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      Today’s Connections Answers for Nov. 25, 2024

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      Scroll down for hints and conversation about the puzzle for Nov. 25, 2024.Good morning, dear connectors. Welcome to today’s Connections forum, where you can give and receive puzzle — and emotional — support.Be warned: This article includes hints and comments that may contain spoilers for today’s puzzle. Solve Connections first, or scroll at your own risk.Connections is released at midnight in your time zone. In order to accommodate all time zones, there will be two Connections Companions live every day, dated based on Eastern Standard Time.If you find yourself on the wrong companion, check the number of your puzzle, and go to this page to find the corresponding companion.Post your solve grid in the comments and see how your score compares with the editor’s rating, and one another’s.Today’s difficultyThe difficulty of each puzzle is determined by averaging the ratings provided by a panel of testers who are paid to solve each puzzle in advance to help us catch bugs, inconsistencies and other issues. A higher rating means the puzzle is more difficult.Today’s difficulty is 3 out of 5.Need a hint?In Connections, each category has a different difficulty level. Yellow is the simplest, and purple is the most difficult. Click or tap each level to reveal one of the words in that category. 🟨 StraightforwardLAND🟩 ⬇️FLOCK🟦 ⬇️ANCHOR🟪 TrickyLIGHTFurther ReadingWant to give us feedback? Email us: crosswordeditors@nytimes.comTrying to go back to Connections?Want to learn more about how the game is made?Leave any thoughts you have in the comments! Please follow community guidelines:Be kind. Comments are moderated for civility.Having a technical issue? Use the Help button in the Settings menu of the Games app.Want to talk about Wordle or Spelling Bee? Check out Wordle Review and the Spelling Bee Forum.See our Tips and Tricks for more useful information on Connections.Join us here to solve Crosswords, The Mini, and other games by The New York Times. More

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      The Theologian Who Changed His Mind About Gay Marriage

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      I’ve spent my life in politics, but faith has been most central to shaping who I am. My conversations with people of faith have been among the most enriching of my life. Richard Hays, an ordained minister who is an emeritus professor at Duke Divinity School, is one of the world’s leading New Testament theologians. In 1996 he wrote “The Moral Vision of the New Testament,” in which he argued that gay and lesbian sexual relationships distort God’s created order and that churches should not bless same-sex unions. In his new book, “The Widening of God’s Mercy,” written with his son Christopher Hays, Richard Hays says he was wrong. I spoke to Richard Hays about his journey and what changed his mind. This conversation, which has been lightly edited, is the first of what I hope will be a series exploring the world of faith.1. A Different Way of Looking at How God Sees Gay RelationshipsPeter Wehner: You now hold an affirming view, the belief that gay relationships are not sinful and that sexual orientation and gender identity are not justification for exclusion from church membership or leadership. You had a very different view in 1996 when you wrote “The Moral Vision of the New Testament.” What do you see now that you didn’t see in 1996, and what would Richard Hays circa 2024 say to his younger self?Richard Hays: What I see now has been over the last 10 to 15 years, the experience of having gay and lesbian students in my classes, when I was still teaching, who were very clearly committed to the church and to Christian faith and who were seeking conscientiously how best to serve going forward. That couldn’t help but make an impression on me.And the other thing closely related to that is that in my own experience in the church, I saw church members who were not theological students or anything like that but who were exercising roles of gracious and meaningful leadership.The other thing that I’ve seen is that in the conservative evangelical churches, there was a kind of smug hostility toward gay and lesbian people, and the attitudes that I was encountering there didn’t seem to me consonant with the New Testament’s portrayal of what people seeking to follow Jesus should be like. That they should be patient, kind, generous. And I didn’t see that.I saw ugly condescension in those churches where that was the strongly held view. And the most dismaying thing about that is that people who were manifesting those attitudes were appealing to my book as a justification, which I actually think means they didn’t read my book very carefully. Because back in 1996, at the time when gay marriage was illegal in the United States and forbidden in just about every church, with maybe one or two exceptions, I saw that chapter as, in part, making an appeal for people to be graciously accepting of gay folks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Is Running His Transition Team on Secret Money

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      Breaking with past practice, President-elect Donald J. Trump has not agreed to disclose the donors paying for his planning effort or to limit their contributions.President-elect Donald J. Trump is keeping secret the names of the donors who are funding his transition effort, a break from tradition that could make it impossible to see what interest groups, businesses or wealthy people are helping launch his second term.Mr. Trump has so far declined to sign an agreement with the Biden administration that imposes strict limits on that fund-raising in exchange for up to $7.2 million in federal funds earmarked for the transition. By dodging the agreement, Mr. Trump can raise unlimited amounts of money from unknown donors to pay for the staff, travel and office space involved in preparing to take over the government.Mr. Trump is the first president-elect to sidestep the restrictions, provoking alarm among ethics experts.Those seeking to curry favor with the incoming administration now have the opportunity to donate directly to the winning candidate without their names or potential conflicts ever entering the public sphere. And unlike with campaign contributions, foreign nationals are allowed to donate to the transition.“When the money isn’t disclosed, it’s not clear how much everybody is giving, who is giving it and what they are getting in return for their donations,” said Heath Brown, a professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies presidential transitions. “It’s an area where the vast majority of Americans would agree that they want to know who is paying that bill.”Mr. Trump’s transition team, led by Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, both of whom were nominated to cabinet positions last week, has repeatedly said it intends to sign the agreements with the Biden administration, known as memorandums of understanding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Egypt Feuds With Travel Blogger, Issuing 1,100-Word Response to Complaints

