Entertainment
NYT Strands hints, answers for January 30, 2026
Today’s NYT Strands hints are easy if you have a bad sense of direction.
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: We’re not lost…
The words are related to directions.
Mashable Top Stories
Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained
These words describe things that guide.
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 Find Your Way.
NYT Strands word list for January 30
-
Beacon
-
Star
-
Find Your Way
-
Landmark
-
Sextant
-
Atlas
-
Compass
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.
Entertainment
Bumble quietly removes option for men to message first in Mexico and Australia
The dating app Bumble has been known for “women making the first move” (messaging first) in straight matches since its 2014 launch. Now the company is reversing a more recent change to let men message first — but only in a couple of areas.
Last week, Bumble announced that it’s removing the Opening Moves feature in Mexico and Australia. The feature has been removed automatically for those users.
Opening Moves was introduced in 2024 as a way for men to send the first message to women and was advertised as a way to lessen exhaustion with dating apps. The company’s former CEO Lidiane Jones led the charge after taking over from founder and first CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, who shortly thereafter returned to the CEO role after Jones held the position for only a year.
Mashable Trend Report
While the reputation of dating apps overall has been slipping in recent years due to burnout and bad actors, Bumble has been especially hit financially. The company laid off 30 percent of its workforce last year, and its stock price has fallen 95 percent from its IPO as of this writing.
Don’t miss out on our latest stories: Add Mashable as a trusted news source in Google.
Bumble seems to be returning to its original ethos even amid legal challenges. The Observer reported Bumble introduced Opening Moves following lawsuits and legal threats in California, claiming that the app discriminated against men, according to sources familiar with the matter. The Observer states that the company is starting to remove Opening Moves in Australia and Mexico due to lower legal risks in those markets.
“At Bumble, we regularly test and innovate our features to foster healthy, respectful connections while staying true to our women-first mission and prioritizing member safety,” a Bumble spokesperson told Mashable. “Supporting our community as they go from match to message is a key part of that work. As with all testing, we evaluate our learnings before considering a wider rollout, ensuring any changes continue to meet our community’s needs and deliver a positive experience for our members.”
Entertainment
Erupcja trailer: Charli XCX stars in explosive sapphic romance
Charli XCX is going from pop star to movie star with a string of films, including the queer fantasy 100 Nights of Hero, the mockumentary The Moment, and the sapphic romantic drama Erupcja.
Charli XCX co-wrote the script for Erupcja with director Pete Ohs and co-star Lena Góra. Set in Warsaw, the film focuses on two women, a local florist named Nel (Góra) and a tourist named Bethany (XCX), who has repeatedly crashed her love life. But this time, Bethany’s brought her current boyfriend Rob (Will Madden), who is looking for the perfect moment to propose.
In my review out of the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is quoted in the above trailer, I cheered: “Shot with the kinetic yet poised cool of the French New Wave, this Polish production feels timeless. Its scenes play out with enough specificity for audiences to hook in, but enough ambiguity that they can feel like a dream. There’s a touch of fairy tale to that. Ohs keeps his characters curious and fluid, refusing to shove them into easy-to-define roles of hero and villain. Instead, Erupcja embraces the feral nature of love, messy and wondrous…. Erupcja is a thundering rumble of drama and romance, leaving its audience excited and rattled.”
Erupcja opens in theaters April 17.
Entertainment
Samsung finally sets a date: Galaxy Unpacked is coming Feb. 25
Our long national nightmare is over. We finally know when Samsung is going to show off the Galaxy S26 lineup.
The Korean tech giant confirmed that the next Galaxy Unpacked livestream will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 10 a.m. PT (9 a.m. ET). The event is in San Francisco this year, and it’s widely expected that Samsung will show off three new Galaxy S26 phones.
As per usual, you can watch the event on Samsung’s website or Samsung’s YouTube channel.
Mashable Light Speed
Mashable will be at the event and reporting live on all of the announcements, so keep checking back for the latest updates on Galaxy Unpacked.
Hosting the event this late in February is highly unusual for Samsung, which usually launches its next-gen Galaxy phones in January. It’s not really clear why Samsung took as long as it did to put Unpacked together this year, as it doesn’t seem like the S26 lineup is doing anything too wild to shake up the formula, though production delays and the global memory shortage may be factors.
All reports point to the usual lineup (S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra) returning this year, with typical upgrades like a newer processor and bigger batteries.
It also wouldn’t be surprising to see some camera upgrades or new AI features, and we’ve already reported on a ton of S26-related leaks and rumors. We’ll all find out together in a couple of weeks.
Topics
Samsung
Samsung Unpacked
