LAT tk (Stella) 
[2.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:22 (Amy) 
[3.90 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
Universal 3:52 (Jim P) 
[3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) [2.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Evan Mulvihill’s New York Times Crossword — Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 2/13/26 – no. 0213
Team Fiend’s own Evan brings us this 16×15 themeless with a 13/14/13 stack in the center, all great entries. MOVIE TRAILERS, DIAMOND EARRING, and “MINNESOTA NICE.” Turns out Minnesota nice doesn’t mean just letting pedestrians cross the street in front of you–it also means watching out for your neighbors and taking care of people. The clue is on target, [Polite, friendly stereotype from the Midwest], but the term’s meaning has been expanded tremendously this winter.
Fave fill: “HELL YEAH,” ICE ARENA (might feel awkward but the Winter Olympics are going on and they’ve got various ice arenas for figure skating, speed skating, hockey, and curling), MIFFED, EGG DONOR (friend of mine runs an egg donor agency and has helped so many people become parents who otherwise couldn’t, so lovely), ORIOLES with an etymology clue, “RHIANNON,” DIVE BARS, THAI ICED TEAS ([Cold drinks often topped with evaporated milk]), FLAT-EARTHERS (hilarious to have a Friday the 13th puzzle challenge the superstitious), RAN A LIGHT, THE RAVEN.
Three more things:
- 12D. [Sheryl ___, author of the 2013 best seller “Lean In”], SANDBERG. I just spotted her other book, Option B, on my bookshelf. A friend recommended it but I don’t think I ever cracked the cover. Funny to encounter her in the puzzle later the same day.
- 43D. [Canyon with a much-hiked section called the Narrows], ZION. Hard pass on the Narrows. A flash flood can come out of nowhere if it rains somewhere in the area! Yes, it’s a desert. But sometimes it rains.
- 3D. [It’s handled at the bar], ALETAP. Curious to know if any microbreweries actually use this word.
4.25 stars from me.
Ryan Gallagher’s Universal crossword, “Extra! Extra!”—Jim P’s review
Debut puzzle today! Congrats to our newest published constructor!
Theme answers are American newspapers clued with punny headlines.
Universal crossword solution · “Extra! Extra!” · Ryan Gallagher · Fri., 2.13.26
- 21a. [Paper that could aptly run the headline “Hark! Dolphins Hire New Stadium Announcer!”] MIAMI HERALD.
- 27a. [… “Smithsonian Announces Acquisition on Social Media”] WASHINGTON POST.
- 44a. [… “How Daylight Saving Impacts Citizens From Venice to Hollywood”] LOS ANGELES TIMES.
- 50a. [… “Replica Shakespearean Theater Opens Near Fenway Park”] BOSTON GLOBE.
Hmm. I don’t love this but it does work after I thought about it for a bit. Each pun felt a little off until I turned the entries around. For example, the last one’s about The Globe in Boston. Or else we have stories about times in L.A., a post in D.C., and a herald (announcer) in Miami. But it took me well after the solve to figure this out since, once I realized the entries were straightforward newspaper titles, they practically filled themselves in with only a little nudge from each clue.
I did enjoy the long fill more, especially SEISMOLOGY, BY CHANCE, and ORGANIST. STATISTICS is good, too, with a silly clue [79.48% of these are made up on the spot]. I would’ve preferred a completely symmetrical grid, but it’s only one black square off.
Other things of note:
- This is the second time I’ve encountered a LLAMA within half an hour. Each day, my daughter and I compete to see who can come up with the animal of the day with fewer guesses.
- 64a. [Wolverine, familiarly]. LOGAN. And where have I seen superhero names recently?
- 22d. [F- in chemistry?]. ION. Fluorine, in case you were wondering.
- 46d. [Fortnite dance moves]. EMOTES. New to me because I’m old. Glad I didn’t even see this clue while solving.
Three stars from me.
NYT: A solid Friday puzzle. It was “nice” to see MINNESOTA NICE in the grid. I liked the clues for MOVIE TRAILERS, FLAT EARTHERS and DIVE BARS. I was fine with ICE ARENA – the local university hockey team plays at Munn Ice Arena.
ALE TAP sounded to my ear like nothing I would hear IRL.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Yeah, some of the midlength fill didn’t quite work for me. ALETAP, INGOOD, INARABIC, IVOTENO. And technically this is a DNF for me because I could have sat there for an hour and not figured out RDA based on the clue.
Definitely more than a tinge of green paint in this one, I thought. Still, a good puzzle overall.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
ALETAP is not a thing. I’ve worked in brewpubs and have never heard it uttered. LASTS (clued as it was) crossing SET (also clued somewhat obscurely) made the intersecting S pretty tough for no good reason (other than it being a Friday puzzle).
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Awesome Friday puzzle with great cluing! I particularly liked “Poke accompaniment…” for PSST. Had me stumped for a long time and I had a good chuckle when I finally saw what it was.
Can someone explain the cluing for EGG DONOR? Especially the period after clinic, and the small case maybe after.
It’s not a period. It’s a comma.
Not on my app, it shows up as a period. I’ll take it as a typo then.
It’s a comma on the NYT website, but a period in the “newspaper version” you can print from there. I also had a period in AL – downloaded it last night using Scraper. Maybe they corrected it on the website.
Didn’t cause me any trouble, regardless. I had to peer at my AL version pretty closely to see it’s a period.
Last night, it was a period on the website, so the typo was fixed at some point.
NYT: some nice new (to NYT) grid entries – I especially liked MINNESOTA NICE.
However, LAB NOTE clanked with me. I’ve heard of lab notebook and lab notes, but not singular “lab note”.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
NYT:
Nice-enough puzzle (not quite MINNESOTA NICE, maybe), but some of the long stuff fell flat for me. I think part of the lack of pizazz is the fact that the puzzle — despite being larger than usual (16 x 15) — uses only 21 of the 26 letters!
I also didn’t like things like HELLYEAH and YEP in the NW, CIRCA and CIRCE in the middle of the puzzle. MINNESOTA NICE and RHIANNON made me smile, though!
Side question: How rare is an oversized themeless puzzle? I can’t remember the last one.