By Akash Wadhwani. Checked against two sources, updated 2:56 PM ET.
Sixteen words and four groups of four. Yellow is usually the straightforward one and purple is usually wordplay, so the hints below go one step at a time.
Hint 1: one word from each group
Yellow: one of the four is FREE REIN.
Green: one of the four is USB PORT.
Blue: one of the four is UPC CODE.
Purple: one of the four is SAT SCORE.
Hint 2: the four categories
Yellow: Unrestricted Permission.
Green: Places To Insert Something Into On A Computer.
Yellow, Unrestricted Permission: BLANK CHECK, CARTE BLANCHE, FREE REIN, FULL AUTHORITY.
Green, Places To Insert Something Into On A Computer: CARD SLOT, HEADPHONE JACK, OPTICAL DRIVE, USB PORT.
Blue, Abbreviations Followed By Redundant Word: ATM MACHINE, LCD DISPLAY, PIN NUMBER, UPC CODE.
Purple, Ending With Ways To Carve A Surface: COURT SCRIBE, DIRECTOR'S CUT, PIZZA SLICE, SAT SCORE.
The purple group
Purple today is Ending With Ways To Carve A Surface: COURT SCRIBE, DIRECTOR'S CUT, PIZZA SLICE, SAT SCORE. Purple is the group the setters build last, and it is usually a hidden word, a sound, or a phrase pattern rather than a plain category. If two of its words looked like they belonged somewhere else, that was the point.
Connections is four groups. This one is five words.
One real news sentence a day, twenty to thirty words, something that actually happened. Keep the five words a headline would keep and let the rest go. Here is yesterday's, solved.
At Camden Lock, a 71-year-oldwoman, Beatrice Millar, took off her shoes, jumped in after a drowningman and saved him by holding his head above water.
Five tries. blue is the right word in the right place, orange is one of the five sitting somewhere else, grey is not one of them. The result beats the process, a name or a job beats a place, and the little words never count.