Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Breaking News

Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Breaking News

There are spoilers ahead. You might want to solve today's puzzle before reading further! Breaking News

Constructor: Jake Halperin

Editor: Anna Gundlach

Crossword Puzzle Theme Synopsis

• NECK PILLOWS (17A: Air travel cushions)
• NETFLIX SHOWS (39A: "Ozark" and "GLOW," for two)
• NERF ARROWS (64A: Soft toy projectiles)

Each theme answer BREAKS the word NEWS, with NE- at the beginning of the answer, and -WS at the end: NECK PILLOWS, NETFLIX SHOWS, NERF ARROWS.

What I learned from Today's Puzzle

• OHIO (14A: Rust Belt state) The Rust Belt is an area of the northeastern and midwestern United States that was previously known as the "Steel Belt." The Rust Belt has been impacted by deindustrialization and economic decline, particularly in the steelmaking, automobile manufacturing, and coal mining industries. The Rust Belt doesn't have precise boundaries; it includes parts of OHIO, Michigan, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Multiple cities in OHIO have experienced a significant (5-26%) decline in population over the last 20 years.

Random Thoughts & Interesting Things

• CVS (11A: Pharmacy chain whose receipts might be measured in feet) This clue made me chuckle, and I knew the answer right away. The retail pharmacy chain CVS is notorious for its long receipts, which have been the subject of many jokes and memes. The receipts contain multiple coupons. CVS customers do have the choice of opting out of the long receipts, and receiving the coupon offers digitally.
• KABOOM (15A: Cartoony explosion sound) and POW (61A: Cartoony explosion sound) When two answers in the puzzle are clued in the same manner, that's referred to as a clue echo. I'm a fan of clue echoes, which sometimes result in me thinking, "Wait a minute. Didn't I already answer that?" I especially enjoyed this KABOOM-POW duo.
• DEKE ( 21A: Sneaky hockey play) and NICE SAVE (3D: Compliment for a goalie) In ice hockey, a DEKE is a feint that draws an opposing player out of position. DEKE is a shortening of the word decoy. This answers pairs excellently with NICE SAVE. I am not a particularly sports-minded person. As such, I am fond of saying that "(almost) everything I know about sports I've learned from crossword puzzles." That's true here; I learned the word DEKE from the July 3, 2020 puzzle.
• NETFLIX SHOWS (39A: "Ozark" and "GLOW," for two) Ozark is a NETFLIX SHOW about a couple that relocates their family to the Lake of the Ozarks region in central Missouri to set up a money laundering operation. Fun fact: Although the series is set at a Lake of the Ozarks resort, most of the filming is done in the Atlanta, Georgia area. The NETFLIX SHOW Glow is about the 1980s syndicated women's professional wrestling circuit, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
• APPLE (46A: Siri's creator) and SMS (10D: Format for sending 31-Down) and IOS (23D: Siri's platform) and TEXTS (31D: Phone messages) This quartet of related items seem to form a mini-theme. SMS stands for Short Message/Messaging Service, and IOS (formatted as iOS) is APPLE's iPhone Operating System.
• USSR (49A: World power until 1991) From 1922 to 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a country comprised of 15 national republics. It was governed by the Communist Part of the Soviet Union. The USSR was in the news for such a large part of my life that I sometimes forget it has not existed during my children's lifetimes.
• TOKYO (4D: Sony HQ city) The Sony Group corporation is the largest producer of image sensors, and the second largest camera manufacturer (after Canon). Sony's headquarters are in TOKYO, Japan.
• WALDEN (6D: Thoreau's cabin life memoir) In the 1850s, essayist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau spent two years, two months, and two days living in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, which is located near Concord, Massachusetts. The time Thoreau spent living in the cabin became the subject of his memoir, WALDEN; or Life in the Woods, which was published in 1854.
• TRAN (24D: Actress Kelly Marie) Kelly Marie TRAN portrays Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Interestingly, Kelly Marie TRAN had never watched a Star Wars movies before auditioning for the part.
• MARLO (25D: "That Girl" actress Thomas) That Girl is a TV show that originally aired from 1966-1971. MARLO Thomas played the role of Ann Marie, a woman who moved to New York City in an attempt to make it as an actress. That Girl was one of the first TV sitcoms that featured an unmarried woman (who was not a domestic or living with her parents) as the main character.
• ITALY (35D: Where to find Pisa and pizza) Pisa is a city in northern ITALY, which is home to the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. Pizza is one of my absolute favorite foods; it originated from ITALY. The alliteration in this clue is fun.
• SAFE WORD (41D: BDSM "stop" signal) A SAFE WORD is an agreed-upon-beforehand signal used to stop BDSM role-play. In 2018, a survey conducted by Lovehoney (an adult sex toy brand) found that the most common SAFE WORD was "red," followed by "pineapple."
• ATHENS (46D: Capital named after a Greek goddess) ATHENS is the capital and largest city of Greece. In Greek mythology, Athena – the goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare – and Poseidon – the god of the sea – are said to have competed for the patronage of ATHENS. Poseidon struck a rock with his trident, causing a saltwater spring to appear. Athena planted an olive tree. The king of ATHENS, who was judging the contest, realized the city would benefit from the fruit, oil, and wood produced by the tree, and declared Athena the patron of ATHENS.
• NPR (55D: "Tiny Desk Concerts" network) Tiny Desk Concerts are exactly what they sound like. Performers give a concert behind a tiny desk in the NPR offices. The tiny desk is that of NPR's Bob Boilen, host of All Songs Considered.  In 2008, Bob Boilen was complaining about crowd noise at concerts and joked that folk singer Laura Gibson should perform at his desk. A month later he invited her to do just that, recorded the performance, and posted it online. NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts series now includes over 800 concerts.
• AED (65D: Device an EMT might shout "Clear!" before using) An automated external defibrillator, or AED, is a portable device that can diagnose life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, and treat them through the application of electricity that then allows the heart to re-establish an effective rhythm. The abbreviation EMT in the clue, for emergency medical technician, is a hint to the solver that the answer will be an abbreviation.

Today's puzzle features a classic USA TODAY theme mechanism, BREAKING a word so that part of the word appears at the beginning of the theme answer, and the remainder of the word appears at the end. Today the word that's BREAKING is NEWS. I enjoyed this theme, and I feel like it's particularly appropriate, as today's BREAKING NEWS is the start of this Off the Grid column. Let me introduce myself. I'm Sally Hoelscher, a crossword constructor and editor. Since June 2020, I have been blogging about the USA TODAY crossword on my personal blog site, Sally's Take on the USA TODAY Crossword Puzzle. I am thrilled to be continuing my writing here in Off the Grid! For those of you that have been readers of Sally's Take, thank you for following me. Although the name and location is new, my goals remain to provide informational, conversational, and kind analysis of the USA TODAY crossword. For new readers, welcome! I look forward to getting to know each other as we solve the USA TODAY crosswords together. Feel free to send me an email; I enjoy hearing from readers. Thank you, Jake, for this delightful and appropriately titled puzzle.

For more on USA TODAY's Crossword Puzzles

• USA TODAY'S Daily Crossword Puzzles
• Sudoku & Crossword Puzzle Answers