LAT 2:33 (Stella) 
[3.58 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Newsday 15:07 (Kyle) [3.70 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:05 (Amy) 
[3.09 avg; 17 ratings] rate it
Universal 4:56 (Adam S) 
[3.92 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
USA Today untimed (ZEB) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 8:47 (Kyle) rate it
Daniel Bodily’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 6/6/26 – no. 0606
Easier for me than the Friday puzzle was. Go figure!
This 60-worder has wide-open corners with roughly 6×8 white spaces. A grid like that will generally contain some clunky fill to get everything to hold together.
Fave fill: SCHMEARS, UHAUL VAN, stepmom MOMALA Kamala Harris, PRESTIGE, KING-SIZE, PIE FIGHT, WAYFARER.
Entries that feel a little off to me include BURN SAGE, ATE CAKE, NETTER, DEARIE ME, SNEES, GETS TAN, TSETSE. AMENDMENT I is another way to refer to the First Amendment, but does anyone call it “amendment one” rather than “the First Amendment”?
New to me: 4D. [Hindu clerk], MUNSHI. Curious to know if this is everyday vocab in India. Wonder how many constructors have this in their word list!
Three more things:
- 2D. [Mexican fried pastry often covered in cinnamon sugar], CHURRO. Technically, churros originated in Spain and Portugal and they got colonized to places the Spaniards and Portuguese invaded.
- 28D. [School memento], CLASS PIN. I don’t remember that from high school and college in the 1980s. eBay has a bunch of vintage class pins. When’s the last time you saw a school touting class pins?
- 29D. [Doc’s license plate in “Back to the Future”], OUTATIME. Eww. First, if you’re going to use that phrase, it’s “outta.” Second, the movie trilogy takes place in California, which has long had an 7-character limit for plates. They’re considering going up to 8 now, but the movie people should’ve devised a plausible vanity plate for Doc.
A feat to fill a grid that looks like this, but the fill compromises that a challenging grid generally entails make the result less fun for me as a solver. 3.5 stars from me.
August Miller’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 6/6/26 by August Miller
I liked this puzzle and was surprised at how far below 3 my time was when I stopped the clock, given that it wasn’t terribly easy to get a toehold in the NW corner. There are some nice 10s and 11s to enjoy here for their own sake, and some fun clues as well:
- I liked TOMATOMETER and ONE-TIME CODE in the NW, both of which fit nicely into that “current, but not going to be outdated in a year” sweet spot.
- 34A I’ve never heard of LOSSY compression, but it gets more than a million Google hits with quotation marks. Duly noted, TIL.
- 51A [Birth years for some of Gen Z] is EARLY AUGHTS, which is a nice entry that, as clued, makes me feel old. (In the EARLY AUGHTS I was a recent college graduate.)
- 55A [Agreed-upon next steps] is ACTION ITEMS, which is evocative of the workday. I’m all for more corporate-speak in puzzles, preferably clued in a mocking way. (Anyone who ever worked for me during the years I was a manager at various ad agencies knows the one-woman war I’ve waged for years against the use of “leverage” to mean any number of things that it doesn’t actually mean.)
- 11D [Entities that carry rock and roll] is a great clue that makes an otherwise meh entry, ORE CAR, really satisfying to solve.
- 24D I also liked [Group of Caribbean islands?] for CALYPSO BAND…
- 37D …and [Place for grilling or roasting] for HOT SEAT.
Vasu Seralathan’s Wall Street Journal crossword “DOUBLE DUTY” – Kyle’s write-up
Wall Street Journal solution grid “DOUBLE DUTY” – Vasu Seralathan – Saturday 06/06/2026
Thanks Vasu for today’s WSJ puzzle. The theme draws on the common trope of puns on jobs, with a revealer to tie the set together:
- 22A [*Getaway driver?] TOUR BUS OPERATOR
- 41A [*Stickup man?] TREE TRIMMER
- 48A [*Dope peddler?] PRO CYCLIST
- 66A [*Confidence man?] LIFE COACH
- 90A [*Hacker?] LUMBERJACK
- 96A [*Bagman?] GUCCI DEALER
- 116A [Folks with long rap sheets, and what the starred clues sound like they are] CAREER CRIMINALS
As a twist on the “job puns” theme category, it’s a clever idea to find jobs that can be described as CAREER CRIMINALS. However, the theme set here suffers from a several flaws. First, because TREE TRIMMER can conceivably refer to two different jobs (arborist or Christmas tree decorator) it’s hard to know what “stickup” is supposed to mean in the context of the answer; contrast this with [Getaway driver] for TOUR BUS OPERATOR, where “getaway” clearly is being repurposed to refer to a vacation. Second, “peddler” can’t conceivably refer to CYCLIST, since “peddle” and “pedal” (which is clearly intended) have different meanings. Finally, GUCCI DEALER is a green paint answer; this could just as easily be FENDI DEALER or COACH DEALER. It’s a shame that there wasn’t more work put into the execution of the theme.
