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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) fails so constantly and consistently that for every day in the month of March, it was pretty easy to find a screw-up that went with the EnigMarch daily word. Well it wasn't always easy; on the 25th, I was overwhelmed by choice. Today that's maybe happening again? Hmm, "puzzle."

OK, here's a puzzle from 2021: The C.I.A. warned its field offices: many C.I.A. spies were being killed or turned. It was a real mystery: How were our adversaries figuring out who to recruit and/or assassinate? We may never know the answer for sure, but it sure was interesting when they found all of those classified documents Trump was keeping in a bathroom in 2022. Did Trump sell secrets to other countries, thus enabling those countries to narrow down who was leaking? We don't know, of course.

Thank you for putting up with all of these puzzles about Don (and, for most of them, Elon). Here's #31, a crossword puzzle. Notice: There are two sets of five circles each. Those are Don and Elon, together for one last puzzle.

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) keeps threatening to take over Greenland. He seems to think Greenlanders will welcome the USA as liberators. Why? Because he's stupid. (For some history of why Greenlanders might not appreciate the USA or Denmark rule, you might refresh your memories of that time America dropped some nuclear bombs there by accident and then some very unhappy people had to go into some very cold water to retrieve those bombs.)

Usha Vance, V.P.J.D. Vance's wife, planned to go to Greenland for some P.R. Her plan: visit some friendly Greenlanders, view a big dogsled race, spread goodwill. But when her aides scouted ahead to find someone, anyone in Greenland who wanted to meet her, they got no takers. So that part of her itinerary got discarded. Then they figured out just how popular the US isn't in Greenland right now, and the dogsled race part of her itinerary got discarded, too. In the end, she just visited a US military base.

To honor the efforts of her hapless aides wandering the streets of Nuuk in forlorn hope of a friendly face, here's a maze for you to find a route through from top to bottom. (No secret message today, just a maze to wander.) Ice cubes are walls; black squares you can walk on. There are some cold-ish emoji scattered about; they might be handy landmarks.

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🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊
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🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊
🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊
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🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⛄⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊
🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊
🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊
🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊
🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🐧⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊
🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊
🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🛷⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊
🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🌡️⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊
🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊
🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊
🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛🧊⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊
🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊⬛🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊

Hints, rot-13'd:

These hints are the "landmark" emoji you'll encounter going from north to south. If you were hoping for directions from south to north, maybe decode 'em from the bottom.

• zbfg bs gur jnl gb gur vpr fxngr, ohg ghea fbhgu rneyl
• ubpxrl fgvpx
• fabjzna
• fyrq

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) really wanted to send a lot of water south in a hurry. A wildfire had spread to the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Fox News showed a big problem: hoses plugged into fire hydrants weren't getting enough pressure to actually spray water.

Trump knew that California had lots of water in the North; but Los Angeles was in the South. Trump obsesses over this. On another occasion when he was throwing tantrums about wanting to remove federal protection from endangered species, he specifically called out the Delta Smelt, an endangered fish species that's been especially-endangered by California's past efforts to build canals from the wet North to the arid South.

With fires burning, Trump wasn't going to let any fish stop him from sending water south! (By this point, the firehoses in Los Angeles had water pressure again. The problem wasn't a citywide water shortage, just a local problem with terrible timing. But he didn't care.) He ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to send water from its California reservoirs into canals. When the Engineers told him that was stupid, Elon Musk sent a couple of DOGE dimwits to open up the canals anyhow.

Thus California sent a lot of water from north to south…not to Los Angeles, those canals didn't go to Los Angeles. The water went to Tulare Lake, which had no use for it. Let's hope California doesn't have a drought this year, since a couple of stupid gits dumped a big chunk of water water reserves.

Anyhow, here's a puzzle. In the North, we have some words and phrases. In the South, we have those words and phrases with H₂O added. That is, some clown added H H and O one of the north phrases and then swirled up the result. For example: because + hho, anagrammed gives us beach house. That ③ under "beach house" means that we should jot down the third letter of "because": C. Once you match up the North and South phrases, the letters you jot down should spell out an appropriate word.

