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A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Sunday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Sunday, July 5 (game #1623).
Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,500 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today — or scroll down further for the answers.
Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
Quordle today (game #1624) — hint #1 — VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Quordle today (game #1624) — hint #2 — repeated lettersDo any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 0.
Quordle today (game #1624) — hint #3 — uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.
Quordle today (game #1624) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 2.
If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:
Quordle today (game #1624) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?• T
• S
• P
• S
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
Quordle today (game #1624) — the answers(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)The answers to today's Quordle, game #1624, are…
- TRAWL
- SPICE
- PIANO
- SHARK
This game worked out very well for me, although that was largely due to a quartet of pretty straightforward words.
TRAWL was my only moment of doubt but felt right as I slowly tapped the letters out.
Daily Sequence today (game #1624) — the answers(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1624, are…
- BLEAK
- COVET
- GREED
- DROOP
- Quordle #1623, Sunday, 5 July: PINEY, SWOON, TITLE, PINTO
- Quordle #1622, Saturday, 4 July: ARGUE, MOTEL, OPERA, TRUCE
- Quordle #1621, Friday, 3 July: AVERT, MOTOR, MANIC, WORDY
- Quordle #1620, Thursday, 2 July: BULKY, PARSE, BELOW, MOVIE
- Quordle #1619, Wednesday, 1 July: EASEL, OTTER, LYRIC, SHACK
- Quordle #1618, Tuesday, 30 June: HALVE, DRYER, THERE, MINTY
- Quordle #1617, Monday, 29 June: SLURP, CRACK, CRANK, PHONY
- Quordle #1616, Sunday, 28 June: RUPEE, TOPAZ, FULLY, BEING
- Quordle #1615, Saturday, 27 June: PRINT, MARRY, SADLY, BICEP
- Quordle #1614, Friday, 26 June: JUICE, ARRAY, BONEY, SKIFF
- Quordle #1613, Thursday, 25 June: SHELF, TAWNY, HYPER, SOLVE
- Quordle #1612, Wednesday, 24 June: SOBER, ECLAT, GOOSE, NINNY
- Quordle #1611, Tuesday, 23 June: ARDOR, DADDY, SERVE, SHEAR
- Quordle #1610, Monday, 22 June: WAXEN, APNEA, CHIME, WAVER
- Quordle #1609, Sunday, 21 June: ABBOT, NOTCH, DREAD, LURID
- Quordle #1608, Saturday, 20 June: SLAIN, TAMER, VIPER, FALSE
- Quordle #1607, Friday, 19 June: ALOUD, POINT, GLOBE, GROIN
- Quordle #1606, Thursday, 18 June: LATCH, BRAWL, STEEL, CRUSH
- Quordle #1605, Wednesday, 17 June: HOIST, PLUSH, GROUP, LEMUR
- Quordle #1604, Tuesday, 16 June: SLAIN, PLUCK, PINTO, SLICE
- Pearl Abyss adds new content to Crimson Desert via update 1.13
- The update adds new outfits, gear, and equipment for all three playable characters
- Oongka can now use the same outfits Kliff does
Pearl Abyss has gone above and beyond with Crimson Desert, thanks to a vast amount of content available at launch and consistent updates in recent months — and it's not taking its foot off the gas.
Crimson Desert has a new batch of content, with update 1.13 introducing new gear and outfits for all three playable characters, Kliff, Oongka, and Damiane, including expanded 'dyeable equipment options'. Also, both Oongka and Damiane will now be able to enter the Abyss and rematch bosses initially made for Kliff.
It's yet another substantial update for 2026's beloved hit, as the developers at the South Korean studio continue to listen to fan feedback and fine-tune areas that could do with more content.
Frankly, the game's continent, Pywel, is chock-full of activities to engage in, gear to find, and bosses to encounter, but one aspect has arguably been neglected since launch.
(Image credit: Pearl Abyss)Both Oongka and Damiane are characters that feel as though they've received the short end of the stick in terms of outfits and equipment — and fortunately, that's what this update addresses.
Notably, Oongka can now equip 'most outfits available to Kliff', further expanding the secondary character's customization options. It's a change I've been longing for, since it should provide far more incentive for me to use Oongka, particularly for replaying boss battles while being aptly equipped.
