Crossword No. 687: In the Zone

ACROSS

1 With many missions planned there, the European Space Agency last week proposed a new time zone for this place (with “the”)

5 1997 Nicolas Cage thriller

11 Part of WWW 14 Colombian city

15 Poet Gorman

16 Nest-egg fund, briefly 17 With one eastward step into China from this country you lose 3.5 hours of your day, because vast China has chosen to use just one time zone

19 Langley org.

20 Org. at airports 21 Medical insertion, for short

22 Minnesota’s 11,842 (not 10,000)

24 “Now I get it!”

25 Scent with a number in its name

27 Regions in time zones that observe daylight savings will do this on March 12

32 Fail due to nervousness

33 Best Picture after The Artist

34 Some rolls of a die 36 Glimpsed

37 Bookstore section

40 “I’m impressed”

41 Eisenhower and Barinholtz, for two 43 Surname with a tilde 44 Creator of 59-Across 46 Science fiction great who in 1976 argued in favor of One World Time, i.e. abolishing all time zones

49 Shot in the dark 50 TikTok features

51 With 31-Down, oldschool cookie 53 World-weary cry

55 “Well the thing is...” 58 Chic tuna

59 Around the World in 80 Days protagonist who unwittingly gained a day by traveling eastward through all 24 time zones

63 Attempt on eBay 64 More Stephen King– like

65 Eagerly anticipating 66 Plea from the sea 67 Rasta’s locks

68 “Dress for Less” store

DOWN

1 Examination for future docs

2 Klutzy types

3 Gymnast Korbut 4 Bethesda, Md., facility 5 Biblical promised land 6 Exclude

7 A Beautiful Mind mathematician

8 Little marcher

9 First lady McKinley 10 Needed replenishing 11 Baskets and patio furniture, often

12 Great Lakes port

13 Flock comments

18 More sore

23 Medical school subj. 24 Noah’s craft

25 Fancy brandy 26 Restaurateur Ray

27 ___ Zulu (African king) 28 They deliver juice 29 Fortnite fans, e.g. 30 Piece of Swiss bread 31 See 51-Across

32 Vegas show

35 Pronoun for a ship 38 Masterwork

39 Gets around

42 Leave wowed

45 Hosp. areas

47 Put into piles

48 Jackson and Alexander, for two 51 Popular pet puppies 52 East Palestine’s state 53 Actress Shawkat 54 Listen to

55 Overly energized

56 They can clash or get deflated

57 Fragile dozen

60 Yonder gal

61 Rage

62 Quite a distance