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• Bayl bar L va guvf chmmyr.
• Bayl 2 Tf va guvf chmmyr, bar jvgu na F naq nabgure jvgu ab F.
• Fpubcraunhre naq EharFpncr tb gbtrgure, ng yrnfg va guvf pbagrkg

Puzzle solution, rot-13'd:

p / ornpu.ubhfr / orpnhfr
h / uhzna.uvfgbel / nezl havgf
e / zbgurefuvc / crezvgf
e / avtug.ureba / eragvat
r / cubgbpurzvpny / pbzcyvpngr
a / Fpubcraunhre / EharFpncr
g / gurer vf.abguvat / vagrerfgvat

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump, back towards the end of his disastrous first term, tweeted about the incoming Hurricane Dorian. He tweeted about which US states would be hit—but alas, he's stupid, so he mistakenly added Alabama to the list. This confused some Alabamans, who then did something dangeous: They asked about the mistake. Trump threw a tantrum and published a video in which he showed a map illustrating where the hurricane would go—a map which somebody had crudely drawn on with a Sharpie pen, trying to extend the path so that it reached Alabama.

When asked later, Trump said he wasn't sure who had altered the map. Yes, who on earth had motive to edit the map to try to reflect Trump's asinine statement? Who could it be?

Five years later, almost half of America's voters re-elected this man. Oh my goodness. What? Oh, right, the puzzle. ahem

We had some nice words, but some clown insists on adding AL to each of them. For example, he saw fine and turned it to finale. We filled in that one. Can you fill in the rest? When you do, the circled letters spell out a better medium for the clown's future artistic endeavors:

Original (Do not call them "correct") words: Austria, blot, deer, fine, mice, pin, sign, sine, tame, tent, ton

Hints, rot-13'd:

• Ubhguv CP Fznyy Tebhc jnf ba gur Fvtany ncc
• Cnyva jnf Nynfxn'f ybba Tbireabe, abj n ybba chaqvg
• Fnyvar vf fnygl

Solution, rot-13'd:

Svanyr / svar / Tenaq raq bs n aneengvir. 
nhfgenyVn / nhfgevn / Abg nyy navznyf urer ner cbvfbabhf! 
gnyrAg / grag / Nzrevpn'f Tbg
fvTany / fvta / Tbbq ncc sbe pbafhzref. Abg fb tbbq sbe Ubhguv CP Fznyy Tebhc, gub
znyvpR / zvpr / Unayba fnvq abg gb pbashfr vg jvgu fghcvqvgl; Gehzc fnvq "Jul abg obgu?"
qrnyrE / qrre / Jub lbh'yy unir gb nfx sbe inppvarf arkg lrne, cebonoyl
Cnyva / cva / Ybba rk-tbireabe jub fgvyy trgf ba gnyx fubjf fbzrubj
oNyybg / oybg / Ryrpgvba senhq pbafcvenpl gurbevfg'f svkngvba
fnyVar / fvar / Vg'f fnygl (zber nf va oeval guna va juval)
gnybA / gba / Rntyr'f tbg
Gnznyr / gnzr / Gnfgl gerng gung znl or ovt naq/be ubg

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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 _?

Dance not for klutzes, Mike

_ 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"

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump and his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk don't understand gender and they throw tantrums when trans women play women's sports. These clowns say they're worried that men will pretend to be trans to peep in the women's changing room. As if the problem there is trans women—anyone who only claims to want to participate in some activity just to peek in the changing room is a menace, no matter what their gender, even if everyone agrees on what that gender is. For example, Trump bought some beauty pageants. For years, he barged into dressing pageant dressing rooms. His gender wasn't the problem, just the creepiness.

Can you figure out what these words are supposed to be? Some clown has stuck 🄼 and 🄵 labels on them, getting it wrong every time. For example, they saw someone playing and said they were flaming. You might worry that it's ambiguous: How did we know it was playing and not blazing or glaring or clawing or… Don't worry, we have clues for the words. You can see we already crossed out the clue for playing. OK, you can worry a little: the clues aren't in order; you'll have to think to figure out which goes with which word.

When you're done, the circled letters will spell a word for a better way to celebrate our country's might than chasing some women out of sports.

Clues:

• By choice
• Day 20
• Less ruly than a rally as protests go
• Maybe bigger than an earldom. (Definitely more fun to say.)
• Nation home to the Natanz Nuclear Facility
• One of 50 in the USA
• Participating in a sport, perhaps
• Square

Hints, rot-13'd:

• Ol pubvpr tbrf jvgu sngure. Yrff ehyl tbrf jvgu evsg.
• Fdhner tbrf jvgu svar. Angvba tbrf jvgu Sena.
• Qhpul vf sha gb fnl orpnhfr vg fbhaqf yvxr "qbbxvr" v.r., cbbc

Solution, rot-13'd:

cl / synzvat / CynLvat / Cnegvpvcngvat va n fcbeg, creuncf
e / sngure / Engure / Ol pubvpr
b / evsg / evBg / Yrff ehyl guna n enyyl nf cebgrfgf tb
gr / fgnss / fgnGR / Bar bs 50 va gur HFN
pu / qhzzl / qhPUl / Znlor ovttre guna na rneyqbz. 
a / svar / Avar / Fdhner
v / sena / Vena / Angvba ubzr gb gur Angnam Ahpyrne Snpvyvgl
pf / snzr / PnFr / Qnl 20

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) has done something random! He… uh.

