WASHINGTON, June 20, 2024 – Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) joined more than 20 federal agencies to release its updated Climate Adaptation Plan and expand the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to ensure federal operations are increasingly resilient to climate change impacts.

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for June 20, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for June 20, Wordle #1,097! 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!

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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.)

They are almost all common letters from our mnemonic today! Only one isn’t, and it’s pretty common too.

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

Perfume and skunks have this in common.

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

There are no repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There is one vowel.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with S. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with T. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is SCENT.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH, which gave me four of five letters but no correct placement. There were a handful of possible solutions, with SCENT being one of the more common words.

Wordle 1,097 3/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟨⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was easier. The hint was “abrupt” and the answer contained all common letters.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was TERSE.

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.

Electric vehicles are becoming more common—1.6 million of them were sold in the U.S. in 2023, representing a 60% increase over 2022. And the federal government is currently working hard to encourage that shift away from gasoline-powered cars and trucks, which means that EVs are likely going to become even more common.

Meanwhile, however, our charging infrastructure isn’t keeping up, despite the priorities of the current administration. That translates to difficulty finding a place to charge your EV or long lines waiting for one to open up—and then possibly waiting hours to get a usable charge if you’re stuck with an older Level-1 charger. If you live in an area where there are relatively few charging stations, you might have opted to install an EV charger in your house. And the good news is that you can turn that EV charger into a small business if you want to make a little extra money.

DIY charger rental

Installing an EV charger in your home is a bit of an investment in terms of both time (you have to make sure your house is ready to handle it, although plug-in chargers that don’t need wiring are available) and money (which can run you more than $1,000, though there are state and federal incentives in place that can lower those costs significantly). While the immediate benefit—being able to charge your personal EV overnight in your own garage or driveway—is pretty obvious, you can milk a little more benefit out of it by renting out your EV charger when you’re not using it.

This could be an informal arrangement: If you have a neighbor or neighbors who own EVs but can’t install their own charger for some reason, you could offer to let them charge at your house for a fixed cost per charge or a monthly payment. This works especially well if you have a wide driveway or a two- or three-car garage and your neighbor can just pull their car in and charge. By placing a power clamp meter upstream from your charger, you can keep track of the power usage and set your rates accordingly.

Sharing apps

If you don’t have any conveniently powerless EV-driving neighbors, you can still make a little passive income from your home EV charger by signing up for a car-charge sharing platform. Apps like EvMatch, Plugshare, or Plugburb let you list the specifics of your charger on a map and set rates (often including additional fees on top of the electricity cost) and other rules (like times when it’s unavailable) for its use. When people need a charge, they search the app, find your house listed, drive over and use your charger. All the billing and payment is handled by the platform.

These apps make it pretty easy to turn your EV charger into a passive income stream because they manage everything. But just because it’s easy doesn’t mean there aren’t downsides.

Downsides

Charging people to use your EV charger might generate some money for you, but there are things to consider before you sign up or start advertising your DIY car charging service:

• Income. You’re not going to get rich doing this. The average cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity in the U.S. is roughly 17.5 cents. According to EvMatch, the average cost to charge a car on the platform is 21 cents per kWh, so your profit margin is not exactly enormous. The average electric vehicle requires 30kWh to go 100 miles, so if your customer soaks up 30kWh per session you’ll make a whopping $1.05 each time.

  Of course, you can make more. The plug sharing platforms usually allow you to set your own rates, so you could charge 25 cents or 50 cents or whatever you want per kWh—though that might drive customers away. You can also charge a flat access fee to supplement each session, bringing your profits up. But no matter what you do, this isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. Instead, it’s best to think of it as an easy way to make some extra pocket money.

• Security. Renting out your EV charger means strangers will be coming to your home, parking their car in your driveway or garage, and then hanging around for (potentially) hours as they wait for their cars to charge sufficiently. Platforms like EvMatch require people to leave the area while their car is charging (it’s part of their terms of service), but how you’d enforce that if they ignore it is something you’ll have to think about.

• Neighbors. Your neighbors may not love the fact that you have a parade of strange cars sitting in your driveway, or that strangers are wandering the area killing time while they wait for their cars to charge up.

While you might not get rich renting out your EV charger, there are some other benefits: You’ll be helping to encourage EV adoption, boosting their environmental impact. And if you’ve ever been stuck in an area without a lot of charging infrastructure you know how grateful people will be to find a charger they can use for a reasonable cost, so you’ll be doing your part to make the world a better and friendlier place. And it’s not a heavy lift: If you already have the infrastructure installed, any money you get from it is a bonus.