Notes on fill and clues:
- The clue for 116D contains an error: the director of the film adaption of “Wicked” is Jon M. CHU, as in “Jonathan”, not “John”. Another example of the puzzle needing a bit more polishing.
- On the plus side, BOOZE CRUISE (64D) is a great entry elevated by its clue [Opportunity to get ship-wrecked?]. Several other nice long entries here include JABRONIS, BEAST MODE, ARMS EMBARGO, PIT CREWS, MEL TORME, and IN RESERVE.
- Another great clue at 32A SIDE TWO: [Vinyl lovers flip for it]
- The clue for 4D JURASSIC [Birds originally appeared during it] reminds me of a fascinating fact of evolution: Birds are dinosaurs.
- Xanadu is the name of Charles Foster KANE‘s estate in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Tricky, because K___ easily leads the solver to KHAN, as in the poem “Kubla Khan”
Adrian Johnson’s USA Today Crossword “Do You Still Love Me? (Freestyle)” – Zachary Edward-Brown’s write-up
Adrian Johnson’s USA Today Crossword “Do You Still Love Me? (Freestyle)” – 6/6/26
It’s a themeless! I’m a big fan of Adrian’s work, and this one was a blast to solve.
Fave fill: ATE LOCAL, MARINE BIOLOGIST, I SLEPT LIKE A BABY, PANIC AT THE DISCO, PERSONAL TRAINER, FLIGHT SIMULATOR, SPIRITUAL CRISIS, and my favorite, HES A TEN BUT…
Really beautiful, sparkly stuff all around. The six spanners had me whooshing around the grid. Nicely done!
Favorite clue: 11D [Phrase before a “red flag” reveal] HES A TEN BUT Favorite clue and favorite answer! How often does that happen?
4.75 stars
Mike Graczyk’s Universal Crossword “Universal Freestyle 226” – Adam S’s write-up
Mike Graczyk’s Universal Crossword “Universal Freestyle 226” – 6/6/26
“OK, SURPRISE ME.”
“Actually, I do have news. You are now our official BETA TESTER of new eating and drinking establishments around town. You can start with the new RETRO DINER on Main and the KARAOKE BAR on State.
“That sounds like fun, I DON’T SEE IT lasting long, but HERE’S TO YOU for making it happen.”
Does anyone else like playing this game with themeless answers, or is this just one of the many ways I’m weird?
In any case, this was a well-made puzzle. The long stuff hit, and the short stuff was admirably clean, with only ERES getting a squint of side-eye from me. Whether intentional or not, the CCGGC diagonal running up the center of the grid also looks cool to my eyes.
A few notes:
- 1A OBOES [They’re found among the reeds] This is a nicely judged, gentle misdirect that is perfect for Universal. It’s not an original angle, but TBF this is the 1,640th clue for OBOE(S) in the Crosserville database, and so totally original clues are going to be few and far between!
- 28A GUESS SO [“I suppose …”] and 5D SO THERE [“Take that!”] This is a great example of why I support the trend of not being too pedantic about what constitutes a dupe. These are both lively for mid-length entries, and the grid would have been poorer for making the constructor choose between them.
- 8D MEET CUTES [Intros to chemistry?] Another good entry, but the question mark clue didn’t land for me. Partly because the surface phrase is awkward in the plural and partly because the “to” was a bit jarring for me in relation to the answer.
- 24D READ [What some say it’s not right to be left on] I’m too embarrassed to tell you how long it took me post-solve to work out what this cluing angle was getting at. Anyone texting me about it will be left on read.
- 26D KARAOKE BAR [Place to sing and drink] This is the sixth KARAOKE BAR in Universal in the last 71 days. I’m beginning to wonder if Universal is secretly funded by Big Karaoke!