Even with my 236 hours spent playing Crimson Desert, it still feels like there's so much more to discover, especially with Pearl Abyss consistently improving the experience — and it's worth noting that an expansion is already in development.
It's also quite fascinating to see that four months after its launch, Crimson Desert has a 24-hour peak of 26,659 players on Steam, which is incredibly rare (or at the very least, difficult) for any single-player game to sustain post-launch. Hopefully, it stays that way, as I feel that Pearl Abyss deserves all the success and praise for its efforts on Crimson Desert.
- Merlin Bird ID is a go-to app for bird identification, with more than 40 million downloads
- It can identify over 2,000 species of birds by sound recognition
- A future update will share sound recordings with eBird, a huge biodiversity database
If you're into birdwatching, you'll need no introduction to the popular Merlin Bird ID app, by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. With over 40 million downloads worldwide, and over two million monthly users in the UK alone, Merlin is the go-to app for bird identification for many.
I'm in my forties, and birding has become one of my recent new hobbies, after years of photographing birds while testing cameras and lenses. And while I'm learning, I simply can't identify all the birds I see or hear, especially in my local nature reserve, which is a migration route for varied and sometimes rare birdlife throughout the year, and a popular birding spot.
The app helps me to identify the birds I'm unfamiliar with by their call / song, using machine learning sound recognition, and gives me lightning-fast and almost always reliable results, with an image for each identified bird. It's super helpful.
I can also feed the app one of my photos for identification, such as those taken during a recent outing with the Sony 400-800mm lens, with the results based on location data and other information from a database of more than 2,000 bird species.
So I was delighted to hear that the app — which is free for iOS and Android, with downloadable offline bird packs by location including US, Canada and Europe — is getting an update which will help users like me give something back: integration with Cornell's own eBird database, as reported by the Guardian.
Me during a recent visit to my local birding site, which hosts a wide variety of birdlife throughout the year (Image credit: Tim Coleman)A new wave of citizen scientistseBird is a huge citizen-science biodiversity database, with over two billion recordings logged worldwide since its 2002 launch. And it's set for an influx of new data — the Merlin Bird ID app update will in future allow bird identifications to automatically flow directly into the eBird database.
Jessie Barry, of the Merlin project, told the Guardian, "Upcoming feature developments will make an even better link to the eBird systems so that we can use the data from what users ‘hear’ with Merlin to monitor bird populations."
Bird conservation is a hot topic, what with bird numbers declining. The UK, for example, has 70 million fewer birds than it did 50 years ago. So here's the good part: these records could provide vital information to conversation efforts for at-risk birdlife around the world.
Barry added: “This data helps create tools that can be used to further conservation, inspire support and inform ecological management strategies.”
Notwithstanding the cautionary note of the app's outright accuracy, with concern from some about it occasionally misidentifying birds, the Merlin Bird ID app update could be a huge boost for bird conservation efforts.
Being directly connected to the go-to bird identification app, eBird stands to receive more data from millions of users, who don't need to make any special effort to take part; they just need to carry on using the app as before to record and identify birdsong.
I love the idea that I will be one of a new wave of citizen scientists across the world, with the recordings I make playing a small part in monitoring bird populations. And the surge in recording data will likely further improve the app's performance.
Right, I'm off out with my phone, I hear the birds calling...
Spoilers for Dutton Ranch episode 9 ahead.
From the jump, it was clear that the eventual finale of Dutton Ranch — episode 9 — would be an absolutely chaotic mind-melter. While I'm happy to report that my assumptions were right, there were some unanswered questions that I didn't expect at all.
For the most part, the Yellowstone spinoff has left us with multiple dilemmas following the ranch raid. The most pressing is whether Carter(Finn Little) will survive his kidnapping, and whether Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip (Cole Hauser) can get to him before anything bad happens.
Then we'll have the fallout of Rob-Will's (Jai Courtney) death, which will definitely have messed with Joaquin's (Juan Pablo Raba) mind. This is also going to affect Mariano's (Raoul Max Trujillo) standing in the 10 Petal business, arguably likely to see even more power than he had before.
Beulah (Annette Bening), meanwhile, has absolutely nothing to her name. She needs to grieve Rob-Will, but Everett (Ed Harris) wants nothing to do with her, so her next moves cannot be immediately guessed.
Then, there's Oreana (Natalie Alyn Lind). Will she keep the baby? Will Beth be there to support her? And will Rio Paloma ever be the same again?
