The New York Times Crossword

ACROSS

1 Reality checks?

9 Raze

16 Austin Powers

catchphrase

17 Family tree

18 Highway crossing

19 Fail

20 NBA impossibility

21 Perp alert

23 Mob man

24 Sequentially

arranged

28 Explains in detail

32 Container weight

allowances

33 Clever quip

35 LAX scanners (but not lax ones, one hopes)

36 Unit of cellphone

reception

37 Uncle Sam’s land,

informally

40 Dating axiom

… or a hint to interpreting four pairs of answers in this puzzle

46 “Natural” at the

craps table

47 “Unbelievable!,” in

internet shorthand

48 Hypothetical

degree

49 Road runners?

52 Jazz great Shaw

54 Like an impromptu

remark

56 Keep wearing

58 Name for two

Spice Girls 59 Well-seasoned

61 Mobile _ _ _

62 Rehearsed to

perfection

66 Excite, as a crowd

71 Conforming to

accepted values

72 Some desert

dwellers

73 Eerie

74 Many countryand-western dances

DOWN

1 Admit (to)

2 “Now I remember who sang ‘Take On Me’!”

3 “Washington

Week” airer

4 One being quizzed

5 Conductors may

conduct them

6 “Never ___ ever

...”

7 Boston’s Mass.

___

8 Lab liquids

9 It goes viral in

winter

10 Director Justin of the “Fast & Furious” franchise

11 “Wait, there’s

more …”

12 Prop used for

kickoffs

13 Entering after the

bell

14 Food items originally called Froffles

Edited by Will Shortz No. 0208

15 It may glow in the

dark

22 Luau side dish

24 Title role for Tom

Hanks in 2022

25 Scraping tools

26 Arrange loosely

27 Without ice or

mixer

29 “Agreed!”

30 Where trailers

wind up

31 Spanish love

34 Start to fix?

36 “You got it!”

38 Colorful Coke

brand

39 End of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”

41 Place to put the

dough

42 Email function depicted with a paper plane icon

43 Brasilia-to-rio dir.

44 Playground retort

45 “America”

pronoun

50 “I wish!”

51 Jets pass in it, for

short

52 Lead dogs

53 Split hairs again?

54 Where Lear exclaims “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!”

55 Despite the fact

that, informally

57 ___ cheese

58 Video format

60 Tidy up, in a way

63 Bad-mouth

64 LGBT History Mo.

65 Mart start

67 Dog on a cat?

68 Emmy-nominated

Issa

69 Economic fig.

70 End of days?