It's at this point that I'm supposed to pick our some action by the administration that fits the theme "random". I am overwhelmed by choice. Whoosh. Hoo boy. OK, hang on, I got this.

Today a reporter for the Atlantic reported that the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence were sharing classfied files in a Signal chat room. They violated the espionage act, but probably thought they'd get away with it because Signal chat rooms can auto-delete messages after a while. But our drunkard Secretary of Defense added a reporter to the chat room and didn't even notice.

[Update: I got this wrong. It wasn't our drunkard Secretary of Defense who invited the reporter to the chat. It was National Security Advisor Michael Waltz. Though it's a safe bet that Hegseth is drunk at any given moment, it's not clear what Waltz's excuse was. I'm told that Waltz is stupid; but plenty of other people in that chat group are stupid, and they didn't make that mistake.]

Anyhow, I made you a cryptic crossword. I was still feeling overwhelmed by choice, so I used anagramming in every entry and always indicated it with "random." Enjoy!

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) keeps flopping around trying to do things and judges keep stopping him. Now he's throwing tantrums again, screaming that he wants to find who's thwarting his dimwit plans.

That's a 2020-era meme to remind you of the bad old days towards the end of Trump's first term. Trump ruined many things during his first term, but not nearly as many as he wanted to. That's because when lawyers sued the Trump administration, about 80% of the time they were suing over something totally illegal and won their case. Now Trump is writing orders targeting law firms. If I were tired of lawyers consistently winning cases against me I would simply stop breaking the law every single day.

Anyhow, here's a word search. Find the old-timey words for wrongdoers and fugitives. Highlight them or cross them out or something. When you're done, the leftover letters should tell you who Trump tells his searchers to find:

Word list:

BOLTER
CAITIFF
CREEP
CROOK
DODGER
KNAVE
OUTCAST
PERP
VARLET
VILLAIN

Solution, rot-13'd:

obygre  (ebj:0, pby:0, qve:r)
pnvgvss (ebj:5, pby:0, qve:r)
perrc   (ebj:5, pby:0, qve:a)
pebbx   (ebj:5, pby:0, qve:ar)
qbqtre  (ebj:0, pby:7, qve:f)
xanir   (ebj:0, pby:6, qve:f)
bhgpnfg (ebj:7, pby:0, qve:r)
crec    (ebj:1, pby:0, qve:r)
ineyrg  (ebj:6, pby:0, qve:ar)
ivyynva (ebj:6, pby:0, qve:r)

The leftover letters spell: ZL FPNCRTBNG

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) has created a three-ring circus of incompetence. In a three-ring circus, three acts can perform at the same time, there's space for all of them. Now Trump is throwing a tantrum: Judges keep enjoining him, pointing out that he's ordering illegal things.

This is his strategy; he wants to "flood the zone." If he keeps on ruining things, the people running along behind him trying to fix things can't keep up. Hmm, "flood the zone" is kind of an interesting phrase. It describes a three-ring circus; it contains three ring-shaped letters, by which I mean Os. With that in mind, you might take a break from dOOmscrOlling tO enjOy this simple crOsswOrd, nOthing strange gOing On here, nOsireebOb.

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) wants to run America like a business. Alas, he's a dimwit, and all of his businesses failed. Well … his businesses kept failing until he became president, then his businesses made a lot of money "selling" to shady investors, i.e., accepting bribes. You might ask: How did this loser get a reputation as a smart businessman?

"The Apprentice" was a reality TV show from 2004 to 2017. Contestants competed at business-themed challenges. A business expert would judge their efforts, uh, in theory. When the producers were first putting their show together, they contacted many successful businesspeople, asking them to appear on the show as the expert; all the successful businesspeople said "no." And thus, instead of a business expert, they got Donald Trump. Did you ever read producer Bill Pruitt's article on Trump's incompetence? (Here's an archive link in case you can't read the Slate article.) It's just kind of sad; until you remember that this guy became president, then it's tragic. Unfortunately, the producers did a good job of covering for Trump's stupidity. With enough fancy music and strategic edits, Trump seemed impressive!

