Sunday, January 4, 2026 - Gene Louise De Vera, Rule Breaker! 🚔

Gene Louise De Vera's 5th NYTimes puzzle was one for the books. One of the sacrosanct rules of NYTimes crossword-dom is that an answer never appears twice in the grid. Well, rules are meant to be broken, so they say, and today this one was -- but all for a good cause, aka the theme. We had some other great clues in the grid. Besides those mentioned in the podcast, we had the slick 94D, Paired chips with dips?, RHYMED; the fabulous 84D, Ixnays from Irkutsk, NYETS; and a favorite of whatever generation came to the fore in the 2010s, 54D, "Not gonna lie ...", NOCAP.Show note imagery: The roundest country in the world, SIERRALEONE!We love feedback! Send us a text...Contact Info:We love listener mail! Drop us a line, [email protected], we're on FaceBook, so feel free to drop by there and strike up a conversation!