WASHINGTON, August 1, 2024 – On Wednesday, July 31, the Biden-Harris Administration announced it has issued payments to eligible applicants under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Discrimination Financial Assistance Program (DFAP). Leaders across the country widely praised the Administration’s action and the critical step in advancing President Biden’s Executive Order on advancing equity in federal government programs.

WASHINGTON, July 31, 2024 – The Biden-Harris Administration today announced it has issued payments to eligible applicants under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Discrimination Financial Assistance Program (DFAP), which aims to provide financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners who experienced discrimination prior to January 2021.

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for July 31, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is harder; I got it in five. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 31, Wordle #1,138! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

Four of today’s letters are from our mnemonic. The fifth is fairly common.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

A type of pasta.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There are two repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are is one vowel, used twice.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with P. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with E. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is PENNE.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH, followed by LEDGE. There were a few possible solutions—PEEVE was my next guess, followed by PENNE.

Wordle 1,138 5/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was harder. The hint was “wild, like an animal” and the answer contained four common letters and one fairly common letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was FERAL.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

Young people don’t usually vote in huge numbers, and I get it: Voting is boring, and it only encourages politicians anyway. But the entrance of Kamala Harris into the presidential race seems to be invigorating the political interests of young people. It’s anyone’s guess whether that will lead to engaged new voters in November, but it’s resulting in a lot of memes now, and that’s the next best thing, right?

And once you’ve digested that, you can focus on what really matters: A badass Olympic sharpshooter with real Main Character Energy.

The Kamala Harris meme explainer

Since Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party nominee for president a little over a week ago, the internet has been meme-ing her up, and hard. While it’s difficult to cut through the hype to really understand how younger people feel about politics, it seems clear that they like Harris better than Biden, and they like her way better than Trump. At the very least, they find her to be better fodder for internet jokes.

Here are some of the most prominent Harris memes that have caught on, and what they mean.

Brat: Some online folks have been are referring to Harris as “brat” (complementary). The honorific was bestowed upon Harris by pop singer Charli XCX in a tweet posted shortly after Harris announced her campaign, which reads: “kamala IS brat.” This references the singer’s album of the same name, which had already become something of a meme itself, thanks in part to its distinctive lime green cover art. According to XCX, to be “brat” is to be “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it.” So that’s how young folks see the future president maybe? I’ll take it.

Coconut: Along with “brat,” people are are mentioning coconuts in the same breath as Harris, or saying they’re “coconut-pilled.” This is a reference to a speech Harris gave in 2023 in which she quoted her mother saying, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” As for why it catching on, it’s a clear idea in a concise little package, a little silly and novel enough to be memorable. Or maybe the kids are making fun of her a little bit? Even Lifehacker’s Gen Z expert Meredith Dietz thinks it’s hard to tell.

Weird: The Democratic Party has seemingly reached an agreement to refer to Donald Trump and and his running mate JD Vance as “weird,” and as often as possible. Many people have called Trump weird throughout his life, but it’s sticking this time, thanks to a cable news appearance by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in which he painted the GOP with the “they’re weird” brush. This message was soon amplified by a Harris campaign statement describing Trump as “old and quite weird?” [Sic.]

In a broader context, “weird” dovetails perfectly with the song of the summer (and probably the decade), “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar, in which Lamar ejects Drake from hip-hop by defining him as “not like us.” The same energy is being applied to Trumpworld by the meme-makers (and the Democrats cashing in on the trend.)

What is budots music?

Add “budots” to the list of musical sub-genres you will probably not like. Budots is a genre of electronic dance music that originated on the streets of the Philippines and is taking over TikTok. It’s characterized by simple, repetitive eletro-beats and lots of sound effects—strictly music for the feet, not the head.

The breakout piece of budots music is DJ Johnrey Masbate’s “Emergency Budots,” a remix of “Dr. Beat” by the Miami Sound Machine. It’s has been used in over 400,000 TikTok videos and counting. But the genre has been around longer than that song. It was developed by DJ Love, an internet cafe owner in the Philippines who started releasing Budots videos 11 years ago (although “budots” originally referred to the silly, joyous, overly exaggerated moves of the dance that accompanies the music).

