The exasperating New York Times puzzle Connections is a sensation. We interviewed the mastermind behind it. Plus:

• Ranking presidential performances: How does Sebastian Stan's portrayal of Donald Trump in The Apprentice fare among this select group?
• Graceland, baby: Tennessee's biggest attraction has been open longer than Elvis was alive. How does it stay relevant to younger generations?

Connections Editor Wyna Liu Can Make or Break Your Day

The New York Times game Connections has become a daily obsession for millions around the world since launching in 2023. Sure, it doesn’t attract quite as many players as Wordle, but among the increasingly vital Games department at the Times, Connections has differentiated itself for one simple reason: it gets people fired up.

“I do feel like the feedback that I get skews on the angry side,” Wyna Liu, the puzzle editor behind Connections, recently told InsideHook. “I get it. It’s like, I love being mad.”

Aren’t the games supposed to be an entertaining respite from the news coverage? If you’re asking that question, you’ve obviously never played Connections. The puzzle is simple enough in its gameplay: a four-by-four grid of words or phrases that you must sort into categories. But it’s Liu’s unique linguistic and relational machinations that have turned it into a sensation with staying power.

For the latest installment in our Who’s Next series, we spoke with Liu about her curious path to becoming a puzzle mastermind.

Every Oscar-Nominated Performance of a US President, Ranked

Sebastian Stan, star of the sordid young-Trump biopic The Apprentice, probably won’t win on Sunday, but he’ll have made Oscar history just the same: He’s the first actor nominated for an Academy Award for playing the current president. And no, it’s not an uplifting portrayal of the current White House occupant.

Since the dawn of the Oscars, eight other actors have garnered nominations for playing American presidents. It’s an eclectic bunch, from Raymond Massey’s earnest turn as Honest Abe to Anthony Hopkins’s sweaty, shifty portrayal of Richard Nixon to a Woodrow Wilson biopic that’s been long-forgotten. The presidential biopic has come a long way from the middlebrow, mainstream fare of yesteryear to something as depraved as The Apprentice, no doubt reflecting a deeper corruption of Americans’ faith in our leaders. We spent a few weeks watching every one of the presidential performances to grace Academy history to bring you this definitive ranking.

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