LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “MGWCC #901 — “Court Is in Session”
Prompt:This puzzle’s contest answer is a name in the news.
Answer: NAOMI OSAKA, found by 459 solvers, 438 of which were solo solves

A writer, a White House kid/film director, a conductor (music not train), and an actor — what do they all have in common? A crossword-friendly, five-letter surname with a particular vowel pattern, of course!

They are, in clockwise order:

17-A: [“The Day Lady Died” poet, 1964] = FRANK O’HARA
11-D: [Former White House resident] = MALIA OBAMA
55-A: [Conductor who passed away last year in Tokyo] = SEIJI OZAWA. Vowel-rich and Scrabbly first and last names. Did he know he was both legit-famous and crossword-famous in America? I bet somebody told him.
29-D: [“The Man in the High Castle” actor] = JASON O’MARA

What do these four have in common? Their O*A*A surname pattern, of course. Who’s the name in the news that fits the bill? Tennis star NAOMI OSAKA, found by 459 solvers. Naomi lost her Friday match (which ran so long it actually didn’t finish until after midnight) so she was still in the news, but not in the way she wanted. She’ll be back, though…

PaulTK says:

Trying this one without the prompt, so if I’m way off, that’s the reason!

Voice-over: “He was not way off.”

oggy writes:

Probably the closest I will ever be to being a meta answer.

Amazing! His surname would’ve made him a nice theme entry.

Bird Lives writes:

Downs only. But I checked the prompt. I thought it was going to be “A US city.” Good thing I checked.

OMAHA or OCALA though??

And finally, Steve M is 1% of the way towards his goal:

I’m hoping that I can streak puzzles 901 to 1000, maybe solo? Not likely, but at least this is a good start!

Good luck! 99 more to go, the first of which is ready for your attention…

GUEST CONSTRUCTOR PUZZLE:

Today’s guest constructor puzzle is by Rick Kennedy. Rick is originally from central Pennsylvania where he received a BS from Penn State. Following graduate school at UMass-Amherst he moved to Nahant, Massachusetts, and worked as a Project Manager for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife.

He and his wife Erin (in pic above) own a boat, and they fish both recreationally and commercially for striped bass and bluefish in Boston Harbor. Now that he is retired, Rick is considering getting his Captain’s license and running small fishing charters.

Rick has been constructing and solving crosswords for several years and began creating meta puzzles in 2022 for the XWord-Muggles Forum under the screen name “Cap’n Rick.”

All hands on grid! Let’s see what the Captain has in store for us…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is an 8-letter word.