What does EYP mean?

NSFW warning! If someone has been posting “lemme EYP” at you lately, they are asking to eat your pussy. The phrase is blowing up on various online comment sections lately, but like budots music, it’s been around a few years, bubbling under the surface, waiting for the right moment to catch on.

Ilona Maher: The 2024 Olympics’ viral star

Most Americans don’t think much about women’s rugby, but younger people are becoming very aware of Ilona Maher. The 27-year-old Olympian is an absolute beast on the rugby pitch, and her TikTok and Instagram have become wildly popular for their mix of body positivity, rugby positivity, and content anyone can relate to—like this video of Maher saying the most awkward thing possible when meeting an Olympic tennis player, and her pure excitement over a photo op with Snoop Dogg.

Viral Video of the Week: “Kim Yeji breaks the world record for 25m Women’s Pistol”

Another breakout viral star of the Olympics this week is South Korean pistol champion Kim Yeji. While she’s competing in various air pistol events this year, her virality comes from the ISSF World Cup held a few months ago, when Kim broke the world record for 25m Pistol. She did it with such style that the video of the moment must be seen to be believed—it’s been viewed over 20 million times in the last day alone. Del Walker, one of many people who posted the video on Twitter, summed up the vibe like this: “The most ‘Main Character Energy’ I’ve ever seen in my life.”

How it’s possible to break a world record while winning a gold medal at an international event and stay that cool is a mystery, but the all black clothes and cyberpunk-looking magnifying glasses don’t hurt. (To add to her legend, Kim just won a silver medal at the women’s 10m air pistol event.)

Cleaning can be therapeutic and fun for some, but totally overwhelming for others. There are a number of methods you can use to manage your time tidying, but one in particular has gotten a lot of attention lately, in part because it leaves room for some imperfection and allows you to go at your own pace.

The “5 Things” method comes from KC Davis, the author of How to Keep House While Drowning who is also a popular CleanTok influencer. The licensed professional therapist has 1.5 million followers on TikTok, where she expands on her concept of Struggle Care, advising people on how to clean without becoming overwhelmed while also discussing mental health issues and sharing household hacks.

What is the “5 Things” method?

Davis suggests that, if keeping your home tidy feels unmanageable, you should really only focus on five things while cleaning:

• Trash

• Laundry

• Dishes

• Things that have a place

• Things that don’t have a place

Any mess can be broken down by those categories, she says, and once you start sorting everything according to those classifications, you’ll feel less overpowered, no matter how much you have to tackle.

“To keep from getting overwhelmed, you have to do one at a time over the whole space,” she explains in her original video introduction to the method.

How does 5 Things work?

You should tackle the five things in the order they’re presented here.

1. First, go around collecting trash, then dispose of it. Simply take a garbage bag around the room, grabbing receipts, wrapper, or whatever garbage you see.

2. Next, move around the space again, this time collecting only clothes and shoes and placing them in a basket while actively ignoring everything else. Don’t stop to grab anything that isn’t laundry; you’ll get to that eventually, but it’ll be easier if all the clothes are out of the way first, just like grabbing the clothes is already easier without trash in the way.

3. Then, put all your dishes in the sink—but don’t worry about doing them yet. Reassess the remaining items in the area.

4. Everything with a space should be put away now. If you’re in a big room or the items with a place come from a variety of locations around the house, consider first sorting them into boxes based on where they belong. Have a box for the living room, one for the kitchen, one for the bathroom, etc. When they’re full and everything is in its correct box, bring each box to the room it represents and put it all away. That will stop you from running back and forth a bunch of times, which can be overwhelming.

5. Finally, pile up anything that does not have a designated place. Once the space is clear, you can decide where the stuff in the final pile should go. Use your preferred decluttering method to decide what stays and what gets tossed. Oh, you don’t have a preferred decluttering method? Here’s a list of my favorites.

Per Davis, you can break this process down over the course of days, too, if you feel like it’s too much to handle at once.