It feels as though maintaining a reasonable level of mental health is particularly challenging right now, whether we’re talking about clinical depression or just a general feeling of unease brought on by being bombarded with negative news on a much-more-than-daily basis. So a little self-care is rarely a bad idea—and while this is in no way a clinical recommendation, I find that a good cry is often the best way to make myself feel a little better. Just as sad songs are often a comfort in dark times, so are sad movies often just the thing when a good cry is called for.

Some movies earn their tears honestly, while others are more manipulative—the ones sometimes dismissively called tearjerkers. I’m not sure how much it matters, though: Many of us are naturally suspicious of entertainment that moves us, but, like a good jump scare or thrilling action sequence, there’s skill, and art, to plucking at our emotional strings. Just thinking of some of these movies—which are enough to make all but the most hard-hearted among you ugly cry—gets me feeling misty.

A warning though, before we proceed: it’s hard to talk about what makes these movies weepy without getting into some spoilers. Proceed with caution.

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Past Lives (2023)

Greta Lee plays Nora, whose family emigrated from South Korea to the United States when she was a child. Years later, and then over the course of several years, she reunites with childhood friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), forcing an examination of her life as it is, and as it might have been.

The crying bit: I’m not sure there’s one particular moment here (this isn’t a tearjerker), but the film’s ending—with its cumulative sense of love, loss, and roads not taken—packs a powerful emotional punch. Just posting the trailer here made the tears start welling up in my eyes.

Where to stream: Paramount+, Digital rental

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Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Minimalist Dogme 95-style filmmaking somehow meets Douglas Sirk-style melodrama, all mixed up in a stripped-down homage to the artificiality of the Old Hollywood musical. Starring none other than outré Icelandic singer Björk (who apparently had a terrible time making it), this is deeply strange, and strangely compelling, in its story of a Czech immigrant who’s forced into increasingly dire straits as she tries to get the money for a medical procedure that will save her son’s vision.

The crying bit: Björk and company create such a compelling (though bleak) fantasy world that the movie’s ultra-dark denouement hits hard.

Where to stream: Digital rental

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Sounder (1972)

A family of sharecroppers in rural Louisiana, lead by Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield, is tragically disrupted when Winfield’s Nathan Lee Morgan is arrested for having stolen a bit of food.

The crying bit: Sounder, the dog, is a relatively minor part of the film, and, though he does get injured, you needn’t fear any dog-related tragedies. This is one for which the tears really come when the family is reunited.

Where to stream: Prime Video, Peacock, Tubi

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Beaches (1988)

Bette Midler has never been so schmaltzy as in this movie charting the ups and downs of her lifelong friendship with Barbara Hershey, beginning way back when Midler’s character is played by Mayim Bialik. Though history hasn’t come to recognize Beaches as an all-time classic, there were a couple of years during which the haunting strains of “Wind Beneath My Wings” were utterly inescapable. Be warned, though: I listened to this soundtrack on repeat around the time this first came on TV, and I’m pretty sure it made me gay.

The crying bit: You can see the death scene coming from all the way down the beach, but only the hardest heart isn’t going to feel a twinge when C.C. and Hillary watch one final sunset.

Where to stream: Digital rental

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Love Story (1970)

Less a work of genius, perhaps, than a masterpiece of emotional manipulation, Love Story is a classic tearjerker in the finest tradition of the form. Love means never having to say you’re sorry, and I won’t apologize for recommending this.

The crying bit: After we’ve established the central couple’s meet-cute, opposites-attract relationship and marriage, we’re primed for tragedy when Oliver (Ryan O’Neal) learns that Jenny (Ali McGraw) is terminally ill, attempting to conceal the diagnosis from her (which was, apparently, a thing you could do circa 1970). Alas, this isn’t a movie about successful treatments and permanent remission.

Where to stream: Digital rental

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Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

A young suffragette (Greer Garson) breaks the stiff, stuffy, oh-so-British reserve of teacher Charles Edward Chipping (Robert Donat)

The crying bit: Following the death, in childbirth, of his beloved, Mr. Chips returns to the classroom, stiff upper lip fully starched. It’s clear he’s lost not just his love, but also the joy in living she’d helped him discover.

Where to stream: Digital rental

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If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

Based on the James Baldwin novel and directed by Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins, this is the tragic story of a young couple (played by KiKi Layne and Stephan James) torn apart by a false allegation and injustice.

The crying bit: I’m not sure that there’s a single moment here, and that’s to the non-linear movie’s credit. There’s a pervasive sense of sadness and injustice as we’re drawn deeply into the story of this couple. The most emotional moment is, perhaps, the moment near the end when Tish realizes that there’s no hope of undoing the injustice that landed Funny in jail.