At the end of each show episode, contestants would go to a "boardroom." Those contestants who'd done worst at the challenge would have to face Trump. He'd "fire" (eliminate) one contestant with the creative catchphrase "You're fired!" With that in mind, can you get from model train to a by the following steps, eliminating a letter each time and then anagramming?

Solution, rot-13'd:

zbqry genva / Znpuvar ba gur Grpu Avpxry Cyngr
yvba gnzre / Zvtug fgvpx gurve urnq va n zbhgu, rj?
grezvany / Ubj gb trg n pbzznaq yvar ba n Znp
zvareny / Abg navzny be irtrgnoyr
znvyre / Rairybcr, sbe rknzcyr
nevry / Qvfarl Cevaprff be Nevry'f jvfcl cny
envy / Grpu Avpxry Cyngr ____ebnq
nyv / Gur Terngrfg: Zhunzznq ___
ny / "Jrveq __" Lnaxbivp
n / Vaqrsvavgr negvpyr

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) wants to consolidate federal procurement for goods and services used by many departments. Why is he doing this? I have a theory, but he says it's for the taxpaer. Yes, the taxpaer. (typo still up on the WhiteHouse site as I write this [update: but fixed as I proofread, awwww]. H/t to Elizabeth Aer Ayer for spotting this.)

On the one hand, we have the DOGE hyenas promising to streamline government by harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence. On the other hand, we see they haven't yet learned to harness the power of looking for the wiggly red line under a typo. Bad news: Clowns armed with hatchets prowl the halls of government. Good news: At least I know what puzzle I can write today.

Can you figure out what letter is missing from each hypothetical WhiteHouse dot gov headline blow? Rite them in the banks provided on the eft. We already filled in the K missing from One Monkey Don't Stop no Show. Hen you ill in the others, you should see my theory on hat Trump hoes to consolidate ere:

K : One Money Don't Stop no Show

_ : The Patent Protection and Affordable Care Act

_ : Scare as 🐔 Hen's Teeth 🦷

_ : On President Biden not Seeing Re-Election

_ : Tales Ladders and Chairs Match

_ : Crete, Read, Update, and Delete

_ : Video Game Addition

_ : Enzyme-Lined Immunosorbent Assay

_ : Comic Microwave Background Radiation

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• RYVFN vf fubeg sbe Ramlzr-YvaXrq VzzhabFbeorag Nffnl
• Gb n jerfgyre, GYP vf fubeg sbe Gnoyrf, Ynqqref, naq Punvef
• ESX We qbrfa'g jnag lbh gb xabj gung vg'f Cngvrag (abg Cngrag) Cebgrpgvba

Puzzle solution, rot-13'd:

X / zbarl / zbaxrl / Bar Zbarl Qba'g Fgbc ab Fubj
V / cngrag / cngvrag / Gur Cngrag Cebgrpgvba naq Nssbeqnoyr Pner Npg
P / fpner / fpnepr / Fpner nf Ura'f Grrgu
X / frrvat / frrxvat / Ba Cerfvqrag Ovqra abg Frrvat Er-Ryrpgvba
O / gnyrf / gnoyrf / Gnyrf Ynqqref naq Punvef Zngpu
N / pergr / perngr / Pergr, Ernq, Hcqngr, naq Qryrgr
P / nqqvgvba / nqqvpgvba / Ivqrb Tnzr Nqqvgvba
X / yvarq / yvaxrq / Ramlzr-Yvarq Vzzhabfbeorag Nffnl
F / pbzvp / pbfzvp / Pbzvp Zvpebjnir Onpxtebhaq Enqvngvba   

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It is March and the lovely EnigMarch people have challenged puzzle designers to write a puzzle inspired by today's word: "case". As in, "In case of fire, break glass." Here, "case" describes a a condition. If there's no fire, please don't break that glass.

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) has laid of thousands of federal workers and canceled government projects to make government more efficient: spend less, get the same benefit. (Well, except we expect to pay more recovering from unexpected weather disasters than we were spending on weather radar repairs; and a lot of those cancelled contracts, we'd already paid for; OK, these cancellations aren't actually going to save us money overall, but for now, the government is theoretically spending less.) Since the government is spending less, does that mean that Americans can pay less in taxes?

Okay, so we can pay less in taxes after Trump balances the budget. We are waiting for the same Trump who grew the national debt by about eight trillion dollars in his first term…(hoo boy); we're waiting for that guy to balance the budget. We are in for a long wait for this "case" to occur.

