LAT 3:42 (Stella) 
[3.58 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Newsday untimed (Jenni) [3.67 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:46 (Amy) 
[3.88 avg; 16 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Matthew) [3.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Matthew) 
[1.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 10:21 (Amy) 
[2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Kameron Austin Collins’s New York Times crossword — Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 3/14/26 – no. 0314
Hey! I was expecting a 7- or 8-minute puzzle, and it almost felt more like a Friday NYT. Where are my tough clues??
Fave fill: LOCAL HERO (it’s also a movie from the 1980s), PAUL SIMON, POLLIWOGS, HOTEL POOL, Impressionist ROWBOAT paintings, ACOLYTE, BOOKTOK, WHATABOUTISM, ROLL WITH IT, SESAME STREET.
Seven more things:
- 35D. [Animal identity in role play], FURSONA. As in furry fandom. I love that CAT HAIR is up above in the grid.
- 17A. [Like Thunderdell, the monster slain by Jack the Giant Killer], TWO-HEADED. I was thinking of Jack and the Beanstalk and this left me answerless. Here’s the Giant Killer deal.
- 19A. [Mottled], BLOTTY. Blotty?? Not sure I’ve seen this form of the word blot before.
- 27A
Jewelry that may double as a fastener], BREAST PIN. I don’t know what this is, and Google wasn’t too helpful (showing me endless breast cancer awareness pink ribbon pins). - 52A. [Inner tube?], INTESTINE! Ha.
- 4D. [Vulgarians], YAHOOS. Swiftian.
- 5D. [Some deflections for argument’s sake], WHATABOUTISM. Super-annoying! The classic example is “But her emails,” perhaps.
Erik Agard’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 3/14/26 by Erik Agard
A formidable but by no means insurmountable challenge, some cool entries, some real bangers in the clues. What more can I ask for on a Saturday?
- 5A [Batter’s boxful?] refers not to baseball but to CAT TOYS, because cats bat things around. Cute!
- 35A [Flash the Dolphin or Splash the Whale] is BEANIE BABY, a bit of retro fun I enjoyed (even though I didn’t have any BEANIE BABIES myself when they were a thing, because my mom thought they were a waste of money).
- 41A [Jab in a one-two combo?] is BOOSTER SHOT, in which the “jab” refers to a vaccination. Great entry, great clue.
- 52A [Structure that’s built to scale] is a CLIMBING WALL. Best clue in the puzzle. Love the deceptive use of “scale”!
- 4D [Erykah Badu’s signature song] is TYRONE, and I guess I need to listen to more Erykah, because I was like “APPLE TREE doesn’t fit here…”
- 27D [A few weeks out?] is SO LAST MONTH, i.e., “out” of fashion. Nice.
- 34D [“No.” and others] is SENTENCE, referring to the idea in psychology of “No is a complete sentence” when setting boundaries. Easier said than done.
- 38D [Heavy] doesn’t give you a lot to go on. That’s a good thing on Saturday, and the answer is VILLAIN.
David P. Williams’s Saturday Stumper Newsday crossword—Jenni’s recap
I’m pinch-hitting for pannonica today. Either I’m getting better or this was on the less Stumper-y side. I solved it before the onions finished caramelizing for the galette I’m making (it’s Pi Day, people!).
I struggled in the upper left. For one thing, I have no idea where the Sulu Sea is; at least I’ve heard of MINDANAO so once I had a few crossings, I figured it was worth a try. It also took me a long time to parse [Picture’s p.s.] and figure out the picture in question was a movie with an EIPLOG. I tried GEOTAG first once I had the final G. I also don’t care for the EPILOG spelling. I prefer EPILOGUE. I’m not saying it’s incorrect. I just don’t like it. And yes, I realize EPILOGUE is more often used in British English. I don’t think it’s quite the same as adding u’s to HONOUR and VALOUR which are never spelled that way on my side of the pond.
I digress. Back to the puzzle.
Newsday, March 14, 2026, David P. Williams, “Saturday Stumper,” solution grid
- 14a [Dome topper] is POMADE. Hmm. Since we’re talking about the top of someone’s head, “dome” makes me think of baldness and I don’t think bald people use a lot of POMADE. Does anyone use POMADE these days?
