Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the weekend!

I’ve got something a little different for you today, a neat story about the World Cup. A family farm an hour away from Vancouver provided the grass used for the pitch at BC Place during the tournament. It took a lot of work to grow grass good enough to meet the required standards and the logistics involved are pretty interesting.

Here’s a gift link, so you don’t need to be a subscriber to The Athletic to read it.

Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to join us.

Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, July 4 are coming right up.

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are...

The level one hints for today’s Connections groups are:

Be warned: we’re really starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one word for each group.

Today’s Connections word hints are…

Need some extra help?

Today’s Connections groups are...

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

Some fun references in today's game to The Cranberries (LINGER and ZOMBIE) and '80s rock bands (HURRICANE and SCORPION). I got things started with the yellows, thanks to LINGER and STAY.

NOTHINGS, DREAMS and PEA then got me the purples. I then had the poems in mind, but had to look up VILLANELLE before slotting that in. That left the blues, for which I did not figure out the category, to take me to win number 489 on my current streak.

How did you get on this time? Here's my grid:

🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter for hints and the solution for Sunday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I recently started watching some international versions of Taskmaster, partly because I love the original show so much and partly because they started gradually uploading episodes to a new YouTube channel, Taskmaster International. It’s been nice to have a new one to watch every day. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of the New Zealand version so far, but the Australian one is really working for me.

That’s due in large part to the Taskmaster’s assistant, Tom Cashmore. He’s simultaneously a co-host, referee and frequent participant in the contestants’ endeavors. He’s absolutely delightful. Cashmore is also a stand-up comic who recently put out a special on YouTube. I enjoyed it very much, so I’m sharing it with you.

Cashman jokes about sex quite a bit in The Formula for Happiness. There’s a healthy dose of swearing too:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

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