Amazingly, none of these issues are what fans are the most perplexed by... and if you've been keeping a close eye on the show's first-look images, you might have noticed that something is missing.
Dutton Ranch season 1 completely cut out Beth bonding with her horses — despite advertising it(Image credit: Paramount)Recognize the above image? Despite it being a key part of Dutton Ranch's initial advertising campaign, the scene itself never materialised.
It's this that fans are hung up on, rather than anything that actually transpired in the explosive season finale.
"It makes me so mad they cut this scene of Beth and her horse from the season finale," one fan posted on Reddit. "This photo was released as an episode still on the Paramount+ press website. I’ve been looking forward to this scene. I can’t believe they cut it, but left in the teen angst. Beth and her horse have more chemistry than Carter and Oreana."
A second added, "I was so annoyed this scene was cut! It looks so sweet. It really does seem like so many tender scenes were cut this season, which is so disappointing.
"I loved this storyline and hope we get to see more of Beth with her horse in season 2. I’d also like to know what she named her."
According to the show notes, the still should have come from the season finale, but was cut. Some fans are speculating that the change is linked to the exit of showrunner Chad Feehan, who announced his departure from Dutton Ranch three weeks before it aired.
"With 6, 7 and 8 being such short runtime episodes, it begs to wonder how much footage — that potentially could have elevated those episodes as they were not the strongest of the season — ended up on the cutting room floor?" a third fan speculated.
As of writing, we don't yet know when Dutton Ranch season 2 will air, enter production, or who will take over as its showrunner. For now, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed for some more equine action.
- Obsession star Inde Navarrette recently met with the director of Marvel's new X-Men film
- It's the only movie that Jake Schreier has publicly confirmed he's working on
- Some fans really don't want to see the award-worthy actor join the MCU
Inde Navarrette has revealed she's open to the possibility of starring in a Marvel movie — and rumors are now circulating online that she could appear in the comic giant's new X-Men film.
The breakout star of 2026 smash hit Obsession, Navarrette was recently asked by Nylon magazine if she'd like to show up in a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) flick. "I would," was the in-demand and award-worthy actor's brief reply.
Interestingly, Navarrette's possible involvement in Marvel's cinematic juggernaut might soon become a reality. Indeed, in the same interview, Navarrette confirmed she'd recently met with Jake Schreier, the director of the Marvel Phase 5 film Thunderbolts.
Currently, the only project Schreier has publicly acknowledged he's working on is the aforementioned X-Men movie. It'll come as no surprise to learn, then, that a rumor regarding Navarrette's potential casting in said film franchise reboot is already spreading like wildfire across the web.
Why some film fans don't want Navarrette to join the Marvel Cinematic UniverseSome fans would be unhappy to see Navarrette join the MCU (Image credit: Focus Features/Universal Pictures)It would be remiss of me not to point out that Navarrette joining the MCU is merely speculation at this point. There are bound to be other projects that Schreier is developing in secret, such as a third season of Netflix's critically acclaimed and award-winning albeit underseen comedy-drama Beef. So, the filmmaker could've sounded out Navarrette for a role in that show rather than a role in his untitled X-Men flick.
Nonetheless, some fans of Navarrette's works, which include this year's box office belle in Focus Features' Obssession, are dead-set against seeing the 25-year-old become the next big-name actor or rising star to sell their soul to the MCU.
On X/Twitter, bigmonkeong likened her rumored casting as part of the "MCU slop machine" to "seeing an angel get its wings cut off". Elsewhere, The_Epic_Mike accused Marvel of "trying to clout chase an indie horror film and nose-dive another actress' career", while tarmactorque suggested Navarrette should prioritize a role in a forthcoming film from Michael Mann, who she also recently met with. Mann's next project is the highly-anticipated Heat 2, so could Navarrette be set to appear opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale, who officially boarded the prequel-sequel earlier in July?
On the flip side, other cinephiles have already started fan-casting Navarrette in the MCU and, more specifically, in its first X-Men production. Chief among the characters some want her to play are fan-favorite individuals Rogue, X-23, and Mystique, but others are dreaming of seeing her play Magik or Kitty Pryde.
Who would you like to see Navarrette play in the MCU? Let me know by voting in the poll above. Once you're done, find out how to watch the Marvel movies in order and how to watch the X-Men movies in order.