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      When a blogger criticized Cairo’s airport, Egypt’s government fired back, citing security footage, threatening legal action and asking, “Is it reasonable for a passenger to visit two lounges before a single flight?”Authoritarian governments are not known for taking kindly to criticism. And in Egypt, official skins can be especially thin: deepening repression has muffled most dissent and sent tens of thousands of perceived political opponents to jail, including one for posting a doctored photo of the president with Mickey Mouse ears. But this month, Egypt found itself facing an opponent it could not silence so easily.“Cairo Airport: Is There a Worse Major Airport?” the travel blogger Ben Schlappig pondered in a no-holds-barred post on his website, One Mile at a Time. He cited the “actively hostile and rude” staff, the “endless requests for tips,” the “disorder” in line, the “weak” dining options and the “yuck” lounges.“My visits have varied from inconvenient and disorganized, to outright chaotic,” he wrote. “I just can’t think of a single redeeming quality about the airport.” As if salting the wound, he ended by comparing Cairo’s airport unfavorably with that of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with which Egypt is locked in a yearslong dispute over water rights.It was a verdict almost guaranteed to enrage Egypt’s government, which is making a concerted push to double its tourism numbers, trying to reach 30 million annual visitors by 2028. Besides employing one in 12 Egyptian workers, the tourism industry delivers desperately needed foreign currency to a country reeling from a prolonged economic crisis.New luxury hotels are going up around Cairo and Egypt’s sunny beach destinations. The government has announced plans to refurbish historic attractions. And a long-awaited new museum of antiquities is opening in stages — and to positive reviews — next to the Great Pyramids of Giza.Egypt’s government is making a concerted push to reach 30 million annual visitors by 2028.Sima Diab for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Shoot Me Up With Everything’

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      For a reporter who covers infectious diseases, vaccines are an indispensable news gathering tool.Vaccines are an indispensable news gathering tool. They permit reporters to travel to areas where fatal or debilitating diseases are prevalent; exactly the places that warrant coverage by The New York Times.That’s why the Museum at The Times displays a carton that once contained the vaccine Ixiaro. It prevents Japanese encephalitis, which is related to yellow fever, dengue and West Nile virus. Mosquitoes spread the disease. It is considered endemic in much of Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific region.“The symptoms can be anything from a mild fever to, in rare cases, seizures and death,” Donald G. McNeil Jr. wrote in an email last week. “There’s no treatment. The vaccine isn’t recommended for most travelers to Asia, but if you go to rural areas and sleep in rooms with no A.C. or window screens — as I sometimes did — it’s protection.” He donated the Ixiaro carton the museum.Mr. McNeil is the author of “The Wisdom of Plagues: Lessons From 25 Years of Covering Pandemics” and is a frequent contributor to the website Medium. He worked for The Times from 1976 to 2021, covering many infectious diseases, most recently Covid-19.Many of his Times assignments took him to tropical areas. In 2014, aware that new vaccines had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, he went to the New York Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine.“Shoot me up with everything,” Mr. McNeil said.Five jabs followed: Ixiaro; RabAvert, for rabies; Typhim Vi, for typhoid; a booster shot of a vaccine for tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough; and probably an inactivated polio vaccine. (The clinic didn’t enter the fifth injection on Mr. McNeil’s yellow vaccine record card.)“I don’t remember any bad side effects,” Mr. McNeil wrote. “The worst side effect I’ve ever had from a shot was from my second shingles shot — and all it did was make me feel sort of nauseous and flu-ish and I went to bed without supper. I’ve been very lucky that way.”“The rabies shot was one of those ‘it wouldn’t hurt to have it’ decisions. I’m not a dog cuddler, and I definitely don’t pet strays. But they’re often hanging around in poor countries, and I did have to get up close to village dogs in rural Chad for a piece on how Guinea worm, a human parasite, was establishing a reservoir in dogs. And in some of the places I’ve slept, it wasn’t unthinkable that I might be bitten by a rat or a bat.” More

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      COP29 Climate Talks Get a Deal on Money, but Only After a Fight