Here's a puzzle about some other unlikely cases. We've got some phrases that have been split up; beginnings on one side, endings on the other. Figure out which ending goes with each beginning. Notice that one letter in each ending is big and bold. Write that letter down next to the appropriate beginning. (We wrote in the B from Bleeds to the left of "When a stone" for you.) When you're done, the big and bold letters should spell out what kind of person will enjoy reduced taxes right away, without waiting for a balanced budget:

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• Gurer ner gjb pnyraqne-l pnfrf: Sroehnel guVegvrgu naq gjb Fhaqnlf pbzvat gbtrgurE.
• Nppbeqvat gb gur fnlvat, uraf qba'g unir grrgu. (Va cenpgvpr, fpvragvfgf sbhaq n gbbgu-tebjvat trar va puvpxraf frireny lrnef onpx, cerfhznoyl yrsg bire sebz jura oveqf ribyirq sebz qvabfnhef. Znlor abj gurer ner uraf jvgu grrgu? Vf guvf ubj Whenffvp Pbbc fgnegrq?)
• Gur fxl jba'g snyy, ab znggre jung Puvpxra Yvggyr gryyf lbh. Gura ntnva, jr'ir orra jebat nobhg puvpxraf orsber. Uzz.

Puzzle solution, rot-13'd:

Jura n fgbar / Oyrrqf
Ba Sroehnel / guVegvrgu
Jura cvtf / sYl
Jura gur fxl / snYyf
Jura lbh fdhner / gur pVepyr
Jura Uryy / serrmrf Bire
Jura lbh svaq gur unlfgnpx'f / Arrqyr
Jura lbh ureq / pNgf
Jura gur fha / frgf Va gur rnfg
Jura gjb Fhaqnlf / pbzr gbtrgurE
Jura uraf tebj / gRrgu    

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) keeps imposing tariffs on goods. Thus, if you want to buy various imported goods in the future, you'll have to pay high taxes on them. In theory, this could work out okay; it might encourage local manufacture of important items. In practice, we have bozos setting tariffs randomly. This annoys foreign nations; it annoys Americans who don't want to spend an extra $1072 per year in taxes. "Elect a clown, expect a circus" is a funny saying, but it's less funny when you're living in that circus.

I listed some of the top categories of US imports below. I also researched the nations that are the top exporters of those categories (not necessarily to the US; alas, I didn't find any info that fine-grained). For our major imports, this turned out to be just three countries. For each import, can you figure out which country is the main exporter? If you can, write the short 💰💰💰 code in the blanks, like I wrote in CNY (China) by Industrial machines. Get them all right, and the circled letters should spell out a better word for 💰💰💰 here:

List of nations (and their 💰💰💰) useful in this puzzle:

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• Vg'f zbfgyl Puvan. Jura va qbhog, thrff PAL naq pyrna hc jebat thrffrf yngre
• Treznal vf pnef gub
• Treznal vf nyfb qehtf

Puzzle solution, rot-13'd:

p / PAL / Puvan        / vaqhfgevny znpuvarf
h / RHE / Treznal      / cuneznprhgvpny cercnengvbaf
e / RHE / Treznal      / cnffratre pnef, arj naq hfrq
e / FE  / Fnhqv Nenovn / pehqr bvy
r / RHE / Treznal      / bgure cnegf naq npprffbevrf bs iruvpyrf
a / PAL / Puvan        / nccnery, grkgvyrf, abajbby be pbggba
p / PAL / Puvan        / gryrpbzzhavpngvbaf rdhvczrag
l / PAL / Puvan        / pbzchgre npprffbevrf

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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!

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (and similarly his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) gets so angry when Americans point out he was lucky to be born to a rich family. His path to becoming a multi-millionaire? Be born a multi-muliti-millionaire and then lose a lot. And then stop being a multi-millionaire when he went bankrupt all those times. I guess that's why he gets so mad about D.E.I., Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Whenever someone succeeds who didn't start out with Trump's luck, it makes Trump look bad. The manbaby keeps throwing tantrums about it. (Does it seem like I'm writing a lot of D.E.I. puzzles? It feels like I'm writing a lot of D.E.I. puzzles. It's like Trump's obsessions become my obsessions when I let his incompetence inspire my puzzle designs. Anyhow)

Recently someone noticed something strange on the defense.gov website. If you try to visit the page https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2824721/medal-of-honor-monday-army-maj-gen-charles-calvin-rogers/, you get a 404 not found. OK, that's not super weird. What's super weird is that first it redirects to another address: that /medal turns to /deimedal. This was a web page about war hero Charles Calvin Rogers. Rogers was black. Apparently some racist dimwit at the defense department decided to change the address of the page by adding D.E.I. to it; and when that wasn't bad enough, they deleted the page.

