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Analysis | Solution to Evan Birnholz’s April 14 crossword, ‘Boxed In’

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Analysis | Solution to Evan Birnholz’s April 14 crossword, ‘Boxed In’


Another year, another American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT). Your 2024 champion is Paolo Pasco, whom you might remember as the first of my guest constructors while I went on paternity leave in the fall. He came oh so close to winning it last year, so it was only fitting that he break through as this year’s winner. He even told me that he “panic-solved” (in his words) my “Playing the Hits” puzzle not long before he went up onstage to tackle the championship puzzle. If this helped him conquer the ACPT even a little bit, then I feel I’ve done something good for the world. Well done, Paolo!

I finished in 42nd place, but with a mistake. In fact it was the same exact error that bit me last year — I left a blank square by accident in Puzzle 6. I think what’s happened now two years in a row is that I get so amped up from finishing the challenging Puzzle 5 successfully that I let my guard down for the next puzzle, which is always much easier. Without the blank square I’d have finished in 24th, which still was not enough to make the B division finals (this year I’d have needed to finish 15th or higher to make it). Then again, I was operating with literally the world’s greatest excuse for why I wouldn’t solve well at all: being a new dad! Elliot came with us to the Stamford Marriott, and the sleep I got on Friday night was … not good, to say the least. Even with that added difficulty, I still had only one mistake for the whole tournament, so I should probably consider myself lucky I didn’t have several more. The tournament was still a blast and, of course, my son was the real star of the weekend. We brought Elliot into the lobby on Saturday evening, and just about everyone within 10 meters of his orbit came up to say hello and show him their best smiles. A few friends suggested that I should have entered the Pairs division with Elliot and then used him to distract everyone else. I think this strategy would have worked brilliantly and no one would have been mad about it. He’s too adorable.

So let’s do the ACPT next year again, shall we? In the meantime, you can order the set of ACPT puzzles for solving at home, and you can start planning for some other crossword tournaments on the horizon. There’s Westwords in Berkeley, Calif., on June 23, Lollapuzzoola in New York City on Aug. 24, and the Midwest Crossword Tournament in Chicago on Oct. 5.

Today’s puzzle will look unusual immediately upon seeing the grid. There are five sets of black squares that create enclosed boxes in 3×3 sections, with a single white square in the middle of each box. In addition, if you solved the puzzle in print, you’ll notice that the grid featured gray squares rather than black ones, though they were regular black squares in the online version. Another odd feature is that several answers in the puzzle don’t seem to fit their clues. 38A: [Gives up] is … PAC? 17D: [One predicting disaster] is … DOO? These don’t look right, but note that both answers run perpendicular to the enclosed box in the upper-left corner.

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You’ll get your first hint to the theme at 23A: [Confined, like five letters in this puzzle that spell an apt word] which is TRAPPED. So those five isolated white squares contain letters, but the bigger hint is at the bottom of the grid, with an especially long clue at 122A: [Portal represented 20 times in this puzzle that lets you in and out of a confined space (Note: These special letters, reading left to right, row by row, will produce an apt four-word phrase)]. That answer is DOORWAY. The idea is that you have to create passages in and out of the enclosed boxes to make sense of ten clues in this puzzle. How do you do that? By finding the correct letters hidden inside 20 black squares (or gray squares, for print solvers) and in the five isolated white squares.

  • 38A: [Gives up] is PACKS IT IN. It starts with PAC at 38A, continues through the enclosed box with K-S-I, and ends with TIN at 39A, which has a normal clue of its own ([Shortest element]). The last three or four letters of these theme answers are all regular words with standard clues, so you’ll have to spot how the word exiting the box is connected to the word entering it on the opposite side.
  • Crossing PACKS IT IN at 17D: [One predicting disaster] is DOOMSAYER. It starts with DOO at 17D, continues through the box with M-S-A, and ends with YER at 50D. The intersection of these two theme answers — the isolated square in the middle of the box — is an S.
  • 40A: [Units of exposure to X-rays] is ROENTGENS. A potentially tough word if you don’t know it — it’s named after the German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen — but there is a way to make it easier to figure it out without needing to look it up. We’ll come back to this.
  • Crossing ROENTGENS at 13D: [Weapons and equipment in the “Medal of Honor” video game franchise, say] is COMBAT GEAR. The isolated square here is a T.
  • 72A: [Not intimidated] is UNDAUNTED.
  • Crossing UNDAUNTED at 45D: [Looked upon with resentment] is BEGRUDGED. The isolated square here is a U.
  • 102A: [Parsnips, turnips, etc.] is ROOT CROPS.
  • Crossing ROOT CROPS at 76D: [Perfect, just perfect] is IMPECCABLE. The isolated square here is a C.
  • 104A: [Second leg of the Triple Crown] is PREAKNESS.
  • Crossing PREAKNESS at 80D: [Loser to Barack Obama in a 2004 Senate race] is ALAN KEYES. The isolated square here is a K.

