UNIVERSAL CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Pale purple shade

6 Pub projectile

10 Drink whose logo has two lizards

14 Smiling Face with Hearteyes or Loudly Crying Face

15 Frankenstein’s assistant

16 Opera solo

17 Implied

18 “Star Trek” role for George Takei

19 Final

20 *Country trio with the 2002 hit “These Days” 23 “Abbott Elementary” airer

26 Performing pair

27 Felt hat

28 Anyone born in the 1950s 30 ___ monster (desert lizard)

32 Go bad

33 *Vendors at a weekly

market

36 “Taylor Swift: The ___

Tour” (2023 film) 37 Hawaii’s Mauna ___ 38 Leave out

42 *Colorful reef dwellers 47 Sweet potato

50 Clickable desktop

image

51 Simple shelter

52 Kind of short play

54 Plead

55 Debtor’s letters

56 “Relax!” ... or a advice to a solver who can’t figure out what’s hidden in each starred clue’s answer

60 ___ Mountains (Eurasian

range)

61 Lab container

62 “Don’t slouch!”

66 U.S. immigration policy

for “Dreamers” 67 “Anything ___?”

68 Delete

69 Squeezes (out) 70 Avocado pit, e.g. 71 Competitive personality

DOWN

1 Marathon segment 2 Texter’s “I think ...” 3 Parking place

4 Open a little

5 Strong fortress

6 ’70s music genre

7 Water, in Barcelona 8 Tootsie ___

9 Chocolate confection named for a prized underground mushroom 10 Cobb or Caesar

11 One on a soapbox,

maybe

12 Cafe

13 Patronizes, as a

12-Down

21 Hang 10, say 22 Shakespearean king 23 Well-qualified 24 Unrefined sort 25 ___-Cola

29 Ship’s sail holder

30 What an athlete might

pull

31 Apple on a desk?

34 Iams competitor 35 Couch

39 Bite-size

40 Comparison words 41 You, way back when? 43 Like calorie-dense

desserts

44 Four, for Ariana Grande’s

vocal range

45 Actor Guinness

46 The 3,955-piece “Home Alone” Mccallisters’ house, e.g.

47 “Sup man!”

48 Parka relative

49 Major pest

53 Map book

54 Bundled, as hay 57 Repulsive

58 Soothe

59 Like a poodle’s coat 63 Kind of dance for Savion

Glover

64 Employ

65 Little green veggie