If you have a strong stomach for harrowing war stories and want to be impressed by someone staying alive under grim conditions, you might check out Rogers' Wikipedia page. If you'd like a crossword that mentions one of his awards, you can solve this crossword I just wrote.

([Update: solved by Chris D., whew!] Can you solve it? This is EnigMarch, so I just cranked that puzzle out. I didn't proofread it or ask anyone to test it.)

[Update upon update: The Defense Department put the page back on their website.]

No rot-13'd hints or solution today. That online crossword-solving interface should let you check and reveal things. If I did it right. Hmm, guess we'll find out.

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) gets so angry when Americans point out that he is not a king, he throws a tantrum and declares himself king. So I'm thinking about today's word, "bow." I'm thinking: Trump wants Americans to bow and scrape. Looking out for wordplay, I realize: the answer is within "scrape": we should treat him like scrape

So here are some phrases of the form this and that, where the middle "ha" of "that" is also a thing. Maybe you're worried: Wow, "bow and scrape" is kinda obscure. If I don't know some of these phrases, as seems likely, am I just out of luck? Take a look at the list of emoji titled "the middle parts." Notice that one of those is the poop emoji. That's a clue that you should write in "crap" for "Bow and s____e". Oh wait, someone already wrote that in.

Write in the others and the circled letters should remind you what America is (hint: not a kingdom).

The middle parts: 🦍   💩   👂   🥊   🚻   👘   🪙   ⚱️

Hints, rot-13'd:

• Rirel pebffjbeq svraq xabjf n xvzbab'f oryg vf na bov
• Rirel pebffjbeq svraq xabjf gung n onguebbz va Oevfgby vf n ybb
• Napvrag ahzvfzngvfgf xabj gung gurer hfrq gb or pbvaf pnyyrq crapr
• Gung jrveq funcr ng gur raq vf na hea

Solution, rot-13'd, tho that doesn't do much to obscure the emoji sry:

obj /          fpEncr / 💩
oybbq, fjrng / gRnef  / 👂
cra /         cnCre   / 🦍
gjvfgf /       gHeaf  / ⚱️
Ongzna /      EbOva   / 👘
syrfu /        oYbbq  / 🚻
oynpx /       juVgr   / 🥊
Znexf /     FcraPre   / 🪙   

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) wants to appoint Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Department of Defense. He certainly didn't want to choose based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, because that's liberal code for excluding failsons such himself. Instead, he chose based on merit.

But this was an unprecedented kind of "merit." Trump nominated John Caine, a three-star Air Force Lt. General, to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Title 10 of the U.S. Code says that Trump must choose from four-star generals and admirals. But he's really scraping the bottom of the barrel, had to settle for for Caine, who's missing a star. (In Caine's defense, he's pretty good at flattering Trump, which might count as "merit" in this situation.)

Silver lining: I can make a puzzle out of "missing a star". Below, you see some anagrammed phrases. But beware: though each phrase contained the letters S…T…A…R (in order but not contiguous), those letters went missing before I did the anagramming. To help you out, there are clues down below. Each clue has one letter that stands out. When you know which clue goes with an anagram, write that stands-out letter down in the blank on the left-hand side. When you're done, those left-hand letters should spell out the special character of Caine's "merit." We got you started by unscrambling United (Sta)tes Ai(r) Force; whose clue's stands-out letter is U:

Clues:

• California university with puzzlehunt traditions
• Congratulations, you played yourself (but it's a card game)
• Connecticut home of the ACPT nerdfest
• Elon Musk came from there, ugh
• It's March 17 this year (and every year)
• Katharine Hepburn won four of these Oscars
• Kidlit classic The Phantom Tollbooth's was Jules Feiffer, for example
• Mark Zuckerberg's photo sharing site, now D.E.I.-free
• Required level of achievement to be considered (lol nope)
• Service in which Caine was a lieutenant (3-star) general
• Squad of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist

Hints, rot-13'd:

• Fnvag Cngevpx'f Qnl vf Znepu 17.
• Gubfr ivbyvavfgf ner unys bs n fgevat dhnegrg.
• Urcohea unf gur erpbeq sbe zbfg Orfg Npgerff Bfpnef