S.N.’s Newsday Saturday Stumper – Kyle’s write-up
Newsday solution grid – S.N. – Saturday 06/06/2026
It looks like today’s Saturday Stumper is by editor Stanley Newman under his nom de plume, S.N. The Stumpers have long been a challenging puzzle for me to finish in under 20 minutes but today I managed it in about 15, so I was quite satisfied. I worked the central NW-SE axis first, then the SW corner. At that point I was stuck with just SASHES and NEILL in the NE so I took a break to exercise, and came back to the puzzle an hour later. At that point I saw I could make a reasonable guess at EINE and UN- at the start of 13D. It turned out those were both correct and a minute or two later I had solved the whole corner. AGFA was the answer that needed every cross to get–I think I’ve heard of the company but I didn’t know they were based in Belgium or worked in imaging.
Notes:
-
- PERTH (5D) and STUN (20A) were my first two entries, allowing me to nail down the NW corner pretty quickly. Helps to know some Scottish geography!
- Never heard the term ANSWER SONG (17A) but it’s very apt for the clue [“This Land Is Your Land” to “God Bless America”]
- Fun clue for KEN (9D) [He’s had 40+ jobs since the ’60s (surfer, boxer, barista…)]. As of a couple years ago, his job is now just “beach”.
- Momentarily stumped by having X___ at 67A [Sort of small saw]. However, I was 100% confident in MCXC for 58D (the year 1190, [124 years after Hastings] in 1066) and eventually cracked XACTO KNIFE, which is a cool-looking entry. Actually looking again now, there are several rarer letters throughout the grid: FROZEN/IZVESTIA, JAM/JOSTLE, OZONE/AZARIA, T. REX/NIXES, QTY./HIGH IQ
- Hey, I never realized LEST (59A) is a conjunction. It’s not in the FANBOYS mnemonic.
NW of the NYT stopped me dead. Got the rest of the puzzle but just stared at that section forever. Couldn’t see SUBPAR or ROSINED, didn’t know BURN SAGE (I was expecting a word in another language) or ELSTON. Eventually looked up synonyms of “deficient” and put in SUBPAR, but still stuck. Looked up ELSTON, then got ROSINED. And I still couldn’t see BURN SAGE (MUNSHI was just 6 random letters as far as I was concerned). I was thinking BURSSAGE or some such random word I’d never know. Tried random letters until the puzzle told me I was done.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Exactly the same here. Flew through the SW, got the SE and NE with only a little difficulty, and then the NW was a mess. I had to look up the Stravinsky quote to get it all to fall into place.
I still liked it but I guess that’s the downside of grids like this. It’s like solving four separate smaller grids.
This puzzle took me quite a while, but I finished with no errors. I did okay in the NW, getting U-HAUL VAN, CHURROS and ELSTON right away – but that crossing of MUNSHI and BURN SAGE took me quite a while to see.
Hardest area for me was the SW. SAW TO before COPED. ANTE UP and then CHIP IN before STIR IN. I know very little French, so the clue for ESCARGOT didn’t mean much to me. Have you ever heard anyone say “DEARIE ME?” Resisted NETTER until I had no other choice. Like Amy, I’ve never heard of a CLASS PIN.
The puzzle had an old-timey vibe to me (and I’m an old guy). I grew up in farm country, but haven’t lived there in 50 years – CORN CRIBs were pretty much defunct by the time I left. SNEES? When was the last time anyone bought a DESK SET? Does anyone say STARLET anymore? “Honey, I’M HOME” is straight out of 1960’s sit-coms.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
The NE section was by far the hardest one for me. As a big-city person, I’d never heard of a CORN CRIB before. Unlike Amy, I loved ATE CAKE (Took Marie Antoinette’s advice?).
I’ve read extensively about Queen Victoria, so I was familiar with the term MUNSHI. As Empress of India, Queen Victoria in her later years had Hindu servants to whom she became quite close. She called one of them her Munshi. She even took lessons in Hindustani from him.
