"Howards End" daughter / WED 6-10-26 / Landon who ran against F.D.R. in 1936 / Cousin of a flugelhorn / Notes of appreciation, in online parlance / Motivator, of a sort / ___ House, residence for visiting dignitaries in Washington / Only player on three victorious teams in this puzzle

Constructor: David J. Kahn and Ethan Quigley

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: WORLD CUP WINNERS (7D: Global "club" with only eight members, each of which appears in circled letters with its country code) — just like it says: the country codes for the only eight countries ever to win the World Cup can be found in the eights sets of three circled squares inside today's grid:

Theme answers:

• BRAWL (4A: Big dust-up [1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002]) 🇧🇷
• AFFRAY (18A: Big dust-up [1998, 2018]) 🇫🇷
• WAR GOD (24A: Mars, notably [1978, 1986, 2022]) 🇦🇷
• TAURUS (36A: Cinco de Mayo birth, e.g. [1930, 1950]) 🇺🇾
• GERWIG (43A: "Lady Bird" director Greta [1954, 1974, 1990, 2014]) 🇩🇪
• NARITA (50A: Japan Airlines hub [1934, 1938, 1982, 2006]) 🇮🇹
• AVENGE (61A: Get back for [1966]) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
• ESPYS (69A: Awards for Shohei Ohtani and Caitlin Clark [2010]) 🇪🇸
• (bonus answer) PELE (56D: Only player on three victorious teams in this puzzle)

Word of the Day: ALF Landon (1A: Landon who ran against F.D.R. in 1936) —

Alfred Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887 – October 12, 1987) was an American oilman and politician who served as the 26th governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's nominee in the 1936 presidential election, and was defeated in a landslide by incumbent president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The margin of victory in the electoral college was the largest of Roosevelt's four elections to the office of president, as Landon won just 8 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 523. Landon died on October 12, 1987, becoming the only presidential candidate from either of the major parties to live to the age of 100 until Jimmy Carter in 2024, and is to date the only Republican candidate to do so. [...] The 1936 Republican National Convention selected Landon as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. He proved to be an ineffective campaigner and carried just two states in the election, neither of which was Kansas despite him being the sitting governor of that state. After the election, he left office as governor and never sought public office again. Later in life, he supported the Marshall Plan and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs. He gave the first in a series of lectures, now known as the Landon Lecture Series, at Kansas State University. Landon lived to the age of 100 and died in Topeka, Kansas, in 1987. His daughter, Nancy Kassebaum, represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1978 to 1997. (wikipedia)

• • •

Timely. The 2026 World Cup officially starts tomorrow, all over North America (Canada, US, Mexico). Timeliness is this puzzle's one big virtue. The grid, because of its extremely chopped-up structure, doesn't allow for much in the way of interesting fill (just two answers over six letters long, outside the revealer), and an overwhelming amount of that fill is really short: three and four letters. Also, there are no really interesting theme answers. ESPYS is not interesting. It's crosswordese. See also NARITA. Sometimes circled-letter strings require real ingenuity in the choice of the answers that contain them, but today ... well, ESPYS is not likely to set anyone's heart aflutter. Further, the revealer (WORLD CUP WINNERS) isn't really a great standalone phrase. If you saw it in any other puzzle, where it wasn't an explanatory revealer, you'd think "I dunno..." But I did like this puzzle as a historical curiosity, and I liked learning that in the entire history of the World Cup, there have been only eight winners to date. I did not know that. Seems low. But I guess if you play only once every four years, and Brazil and Germany keep hogging the trophies, then it's kinda hard to grow the "club." So despite the fact that the fill is a little dull and stale in many places (lots of ASTA UTES TET ELY ENC ENC -INE REINA-type stuff), I still had a pretty good time hunting down all the country codes, and thinking about all the football I'm going to watch in the coming weeks (despite not being a regular fan, I always get immediately sucked into World Cup matches, although, I'm pretty sports-susceptible in general—keep anything on screen for more than ten minutes and suddenly I find I am an expert with a vested interest in the outcome. I was very briefly the world's leading expert in Nordic Combined earlier this year, for instance (when will JENS Christian Lurås Oftebro finally get his crossword recognition!?)