Watch the method in action here:

Davis reminds her followers that “being untidy isn’t a moral failing” and there are a number of reasons—from ADHD to having kids—that you may not have your home as clean as you think you should. Breaking the tasks down into just five categories and sticking to each until it’s done is a simple, effective way to make your space more livable. Once it’s livable, she says, you can go back through and give it a more thorough cleaning.

There are many ways to set a schedule, from using a pen and paper planner to getting out some dry erase markers and scribbling on your clock. One method aims to work by giving you more insight into how you spend your time—and helping you manage your day down to the minute. It’s called time blocking.

What is time blocking?

Time blocking is the act of arranging your schedule so every activity you need to do in a day is accounted for. Ideally, you’ll do this using a digital calendar tool like Google Calendar. Even if you’re writing it all down by hand on a piece of paper, consider the way a Google Calendar looks. Each day is represented by a column split up into 15-minute increments, from midnight until 11:59 p.m. When you add a meeting or appointment into the calendar, a box appears and fills up the space representing how much time the event will take out of your day.

With time blocking, your goal is to fill the entire column with boxes, leaving no blank space. Even your rest periods should be marked as such. No activity—from having breakfast to running errands to calling your mom—is too small to add to the list. Then, you get to classify everything with a pretty color (when it comes to time management, you have to find your own fun).

How to create a time blocking schedule

Start by making a list of everything you’re going to do tomorrow. For instance, you might wake up, check the news, shower, make coffee, commute to work, grab breakfast, answer emails, attend a meeting, get lunch with an old friend, work on a project, commute home, take the kids to a baseball game, pick up dinner, eat that dinner, watch your favorite show, get ready for bed, lie awake thinking about climate change, and actually sleep.

Once you’ve written out the exhaustive list of your day’s tasks, mark down how long each might (or should) take. Then, grab the paper (or open the software) you’re using to time block and enter every single event and responsibility in, according to the time you’ve allotted for it. If you want to see how you are splitting up your day, choose different colors to classify tasks, like blue for grooming/bathing, yellow for work, and green for meals.

Per workforce management company Spica, the trick after that is to treat each box the same way you’d treat a meeting: Don’t reschedule it. Don’t mess with it too much. Honor the time commitment it represents, commit to doing the task at the specified time, and do your best to get it done in the time you set aside to do it. This is called time boxing, a similar but slightly different concept that involves giving yourself a set amount of time to do something, only focusing on that task during that time, and stopping your work when the time is up. I’ve written more extensively on the similarities and differences between time boxing and time blocking, but all you really need to know is that during the time you set aside to do something on your calendar, you should engage completely in deep work, avoid distractions, and turn all your energy toward the responsibility at hand. As with any pre-planned meeting or event, things will come up that disrupt the schedule, but in the absence of a major upheaval (the kind of thing you’d move a work meeting for), vow to stick with your time blocks.

It’s smart here to also implement some kind of time tracking, whether that involves writing down how long your tasks actually take you or using a software to monitor your work, so you can make adjustments to your time blocks as you go along. During the first week or two, you’ll likely be guessing at how long each task will take you when you’re building the schedule, but after a while, you should be able to identify if something takes a longer or shorter amount of time than you’ve been allotting, then adjust the schedule to match those needs going forward.

The reason time blocking works

Time blocking is beloved by its adherents. As the Harvard Business Review points out, a regular to-do list gives you way too many choices and not enough structure. Adding in the time element helps you stay on task.

It also helps you meet deadlines and stay within your guidelines. If you know a certain project or task will take a combined 50 hours, time blocking helps you space those out and make room for them in your schedule, enabling you to get things done on a set timetable without having to guess whether you really have time for it. If you finish something ahead of schedule, great! Go ahead and add in a little block of time off.

A final note on time blocking

Time blocking is often conflated with time boxing and a lot of productivity blogs and hacks will say “time boxing” when they mean time blocking. That Harvard Business Review article above does it, for instance. It’s an easy mistake to make and, in fact, in a previous version of this post, I called time blocking time boxing. As long as you’re sticking to the plan and making a detailed calendar, it doesn’t matter what you’re calling it, but this could cause some confusion while you read up on other guides, so just be warned. A complete rundown of the differences between the two can be found here.