And, if you're one of the few remaining people yet to see Obsession, which is still in theaters, you'll be pleased to know that Obsession is also now available to watch at home.
For over a decade, driving profit from your website was relatively simple. Find the right keywords, optimize your site to rank for them, then convert as many visitors as you can.
But as AI overviews and conversational answer engines continue to replace search engines, traditional clicks from SERPs are rapidly dropping.
Fortunately, this shift isn't a death sentence for websites; in fact, it could be a big opportunity.
I caught up with Aja Frost, Senior Director of Global Growth and Paid at HubSpot, to get some insight into how HubSpot has reshaped its marketing strategy, helping it achieve a massive 1,850% increase in qualified leads from AI and a 3x higher conversion rate compared to traditional search.
With organic sessions and clicks sharply dropping for many websites, how can marketers continue to prove ROI? What are the new baseline metrics businesses should be measuring?Traffic volume is no longer the right North Star metric. When AI answers a question that includes your brand, you might not see any clicks — but you’ve successfully generated awareness that could convert later that day, week, or month.
The metrics that matter most now are AI search visibility and branded search (awareness), as well as conversion rate, pipeline quality, and revenue. LLM-referred traffic converts around 3x better than traditional search for HubSpot.
Start writing for AI search. If an LLM answers the question “What is a CRM” and cites your CRM in the response — because you’ve structured your content in an AI-friendly way, included original data, etc. — you will still ultimately reach the buyer.
Additionally, HubSpot diversified where we showed up, including YouTube, newsletters, and podcasts. Not only do humans still spend a lot of time here, but LLMs train and cite from these sources. Today, 90% of HubSpot’s leads come from non-blog sources, with YouTube leads up 100% and newsletter leads up 90%.
What other things should brands be doing to optimize their websites for conversational AI questions?Your content needs to answer conversational queries directly and authoritatively.
Think about how your buyers will ask questions to an answer engine, not how they’d type keywords into Google. Your content needs to answer conversational queries directly and authoritatively.
Using unique data, structuring your content so it’s easy to understand, and being cited in the places LLMs pull from will increase your visibility. You should also track your AI visibility systematically – you need to know how your products are described, which businesses are showing up instead of you, and whether your share of voice is improving over time.
Can brands leverage legacy content for AEO? If so, how?Legacy content written to rank on Google usually doesn’t explicitly connect the topic to your product or service.
Yes, but it needs to be updated with intent. Legacy content written to rank on Google usually doesn’t explicitly connect the topic to your product or service. Update content with these connections so AI will make them for the user.
For example, if you have a blog post on running good sales calls, you’d add contextual lines like, “HubSpot’s Smart CRM includes real-time call insights, so you can course-correct while you’re still on the phone with a prospect.”
Is SEO still important? If so, what are some good strategies small businesses can use to balance search engine and AI optimization?SEO is still important for a few reasons.
Google’s AI search (AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini) pull information from Google results. In addition, once buyers have discovered you in AI search, they’ll often use Google to navigate to your website.
HubSpot claims that its AEO playbook helped achieve an 1850% increase in qualified leads and a 3x higher conversion rate. What were the three main driving factors behind these wins? How can entrepreneurs and marketers apply them to their own businesses?You should start by measuring where you show up in AI answers, then systematically close the gaps.
Our strategy had three pillars.
First, on-site content built for AI. We created industry-specific pages with structured data, unique insights, and FAQ schema. 92% of those pages ended up cited by answer engines, generating a 49% lift in AI visibility. We also launched a glossary covering top-of-funnel terms (with explicit links to relevant products), which increased citation share for related prompts by 60%.
Second, off-site amplification. We identified publishers already winning citations but not yet mentioning HubSpot, gave them AEO recommendations and templates, and scaled to hundreds of new pages, earning hundreds of thousands of new AI citations.
Third, Reddit. We invested heavily in our Reddit strategy, as it was one of the most cited sources for questions our buyers are asking.
Any business can apply these tactics. You should start by measuring where you show up in AI answers, then systematically close the gaps.
The competition in artificial intelligence between the United States and China extends beyond a binary race for supremacy. The current landscape is more accurately characterized as "complementary competition."