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      The financing plan, which calls for $300 billion per year in support for developing nations, was immediately assailed as inadequate by a string of delegates.Negotiators at this year’s United Nations climate summit struck an agreement early on Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan, to triple the flow of money to help developing countries adopt cleaner energy and cope with the effects of climate change. Under the deal, wealthy nations pledged to reach $300 billion per year in support by 2035, up from a current target of $100 billion.Independent experts, however, have placed the needs of developing countries much higher, at $1.3 trillion per year. That is the amount they say must be invested in the energy transitions of lower-income countries, in addition to what those countries already spend, to keep the planet’s average temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Beyond that threshold, scientists say, global warming will become more dangerous and harder to reverse.The deal struck at the annual U.N.-sponsored climate talks calls on private companies and international lenders like the World Bank to cover the hundreds of billions in the shortfall. That was seen by some as a kind of escape clause for rich countries.As soon as the Azerbaijani hosts banged the gavel and declared the deal done, Chandni Raina, the representative from India, the world’s most populous country, tore into them, saying the process had been “stage managed.”“It is a paltry sum,” Ms. Raina said. “I am sorry to say that we cannot accept it. We seek a much higher ambition from developed countries.” She called the agreement “nothing more than an optical illusion.”Speakers from one developing country after another, from Bolivia to Nigeria to Fiji, echoed Ms. Raina’s remarks and assailed the document in furious statements.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Scenes From the Atmospheric River That Drenched California and the Pacific Northwest

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      A gusty, rain-soaked storm swept through the Pacific Northwest and Northern California this week, killing at least three people and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of customers.The dangerous weather, fueled by the season’s first major atmospheric river from the Pacific Ocean, battered the region starting on Tuesday. Forceful winds wiped out power for half a million customers in Washington. Among the places hardest hit was the Seattle area, where falling trees killed two people. The storm then moved into Northern California, where it disrupted hundreds of flights, flooded creeks, drenched San Francisco and brought heavy snow to parts of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges. On Saturday, a body was recovered in floodwaters in Sonoma County, local authorities said. Though the storm is weakening as it inches south, residents are still reeling from the damage. More than 90,000 customers in Washington were still without power on Saturday morning, along with about 17,000 in California. In the region north of San Francisco, which includes Napa Valley, flooding is expected to continue through Saturday.Here are photos of the storm’s toll this week.Saturday, Nov. 23Hale Irwin/Sipa, via Associated PressCars drive on a snowy highway over Donner Summit in California.ReutersWater rescue teams deployed in Forestville, Calif.Friday, Nov. 22Mike Kai Chen for The New York TimesA cyclist rides through a flooded intersection in San Francisco.Mike Kai Chen for The New York TimesFog rolled in around the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.ReutersFlooding in Santa Rosa caused road closures and detours.Rachel Bujalski for The New York TimesSome streets were flooded in Rohnert Park, Calif.Rachel Bujalski for The New York TimesStaci Harpole looks over a flooded vineyard off Wohler Road in Forestville.Noah Berger/Associated PressA mudslide near a home in Sonoma County, Calif.Rachel Bujalski for The New York TimesFlooding in Santa Rosa, Calif.Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated PressLivestock graze on a patch of grass surrounded by the swollen Eel River in Ferndale, Calif.Thursday, Nov. 21Mason Trinca for The New York TimesA giant tree fell on Front Street in Crescent City, Calif.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesPolice officers help a woman walk through a flooded parking lot in Santa Rosa.ReutersRoads and vineyards were flooded in Sebastopol, Calif.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesPolice officers wave to a car trying to drive through a flooded parking lot in Santa Rosa.KOMO via Associated PressEmergency crews responded to a downed tree in Issaquah, Wash.Wednesday, Nov. 20David Ryder/ReutersResidents survey storm damage in Seattle.Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty ImagesTara Brown surveys storm damage while walking her dog in Lake Stevens, Wash.Noah Berger/Associated PressUtility workers tend to downed power lines in Sonoma County.Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty ImagesTiffani Palpong stands in front of her property in Lake Stevens where her son was trapped by downed power lines and trees.Noah Berger/Associated PressIsabella Karamitsos, a U.S. Geological Survey employee, deploys a sensor to measure water flow in Santa Rosa.Kate Selig More

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      Trump’s Choices for Health Agencies Suggest a Shake-Up Is Coming

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      The picks to oversee public health have all pushed back against Covid policies or supported ideas that are outside the medical mainstream.A longtime leader of the anti-vaccine movement. A highly credentialed surgeon. A seven-term Florida congressman. A Fox News contributor with her own line of vitamins.President-elect Donald J. Trump’s eclectic roster of figures to lead federal health agencies is almost complete — and with it, his vision for a sweeping overhaul is coming into focus.Mr. Trump’s choices have varying backgrounds and public health views. But they have all pushed back against Covid policies or supported ideas that are outside the medical mainstream, including an opposition to vaccines. Together, they are a clear repudiation of business as usual.“What they’re saying when they make these appointments is that we don’t trust the people who are there,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration.Some doctors and scientists are bracing themselves for the gutting of public health agencies, a loss of scientific expertise and the injection of politics into realms once reserved for academics. The result, they fear, could be worse health outcomes, more preventable deaths and a reduced ability to respond to looming health threats, like the next pandemic. “I’m very, very worried about the way that this all plays out,” Dr. Offit said.But other experts who expressed concerns about anti-vaccine views at the helms of the nation’s health agencies said that some elements of the picks’ unorthodox approaches were welcomed. After a pandemic that closed schools across the country and killed more than one million Americans, many people have lost faith in science and medicine, surveys show. And even some prominent public health experts were critical of the agencies’ Covid missteps and muddled messaging on masks and testing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More