The puzzle was easy except for the north, which was also less pleasant than the rest of the grid largely because they decided to get cute with the cluing and double it up ([Big dust-up] for two clues, both in the same tiny section, both themers). The real problem is AFFRAY, a word no one uses ("fray," sure, but "AFFRAY" sounds almost Victorian). I probably wouldn't have gotten AFFRAY with any kind of clue, but somehow I resented struggling to get an answer and having to endure a doubled-up clue. There was something suffocating about it. It's trying to be cute, but it muddies things too much, esp. since you're doing your little cutesy clue-doubling thing with theme answers. You wanna play little duplicate-clue games, use the regular fill, not the themers. This tiny section included not only two themers with duplicate clues (one of which is not an everyday word), it also had two annoyingly ambiguous clues for three-letter answers. I wrote in UMP for REF (5D: One making calls, informally) and DEA for ATF (6D: Antismuggling grp.). So that whole section felt airless and fussy and ultimately not that rewarding. Who wants trouble from three-letter answers? I should add that I wrote in BLAIR at first for 4D: ___ House, residence for visiting dignitaries in Washington, but then pulled it when it ended up clashing with UMP and DEA. Which is to say that clearly I'd heard of BLAIR House, but did not trust that I had it right. Also, LUSTS is something (much) stronger than 22A: Longs (for), and TYS aren't "notes" (15D: Notes of appreciation, in online parlance). You might write "TY" in a "note" (or text) (short for "thank you"), but TYS are not themselves "notes of appreciation." They are, at best, expressions of appreciation. At worst, they're a terrible plural abbr. that you'd never use irl and should never use in your grid.

Bullets:

• 34D: Motivator, of a sort (NUDGER) — what are we doing here? Come on.
• 31A: Little dust-up (SPAT) — still with the "dust-ups"?! Why?!

• 54D: "Howards End" daughter (EVIE) — this is where the puzzle gets whatever difficulty it has: in proper nouns of obscure origins. Kinda dicey to cross a two fictional women at a vowel (EVIE / MIRIAM), but I supposed that "I" was eventually inevitable (I thought maybe Mrs. Maisel was a MARIAM, but I've yet to meet or hear of an EVAE, so "I" it was!
• 50A: Japan airlines hub [1934, 1938, 1982, 2006] (NARITA) — weird to have ITALY hidden in a clue that is explicitly JAPANESE. I think it's better when the country-containing answers have nothing to do with specific countries. These are the minute aesthetic considerations I think about when I look over puzzles. This particular issue may not, in fact, be worth fretting over, but it's something that would irk me a little if this were my puzzle. But what do I know? I'm just a dog (70A: Stereotypical dog's name).

That's all. See you next time. And Happy Almost World Cup!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. yesterday I learned that Ricky Martin and Shakira have both recorded official World Cup songs, but Marc Anthony has not. (Thanks, WFMU! Specifically, Tuesday Music Trivia on "Wake N Bake" with Clay Pigeon!).   

[2010!]
[1998!]
[1999! Not a World Cup song, but certainly a better song than the other two ... and hey, any song can be a World Cup song if you want it to be! Just put it on while you watch and bam, instant anthem!]

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Carnivorous cinematic alien / TUE 6-9-26 / Assists, in basketball slang / English soccer star ___ James / Sound of a cartoon hit / Sport in an octagon, for short / Sonic boom generator? / Where employees work on tips and receive tips

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: steak orders — final words of four theme answers describe various levels of meat doneness:

Theme answers:

• RUBS RAW (21A: Chafes excessively)
• EXCEEDINGLY RARE (28A: Nearly unique)
• HAPPY MEDIUM (47A: Compromise that, ideally, leaves both parties satisfied)
• "THIS WON'T END WELL" (58A: Prediction of a negative outcome that is true of 21-, 28- and 47-Across)

Word of the Day: REECE James (54A: English soccer star ___ James) —

Reece Lewis James (born 8 December 1999) is an English professional footballer who plays as a right-back for Premier League club Chelsea, which he captains, and the England national team.

James joined the Chelsea academy as a youth and turned professional in 2017, a season where he captained the under-18s to victory in the FA Youth Cup and was named Academy Player of the Season. A productive loan spell with Wigan Athletic of the Championship saw him promoted to the Chelsea first team upon his return in 2019. He won the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup with the club in 2021, and was appointed captain in 2023. He led Chelsea to victory at the UEFA Conference League and FIFA Club World Cup in 2025.

After representing England at various youth levels, James made his senior debut in 2020, and went on to appear at UEFA Euro 2020.