While the United States and China compete, they occupy distinct positions within the global AI value chain, each possessing unique strengths that do not fully overlap.
This complementary competition is shaping the global AI industry through differentiated yet interconnected advantages.
The United States maintains leadership in foundational aspects of AI, including frontier model development, advanced semiconductors, cloud computing, basic research, and the broader developer ecosystem. Companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Nvidia significantly influence the architecture of the global AI industry.
For example, NVIDIA’s dominance in high-end GPUs provides the United States with a significant advantage in the computing layer. Additionally, leading universities, advanced research laboratories, and robust venture capital networks continue to supply AI development with talent, innovation, and funding.
According to Stanford’s 2025 AI Index Report, the United States attracted 109.1 billion dollars in private AI investment in 2024, and American institutions produced 40 of the world’s 50 most notable AI models.
This concentration of capital, research, and platform-building capacity reinforces the United States' position as a primary provider of the underlying AI architecture.
China's strengths in commercial contextsIn contrast, China is increasingly recognized for its strength in large-scale deployment of AI within industrial and commercial contexts. The Chinese industrial system is extensive, encompassing manufacturing, logistics, energy, automotive, electronics, and urban infrastructure. These sectors generate numerous real-world use cases for AI deployment, testing, and iteration.
China further benefits from tightly integrated supply chains and industrial clusters. For instance, in Shenzhen, hardware suppliers, software teams, factories, and logistics networks are highly interconnected, enabling rapid progression from concept to prototype to iteration. This integration allows China to embed AI into economic processes effectively, rather than confining its application to laboratory research or consumer chatbots.
This is why the U.S.-China AI competition is better understood as complementary rather than a zero-sum game. The U.S. provides many of the key enabling technologies, research breakthroughs, and software foundations. China excels at translating AI into industrial systems, business processes, and scaled commercialization. The two sides still compete intensely, especially over chips, standards, talent, and platform influence.
But they also pressure each other in different directions: the U.S. advances raise the technological frontier, while China’s deployment capacity pushes AI toward broader practice. Together, they shape the pace and structure of global AI development. This broader dynamic also elucidates why agentic AI products, such as Atoms, have disruptive potential.
A significant shiftThis shift is particularly significant for small businesses and individual founders. For example, a local service company can develop internal booking tools, a startup can rapidly test landing pages and advertising campaigns, and a consumer brand can assess product demand before making substantial investments. In each scenario, the primary value lies not only in automation but also in time savings, cost reduction, and improved coordination.
Within the framework of complementary competition, products such as Atoms occupy the intersection of American and Chinese strengths. These products rely on foundational model capabilities, cloud infrastructure, and agent architectures typically associated with the American AI ecosystem.
However, their greatest commercial impact may occur in contexts characterized by rapid deployment, cost-effective experimentation, and industry-specific integration, domains in which China holds considerable advantages. Thus, the future of global AI will likely be determined not solely by leadership in research or deployment speed, but by the ability to connect advanced intelligence with practical economic workflows effectively.
This is where complementary competition is most evident.
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- Xbox has announced that it is undergoing a "significant restructure"
- This will include the loss of 3,200 jobs over the fiscal year
- This includes 1,600 job losses today
Microsoft has announced that Xbox is to undergo the "most significant restructure" in the brand's history, with 1,600 jobs being cut today, for a total 3,200 jobs going over the coming months including four studios being jettisoned.
In another crushing blow for the people who make the games we love, these layoffs were strongly rumored to be coming this week — the sheer scale was unknown but predicted to be big. It turns out that was true.
In an email sent to Xbox employees that has now been made public via Xbox Wire, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma began by saying, "After careful consideration, I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27. This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave Xbox to new management."
Sharma added: "Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected."
As well as the total of 3,200 jobs going this fiscal year, four studios are also affected. Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions are returning to being independent studios, while Ninja Theory and Undead Labs will gain new ownership with funding to complete their upcoming games, Senua and State of Decay 3.
Arkane — a studio many feared for in the run-up to this restructuring — is "beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options."
In a series of moves over the past decade or so, which has seen Microsoft acquire multiple studios, spend billions and billions of dollars, and make some curious decisions about Game Pass, prices, and more — all to take the brand from third in the console space to, well, third — this kind of feels like the bubble bursting before our very eyes. And the people who will pay the price will be the developers who make the games we all love playing.