LAT 6:58 (Kyle) 
[1.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 18:28 (Eric) 
[2.93 avg; 23 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) 
[2.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 7:41 (Jim P) 
[3.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [2.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WaPo 5:53 (Matt G) [2.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Seth Weitberg’s LA Times crossword “YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN” – Kyle’s write-up
LA Times solution grid “YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN” – Seth Weitberg – Sunday 03/08/2026
Looks like this is Seth Weitberg’s first published Sunday-sized puzzle, following a couple dailies in the LAT and NY Times. Bravo Seth!
The theme consists of made-up descriptions of various professionals using a verb and noun that share a letter string (but are not necessarily related etymologically):
- 23A [The land developer was ___] ATTRACTED TO TRACTS
- 39A [The billboard installer was ___] ASSIGNED TO SIGNS
- 51A [The tissue manufacturer was ___] APPLIED TO PLIES
- 65A [The importer/exporter was ___] ACCUSTOMED TO CUSTOMS
- 79A [The music producer was ___] ATTUNED TO TUNES
- 89A [The safety inspector ___] ATTESTED TO TESTS
- 110A [The scorekeeper was ___] APPOINTED TO POINTS. Unfortunate that the final entry had what was to me the weakest surface sense–the scorekeeper might be appointed to their role, but are they actually “appointed” to the score itself?
Notes on fill and clues:
- 10D [Dental product] TOOTH GEL. My kids use a gel-based dental cleaner. Next time we’re brushing teeth, I’m going to see if it’s labeled “tooth gel” or “gel toothpaste”.
- 14D [Part of LACMA] ART. Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
- 43D [Celebratory cry during a game of tag] “GOT HIM”. I put in GOTCHA, which makes perfect sense for the clue, and was stymied when I couldn’t get the crossings to work. Took me a minute to realize the entry wanted a specific pronoun.
- 85A [Cape ___, Massachusetts] ANN. Know your three-letter Massachusetts capes! I grew up several miles from Cape Ann, which is where to find the beautiful fishing village of Rockport.
Motif Number 1, Rockport, MA. John Phelan, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Ingrid Steffensen’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Moving In”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases that normally take the form “X in a Y Z”, except in this puzzle X is placed between Y and Z and the words “in a” are omitted.
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Moving In” · Ingrid Steffensen · 3.8.26
- 23a. [Certain Christmas present, literally] PEAR PARTRIDGE TREE. Partridge in a pear tree.
- 32a. [“Just doing my job,” literally] DAY’S ALL WORK. All in a day’s work.
- 53a. [Destructive person, literally] CHINA BULL SHOP. Bull in a china shop.
- 68a. [“Not gonna happen,” literally] MILLION NEVER YEARS. Never in a million years.
- 86a. [Euphoric child, literally] CANDY KID STORE. Kid in a candy store.
- 100a. [Say something complimentary, literally] GOOD PUT WORD. Put in a good word.
- 117a. [Person who’s only influential to their own sphere, literally] LITTLE BIG FISH POND. Big fish in a little pond. I like this entry best because you can envision it making sense in some scenario.
Pretty straightforward once you catch on to the trick, but still enjoyable. I like the consistency in that each phrase originally featured “in a”; a phrase like “All in good time” would not match the others. The final entry with its slight twist is acceptable because it almost makes for a punchline.
I enjoyed the fill just as much with highlights CLASS CLOWN, NOISEMAKER, WHALE BONE, DOWNTON Abbey, NUTELLA, and ALCHEMY. Very smooth otherwise as well.
Clues of note:
- 43a. [“Come On ___” (Dexys Midnight Runners song)]. EILEEN. I’ll take any excuse to link to this Gen X classic. I’ll never understand why we didn’t all start wearing overalls without shirts underneath.
- 25d. [School org. that may celebrate Pride]. GSA. They didn’t have these when I went to school, so I needed the crossings. The initialism originally stood for Gay-Straight Alliance but may just as well mean Gender-Sexuality Alliance.
Straightforward, solid theme with strong, smooth fill. 3.5 stars.
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword “I’m With Her” – Matt’s write-up
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “I’m With Her,” 3/8/2026
Hope you’re managing Daylight Savings Time ok. I’d think that living in a state that doesn’t observe would spare me, but I always seem to have an early call on Sunday or Monday anyway.