Solution, rot-13'd:

h / havgrq fgngrf nve sbepr / Freivpr va juvpu Pnvar jnf n yvrhgranag (3-fgne) trareny
a / fgnasbeq / Pnyvsbeavn havirefvgl jvgu chmmyruhag genqvgvbaf
d / fgevat dhnegrg / Fdhnq bs gjb ivbyvavfgf, n ivbyvfg, naq n pryyvfg
h / fbhgu nsevpn / Ryba Zhfx pnzr sebz gurer, htu
n / vafgntenz / Znex Mhpxreoret'f cubgb funevat fvgr, abj Q.R.V.-serr
y / fbyvgnver / Pbatenghyngvbaf, lbh cynlrq lbhefrys (ohg vg'f n pneq tnzr)
v / vyyhfgengbe / Xvqyvg pynffvp Gur Cunagbz Gbyyobbgu'f jnf Whyrf Srvssre
s / fgnzsbeq / Pbaarpgvphg ubzr bs gur NPCG areqsrfg
v / fnvag cngevpxf qnl / Vg'f Znepu 17 guvf lrne (naq rirel lrne)
r / orfg npgerff / Xngunevar Urcohea jba sbhe bs gurfr Bfpnef
q / fgnaqneq / Erdhverq yriry bs npuvrirzrag gb or pbafvqrerq (yby abcr)
      

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) has decided to run the USA like a business. After all, all businessmen know that once you learn how to run one business, you can run anything, sort of like how you might use a Joker to form different poker hands depending on what other cards you have. Alas, Trump never even learned how to run one business, unless you count "ran it into the ground." (How many bankruptcies is he up to now?)

Here are clues to some word pairs. In each pair, the words differ by one letter; we got a 🃏 to stand in both places. Write the letters that 🃏 stands for in the two blanks off to the side. But what to write in the very left-hand blank? Look at the table down below. Using the two 🃏 letters, look up a single letter in the table. We filled in the first row already: hoUse and hoRse have the 🃏 letters U and R. We look up U and R in the table and get W. (Don't worry; if we swizzled the order and looked up R and U instead, we'd still get W; you can't get that wrong.) When you're done, the letters in that left-most column should spell out a word for "joker".

Here's the table where you can look up the letter for each pair of 🃏 letters. E.g., the U-R 🃏 in the Horse/House example gives a W. We circled that.

Hints, rot-13'd:

• Gurl juvar vaprffnagyl
• Nabgure jbeq sbe ubob vf genzc.
• Cbfg- zrnaf nsgre

Solution, rot-13'd:

J / HE / ubHfr / ubEfr / Jurer ercf nggnpu evqref / Navzny jvgu n evqre
V / XG / fgnXrf / fgnGrf / Gurl xvyy inzcverf / Gur F va HFN
Y / GA / juvGr / juvAr / _____ fhcerznpvfgf… / … _____ vaprffnagyl
Q / NB / aNgvba / aBgvba / Pbhagel / Gurbel
P / EA / pbhEg / pbhAg / Fhcerzr _____ / Ibgr _____
N / EZ / gvErf / gvZrf / Rkunhfgf / A.L. _____ Cvgpuobg
E / YS / nYgre / nSgre / Punatr, r.t., ol bar yrggre / Cbfg-
Q / NH / geNzc / geHzc / Ubob / Ybhfl ohz    

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) ahem You know, I'm still hung up on yesterday's story, or rather the aside in yesterday's story: The crazy story of the day Elon Musk decided to personally rip servers out of a Sacramento data center.

ThrowBack Thursday: Musk had just acquired Twitter. He wanted to cut costs, was sure he could make things run more efficiently. He laid off a bunch of Twitter workers, and then was surprised when the remaining workers didn't know how to keep things going. And, to cut costs keeping machines running, he personally went to a Twitter data center and started disconnecting machines, even though people told him that this would break things.

Do you see parallels to the way D.O.G.E. makes the US Government "more efficient" by laying off workers and canceling programs…and then, shockingly, things stop working?

Anyhow, I made you a word search. Can you find the many, many synonyms of "point" that are hidden in the grid below? Cross them out (like I did with Label, and the leftover letters will explain Elon's point.

Oh no! Elon got into the grid and yanked some rectangles out and dumped them on the floor. I guess to solve the word puzzle, you'll need to figure out where to put those back in.

