It is March and the lovely EnigMarch people have challenged puzzle designers to write a puzzle inspired by today's word: "pause".

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) paused federal grants back in January. Then a judge paused the (illegal) pause. But then a lot of grants got not-just-paused, but canceled.

We're seeing a brain drain of scientists fleeing the clownshoes cutoffs of American policy. (I kinda think we saw the start of brain drain in Trump's first term, with foreign students deciding to study someplace they wouldn't get yelled at.) As I'm tinkering with puzzles, I see headlines go past: Some dimwit put antivax loon RFK Jr in charge of the National Institutes of Health and maybe now he wants to shutdown mRNA research. (Wasn't his objection to mRNA vaccines that they were rushed out with not enough study? So now he wants to stop studying them? Why does he—oh, right, I forgot: he's an antivax loon.)

Here's a harsh little story from history. A clown named Hitler took over Germany. He was against diversity. Thus, he harassed many German scientists; they packed up and left for other countries. Then Germany invaded its neighbors (sorta like if we were to invade Canada today). This led to a world war. There wasn't any good anti-aircraft technology. So both sides could send bombers at each other. But those ex-German scientists invented radar and the proximity fuse. Suddenly, their host countries had anti-aircraft technology. They could shoot down German would-be bombers. Germany couldn't shoot down any bombers, though. The scientists' new host countries firebombed German cities. Hitler, having ruined his country, hid in a bunker and shot himself.

What? You want a puzzle, you say? OK, sure, here's a crossword puzzle. Don't overlook the constructor's note where it says "Careful; something tricky is going on with those 'Pause' words" It's important!