The isolated squares inside the boxes spell STUCK. That’s the apt five-letter word referenced in the clue for TRAPPED 23A.

Now, go back to the clue for DOORWAY at 122A. It said “These special letters, reading left to right, row by row, will produce an apt four-word phrase.” The more theme answers you uncover, the more doorway letters you’ll reveal. When you’ve got enough of them, you can maybe begin to predict what the final four-word phrase is and then fill in any gaps with tougher answers like ROENTGENS.

The secret doorway letters, when you read them row by row in the puzzle, spell MAKING A GRAND ENTRANCE.

Even though the grid features letters hidden by darker squares, this crossword was not inspired by the total solar eclipse earlier week. I don’t think it had any direct inspiration other than just wanting to break a typical crossword convention and see what I could do with enclosed spaces. What I found especially difficult was finding a set of answers that could accommodate both the meta answers and real words outside of the boxes. The -NTG- string crossing the -ATG- string in the upper-right box gave me a lot of trouble until I found COMBAT GEAR with its helpful COMB and EAR words on the outside.

The final four-word meta answer MAKING A GRAND ENTRANCE is also the reason this puzzle was printed in gray squares rather than black ones. 20 secret letters is a lot to write inside black squares, and the boxes are spread somewhat far apart from each other, making the final answer hard enough to read already. I figured that making the squares a lighter shade would help you see the hidden letters more easily. Don’t expect to see gray squares again soon, though; I wouldn’t want to tip you off early about hidden letters all the time.

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Shooting during ICE operation in Maryland leaves 2 injured, officials say

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Shooting during ICE operation in Maryland leaves 2 injured, officials say


Federal immigration agents shot at a moving vehicle on Wednesday morning during an enforcement and removal action in Glen Burnie, Maryland, striking one person and injuring another, officials said.

A spokesperson for the Anne Arundel County Police Department said neither person had life-threatening injuries, and both were taken to the hospital.

Anne Arundel police responded to a report of a shooting involving federal agents at about 10:50 a.m. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were the only officials involved in the shooting, police said.

Preliminarily, police said the agents approached a white van, but the vehicle attempted to run them over. The agents fired at the van, which accelerated until coming to a stop in a wooded area, police said.

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When asked for comment, Department of Homeland Security officials said both civilians involved in the altercation with ICE are in the U.S. illegally. They did not indicate whether either of the men had been arrested.

“Continued efforts to encourage illegal aliens and violent agitators to actively resist ICE will only lead to more violent incidents,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Anne Arundel police said they will investigate the shooting, while the FBI investigates the alleged assault on the agents and ICE conducts an internal investigation.



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Millionaire tax plans spread as Washington state eyes new levy | Fortune

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Millionaire tax plans spread as Washington state eyes new levy | Fortune


When Washington Governor Bob Ferguson proposed the state’s first income tax in modern history, he said the word “affordability” five times. 

Ferguson on Tuesday asked the legislature to craft a 9.9% tax on personal income over $1 million, which would revolutionize a state revenue system heavily reliant on sales and property tax. Although his fellow Democrats have for decades failed to push through an income tax, Ferguson said it’s “a different time right now.”

“We are facing an affordability crisis,” Ferguson said. “It is time to change our state’s outdated, upside-down tax system. To serve the needs of Washingtonians today, to make our taxes the more fair, millionaires should contribute toward our shared prosperity.”

Democrats across the US are increasingly exploring taxes as a way to capture the populist moment and address the country’s widening wealth gap. If “affordability” was the issue highlighted by Democrats who outperformed expectations in the off-year elections of 2025, the slogan next year could very well be “tax the rich.”

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It’s an opening Democrats see as the Trump administration this year paired tax cuts for high earners with reductions in Medicaid and supplemental food assistance. Raising taxes on the wealthy could also help solve a fiscal problem for states dedicating more resources to plug the holes from federal cuts.

“We have a federal government that has gone into super-villain mode, seeming to deliberately take from the poor and middle class to give to the rich,” said Darien Shanske, a tax professor at UC Davis School of Law. “This unnecessary emergency is laying down a gauntlet for states: Will they let this suffering come to pass and, if not, how will they pay for the triage? Taxes on the best-off are not just fair but also efficient.”

Read more: Millionaire Tax That Mamdani Loves Fuels a $5.7 Billion Haul

Progressive tax advocates often point to Massachusetts’ 4% surtax on incomes over $1 million, which brought in roughly $5.7 billion in fiscal 2025, far exceeding revenue projections in its third year of collection. 

New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani campaigned on raising the city’s income tax on millionaires by 2 percentage points to 5.9%, which critics said would lead to an exodus of wealthy people.

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Colorado voters this year approved a measure to limit deductions for taxpayers earning at least $300,000. The revenue will fund a program providing free meals for all public school students. Colorado officials also advanced a ballot measure to change the state’s 4.41% flat rate to a graduated income tax, potentially raising more than $4 billion. That will likely go before voters in 2026. 

