UNIVERSAL CROSSWORD PUZZLE

ACROSS

1 Exploding Head or Cowboy Hat Face

6 Torah cabinet ... or boat

9 Pride Month letters

14 Assessed

15 Workplace initialism whose middle letter stands for “equity”

16 Half of this clue’s number

17 Atmospheric molecule

18 Allow

19 Pong company

20 Actress Ruby or Sandra

21 Very minor celebrity

24 “Cleanup on aisle five” tool

25 “If all ___ fails ...”

27 Follows the leader?

28 “Have I got ___ for you!”

29 D&D, e.g.

31 Miso protein

33 First lady who’s made history by working a non-White House job

38 Letter after upsilon

40 Searched high and low

41 Genre hidden in “played music”

44 Charged particle

45 LAX X-ray operators

46 ___ de Janeiro

47 Mopey music genre

48 “How Deep Is Your Love” R&B group, 1998

52 WWW access option

53 Job applicants’ submissions

55 One born yesterday, say?

57 Plane ticket prices

58 Money, in slang

59 Biotech focus achieved by the starts of 21-, 33-, 48- and 59-Across?

64 You are ___ (mall map words)

65 Dallas resident

66 Free throw paths

67 What’s more?

68 Crock-Pot concoctions

69 Staircase segment

DOWN

1 Wash away over time

2 “___ tov!”

3 Plains people who believe in Wakanda

4 Nickname that drops -nifer

5 Named, briefly

6 Improvised line

7 Actress Witherspoon

8 Cat, to a child

9 Shakespearean king

10 “Scat!”

11 Athlete’s second-best effort

12 Toss

13 Aesthetician’s swabs

22 Sudoku solver’s skill

23 Along for the Vibe nail polish brand

26 Mess up

28 Science guy Bill

30 Sleepover duds

32 Uneven?

33 Velociraptors, e.g.

34 Sacred flower in Hinduism

35 Full of foliage

36 Organ with over 80 billion neurons

37 Jokey reply to someone geeking out

38 Wharf’s relative

39 Out of the woods

42 26.2 miles, for a marathon

43 Whack-a-___

48 Contacted privately on Insta

49 Puts back at zero

50 Yellow fruits

51 Circular part of a roller coaster

54 Encourages

56 “Enough!” in Ecuador

59 UPS alternative

60 Pet doc

61 Program file extension

62 Statute

63 Recipe amt.