- I like the central vertical stack. If you TAKE THE BAIT, you’ll need help getting OUT OF DANGER and afterwards you can enjoy a GIN AND TONIC.
- The central horizontal stack needs a bit of rearranging and editing to make sense. The HIGHFALUTIN‘ HONEY BADGERs RUBBED NOSES. That works. Well, maybe not for the HONEY BADGERs.
- 38a [Panthera cross] is a TIGON. I’ve also seen LIGER. One source says that the name is determined by the sire: a male tiger/female lion offspring would be a TIGON and a male lion/female tiger would be a LIGER. That seems a bit – patriarchal to me. I mean, she does most of the work. Why should his name be first?
- I dropped in REHAB for [Detox center] at 44a. Nope. It’s LIVER.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: see above re: the Sulu Sea and MINDANAO. I am also somewhat ashamed to say that I had never heard of microRNA (Wikipedia has it as one word).
And since NELL appears in the grid, I leave you this. Does he ever actually say “I’ll save you, NELL?”
David Alfred Bywaters’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Inner Circles”–Amy’s recap
Wall St Journal crossword solution, 3/14/26 – “Inner Circles”
The theme entries have “inner circles” in that an O is inserted somewhere in a familiar phrase to make a goofy phrase that’s clued accordingly. Pest control becomes 22a. [Italian chef’s concern?], PESTO CONTROL. There’s also END OZONE, CELLOPHONE, FREE ORANGE (just the one?), INVISIBLE OINK (technically, every sound is invisible, so no), SUMO TOTALS ([Scores from a Japanese tournament?]? No, sumo bouts are just win/lose, no points to total up), PROMO QUEEN (I kinda like this one), ALTO ROCK (sorry, is there something particularly loud about altos? Rock isn’t necessarily louder than other genres, is it?), and FIELD ORATION. None of the themers amused me, and that’s really all I’m looking for in add-a-letter themes, chuckles of surprise along the way.
I didn’t love the fill. Things like OUI OUI, DOAN, ERL, -IN-AID, A LUI, ALTAI, SCIS, AEONS, CARIOLE, OFF A, DEEDS TO, KWH. I did like FORM LETTER, HOLBEIN, FALLACY, and IPAD AIR.
2.5 stars from me.
As you say, pretty easy for a Saturday, but also not as tidy as I’d expect from KAC. I’m glad you didn’t know BREASTPIN, because I could only assume it was a lady thing beyond my ken. BLOTTY isn’t great, and I don’t know BELTLINES either. Some good stuff in the rest of the puzzle — “The Boxer” is a great song — but a so-so experience overall.
NYT: It’s Monday now and I’m reading about the Oscars and the popularity of brooches on men at the awards. It makes me think that BREAST PIN might be the term for this trend for men, rather than brooch. I liked the puzzle. Though Collins’s name was somewhat familiar to me, I didn’t realize until the last two of his crosswords I did (the Times and the New Yorker) that his work was so solvable for me (let’s see what happens next).
NYT: I guess I’m the outlier here. I like a little chewiness in a Saturday puzzle, but this one went down like a two-dollar steak. Gave up and came back three times before I finished it. Can’t point to anything specific that caused my problems – BOOKTOK and FURSONA were unknowns, didn’t know the reference for TWO-HEADED, BLOTTY is not in my vocabulary, BREAST PIN was unfamiliar, HOTEL POOL and BODY OIL seemed a little green-painty – but overall, fair. Liked the clues for CAT HAIR and INTESTINE.
It felt a bit tough to me, but still finished under my average time; not sure what to account for there. Pretty good Saturday puzzle!
seemed a little tough to me, but time was average
Maybe only reasonable given the disagreements here on difficulty, but I found different levels not always great fill or in line with the hardest day of the week. SESAME STREET needed few crossings before I had something I could recognize, and PAUL SIMON was a gimme. These in turn gave footholds.
Still, there was a lot new or weird to me, pretty much already mentioned in comments, and I had special trouble finishing in the sector with FURSONA and that unpleasant device of not just cross-refs, but mutual cross-refs.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
NYT: Excellent as usual from KAC! Loved it.
