It is March and the lovely EnigMarch people have challenged puzzle designers to write a puzzle inspired by today's word: "loop".
Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) appointed Mike Waltz to be National Security Advisor. It turns out Mike is the detail-oriented guy who accidentally added a reporter to the Espionage-Act-violating group chat I mentioned a couple of days ago. Who was in the loop? Not Trump. Not Elon. But, yes, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic.
(I guess for a light-hearted puzzle it's good to focus on the colossal screw-up of inviting the wrong guy to the group chat. But you maybe don't want to read the transcript of that chat unless you've braced yourself. There's some ghoulish joy over the US blowing up an apartment building full of civilians to kill one hostile militant.)
In Mike's honor, here is a loop of words to fill in. We filled in WALTZ for you. The words overlap; the grid overlaps tell you that you're looking for a word that starts with Z and another word that ends with WALT. The clues down below should help, but they're in alphabetic order, not ordered as in the loop.
W a l t z Z _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ w a l t W a l t z
The _ Broncos, 1998 Super Bowl champions
The continental _ tells rivers which ocean to flow to
_ Allan Poe, wrote about cryptograms
Madison Square _, a.k.a. NYC's MSG
The _ Man, card XII of the major arcana
Comedy actor Patton _ was in "Young Adult"
Giuseppe _ composed operas like Rigoletto
Does MTV still show music _?
_ Shuai, runner-up at the 2024 US Open
Hints, rot-13'd:
- Gur Unatrq Zna vf n gnebg pneq
- Munat Fuhnv vf tbbq ng graavf
- Gur pbagvaragny qvivqr jevttyrf orgjrra eviref
Solution, rot-13'd:
jnygm / jnygm / Qnapr abg sbe xyhgmrf, Zvxr munat / fuhnv / _ Fuhnv, ehaare-hc ng gur 2024 HF Bcra unatrq / zna / Gur _ Zna, pneq KVV bs gur znwbe nepnan rqtne / nyyna_cbr / _ Nyyna Cbr, jebgr nobhg pelcgbtenzf tneqra / znqvfba_fdhner / Znqvfba Fdhner _, n.x.n. ALP'f ZFT qraire / oebapbf / Gur _ Oebapbf, 1998 Fhcre Objy punzcvbaf ireqv / tvhfrccr / Tvhfrccr _ pbzcbfrq bcrenf yvxr Evtbyrggb qvivqr / pbagvaragny / Gur pbagvaragny _ gryyf eviref juvpu bprna gb sybj gb ivqrbf / zhfvp / Qbrf ZGI fgvyy fubj zhfvp _? bfjnyg / cnggba / Pbzrql npgbe Cnggba _ jnf va "Lbhat Nqhyg"
