BEQ Revealed (Eric) rate it
Fireball tk (Jenni) rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) 
[2.70 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
TNY tk (Amy) 
[3.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
NYT 8:34 (ZDL) 
[3.23 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:41 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 7:40 (Emily) [2.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) rate it
Zhouqin Burnikel’s Universal Crossword “Muted Tone” — Eric’s Review
Zhouqin Burnikel’s Universal Crossword “Muted Tone” — 1/1/26 (Click to Embiggen)
Update: Thanks to Fiend reader stmv for gently pointing out that I’d missed a crucial element of the theme. My apologies to Zhouqin Burnikel and David Steinberg for insinuating that the theme was less integral to the puzzle than it is.
Circled letters spell COLOR:
- 16A [Steamy part of a script] LOVE SCENE
- 20A [One has one cell] AMOEBA
- 34A [Egg parts in orange curd] YOLKS It took me an unreasonably long time to get that answer.
- 41A [Spotted big cats] LEOPARDS Is the syntax of this clue supposed to mislead us into reading “spotted” as a verb? There’s a natural order to the use of adjectives in English, and this clue seems to violate that. I’d consider “spotted” as a sort of sub-category of “color” and would say “big spotted cats.”
- 55A [Secret agent’s file] DOSSIER
This feels to me as a puzzle that started life as a themeless puzzle and then had COLOR imposed on it. It doesn’t seem like it would be terribly difficult to find the letters in the correct order to spell almost any five-letter word. I might feel differently about the theme (or lack thereof) if the grid were symmetrical, but instead we’ve got large areas of contiguous black squares breaking the grid into multiple midi-sized grids.
In addition to the circled letters spelling COLOR, each is silent in the word that uses it. Hence the “Muted” in the puzzle’s title.
But as themeless puzzles go, this certainly isn’t bad, with some nice long Down answers like PEOPLE FOOD and IN JEOPARDY.
Other stuff:
- 12A [Red court material] CLAY Actually, those tennis courts at Stade Roland Garros are surfaced with white limestone covered with a few millimeters of powdered red brick dust. The brick dust is watered and then rolled into the limestone several times. But clay was once used as a hard court material.
- 37A [Cookie known in China as “ao li ao”] OREO The new year’s just started, and this already has my vote for “Oreo Clue of the Year.”
- 39A [Instantly recognizable] ICONIC/26D [Person put on a pedestal] IDOL “Icon” and “idol” seem almost interchangeable as crossword answers. It’s interesting to get them both in one grid.
- 49D [“Paradise Lost” setting] HELL Not EDEN.
- 52D [Actress Mireille] ENOS I don’t recognize that name, but it’s nice to see a different clue than the usual biblical figure or space-going chimp.
Topher Booth’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Time: 8m34s
Difficulty: Breezy (<8m) | Easy-ish (8-9m30s) | Moderate (9m30s-11m) | Rough going (11+m)
Topher Booth’s New York Times crossword, 1/1/26, 0101
Today’s theme: ANSWER KEYS (Test graders’ aids … or what is needed to respond to the six italicized clues in this puzzle?)
- WHA(T AB)OUT BOB
- TH(E SC)REAM
- SPIN(AL T)AP
Had STRUM instead of THRUM, the latter of which I only know as white noise, and I was sure it was right for quite a while — otherwise would have finished this in the 7s. Happy New Year all the same!
Cracking: PARK IT, talkin about your keister, meister
Slacking: nothing good in this world is ever described as being the product of someone who ACTED ALONE
Sidetracking: PAPER BOY
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1849 Cryptic Thursday
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1849 — 1/1/26 (Click to Embiggen)
I typically don’t solve cryptic crosswords, so here’s the answer grid.
Amie Walker’s USA Today Crossword, “Begin Again (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up
Happy New Year!
USA Today, January 01, 2026, “Begin Again (Freestyle)” by Amie Walker
Favorite fill: LEMONSNAP, BEAKER, and RIFFS
Stumpers: FERN (cluing stumped me–it’s been too long for me to remember the spider’s name), ROME (new to me), and SAAB (needed crossings)
A fun puzzle to start off 2026, packed with celebratory fill as well as anticipation for the new year with CLEANSLATE, NEWYEARSEVERKISS, FRESHSTART, and BILLBOARD just to highlight a few. Accompanying food, drink, and treat entries throughout are sure to keep any solver going strong (or recover from last night’s festivities). And if that weren’t enough, with the flexibility of the freestyle, we get some great paired lengthy bonus fill that feel like they are in conversation with each other: WHATDIMISS and WAITONESEC as well as AREWEALONE and ISWEARBYIT.
A great start to the new year! Hope you all had wonderful nights last night and are ready for 2026. May it be a year of health, happiness, and harmony!
4.0 stars
~Emily
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
The NW was the last to fall. STRUM for THRUM and yet I was sure it was going to be HOST. Otherwise pretty smooth.
Happy New Year, everyone. I hope 2026 surprises us in good ways.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
Can someone explain how ALT, ESC and TAB relates to answer keys?
“Answer” because the themers are responses to the questions in the clues; “keys” because the three rebuses are keyboard keys. That’s how far my head wraps around it.
New Year’s Day Universal:
https://herbach.dnsalias.com/wsj/uc260101.puz
Martin: thank you again for doing this.
Eric: The Universal puzzle’s theme is actually that all five circled letters are silent in their words, hence “muted” tone.
Thanks. That makes the title make a lot more sense.
yes, thanks for this Martin!
Easy NYT, but the clue for THRUM seems off to me. M-W gives as its first definition “to sound with a monotonous hum” but has “to play or pluck a stringed instrument idly” as its second, which is presumably where the clue came from. But I’ve never come across ‘thrum’ used in that sense and not all dictionaries have it.
NYT: fine Thursday, though surprised only 3 keys made it. Admittedly, not a lot of other good choices, except maybe ENTER.
My only disappointment was that ZDL did not included a “Spinal Tap” clip!
but this one goes to 11
But big cats is itself a compound noun.
Thanks. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
Good fill but not really much meat on the theme idea.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 1.5 stars
This puzzle should not have been published, and I continue to question the editor’s judgment on what crosswords to run, and how to edit clues. (Time for a change.)