- The New York Times is being ripped by social media users for publishing what they deemed to be a “swastika”-shaped crossword puzzle on the first night of Hanukkah.
- The fraught Sunday brain-teaser, entitled “Some Theme’s Missing,” had been concocted by Washington, D.C.-based consulting manager Ryan McCarty, who has formulated 22 other puzzles for the paper.
- “Thrilled to have my first Sunday puzzle in The Times! This grid features one of my favorite open middles that I’ve made as it pulls from a variety of subject areas,” McCarty gushed in a section of the paper entitled constructor notes.