On topic, this week’s puzzle “I’m With Her” adds -IM- to women’s names and reparses for wacky clues:
- 33a [*Part of a wheel that features a picture of a needlefish belonging to actress Polo?”] TERRI GAR RIM (Terri Garr)
- 51a [*Green citrus fruits given to actress Long when she makes the slightest sound] NIA PEEP LIMES (Nia Peeples)
- 68a [*Actress Cattrall had a fuzzy green plant for lunch?] KIM ATE MOSS (Kate Moss)
- 85a [*Stopwatch used when a Jodie Foster title character does some auto racing?] NELL CAR TIMER (Nell Carter)
- 109a [*Brief way of introducing a purple McDonaldland character to talk show host Ripa?] GRIMACE KELLY (Grace Kelly)
- 44d [*Dispensable candy in a vehicle that chauffeurs actress Aniston?] JENNIFER LIMO PEZ (Jennifer Lopez)
- 48d [*Pointy features of model and TikTok personality Manson’s costume when she dresses as a mischievous fantasy creature?] BRITNEYS IMP EARS (Britney Spears)
Some fun ones in here – GRIMACE KELLY is by far my favorite. I repeatedly got confused by the woman in the clue rather than name that needed to go in the grid (e.g. Teri Polo vs Teri Garr), but that’s on me, as the approach is absolutely consistent. A few vertical themers make a Sunday puzzle feel more robust to me, so I was glad to see those.
Most notably, though: The grid is slightly narrower than usual, at 20 columns, but it accommodates HAPPY // BIRTHDAY // VICKI across the top row, a shoutout (along with the theme) to Evan’s wife. Happy Birthday, indeed!
Cheers!
Kelly Richardson’s New York Times Crossword “Join Together” — Eric’s Review
Kelly Richardson’s New York Times Crossword “Join Together” — 3/8/26 (Click to Embiggen)
This late review seems a bit superfluous, given how many thoughtful comments this puzzle has received.
I want to like this theme — 71A [March 8 observance connecting billions of people around the world … including the 22 people whose names cross this answer] INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY — sets it out unambiguously. I admire the inspiration for the theme; it’s ridiculous to deny that through much of human history, the capabilities and achievements of women have been downplayed or utterly ignored.
Certainly the women represented here are worthy of being recognized. And yes, it’s impressive that every word that crosses INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY is a woman’s name. (I missed that aspect while solving because I got enough crosses to fill in that answer without looking at the clue.)
And yet – the puzzle wasn’t much fun. I filled in most of it quickly, with most of the names requiring little thought. (My unimpressive 18 minutes of solving time includes at least five minutes of looking for a typo.) There’s just not much opportunity for wordplay in clueing people’s names.
Still, I did learn a few things:
- 35D [Indigenous people of the Great Lakes] ODAWA Also know as the Ottawa or Odaawaa, there are about 15,000 members of this tribe/First Nation in the United States and Canada.
- 76D [Anna Howard ___, leader in the suffrage movement] SHAW She was a protégé of Susan B. Anthony and served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1904–1915. NAWSA was influential in the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits denying a person the right to vote “on account of sex.”
An error that annoys me every time it appears in a puzzle: 93A [Sch. in College Station, Tex.] A AND M No, it’s A&M.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
A nice feat of construction, fun to solve, and a good way to celebrate the day. The whole grid managed to stay free of men names until I hit MONETS crossing MEN ON in the SW. MONA + NONETS would have been a quick fix to add another woman while reducing the man count by one. But with the lack of thematic pressure in the corners, I think finding a substitute for MEN ON could have been explored more.
Nicely done!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
Too many names …
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
116A — I usually think of megabit as a rate of speed, not a storage unit. Perhaps confusing megabit and megabyte?
95A — I confidently put down “no pants.” Riding a bike with no pants seems dangerous, no? Oh well. No hands makes more sense.
1 megabyte = 8 megabits
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Agreed on “MEGABIT”, the clue is trying to play on ambiguity around “storage” but nobody in IT measures storage capacity in megabits, just network transfer rates.
Normally annoyed at too many proper names, but I got un-annoyed when I got to the theme. Ok puzzle, 3.5 stars
Megabit (Mb) and megabyte (MB) are units of storage size. Megabits per second and megabytes per second are measures of transfer speed.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
NYT wow what an awful puzzle. I appreciate the attempt to honor the day but this puzzle had not a whit of wit and just so much trivia. It was a quick easy solve that provided me with no enjoyment.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
What’s with all the French?
Those of us who hate proper name crosswords will just have to justify this one per the virtuous holiday. Despite the long entry for Toni Morrison, it’s still TV heavy, but oh well. CARTA was unfamiliar to me, and I’ll just assume it really does mean letter. ETAT clued by Etats-Unis seemed like cheating. Would you clue STATE as a division of the United States?
Ditto on CARTA. I know it from the Latin as in Magna Carta, which means Great Charter
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
MOLD crossing ODAWA seems pretty terrible, since mold is a type of fungus (or maybe growth form) but not a “structure” and I’d guess most people would guess OTAWA before ODAWA, and MOLT kind of makes sense if you squint at it (and don’t know a ton about fungi). Otherwise, pretty straightforward with a LOT of names, but they were are pretty easy to figure out (even the Hawaiian queen with all the vowels and a k). I’ll give it an extra star for the apropos theme.