Where to stream: Peacock, Starz, Digital rental

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The Color Purple (1985)

Steven Spielberg directs Whoopi Goldberg as the abused Celie, separated from her beloved sister at a young age in rural Georgia of the early 20th century. It’s a better adaptation of Alice Walker’s acclaimed novel than it is often given credit for.

The crying bit: The greatest heartbreaks come closer to the beginning than the end. And, though there are tearful moments throughout, the real catharsis comes when we finally feel like things finally (finally) start looking up for Miss Celie and company. You’re invited to cry at the sad moments and the joyous conclusion.

Where to stream: Tubi, Digital rental

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Steel Magnolias (1989)

They used to call this sort of thing a “chick flick,” as though the mere presence of women at the top of the cast list were enough to place a film in its own genre. Regardless, with the all-legend casting of Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, and Julia Roberts, this is the Avengers of movies set largely in a beauty salon.

The crying bit: The film’s death scene is gutting, but less so than Sally Field’s graveside breakdown, both for its own emotive power and for her realization that she’s not alone. Somehow “Take a whack at Ouiser!” is the film’s supreme moment of catharsis.

Where to stream: Digital rental

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The Joy Luck Club (1993)

Another great film with women in the lead and a brilliant ensemble cast (including Ming-Na Wen, Rosalind Chao, Tamlyn Tomita, and Lauren Tom), The Joy Luck Club centers around a group of Chinese elders who gather to play Mahjong and trade stories that span generations.

The crying bit: There are plenty of emotional moments across the film’s many vignettes, but by far the most wrenching is the story of Suyuan Woo’s escape from the Japanese invasion of China. Near death and at the end of her strength, she’s forced to abandon her twin daughters. The moment would, understandably, haunt Suuyan and color her relationship with her other daughter, June.

Where to stream: Hulu, Digital rental

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Imitation of Life (1959)

Even if it’s not flawless in its perspectives, Imitation of Life is as close to racial consciousness as Hollywood got in the 1950s, doing the original version of the film (from 1934) one better by shifting the focus away from single mother Lora Meredith (here played by Lana Turner) and toward Juanita Moore’s Annie Johnson and her light-skinned-to-the-point-of-passing daughter, Sarah Jane.

The crying bit: Their relationship having entirely broken down through the course of the film, mother and daughter never truly reconcile before Annie’s untimely death. It’s the funeral, though, that clinches it, as Mahalia Jackson sings “Trouble of the World” while Sarah Jane falls on her mother’s casket.

Where to stream: Digital rental

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Stella Dallas (1937)

Barbara Stanwyck plays the title’s sassy mill worker’s daughter, whose plans to better her own situation go consistently awry, leading to a deeply unhappy marriage. Eventually, she places all her hopes in her daughter, Laurel.

The crying bit: Circumstances lead Stella to believe that her daughter’s only road to happiness is apart from the troubled mother. So, she forces Laurel away with cruel comments, then watches her daughter’s marriage through a window, sadness and joy mingled in her expression.

Where to stream: Prime Video

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Up (2009)

Belying the unfair reputation that cartoons once had as goofy kids’ stuff, the ability of a Pixar movie to reduce grown people to tears is legendary.

The crying bit: The montage, early in the film, depicting Carl Fredricksen’s life with his late wife, Ellie, and their inability to ever save up enough money for their dream trip, is gutting. Gutting. (Later there’s a talking dog, which helps.)

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

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Toy Story 3 (2010)

Oh, hey, just Pixar again, here to make us cry over some damn computer generated toys.

The crying bit: You think it’s the ending, but it’s actually the moment when the toys, seemingly at the ends of their usefulness, make their peace with death (if living toys can truly “die”) while on a conveyor belt leading to an incinerator. Yeah, it’s also wistfully sad when Andy passes the toys along to Bonnie, saying goodbye to his childhood, but that’s like a gentle jab after getting hit over the head with a folding chair.

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

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The Fox and the Hound (1981)

The kindly Widow Tweed adopts an orphaned fox, Tod, while her neighbor, hunter Amos Blade, brings home a hound named Copper to be his new hunting dog. They become friends. Then they aren’t, and it’s sad.

The crying bit: Oh, lord. We start out with a Bambi-esque death scene and, later, a heartbreaking abandonment. The emotional crux of the film is the bit about how Tod and Copper will “always be friends forever.” But fate has other ideas.

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

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Old Yeller (1957)

A young boy (Tommy Kirk) has a lovely, special bond with the titular Labrador Retriever in Texas of the late 1860s.

The crying bit: Let’s just say that Old Yeller doesn’t fare terribly well here. They made this movie for kids, if you can believe it.