• • •

This theme is so straightforward I can't believe it hasn't been done before. Maybe it has. The one thing it has going for it is the somewhat cheeky clue on the last answer, which acts as both a completion of the series (RAW, RARE, MEDIUM, WELL) and a revealer—none of the other answers will "end well" because they end with words that describe different level of meat doneness. Also, the grid has mirror symmetry instead of the typical rotational symmetry, which makes the puzzle visually interesting, and makes room for some colorful long answers in the NW and NE. I don't really have anything to say about the theme. It seems fine. Plain, but fine. As a solver, I never noticed the theme til the very end. Seemed like an afterthought. The puzzle played like a very easy themeless, with "THIS WON'T END WELL" as the one true marquee answer (a wonderful standalone phrase that would look great in any puzzle). As for those longer answers in the NW and NE, it's slightly weird to get a single DNA STRAND, but I don't mind it. It's quirky, and very gettable, so no harm done. I had HAIR SALON before NAIL SALON, which I don't feel too bad about, as ... isn't "tips" a hair term too? (11D: Where employees work on tips and receive tips). Didn't people (mainly women) used to get "frosted tips?" I have no hair, so I am out of my depth, but I really feel like "tips" has some kind of HAIR SALON context. Ah, look, "frosted tips"—still a thing. Good, I feel less crazy. On the other side of the grid, I've been to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe (a treasure), so NEW MEXICO was a gimme. As for "I MEAN, C'MON!" (3D: "Sheesh, gimme a break!") ... it's weird, but "C'MON" feels like the spelling you'd use if that was all that you were saying, whereas opening with "I MEAN" really seems to call for the full "COME ON." There's something slightly drawn out and dramatic about the expression that the clipped "C'MON" doesn't capture. I think the phrase is OK as is, but my ear is balking a little.

[at the Georgia O'Keefe Museum, 2019]

The few tough spots I had could best be expressed through a two-category Venn diagram: "People with names that sound like 'Reese'" and "Soccer-related things," with REECE James in the overlap. The guy looks / sounds familiar, but I think you really have to follow Premier League to know him. In the "Reese" category with him is Dee REES, whose name is more familiar, but still, I don't know if her name would've come to me right away (actually, she wasn't an actual "tough spot" at all because I never saw her—puzzle was so easy that her name just kinda filled itself in) (21D: Dee who directed 2017's "Mudbound"). Over in the "Soccer-related things" part of the Venn diagram, in addition to REECE we've also got USWNT (50D: Squad captained by Lindsey Horan to win Olympic gold in '24, for short). I find both USWNT and USMNT confusing as neither abbreviation contains a letter that stands for the damned sport that they play! The letters stand for U.S. Women's National Team. So every time I see either abbreviation, I think "... tennis? is the 'T' tennis? Is the 'N' ... netball? oh, I remember now: United Soccer-Winning National Team! That's it."

Bullets:

• 20A: Sport in an octagon, for short (MMA) — this one's a little too timely. (don't click through if you'd rather not think about the US president today)
• 55A: Sonic boom generator? (SEGA) — SEGA is the company behind the popular Sonic the Hedgehog video game, which gave rise to movie franchise and a whole Sonic universe ("boom!")
• 33A: Assists, in basketball slang (DIMES) — this, I knew. Speaking of basketball. Looks like the Knicks lost last night. Too bad. Oh well, at least this happened (again, don't click through if you'd rather not think about the US president today)
• 61A: "We feel the same way" ("US TOO") — reflexively wrote in "ME TOO." "US TOO" doesn't flow off the tongue quite as readily.
• 62A: Airport raced through in "Home Alone," in brief (ORD) — so, Chicago's O'Hare

• 64A: Sound of a cartoon hit (BOINK) — if you watch cartoons or read comics, you know, this could've been anything. SPLAT! THWAP! WHACK! Even with the "K" in place, I wasn't sure. 
• 6D: Carnivorous cinematic alien (BLOB) — That's The BLOB, to you. I don't think I knew that the BLOB was an "alien" (as in, from outer space?). I thought it was just ... a BLOB ... wreaking havoc on Steve McQueen ... somehow. BLOB is part of a really nicely filled little section at the top of the grid where (almost) all the answers seem vaguely related to each other. BLOB ... SPRAWL ... ABSURD! Maybe the government is trying to track it with SONAR, which BLEEPs periodically. And maybe at the end of the movie they case the BLOB back into the ABYSS whence it came (again, to be clear, I have never seen the movie and have no idea what happens besides ... a blob blobbing around town and Steve McQueen somewhere nearby):

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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