NYT: I like feeling smart after a KAC puzzle on a Saturday! The errant BULLFROGS slowed me down until I realized ROLLWITHIT had to be right.
Couldn’t understand why SUVs came with EMTs these days (Maybe the TUNDRA was stuck in my head), but rereading the clue helped.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Breezy for a KAC Saturday. I agree with the other commenters calling out BREASTPIN. I had the incorrectly spelled BROACHPIN which slowed my flow. As is usual in his puzzles I learned some new words: FURSONA, and BOOKTOK.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
themeless of the year candidate
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I felt like WHATABOUTISM needed a plural due to the way it was clued. This threw me off for a while.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
BLOTTY keeping this from perfect for me. Also, the WOK clue may be technically correct, but I always found them to be particularly good for stir frying and I am not sure we have ever used ours for deep frying. Maybe worth a try, but certainly not an association that comes to mind. Anyway…
Loved the clue for SESAME STREET which I didn’t catch until I had it solved. INTESTINE made me smile. Loved this one.
Wok is the default deep frying tool in Chinese cooking.
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 3.5 stars
My Stumper time means on the easier side, but still a lot of flailing before a foothold in SW. Once things got rolling the middle was pretty easy. Had to guess two letters in the NW but lucked out.
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 4 stars
The northwest corner in the Stumper was a killer. I was adrift in the Sulu Sea.
I think there’s a point to the “Picture’s p.s.” clue: “p.s.” is a shortened form, as is EPILOG.
I’m not happy with EVERY as an answer for 1-A, “Complete.” “Complete” describes a thing with all its parts; “every” describes the parts of a thing.
I pulled up the Maps app to eyeball the Sulu Sea’s shores. Was thinking it would be something Chinese, like Qingzhao, before the map showed me the familiar island name. D’oh! That corner had me stumped–I started there but had most of it blank till the end.
I wanted CHEKOV BAY but it didn’t fit
I knew there was a Star Trek joke in there!
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 4 stars
for the puzzle. Five stars for the review. A Gin and Tonic with Dudley and Snidely tops my list
Aww, thanks!
NYT: Like Amy, I was expecting a major struggle but that didn’t happen. I usually find KAC puzzles to be totally off my wavelength, and I often find them to be very frustrating. It helped that I knew off the top of my head the two trivia answers of MOONRAKER and PAULSIMON that were back-to-back in the middle of the puzzle.
Stumper: Yes, on the easy side today. My husband got the upper right, center, and some of the upper left all on his own — usually, he’ll just do one or two and that’s it. Only issues with what he did was that he misspelled Mindanao (had Mindinao) and tried an “est” ending for 12A (perfectly fair to try, but wrong in this case). Like Jenni, I didn’t like “pomade” and for the same reason — “dome” implies bald and you don’t usually use pomade on a bald head. I will say that my dictionary’s definition was “a perfumed ointment ; esp: a fragrant hair dressing,” so theoretically, an ointment could go on a bald head. I also was puzzled by 12A’s “open net” — I guess a tennis term? — and 24A’s “retie” — don’t understand that one. Lastly, never heard of 26A’s “graviton” — I’ll have to look that one up. All in all, despite my quibbles, I thought it was pretty good.
Empty net comes from hockey, when the team that’s losing pulls its goalie in the final minutes in a last-ditch attempt to score a goal (by having an extra offensive player). This usually just leads to an easy goal for the other team.
Retie has something to do with evening (tying) the score but I thought that clue was hard to parse.
Goodness! No wonder I didn’t know “open net”! I know next to nothing about hockey, except I have heard of pulling the goalie. Yes, tying “evening” to “retire” is a REAL stretch! Thanks!
I thought RETIE had to do with tying a bow again to make the ends even. My first thought was REMIT (“Now we’re even”).
NYT: Hey Amy, something wonky happened with your “Giant Killer” link. Were you intending to link to Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderdell
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 2 stars
WSJ: 2 stars
I didn’t like that the vowel sound changed from long to short in many of the themers.