NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD
SUGAR, SUGAR BY LUCY HOWARD AND ROSS TRUDEAU / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ
Lucy Howard, of Austin, Tex., teaches therapeutic yoga and does internet marketing. She made her first puzzle as an icebreaker for her wedding last year. Ross Trudeau, of Cambridge, Mass., works for a K-12 education nonprofit. They met online last summer. Ross says, “We quickly bonded over our mutual love of crosswords and rock climbing.” They spent many hours on Zoom making this puzzle. This is Ross’s 37th puzzle for The Times. It is Lucy’s debut. — W.S.
ACROSS
1 Onetime Sony rival
8 Off-color
12 Maker of the X6 and Z4
15 Doctors Without Borders, e.g.: Abbr. 18 Deep secret
19 ‘‘____ Dead?’’ (Mark Twain play)
20 Quickly learn one’s
lesson?
21 Startling sound
22 Bookworms call
dad?
24 South Beach and
Paleo, for two
26 Swiss painter Paul 27 Company whose business is picking up?
28 Seedy area?
29 Big Apple media
inits.
30 Depletes, with ‘‘up’’ 31 A young Justice Ginsburg chuckles?
36 Signature item
37 Singer Watson, a.k.a.
Tones and I, with the 2019 hit ‘‘Dance Monkey’’ 38 Apt name for a
lawyer
39 False accusation,
informally
40 Fancy Feast
alternative
43 One ‘‘R’’ in R&R
46 Hoarse
47 Do core exercises
all day, every day?
51 52 53 54 ‘‘____ Elusive Quick Business Brockovich’’ drive legend for Sanders supporters?
57 Holiday dish served with sour cream or applesauce
60 Links grp.
62 Hard to handle, in
away
64 Hunky-dory
66 Response to an
order
67 Burger King
bingefest?
71 Alma mater for Spike Lee and Donald Glover, for short
72 Logical connector 73 With the greatest
of ____
74 ____ golf
75 Sloped-roof
support
77 Govt. org. with a forerunner known as the Black Chamber
79 Race units
81 Dinner-table
expander
83 Hops-drying oven 84 Supernova in our
galaxy?
90 Follower of word or
potato
93 ‘‘Gimme ____’’
94 ____-cat
95 Numerous
97 Symbols in Twitter
handles
99 Like ____ of
sunshine
100 Anatomical pouch 103 When E.M.T.S bring home the bacon?
108 ‘‘I mean . . . ’’
109 A/C spec
110 Members of the crow family 111 Heavier alternative to a foil
112 Guthrie who performed at Woodstock
113 Cutting edge? 115 Some astronomy Ph.d.s?
119 Longtime
Japanese P.M. who stepped down in 2020
120 ‘‘Runnin’ ’’ team of N.C.A.A. Division I college basketball 121 Comparable (to) 122 Disciple
123 Tarnish
124 Really good time 125 Capital near the
North Sea
126 Prepares (for)
DOWN
1 Prepare for a road
trip, perhaps
2 End of a threat
3 Nora Ephron and Sofia Coppola, for two
4 The land down
under?
5 Walk-____
6 Prickly covering of
a seed
7 ‘‘____ the only one?’’ 8 Beatles title woman
9 ‘‘____ your request ...’’
10 Feature of a classical Greek drama
11 ‘‘You betcha!’’
12 ‘‘The ____ — is wider than the Sky’’ (start of an Emily Dickinson poem) 13 Bit of fill-in-theblanks fun
14 Subject of intl. treaties
15 Compliant sorts
16 Squalid digs
17 Sports team V.I.P.S 20 Corporate money managers, for short
23 Ancient Egyptians 25 Result of a breast pocket mishap, maybe
28 Ally of the Brat
Pack
31 Common baking pear
32 Sacred cross in
ancient Egypt
33 Chance to go
34 Preserve, in a way 35 Only Stratego piece
with a letter on it 37 Sardine container 41 Studmuffin
42 Absorb, as sauce
with bread
44 Give extra consideration, with ‘‘on’’
45 Idaho, e.g., in
dialect
47 Color marker
48 Got hip, with ‘‘up’’ 49 How a door might
be slammed 50 Subcontractor in a
bathroom remodel 51 Gusto
55 One may be nominated for a Hugo Award
56 Least forward
58 Palindromic farm
animal
59 ‘‘We ____ Overcome’’ 61 Stubborn sorts
63 It helps in passing 65 Rocker Cobain
68 Japan’s street food
mecca 69 Diarist who documented the Great Plague of London
70 Gets lost
76 Eponym of the
Detroit Lions field 78 Any Olympian, once 80 Drops an f-bomb, say 82 False fronts
85 Promises, promises! 86 Takes steps
87 ____ avis
88 Coarse farm sound 89 Dangerous move on a
busy highway
90 ‘‘Blueberries for
____’’
(kid-lit classic) 91 Legendary password stealer
92 Higher, as ambitions 96 Build-your-own Texmex dish
98 Does a dog trick
101 Declare
102 Where hangers hang 104 They go wherever
the wind blows 105 They can be batted
and rolled
106 When high school seniors often visit colleges that accepted them
107 Like binary questions 108 Volt-amperes
113 Attention hog, maybe 114 Galoot
115 Portrait seen on
renminbi bills
116 Car-sticker fig.
117 ‘‘Roses ____ red . . . ’’ 118 Nonsense