Apatow struggles the most with the thinly written characters, playing earnest to the point where she's practically an echo. Thankfully, Thurman is darkly fun as a twisted former ballerina with an ax to grind. 

In the end, Pretty Lethal is fine for a movie to throw on for a night in. But with this cast and this premise, I definitely anticipated something weirder and wilder and more satisfying. 

Pretty Lethal was reviewed out of the 2026 SXSW Film Festival; it premieres on Prime Video on March 25. 

In the last six months, I’ve flown to Argentina for a wedding, Miami for another wedding, South Carolina for the holidays, and Costa Rica for a friend’s birthday. And for every journey, the first thing I packed was my Soundcore Sleep A20 earbuds.

These have easily become my No. 1 travel necessity.

Soundcore Sleep A20 sleep earbuds $149.99 at Best Buy
$179.99 Save $30   Shop Now at Best Buy Shop Now at Amazon Why sleep earbuds?

Most people probably bring their AirPods or a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones when they fly — and so do I. So, why choose to bring such a niche audio product with limited bag space? 

Soundcore’s Sleep A20s are our favorite budget sleep earbuds. They have a 14-hour battery life, so they last through the night — or on a long flight — and the Soundcore app comes loaded with soundscapes and white noise options. The biggest draw for me is how comfortable they are.

My AirPods 4 are lovely for going on walks, taking calls, and listening to music for short periods of time. But the ear fatigue I feel is real. I’m not going to lie and say the Sleep A20s feel like they aren’t even there or anything, but they put a lot less pressure on my ear canal, and I can comfortably wear them for longer stretches of time. They’re also better at passive noise cancellation than my AirPods, with a more snug seal.

Plus, I enjoy having an app dedicated to my sleep sounds, so my Spotify Wrapped isn’t skewed by my top song “Deep Sleep Brown Noise.”

I slept an entire long-haul flight

My overnight flight from New York to Buenos Aires was about 10 hours, and I slept for eight or nine of them. I fired up The Bob’s Burgers Movie until I nodded off, then put on my eye mask and knocked out. 

My ultimate travel companion. Credit: Miller Kern / Mashable

The great thing about Soundcore’s sleep buds is that they also function as regular Bluetooth earbuds. So I was able to connect them to my iPad to play the movie audio, and then switch to sleep sounds once my eyes got heavy.

I have a few personalized soundscapes downloaded in the Soundcore app, so I let the sounds of crackling fire, rain on a tent, and cicadas lull me to sleep. Once the buds detect that I’ve truly fallen asleep, they switch to white noise.

It was the same story on the flight back home. It was another overnight flight, and I queued up an episode of Bob’s Burgers until I was ready to knock out. I woke up with maybe an hour and a half left in the flight (just in time for the delicious breakfast service of plain Greek yogurt), and my partner said he kept getting woken up throughout the flight. I felt genuinely rested.

A lifesaver for noisy Airbnbs

The Airbnb I stayed at in Miami was across the street from a nightclub. The music there bumped well into the morning and made it nearly impossible to fall asleep. Luckily, I had my sleep buds handy.

I popped those bad boys in, selected my sleep sound made up of meditation music, a dryer, and rain, and fell into restful sleep. The next morning, my partner, once again, said he had slept horribly and kept getting woken up by the club music. I slept through the night, no problem.

The Soundcore app has preloaded soundscapes. Credit: Screenshot: Soundcore Or you can create your own with up to three white noise sounds at a time. Credit: Screenshot: Soundcore

If you’ve got a snorer in the house, sleep earbuds could be the difference between a frustrating, sleepless night and a night of white noise bliss. I visited my mom over Christmas, and she and her partner both snore like you wouldn’t believe. I could hear them from the guest room, so I popped in the Sleep A20s and blocked them out until the morning.

A permanent spot in my travel bag

I’ve brought the Soundcore Sleep A20 buds on every trip I’ve taken since I bought them, and I plan to take them on all my future trips. They’re small enough that I don’t feel like I’m taking up precious carry-on bag space. Because they act as regular old Bluetooth earbuds, I can also use them as an AirPods replacement — they’re way more comfortable, too.

If I happen to be on a loud plane or stuck sharing a space with someone who snores, I know the Sleep A20s will come to the rescue.

This model of Soundcore’s sleep earbuds doesn’t have noise cancellation, but that doesn’t bother me. The soundscapes mask enough for me to sleep comfortably. However, if you prefer noise-cancelling sleep earbuds, my colleague, Bethany Allard, loves the Soundcore Sleep A30 Specials.

Soundcore Sleep A20 $149.99 at Best Buy
$179.99 Save $30   Shop Now at Best Buy Shop Now at Amazon Soundcore Sleep A30 Special $199.99 at Amazon
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Ryan Coogler’s Sinners isn’t just a horror hit. It may be the film that finally proves horror musicals can work. Blending vampire horror with powerful musical storytelling, the film earned massive box office success and an unprecedented 16 Oscar nominations, raising a question Hollywood may soon start asking. Are horror musicals the future?

The newest MacBook Air from Apple is a near-perfect machine, but it's not getting a near-perfect rating. And it's not just because it arrived with a base price increase. It's because this sleek and lightweight laptop, now powered by Apple's M5 silicon, is too powerful for its own good, which means its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness.

Don't get me wrong — it's undoubtedly one of the best laptops and MacBooks in the world right now. And if you decide to invest, I don't think you'll regret it.

I'm still stress testing the M5 Air, so consider this a review in progress. A full battery run-down test is coming soon.