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

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The NeverEnding Story (1984)

Ten-year-old Bastian Bux is an outcast (translated from movie parlance: a reader) who finds himself drawn into his new book rather literally, as he’s gradually pulled into the story of warrior Atreus, on a quest to save The Childlike Empress from “The Nothing” in the world of Fantasia.

The crying bit: Atreyu’s faithful steed, Artax, is overcome in the Swamp of Sadness. It’s a genuinely powerful emotional moment, representing a low point for both Bastion and Atreyu.

Where to stream: Digital rental

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A Star Is Born (1954)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the 2018 Lady Gaga version is sad, too, but this earlier version is the template (we can’t call it the original, since it’s the second of four takes, and not the same general plot). Judy Garland stars alongside James Mason as one half of a Hollywood power couple—except that her star is in the ascendant, while his is in substance-dependent decline.

The crying bit: Upon her return to the stage following her husband’s death, Vicki announces herself as “Mrs. Norman Maine.” A little awkward, perhaps, to modern eyes, but still rather stirring in context. It’s also rather poignant that this was meant to be Judy Garland’s big comeback, but inexplicably died at the box office.

Where to stream: Tubi, Digital rental

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The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

The John Green adaptation stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as two teens who meet at a support group for cancer patients, before going on a whirlwind trip to Amsterdam to meet one of their favorite authors and find out why his last book doesn’t really have an ending.

The crying bit: It’s not entirely, nor unnecessarily, maudlin, but it’s a movie about two kids with cancer, one of whom turns out to have a terminal diagnosis. Their first kiss is at the Anne Frank House. So, take your pick.

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

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Brief Encounter (1945)

Director David Lean is best known today for his epics: Lawrence of Arabia, A Passage to India, etc. But this early classic of his is every bit as impressive a work, even if the scale is much smaller. Laura is a respectable middle-class woman in a stable but dull marriage, while Alec is an idealistic doctor, also married with children. They start running into each other whenever Laura goes to a nearby town for a bit of shopping and, as their relationship and affections develop, each separation becomes more difficult.

The crying bit: It’s what doesn’t happen that breaks your heart here, as the final encounter between the two is interrupted and cut short.

Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, Prime Video

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Inside Out (2015)

The Disney/Pixar tear train has been running for a long time—at least since Bambi—and Inside Out continues the tradition ably. Here we venture into the mind of 11-year-old Riley, processing her feelings about a family move via personifications of emotions with personalities of their own.

The crying bit: Bing Bong. Definitely Bing Bong. Oh, god, Bing Bong.

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

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The Iron Giant (1999)

In Cold War-era Maine, a giant alien robot becomes the focus of fear and paranoia from an American military who can only see his potential as a weapon.

The crying bit: Is is the moment when the Giant realizes that he can be what he chooses to be, saying “Superman” as he sacrifices himself to save Hogarth and his other friends? Or the bit at the end when it appears that he didn’t die after all? I mean, it’s definitely the first one—but they’re both incredibly emotional.

Where to stream: Digital rental

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Titanic (1997)

Titanic’s extraordinary popularity has bred a certain cynicism about the movie, with discussion turning on the relative buoyancy of floating doors and the camp appeal of Billy Zane. There’s still a brilliantly constructed old-school Hollywood epic here, of the kind they truly don’t make anymore. In theaters in 1997, the final scenes were typically drowned out (sorry, pun intended) by the sounds of sobbing audiences—and time hasn’t entirely dulled that power.

The crying bit: She says that she’ll never let go. But she absolutely lets go. But then they meet again on the ship where dreams are born, and they look so young and pretty, and everyone claps. (Thank god they skipped the original ending.)

Where to stream: Paramount+, Prime Video

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Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Baz Luhrmann’s over-the-top, La Bohème-inspired jukebox musical about star-cross’d lovers in turn-of-the-20th-century Paris was never going to have an entirely happy ending.

The crying bit: Once you see the blood on the handkerchief, you know how it’s going to end. I’m not sure that consumption was nearly so elegant a way to go as the movies suggest, but, in this case, there’s so much spectacle and distraction that we’ve almost forgotten the foreshadowing, setting up an ending that still manages to come as a bit of a shock.

Where to stream: Hulu, Apple TV+

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The Farewell (2019)

New York-based Chinese-American writer Billi (Awkwafina) learns from her parents that her grandmother, diagnosed with lung cancer, has just months to live. They’ve decided not to tell her, and are concerned that their Americanized daughter won’t keep the secret if she travels to China to spend time with Nai Nai during her final days.

