Grid patterns aren’t the most important aspect of a crossword, but it’s nice when they have a nice look to them. “Grid art” is also a thing in puzzles, where the black square pattern makes some identifiable formation that relates to the puzzle’s theme. A noteworthy recent example is this […]
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Iran envoy to UN: Any return of sanctions will be met severely by Tehran by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor, …with PressTV, Tehran [ Editor’s Note: We knew the US was going to lose this vote along with everybody else. Pompeo was just going through the motions, as we can […]
Charo Woodcock cleans a classroom at McClelland Elementary School in June in Indianapolis. Students across Indiana are already back in school in a mix of in-person and online instruction. Darron Cummings/AP hide caption toggle caption Darron Cummings/AP Charo Woodcock cleans a classroom at McClelland Elementary School in June in Indianapolis. […]
99% of crossword solvers begin a puzzle at 1-Across. That’s not wrong, but here’s a super-secret pro tip: there’s an even better strategy. Spend a few seconds scanning the puzzle for fill-in-the-blank (FITB) clues, and write in any of those that are obvious. Then go back to 1-Across and proceed; […]
We had ANG LEE in Thursday’s puzzle, which makes a crossword writer feel good. Why? Because I was able to use both the director’s first *and* last names in the grid. You see first *or* last names all the time in crosswords, of course, so it’s fun to surprise the […]
The grids I used on four of last week’s five puzzles all had something in common: they contained eight six-letter entries, which is a lot for a small crossword grid. This was on purpose. Why? Because six letters is what I call “breakout length” in crosswords. Entries of three, four, […]
What do IDINA Menzel, ANI DiFranco, NAS, Kelly RIPA, IRA Madison III, RIC Ocasek, Peter O’TOOLE, and Rita ORA all have in common? That’s easy, if you’re a puzzler: they all appear in crosswords much more commonly than do other celebrities of equal fame. In fact, all of these celebs […]
CNN contributor Van Jones has responded to a Daily Beast article accusing him of secretly working with President Donald Trump on a police reform executive order, saying he had nothing to do with it and demanding a retraction. The article is based on “false, sensational charges – apparently designed to […]
A former Gawker editor suing The Daily Beast is getting help from a set of right-wing trolls, including a Trumpy conspiracy site, white nationalist sympathizer Michelle Malkin, and a company tied to far-right agitator Charles Johnson. In 2019, The Daily Beast published a story about how the relaunch of Gawker […]
Watch FFWN above, click HERE for links to the stories we covered J. Michael Springmann stars, sporting a Palestinian keffiyah in honor of Nakba Day (last Friday) and Quds Day (this Friday). Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror. He […]