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There Is Good in This World.
Last night, the boys and I fell asleep at 10 p.m. without yet knowing who won the election. Anton wanted to sleep in my bed. At 3 a.m., I woke up with a start, checked my phone, and wept. The results were not good — especially for women, immigrants, LGBT+ folks, the list goes on and on.
I thought about what to write in a post today. Pick-me-ups? Action items? A moment of silence? It’s hard to know what to say. What kind words have you been saying to your friends and children? Your own lovely face in the mirror?
One thing that gives me hope is remembering who we are. The photos above show 16 Cup of Jo readers — joyful, caring, funny, whip smart — and there are a million more of us. A million more! Good men, thoughtful women, smart teenagers, and giggly children are all around us and aren’t going anywhere. And that goodness adds up. “There’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems,” wrote Octavia E. Butler. “There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers — at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.”
This election is not the end of the story. Even though this country voted for Trump — such a deep and crushing heartbreak — we are still moving forward. Wrote Maya Angelou: “We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are. So that we can see, oh, that happened, and I rose. I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn’t run away – I rose right where I’d been knocked down.”
If you feel overwhelmed today, think of small things you can do for now, neighbors you can help, loved ones you can text. Remember the starfish story? Thousands of starfish had been washed up on a beach after a storm. A little boy was throwing them back into the water, one by one. An old man saw him and said, “You’ll never be able to save them all; you won’t make a real difference.” The boy picked up a starfish and said, “I made a difference to this one.”
Here’s a to-do list from illustrator Sophie Lucido Johnson:
Sending the biggest hug to anyone who needs one, and so much love, as always. xoxo And if you’d like and are able, please join us in donating to organizations doing great work. Cup of Jo is donating $5,000 to each of two organizations, one small, one large: Ruth’s Refuge, which provides home furnishings and other essentials to refugees, asylees and asylum seekers in New York City; and the ACLU, which defends the rights of all people nationwide (including reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, prisoners’ rights, our right to vote, and much more). Hang in there, friends; we are all here. xo
(Octavia E. Butler quote via Corinne Fay.)
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for April 29, 2026
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
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If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
To admire.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
ADORE
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Hurdle Word 2 hint
Heavy.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
HEFTY
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Hurdle Word 3 hint
Two-legged.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
BIPED
Hurdle Word 4 hint
Hefty.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
HEAVY
Final Hurdle hint
Pointy.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
SHARP
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on April 29
It may appear full, but the Moon isn’t actually at 100% illumination yet. In fact, we’re still a couple of days away. But it’s still big and bright enough to do some moon gazing, so keep reading to find out what features you might be able to see tonight.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Wednesday, April 29, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 94% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide.
Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Imbrium. With binoculars, you’ll see the Mare Frigoris, Clavius Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you’ll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, Rima Ariadaeus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.
What are Moon phases?
According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
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Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Entertainment
The ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop is down to a record-low price at Amazon — now $400 off
TL;DR: Amazon has the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop on sale for $899.99, down from its $1,299.99 list price. That saves you $400 on a 2025 gaming laptop with an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 graphics, 16GB of DDR5 memory, and a 165Hz FHD+ display.
$899.99
at Amazon
$1,299.99
Save $400
Finding a current-gen gaming laptop in today’s economy for under $1,000 is already amazing, but Amazon’s latest ASUS deal is offering you an all-time low bargain.
As of April 28, the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop is on sale for $899.99 at Amazon, marked down from $1,299.99. Price tracker camelcamelcamel has confirmed that this is the lowest-ever price for this gaming laptop.
For that price, you’re getting the RTX 5050 and Intel Core i5 version of the TUF Gaming F16, which is built around an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU. It also comes with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 512GB PCIe Gen4 SSD, so it should be nicely suited for jumping between games, school work, everyday browsing, and plenty of tabs without causing your sessions to come to a sudden crash.
With those sorts of specs, this version of the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 lets you comfortably run games from the latest graphically demanding titles — including Crimson Desert, Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Pragmata.
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The 16-inch FHD+ display is a big part of the appeal, with ASUS’s fitted 165Hz 16:10 panel with 100% sRGB color giving you extra vertical space compared to a standard 16:9 screen while keeping motion smoother in fast-paced games like Fortnite and Counter-Strike 2. The handy Adaptive-Sync also helps cut down on stuttering and screen tearing when your frame rate starts shifting during intense firefights or brawls with lots of assets moving around at the same time.
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The TUF Gaming F16 keeps the series’ usual more rugged angle, as well. ASUS has had the laptop tested to MIL-STD-810H standards, while its 2nd Gen Arc Flow Fans, full-width heatsink, and full-width vent are designed to help keep performance steady without making the machine unnecessarily loud.
If you’re after a laptop that’s more for work than gaming, Samsung’s ultra-sleek Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 just got a $450 price cut.
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