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ACROSS

 7 Meg’s protest (5)

 8 Change intro and halt multi-tage race (9)

 9 Sausage exploded, with rodent and piece of worm inside (9)

10 Bird’s unfinished home (5)

11 Sweet music for two involving 50 Cent (6)

13 Terrible boos in decline for soccer-like game (8)

15 Forced lone divorce onto patriarch played onscreen by two actors whose
names straddle the completed grid (3,4,8)

17 Onetime soybean parcel turned into scenic park (8)

18 Powerful outfit in the tropics substituting Ford’s models (6)

21 Fleece popular sidekick (5)

23 Strange tint covering dog that keeps to itself? (9)

25 Send letters! You need nothing else to show stupidity (9)

26 Capital firm captures atmosphere (5)

DOWN

 1 Places to get free food (pickles) after embracing New Deal (10)

 2 Playwright was brought up to accept Hamlet’s opening (4)

 3 Verdi’s overture—riotous!—unsettled skillful performer (8)

 4 Increase in one’s shares of bouillon, served with ice cream, sauce and
whipped cream? (5,5)

 5 Fire engulfs large family (4)

 6 Someone who’s signed on to raise fish with SNL’s Michaels (8)

 7 Lunatic gets upset by 14 words (2,3)

 8 Part of car’s exhaust (4)

12 Malevolent treatment of middle vein (4-6)

14 Regretful diary written in prose? (10)

15 A speculator’s action is to go out with a predatory incursion, we hear (3-5)

16 Edits revision in “Our Foreigner” (8)

19 Starts to grasp evolution through germinating (or beginning) (3-2)

20 When to expect characters from Athens? (4)

22 Bedroll stank, ultimately (4)

24 Guarantee: without victory, it hurts (4)

SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3384

ACROSS 1 POT + A TO B + LIGHT 9 LE(M)ON 10 “loge, ermine” 11 HI(N)D + RA(N)CE 12 LUI + GI 13 BOO + T 14 BAN + GLADE + SH 17 anag. 19 LO + AD 22 “hart” 23 MIS + BE + HAVE (-ism anag.) 26 anag. 27 ROOS[evel]T 28 MAU(RICE + RAVE)L

DOWN 1 PI + MEN + TO 2 TUN(DR)A 3 hidden 4 B(OWL)EGGED 5 I DEAL + GAS 6 H + E + M-[il/LI]-NE 7 hidden 8 ENRIC + HE’D (nicer anag.) 13 B(ARCH)ART 15 A + U + TOM + A + TIC 16 anag. 18 ST + AMINA (rev.) 20 pun 21 H + ENRYV (anag.) 24 SU + GAR (rev.) 25 alternate letters