Click HERE to download a printable PDF of this puzzle.
Puzzled? No more cross words! Read Kosman and Picciotto on “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Puzzles.” Or watch this video.
ACROSS
1 Antique bicycle in famous lane with distant object (5-8)
9 Old vessel swapping adjacent components with one getting the blame for harbor craft (7)
10 Look into return of fire pit (7)
11 Subway ran into European capital halfway (5)
12 Inside shelter, worth changing direction (9)
13 Lure of shortened cable (4)
14 Tuesday Weld’s parts frequently repeated: This one is very much like another (10)
18 Rascal gets into variegated pastels in multilayered document (10)
19 Missile silo’s cover: something to chew over (4)
We now confront a second Trump presidency.
There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.
Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.
Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.
The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.
Onwards,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation
22 Boy rested uneasily where seafood can be found (6,3)
25 and 16 Poet sent back fruit to daughter adopted by icy, ghoulish family relation (5,9)
26 Rise unsteadily to swallow 59 potions (7)
27 The Rev. Spooner’s claimed the fourth locale in the Middle East (4,3)
28 Novice members repeatedly appear to be trouble (13)
DOWN
1 Pick up military shirt in a river… (7)
2 …ear conclusion of first autumn sunset (9)
3 Bush’s torture lawyer who heard a call for attention (3-3)
Get unlimited access: $9.50 for six months.
4 When eavesdropping, check off bug in operation… (5)
5 …arranging tech to look up piece of spyware (what bugs could give you) (3,6)
6 By and by, returning Yale student greeting hosts, looking pale (2,1,5)
7 Complaint, for example, raised about initials on a gravestone (5)
8 City in 12 deletes article to reach legal agreement (6)
15 “Sink was hot” (a phrase that often precedes “boy”) (9)
16 See 25
17 Protagonist in Memento, say, misconstrued as cinema (8)
18 Bird’s plunder? Just the opposite! (6)
20 Where you might find young children rejecting sexually suggestive commercial with energy (3,4)
21 I relocated to the bottom of no mountain (6)
23 Genre featuring two outspoken Greek characters (3-2)
24 Ploy of Pentagon agency, briefly supported by a couple of generals (5)
SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3496
ACROSS 1 POINTS (anag.) + HOT 6 RIS + ER (rev.) 9 anag. 10 O(FAKIN’)D 11 PIE + CESUIT (anag.) 12 S + LUMP 13 F + ETA (rev.) 14 LIT + TLEP (rev.) + I(G)S 17 anag. 19 2 defs. 21 alternate letters 22 BEANS A LAD 25 W + [s]ISEMEN (rev.) 26 D(IO)RAMA 27 initial letters 28 HUN(DRED)T + H
DOWN 1 P(RIM)P 2 INS(P)ECT 3 anag. 4 anag. 5 T(R)OUT 6 ROA(D)STER 7 S(TIM)ULI (Luis anag.) 8 RED + EP + O’S + IT 13 F(ACE + TOW)EL[t] 15 TE(A + GARD)EN (drag rev.) 16 TSU(NA)M + I (rev.) + S 18 U(LYS)SES (sly anag.) 20 PO(LKAE)D (kale anag.) 22 BEN + CH 23 SPOO + R (rev.) 24 D(EAT)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.