ACROSS
1 Economist at play 🙁 <3 (9)
6 Ancient king is mad when disturbed (5)
9 Photos distorted by time in radioactive location (3,4)
10 Ugly sight and sound of material from which diamonds can be extracted? (7)
11 Correspondence from Simi Valley, finally holding amended trial (10)
12 Improvise with siren (4)
14 Where Thompson and Brandon are married in a boat at sea (8)
15 Rob greeting John familiarly (6)
17 Endow with flexibility (6)
19 Vice president: ridiculous job I need (3,5)
22 Instrument is stolen goods, I hear (4)
23 Face-off taking 50/50 in highway feature (10)
26 Claims part of trip is restricted by porters (7)
27 Foolish pride: what it is and how it ends (7)
28 Long story about Egyptian leader (5)
29 Small and noble, it might require an early bedtime (9)
DOWN
1 Those crazy societal beliefs! (5)
2 Raise watchword over an imperialist of old (7)
3 Rudely insinuate Eliot is drunk inside (10)
4 Rogue bat violently bellowed and whistled, with a kind of sneeze in the middle (8)
5 Detective keeps quiet about 22, strangely (6)
6 Timorous at first: “Maybe there’s a mouse!” (4)
7 Dismantle AM radio to create museum exhibit (7)
8 Diploma school’s principal bestowed on Uriah’s family (9)
13 Liberating nonsense, like the libretto of H.M.S. Pinafore (10)
14 Mary’s role: disturbing legendary Chicagoan (3,6)
16 Choice decision overawed radical (3,1,4)
18 Bone and tri-tip in Spanish dish (7)
20 Indulge carelessly in combat (7)
21 “Two heads are better than one”—for example, Oswald’s maneuvering (3,3)
24 Feel queasy at start of the fast (5)
25 Pulitzer-winning novelist’s New Age rearing (4)
ACROSS 1 2 defs. 4 anag. 9 2 defs. 10 BOB + DOLE 11 & 12 2 defs.
13 hidden 15, 20 & 28 STAR + SKY + AND + HUTCH 17 R + OTATED (Odetta anag.) 18 ATTIC + A 22 C IN CODE (Charlie) + MAY + O
25 anag. 26 TR(IV)IAL 27 SATYR P + LAY (party’s anag.)
DOWN 1 F(LO)URS 2 TRYING + OUT 3 LIP + PI 4 HEAD + ST+ AND 5 ROB + IN 6 anag. 7 G + LOOM 8 2 defs. 14 2 defs.
15 “C-worthy” 16 anag. 17 2 defs.
19 MO + OLAH (rev.) 21 DE(L)FT 23 NADA + L 24 EDIT + H
Joshua Kosman and Henri PicciottoJoshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto are The Nation’s puzzlers. To read more about Kosman, click here. To read more about Picciotto, click here. Kosman and Picciotto explain what they’re up to in “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Crosswords” (also available as a PDF). Check out The Nation’s Current Issue page each week for the latest puzzle.