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May 3, 2026 
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In his constructor notes for today’s puzzle, Mark Diehl wrote: “This puzzle blossomed out of a quest for entry-worthy words or phrases with odd letters that spell out other legitimate words or phrases. A search of my favorite word list for possible 8- to 13-letter words and phrases led to quite a few that fit the bill.” Read more about how he made it, and get tips and insights on how to solve it, in the Wordplay column.
Puzzles You May Have Missed
Thank you to everyone who participated in Letters to the Editors, our first metapuzzle contest. The answer was PRIZE. Winners have been notified.
Crossplay Tip
Try to keep a balanced ratio of vowels and consonants: When making a play, consider your “leave,” or the tiles remaining on your rack after your play. You should generally seek to keep one more consonant than vowel or an equal number of consonants and vowels. For instance, a leave of two consonants and one vowel is well-balanced. Keeping an unbalanced rack, such as AEIO or DFLT, could be a recipe for disaster on your next turn.
Connections Quandary
Here’s the hardest category from Monday, April 27. What connects these four things? See the answer in the P.S.
Strands
Last week’s hardest Strands puzzle was THE AYES HAVE IT! from Monday, April 27 — 76.41 percent of solvers were able to complete it.
Last week’s easiest Strands puzzle was FISH OR CUT BAIT, from Wednesday, April 29 — 88.62 percent of solvers were able to complete it.
Strands puzzles last week — from April 24 to April 30 — were harder than those from the week before.
Wordle Weekly Recap
Hardest word: CROCK, from Thursday, April 30.
Average guesses: 4.55, with 14.18 percent of players solving in three or fewer.
Easiest word: DRUNK, from Friday, April 24.
Average guesses: 3.74, with 41.82 percent of players solving in three or fewer.
The Wordle answers last week — from April 24 to April 30 — were a little harder than those from the week before.
Spelling Bee Hive
Overall, the Spelling Bee hives last week — from April 24 to April 30 — were slightly more difficult than those from the week before. Of our subscribers who played last week, 33.26 percent hit Genius at least once.
Last week’s hardest puzzle: Sunday, April 26, had the hardest pangram, with only 23.59 percent of users finding it.
Sunday’s pangram: INTRICACY
Letter set: R A C I N T Y
Relax With Us
If you’re reading this newsletter the morning it was delivered to your inbox, I am currently not relaxing. I am huffing and puffing my way through Philadelphia as a first-time participant in the city’s annual 10-mile race, the Broad Street Run. I’ve been an on-again, off-again runner all my life, but the Broad Street Run is the first race I’ve ever methodically trained for. As I’ve increased my mileage in preparation, I’ve found that lengthier runs, while not exactly relaxing, can unlock a kind of mental calmness and clarity. It’s not the elusive runner’s high (which I haven’t been lucky enough to experience), but rather it is the satisfaction from gradually honing the mind-body connection until it’s seamless. It’s the feeling of disparate parts — pumping legs, swinging arms, controlled breaths — coalescing into a system, a machine built to fulfill a single purpose: run. Achieving that feeling is what gets me through the longer distances. The promise of an actually-relaxing beer at the finish line doesn’t hurt, either.
How are we doing?
We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to crosswordeditors@nytimes.com.
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P.S. The answer to the Connections Quandary is that they are all terms that end in NBA players.