Michigan residents could also face a ballot initiative next year to change the state’s flat 4.25% tax rate to add a 5% surcharge on individuals earning more than $500,000 and couples making more than $1 million.

Romney’s Call

Even 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has joined the call. Last week, the former US senator from Utah penned an essay in the New York Times calling for rich people to pay more, mostly in the form of closing loopholes the wealthy use to minimize tax obligations.

“It would help us avoid the cliff ahead,” Romney said, pointing to government funding shortfalls, “and might tend to quiet some of the anger that will surely grow as unemployed college graduates see tax-advantaged multibillionaires sailing 300-foot yachts.”

Most of the populist proposals coming from the states would raise taxes on income. But the tricky thing about some wealth is that it doesn’t come from a paycheck and thus is harder to tax. Even a levy on capital gains depends on a taxpayer selling assets to realize that increased value. 

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For example, former Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer’s net worth increased by $706.5 billion on Monday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Even though his mansion sits across the lake from downtown Seattle, those gains wouldn’t be subject to an income tax. 

That’s why some Washington state Democrats are still pushing for the US’s first wealth tax on unrealized gains. Under a proposal passed by the state Senate last year, portfolios of some publicly traded asset classes worth at least $50 million would be taxed at 0.5%. 

Ferguson panned the wealth tax proposal last year, saying it would be irresponsible to balance the budget on a measure that would certainly face legal challenges. 

One of the most common warnings from tax opponents is that once legislators have a new tax mechanism, they’ll either increase the rate or lower the threshold at which it would apply. Ferguson in his income-tax proposal nodded to that concern, saying the $1 million level should increase with inflation and be included in the statute or perhaps even a constitutional amendment.

Read More: Vegas Lures Millionaires Fleeing Wealth Tax in Washington State

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State taxes are also easier to avoid than federal taxes, because it’s relatively easy to move a primary residency. Washington used to attract taxpayers fed up with California’s high rates, but that has changed since the Evergreen State started taxing capital gains. Next year could be the year of the millionaire’s tax — in Washington state and across the US. 



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Windstorm to hit western Washington on Christmas Eve with gusts up to 70 mph

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Windstorm to hit western Washington on Christmas Eve with gusts up to 70 mph


All is calm, all is bright for Christmas Eve-eve…not so much for Christmas Eve itself.

An unusual windstorm will slingshot up the west coast, making for a windy Wednesday in western Washington as we head into the holiday. A pre-emptive HIGH WIND WATCH has been issued by the National Weather Service to account for strong and potentially damaging easterly and then southerly winds, but I expect that to turn over to a HIGH WIND WARNING as we get closer and these gusts look imminent.

ALSO SEE: Mountain snow, gusty winds and heavy showers expected for Christmas Eve

In the short-term, things are quiet enough for now. Mainly cloudy skies will tuck us in, but because the air mass is still seasonably chilly, we’ll drop back into the 30s by dawn. The passes are very passable, but could be icy as lows plunge into the 20s overnight.

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On Wednesday, things get interesting quickly. Storms don’t usually move from California right up the coast to Washington, but there has been nothing usual about this December so far, and that’s exactly the odd track this system is going to take on its way into the region.

Remember that lows act like giant vacuums in the sky, pulling air into them as they go by. This is a roughly 980 millibar low on approach–plenty deep enough to suck in air noticeably as it passes.

This howling wind-maker will work its way up toward the Washington coast by Wednesday morning. With its center still over the Pacific, the winds will be easterly.

The ocean beach communities and the foothills of the Cascades (Enumclaw, Issaquah, North Bend, and Monroe) will be subject to these easterly blows, gusting 30 to 50 mph for the first half of the day there. Why not in Seattle? The 8,000′ tall Olympics will initially act as an offensive lineman for the waterfront locations near the Sound, blocking the bulk of the windy weather before the lunch hour.

However, this low will hightail it over Neah Bay, eventually curling in over Vancouver Island by the afternoon. Now, without the shield of the Olympics between Seattle and the storm center, we’ll be subject to strong southerly (remember the wind follows the low’s movement and track, so the direction will change) gusts of 30 to 50 mph over the Sound, including in Tacoma, Olympia, Everett, and the Emerald City.

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These strong winds may be enough to give us some tree damage and knock down power lines…not what we want to see on Christmas Eve! A grand finale burst of southerlies of 40 to 60 mph or more (some models suggest gusts to 70 mph) will close down the evening in Port Townsend, Oak Harbor, Friday Harbor, and Ferndale–those of you closer to British Columbia will be subject to the strongest winds right after sunset.

By the time people are heading out to the midnight mass, the windstorm should be a wrap, but it will be a dicey day beforehand. Not only will it deal with the wind, but also rain in the lowlands and bursts of heavy, blowing snow over the Cascade passes. Highs will bump up a bit, ending up closer to 50 in the metro area.

Christmas Day itself should be far easier for travelers and celebrations, with lighter rain at times and temperatures back in the more typical middle 40s. This will keep occasional snow falling over the mountains to about 3,000′ (Snoqualmie Summit level) as well.



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