The crying bit: It’s not a maudlin movie, despite the subject matter, but the night, near the end of the film, when Nai Nai encourages Bill to live life on her own terms, got me. There are also tears to be had at the film’s surprisingly upbeat ending. It’s also sadder because it’s all true.

Where to stream: Max, Digital rental

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The Laramie Project (2002)

A theatre company travels to Laramie, Wyoming to meet with and interview residents in the aftermath of the murder of Matthew Shepard. Based on the same-named play, the film is a curious hybrid of cinema, theater, and documentary with a cast of recognizable names.

The crying bit: Being the story of the very real Matthew Shepard, this one cuts deeper than the more explicitly fictional narratives, and might be a bit much if you’re looking for some gentle catharsis. Still, there’s no question that it’s a worthwhile and important watch—the moment when a local gay resident (played by Bill Irwin) relates his emotions following a parade in Shepard’s honor hits particularly hard.

Where to stream: Max, Digital rental

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Sophie’s Choice (1982)

From the William Styron novel, we gradually learn the story of Polish immigrant Sophie Zawistowska, a Holocaust survivor who was faced with a particularly horrific choice, as the title suggests.

The crying bit: Near the end, we learn that Sophie had to choose between her two children upon entering Auschwitz.

Where to stream: Peacock, The Criterion Channel, Tubi, Crackle, Prime Video

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Ordinary People (1980)

A family drama elevated by some truly excellent performances, Ordinary People deals with the impact of tragedy on a family led by an increasingly emotionally distant mother (Mary Tyler Moore).

The crying bit: There are plenty of emotional scenes in this drama, but there’s a moment during a therapy session when Timothy Hutton’s Conrad expresses his feelings over the sailing accident that killed his brother, admitting that he considers having survived his greatest failure, that really smacked me in the face.

Where to stream: Max, Digital rental

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Just Mercy (2019)

Michael B. Jordan plays the real-life attorney and activist Bryan Stevenson, here at the beginning of his career and representing the wrongfully convicted Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx).

The crying bit: We know that the criminal justice system fails Black Americans more often than not, which makes the happy ending here (which, granted, only comes after McMillian serves multiple years on death row) a brief, but joyous moment.

Where to stream: Prime Video

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Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Quvenzhané Wallis plays Hushpuppy, who constructs an elaborate fantasy world around her Louisiana Bayou community and her ailing father.

The crying bit: Confronting the much-feared aurochs, Hushpuppy saves the people of her island in the face of her father’s death, at which point she gives him one hell of a funeral.

Where to stream: Digital rental

To mark National Audiobook Month this June, Spotify’s offering a month of free audiobooks. As long as you are on Spotify’s free plan and have a U.S. account on the service, you can sign up for a free trial that will give you access to audiobooks for a month from the date you sign up. You won’t be able to access audiobooks if your Spotify account is from other regions.

This trial includes up to 15 hours of audiobook listening and if you’re wise with your choices, you could easily squeeze in two to three audiobooks. To sign up for this free trial, you can head over to Spotify’s Audiobooks page. The promotion is valid through June 30, 2024. Once the trial expires, you’ll be charged $9.99/mo for Spotify’s Audiobook Access Plan. 

Even the paid plan limits you to 15 hours of listening per month and unused listening time expires at the end of the month. Spotify lets you top-up listening hours if you’re willing to pay and hours you purchase expire 12 months after the date of purchase, which gives you more flexibility in terms of choosing when to listen to books.

Unlike Audible, Spotify limits your audiobook use by listening hours. Audible’s plans offer “credits,” which can be redeemed against books. One Audible credit gets you one book and you’re free to purchase more books by paying the listed price. Audible’s plans offer greater flexibility because you’re able to return audiobooks you don’t like and if you’re into long books such as epic fantasy series, then one credit can get you access to 40+ hours of listening. At the time of writing, Audible is also available in far more regions and is accessible by a larger number of people.

Still, the hope is that Spotify catches up in terms of availability and can compete with Audible. If the competition for the audiobook market is strong, us consumers end up benefiting the most. These aren’t the only two players in the audiobook space. We’ve got a list of the 10 best audiobook services for you to choose from.

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for June 19, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for June 19, Wordle #1,096! 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!

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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.)

There are all common letters from our mnemonic today!

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

Abrupt.

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

There is one repeated letter today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There is one vowel, used twice.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with T. 

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 TERSE.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH, which gave me four of five letters and only one solution: TERSE.

Wordle 1,096 3/6

🟨⬛⬛🟩🟩
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was easier. The hint was “a noun or a verb, something you can use for protection” and the answer contained three common letters, one fairly common letter, and one uncommon letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was COVER.

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.