The New York Times Crossword

By Will Nediger

ACROSS

1 Modern-day scrapbooks, of a sort

16 Common cybersecurity measure

17 Successfully strike

a delicate balance

18 Home of the Kingdom of Dahomey, today

19 Balanced

20 Like a proposal in Congress that has zero chance of passing, in brief

21 ___ Morgenstern, author of “The Night Circus”

22 Heavyweight

wrestlers

24 Sign … or signature

25 Org. that employs Hank on “Breaking Bad”

26 Five-time Grammywinning jazz pianist Mccoy ___

27 Something large often stored upside down

28 Does

29 See eye to eye

30 Auto parts brand

owned by GM

33 Party leader?

34 Special coffee

shop offerings

35 Sandwich made

with a telera roll

36 Shiny button

material

37 Europe, Asia and

America 38 Some vaccine administrators, in brief

41 The low, low price

of

42 Refuses to keep

going

43 Handy trick

44 Molecule that can interfere in gene expression

45 Member of an elite

force

46 Watercolor, clay

and others

47 Academic who works with many different schools, maybe

51 Sierra Nevada

offering

52 Mediocre at best

DOWN

1 Place to let

sleeping dogs lie

2 Arrival

announcement

3 Literary domain of Peter the Magnificent and Susan the Gentle

4 Marketing link

5 ___ vital (life force, from the French)

6 Fire-engine ___

7 Hearing monitor,

for short

8 Rhyming

arrangements, e.g.

9 Comic Noah who wrote the autobiographical “Born a Crime”

10 Actress Amanda

Edited by Will Shortz No. 1223

11 Many a

tournament

12 ___ and ran

13 “Good ___!”

14 Like a dirge

15 Athletic items never purchased individually

22 Aligns

23 Command after an

accidental deletion

24 Kind of ray

26 Piña colada topper

27 Goes for

28 One of two Tudor

kings

29 Tangle in an office

30 Not what you’d

expect

31 Madiba, for Nelson

Mandela

32 States

33 Loud bird sound

35 Capital on the Gulf

of Finland

37 Words sung on the same notes as “twinkle,” in a different nursery rhyme

38 Branching out from

the center

39 Longtime police procedural that ended in 2023, informally

40 Expert with

figures?

42 Wood for smoking

andouille sausage

43 Philosopher who was a major influence on Marx

45 Hissy

46 One whose distance may be measured by the yard?

48 Division of the

Treasury Dept.

49 Black ___

50 West Coast news

inits.