The M5 MacBook Air performs like a Pro Liquid Glass looks particularly good on the MacBook Liquid Retina display. Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

The new MacBook Air is definitely an iterative upgrade. Like its predecessor, it comes in 13.6 and 15.3-inch models, and you can choose from silver, sky blue, starlight, and midnight black. It's a mere 0.44 inches tall and a measly 2.7 pounds.

It's remarkably thin and lightweight, yet it never feels fragile or flimsy in the slightest. On the contrary, the MacBook's signature all-aluminum body makes it a very durable laptop.

The big difference, of course, is the M5 chip inside. When we put it through the Geekbench 6 benchmark test, it scored 16,099 on the multi-core test. On the single-core test, it scored 4,025, even higher than we expected. The multi-core score puts it within spitting distance of the M5 MacBook Pro released late last year.

For almost all intents and purposes, it is a MacBook Pro. Minus the fans, of course.

Take a look at how the M5 MacBook Air's Geekbench multi-core socre compares to other MacBook models. Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

The single-core score is a good proxy for everyday performance (what our laptop expert calls "snappiness"), and that lines up perfectly with my testing so far. When exporting or importing large files, it barely flinches. It can handle video editing software, complex Apple Shortcuts, and even some gaming.

Please note that I tested the 15.3-inch model, and you may see some slight variations in performance with the 13.6-inch model.

The M5 MacBook Air is too powerful, in fact Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

In 2020, Apple introduced the M1 chip, its first in-house processor, and the beginning of a bit of a revolution in the laptop world. The M1 chip absolutely destroyed the competition, and the original M1 MacBook Air is probably the most award-winning laptop ever. It's a legendary device that's still popular six years later, which is unheard of.

As Apple introduced the M2, M3, M4, M5, and now M5 Pro and Pro Max chips, the MacBook Air and Pro laptops have become extremely powerful. In early benchmark tests, the M5 Max chip scored 29,000 on the Geekbench 6 test, putting the competition to shame. It's so powerful that pro laptop reviewers are struggling to test it properly.

As I wrote in my MacBook Neo review, I know professional film editors still working on M1 and M2 laptops. In 2024, my colleague Stan Schroeder wrote that "Apple's M series chips are too good for their own good." That's doubly true today.

The new MacBook Air is more powerful than ever, and it now comes with 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD storage, and a higher starting price of $1,099. That's $100 more than the previous gen's starting price. Yes, Apple boosted the starting storage from 256GB to 512GB, but Apple experts like Bloomberg's Mark Gurman say that's just Apple's way of softening the blow of a price increase.

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Traditionally, the MacBook Air has been a popular laptop for college students, early-career professionals, and more casual users. If you're running complex programs like Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or Adobe Suite, then you go with the Pro. But today's Airs are perfectly capable of most professional work.

Only hardcore superusers are going to come close to taxing the M5 Air, and those kinds of users should be using a Pro or Mac Studio anyway.

So, in a world with the $599 MacBook Neo — a surprisingly capable laptop that matches the M1 Air in performance — I'm not quite sure we needed a newer, even more powerful Air. The recipe was already just right.

We gotta talk about the price Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

Now, technically, the M5 MacBook Air only carries a $100 starting price increase, and you get twice the starting storage. But in reality, the M3 and M4 MacBook Airs are often on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and other retailers. Mashable readers have certainly gotten used to buying the MacBook Air on sale at Amazon for $799.

And that's what makes the $1,099 price tag a lot harder for me to swallow. There's no denying that this laptop justifies its price with plenty of storage, the newest WiFi and Bluetooth tech, and a fast chip with no true competition in the Windows market. For the performance and specs, $1,099 is a great value. But I think most people will be just as happy with an M3 or M4 Air that costs less.

Again, I'm not saying the M5 MacBook Air is a bad laptop. I'm literally saying the opposite.

I just wish Apple had kept selling the M3 or M4 MacBook Airs for under $1,000 for another year or two. Those laptops already had enough performance for the typical Air customer.

If I were you, I would wait to buy the new Air until we find out what the inevitable sale price will be. Amazon has already discounted this device by 50 bucks to $1,049, and I expect it will go even lower for the Amazon Big Spring Sale or Prime Day 2026. (Of course, given the worsening global memory shortage, a further price drop isn't a given.)

For $899, or even $949, I'd find this laptop irresistible.

Seriously, though, it's a damn fine laptop The M5 Air has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a MagSafe charging port, and a headphones jack. Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

When you evaluate the M5 MacBook Air purely on its own, it's a dangerously impressive piece of machinery. Even as a professional product reviewer, it's hard to believe how thin and light it is, and I'm a big fan of macOS 26 Tahoe and Liquid Glass. The default screensaver that plays is completely mesmerizing, and sometimes I find myself staring at it for minutes on end, enjoying a nice moment of zen in the middle of a workday.

On top of that, you get all the premium features you expect in a modern MacBook: An incredibly sharp Liquid Retina display, Touch ID, a 12MP Center Stage Camera, Magic Keyboard, and more.

To be clear, it only suffers in comparison to the other laptops Apple offers in 2026.

M5 MacBook Air review: Final thoughts

So, is the new M5 MacBook Air worth it for $1,099? Personally, I'd wait for it to go on sale. But if you have the coin, and if you want 92.5 percent of the power of the MacBook Pro (that's the difference in their performance scores) but in a lighter and more portable body, then you could spring for the new and improved Air.

However, if I were the one spending your hard-earned money, I'd get the M4 MacBook Air while it's still available. Best Buy still has it in stock for $899.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple MacBook Air 13.6 inches (M5, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) $1,049 at Amazon
$1,099 Save $50   Get Deal Opens in a new window Credit: Apple MacBook Air 15.3 inches (M5, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) $1,249 at Amazon
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