Puzzle No. 3296

Puzzle No. 3296

And don’t miss Kosman and Picciotto’s crossword blog, Word Salad.

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Click HERE to download a printable PDF of this puzzle.
And don’t miss Kosman and Picciotto’s crossword blog, Word Salad.

To celebrate our 100th puzzle for The Nation, here is a 100-square puzzle grid with bars instead of black squares to separate the entry words. We’ve entered every C in the grid for you, so you shouldn’t need any other numbers to figure out where the words belong. As an extra help, the clues are given in alphabetical order by their answers.   —JK & HP

Strangely comic place for partner (10)

Ugly scar traces a curve (4)

In hindsight, vaccines rarely contain poison (7)

Challenge on the margins: following irregular dance beat (7)

Wheels rotated originally for singer Vikki (4)

Hard currency hoard is rumored (4)

Sounds like a strong competitor—give up (4)

Part of a machine overturned container with brandy (6)

Arrest local criminal before start of robbery (6)

Prisoner and naked hick like a party hat (5)

Company’s time expenditure (4)

Thoroughly validate irritable Slav in conversation (5-5)

Storm city’s limits, then reproduce… (7)

…in rude Corsican style (5)

Tech is shifting one’s sense of right and wrong (6)

Bean (head) relocated in ancient vehicle (7)

Rubs out bad habits, lacking leadership (4)

South Americans don’t wind up as a precaution (5)

One-on-one chat to begin with ancient Greek dialect (5)

Block of salt to take top off oily patch (4)

Cool, far out, crazy (4)

Buddy protects soldier with sorcery (5)

Political organization faces off narrowly against advancing corporate plutocracy (5)

Fire back around Republican government agent (4)

Fearsome sea creature obliterating nearly half of Mediterranean island (4)

Dear Abby ultimately comes after snapshot, stifling resistance (5)

Chris or Peter, etymologically speaking (4)

Looks over without concealing chagrin at first (5)

Pretty nice mess after pair of screwups (6)

Line up and capsize in the sound (4)

SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3295

ACROSS 8 rev. hidden 9 CO(R)AL 10 anag. 11 anag. (&lit.) 12 anag. (&lit.) 15 ENAC (rev.) + T 16 anag. 19 hidden 20 anag. 22 TAN + DOOR 24 [l]ANGUISH 26 EL + VIS[a] 27 TRIM + ESTER (anag.)

DOWN 1 I + SLANDER 2 GRI(MREA)PER (mare anag.) 3 2 defs. 4 “strip” 5 ACT IV-IST 6 ARE + A 7 C(LOSE)T 9 CARP + ENTER 13 P(RED)ATORS (pastor anag.) 15 AD + VENT + IS + T[rader]S 17 EXEC RATE 18 SHE + P(HER)D 19 KIT + TEN (rev.) 21 DE + ASIL (rev.) 23 2 defs. 25 init. letters

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