Though the history of the 19th-century British Empire is shameful, the queen herself was not racist or xenophobic.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Similar experience here with the NW being the most challenging and the NE secondmost. I have never heard the term RAGGEDEDGE nor was I familiar with MUNSHI or ELSTON. Also, an indigenous term for #17A is smudging but it didn’t fit. In the NE, I threw myself off with CORNSILO and WANDERER. Overall, it was satisfying to finish but took more time than usual.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Ditto. I started with CARGOVAN and RAZORSEDGE which delayed me quite a bit. But I knew it had to be CHURROS, so just kept plugging away. No idea why I couldn’t see UHAUL. Thought about (something) JARS for spreads and finally saw SCHMEARS, which broke everything loose (finally). **Extremely** satisfying puzzle, since I was so close to throwing in the towel and cheating, but prevailed in the end. Small deduction for some of the weird/old-fashioned fill mentioned above. (ARMHOLES was my least favorite).
NYT somewhat easier than yesterday. Each of the four mini-puzzles had one or two easier entries; once you got that, the rest weren’t too bad. Item in opening scene from Frozen went ICEAXE -> ICESAW.
+1 on ICEAXE —> ICESAW. And despite CHURROS being an “easy” entry in the NW for me, it gave me zero purchase (unlike the other 3 quadrants).
Universal: I don’t understand 24D – “What some say it’s not right to be left on” – how is this “READ”? I’ve thought of lamps, politics, abandonment … 11D for me.
Same here. I thought of “RED” as an answer to the clue, as in a left turn on a red light. But of course it doesn’t fit the grid. Not sure how “READ” fits the clue. Maybe someone will “enlighten” us lol.
To leave someone on “read” means that a text was delivered and read (so the recipient gets a “read” message), but there was no response. So the person who sent the original text was “left on read,” without any further dialogue.
Many think leaving someone on read can be rude, akin to walking away in the middle of a conversation.
Thank you. My basic Android doesn’t have that feature, so it never entered my mind.
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 5 stars
I suppose it’s pronounced “red”, not “reed”.
I don’t think it’s a part of the operating system. Rather, each app can have (or not have…) a way of letting you know that your message has been displayed. In WhatsApp, that’s two blue checkmarks. (Of course, the message having been displayed does not necessarily mean that someone actually read it.)
I don’t think I’ve come across the expression “left on read” before, but I do find it rather annoying when it happens to me. (Although I must admit having been guilty of it myself… ;) )
I just had this conversation with my kids – apparently it has to do with checkmarks attached to the original message. It’s one of those little things that make me feel left behind as I age. If one ascribes to the theory that one’s brain can only hold a finite amount of knowledge, this is something I’m fine with leaving out. But thanks for the explanation – it does relieve some frustration.
Sorry the write-up was a bit late this morning. I was roughly 30 seconds away from seeing if my kids could bail me out before the penny dropped!
NYT was way harder for me than yesterday’s, mainly because of the NW section. Eventually I googled to get ELSTON, but I still struggled to finish. MUNSHI was entirely new to me, as is RAGGEDEDGE, and it took me a long time to come up with CHURROS, which I only vaguely know. PRESTIGE and BURNSAGE were the last to fall.
I’m happy to have harder puzzles on a Saturday, but this one was a bridge too far me because of that corner. And I really don’t like the way it consists of four almost separate puzzles with minimal connection.
Stumper: We followed the same progression as Kyle, but the lower left and upper right took us longer and I needed to look up some stuff. Difficulties were that I had tried “ma’am” as the ending for 57A, “clam” for 11A, erc.
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 4 stars
Same path, longer time for me. The NE was particularly tough for me. I expected something more exotic for Foreign Legion wear, I needed maybe all of the crossings for NEILL, EINE and AGFA and those crosses didn’t fall easily for me. When they did, they made perfect sense. I’m blaming my time on the two strokes I’ve had in the past three weeks. Not major ones, but definitely more than a TIA
.
It’s definitely an established Thing.
e.g.:
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Can’t believe people liked the NYT. MUNSHI, CORN CRIB, RAGGED EDGE, SNEE? This was a really challenging puzzle when it was constructed in 1947, but today it just seemed impossible. I had ROSINED early on but kept trying to figure out how to have it work while crossing RAZORS EDGE.
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 4 stars
I’m a big fan of crossword punster Mike Graczyk, and you can find his weekly puzzle at:
https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewforum.php?f=6
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4 stars
It seems quite unfair that there are THREE (at least) comediennes named Amy whose last names have the same number of letters!
Late entry: Frank NETTER was one of the most prominent and prolific medical illustrators whose name is synonymous with human anatomy. Every first-year medical student has likely used his atlas during dissections or to study for an anatomy test.