Oops, forgot from Saturday. I got that crossing only because MOLD made, well, as much sense as anything. Not good, and the M in MOLD crossed a (to me) obscure proper name, too.
Maybe I was just overthinking it? “Well “mold” is *definitely* not a fungal structure, so what else could it be???” I knew MALALA for certain, so the M was a gimme (for me).
Yeah, O_AWA/ODAWA tripped me up, and running through the alphabet didn’t help because I also had a lurking WOMAN/WOMEN error. Single-letter errors in a Sunday puzzle are no fun.
That was exactly what tripped me up… luckily I found it when going back through all of the entries and guessed on MOLT -> MOLD.
Pretty fun NYT! Clever to have (almost) all of the women names crossing through the central themer. I knew before I even came here that there’d be some grumpy people complaining about proper names.
Unsurprisingly might also hear people complaining about bad food after eating at a bad restaurant.
It looks like the constructor and/or editors turned to Wikipedia for the clue for MOLD. The opening sentence of the article is “Mold is one of the structures that certain fungi can form.” For better or worse, it seems that Wikipedia has become the Encyclopedia Brittannica and OED of the internet age, even though it’s open source and as such, is prone to errors and vandalism. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan and a regular user of Wikipedia, but I sure don’t think of it as an authoritative source.
Of course Wikipedia has errors. But I don’t see this as one of them. That sentence sounds perfectly correct.
A more technical term for mold is “hyphae.” There are a zillion citations for calling fungal hyphae a structure. I don’t get this complaint.
You are incorrect saying that hyphae and mold are interchangeable terms. A mold is a type of fungus, while hyphae are filamental fungal structures. It’s like saying an SUV is a car structure. It’s a type of car, and has a chassis, but chassis and SUV aren’t the same thing. I suppose it’s being pedantic, but oh well.
(That’s probably a terrible analogy, but I’m tired and my brain isn’t working well.)
It’s both. From M-W:
1: a superficial often woolly growth produced especially on damp or decaying organic matter or on living organisms by a fungus (as of the order Mucorales)
2: a fungus that produces mold
2. is the fungus.
1. is the structure, which is hyphal.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think 1. is correct (at least as a “structure”). Maybe it’s a case where a specific scientific term has been corrupted somehow and accepted as general use, but a mold is simply a fungus. Period. It is not a structure of a fungus. It is a type of fungus.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
I loved this one! I appreciated and found the names easy, but I guess I am a woman?
Whether you are a woman is for someone else here to decide.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
NYT had some decent fill, but some bad/clumsy cluing, imo.
While Megabit is indeed a storage unit, it’s not used in everyday talk.
Also, I’ve never heard a baseball announcer say “men on” in an update. Usually, the update will be something like “There are runners on first and second.” The announcer’s job is to paint a picture for the listener.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
eh i’ve heard it but not as a pure standalone
“He’s batting .345 with men on and .250 with the bases empty”
“there’s two men on as Smith comes to the plate…”
Fair enough. Perhaps the clue should have been “Part of a baseball announcer’s update.”
At the hardware level, megabit is a much more logical unit of storage than megabyte. Today, a byte is well understood to mean 8 bits, but that’s a fairly recent artifact of PC design. In the ’60s, for instance, many computers only supported ASCII characters, and their storage was organized in 6-bit pieces (usually just called characters). Storage was measured in “word size.” Early computers I programmed had 48-bit and 60-bit words, comprised of 8 and 10 characters, respectively.
The only unit of storage comparison across all these computer architectures was bits (kilobits or megabits). We still measure transfer speed in megabits per second because we can’t assume how those bits are grouped on either end of the “conversation.”
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT: Loved it! After about the third woman’s name popped up I was suspecting it was some kind of March theme, and was trying to decide whether I would forgive some clunky fill — then got to the 22 women’s names all crossing the revealer, and decided, yes, 100%. A nice feat, and a great way to celebrate.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
NYT: clumsy device, clunky cluing. Zero entertainment value.
NYT: Not really a fan of this puzzle. I’m fine with a tribute to INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY, but wasn’t all that impressed by having famous women’s names crossing each of the letters in that revealer – that seems a bit gimmicky.
My larger issue though, is the choice of the women who were included in the puzzle – they seem to be taken heavily from the arts/pop culture. Lots of actors, musical artists and writers. How about a few more athletes, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, political figures? We have HARRIET Tubman and Sandra Day O’CONNOR and MALALA Yousafzai – but where’s Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Shirley Chisholm, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson, Sally Ride and too many athletes to name?
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 1.5 stars
Editor Patti Varol is running the LAT crossword into the ground. Her selection of puzzles is awry and her editing of clues can be very annoying. To wit: who needs to see an answer like “Finishing Salt” in a crossword.