The server rack:

The yanked rectangles:

Word list:

AMOUNT
COMMAND
CONTACT
CONTROL
DIRECT
DOCTOR
ELEMENT
FACTOR
IMPORT
INDICATE
LABEL
LOCATION
MEANING
MEASURE
OBJECT
PORTION
REPAIR
STATE
TAPER
TARGET
TERMINAL
TRAIN

Clues, rot-13'd:

• "Pbageby" tbrf hcjneq va gur frpbaq pbyhza naq cnffrf guebhtu gur BEN erpgnatyr.
• "Ercnve" tbrf qbjajneq va gur frpbaq-gb-ynfg pbyhza naq cnffrf guebhtu gur ZNH naq NEC erpgnatyrf.
• Pgey-S gryyf lbh gurer'f whfg bar W va gur tevq, juvpu zvtug uryc lbh svaq "bowrpg".

Solution, rot-13'd:

Here's the restored grid; leftover letters are Capitalized; letters used in words are lowercase:

|vaqvpngrqszg|
|Uynoryqvnarr|
|VbFgCaepbbne|
|BenVnrgvAvfz|
|GgbzpbgVnghv|
|fazgenvazeea|
|FbBgprwobbrn|
|ppAbGbcBhccy|
|CBySNQqnaznH|
|zrnavatAgvvP|
|RgpngabpPNeC|
|gnetrgarzryr|

Here's the word list; for each word there's a starting row, starting column and a direction. Yeah, yeah, rot-13 doesn't disguise the row or column numbers at all; but who's even going to scroll down this far?

nzbhag	(ebj:4, pby:8, qve:f)
pbzznaq	(ebj:7, pby:0, qve:ar)
pbagnpg	(ebj:10, pby:7, qve:j)
pbageby	(ebj:7, pby:1, qve:a)
qverpg	(ebj:0, pby:8, qve:fj)
qbpgbe	(ebj:8, pby:6, qve:aj)
ryrzrag	(ebj:11, pby:11, qve:j)
snpgbe	(ebj:0, pby:9, qve:fj)
vzcbeg	(ebj:9, pby:9, qve:a)
vaqvpngr	(ebj:0, pby:0, qve:r)
ynory	(ebj:1, pby:1, qve:r)
ybpngvba	(ebj:8, pby:2, qve:ar)
zrnavat	(ebj:9, pby:0, qve:r)
zrnfher	(ebj:0, pby:10, qve:f)
bowrpg	(ebj:6, pby:8, qve:j)
cbegvba	(ebj:7, pby:9, qve:a)
ercnve	(ebj:5, pby:10, qve:f)
fgngr	(ebj:5, pby:0, qve:ar)
gncre	(ebj:9, pby:8, qve:aj)
gnetrg	(ebj:11, pby:0, qve:r)
grezvany	(ebj:0, pby:11, qve:f)
genva	(ebj:5, pby:3, qve:r)    

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) sold out Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion. Now Twitte X keeps failing and Elon is throwing a tantrum, blaming a massive Ukrainian cyberattack. (Oh man, this reminds me of the time Elon carried out a massive cyberattack on Twitter by going to a data center and physically unplugging cables and pulling out server racks, convinced Twitter's automatic failover could handle it. It could…until it couldn't. Anyhow, lesson learned: Elon doesn't understand X as well as he thinks he does.) This is probably a "false-flag" operation. Hackers in some country might attack X, but not directly. First hack into some poorly-defended computers in Ukraine; then attack X from those computers. Oh hey, there's a puzzle idea:

A Russian hacking group has plans to attack the USA. To make sure any US retaliation hits some other country, the hackers launch their attacks from foreign servers. Thus, victims don't see attacks coming from something.ru but instead something.else.ba if the attack's coming from, say, BosniA. Here's a list of the hacker plans: Code names, partially-retrieved false code names, and summaries. We also have a list of countries in which the hackers maintain botnets, previously-hacked machines ready to launch attacks. Can you figure out the false names using the two-letter country codes that replace ru? We filled in one for you project banner, from Bosnia. When you're done, the circled letters should spell out Elon's first reaction to engineers who try to tell him how X really works.

IANA ccTLDs a.k.a. "country codes"
Argentina: .ar
Armenia: .am
Bosnia: .ba
Estonia: .ee
Gabon: .ga
Ireland: .ie
Niger: .ne
Taiwan: .tw

Clues, rot-13'd:

• Gjvggre hfrq gb eha n fubeg-ivqrb fvgr pnyyrq Ivar orsber shzoyvat vg. Gjvggre zvfznantrzrag cerqngrf Ryba! (Ohg ur ernyyl ryringrq gur zvfznantrzrag gb arj urvtugf.)
• Jngre syhbevqngvba svtugf gbbgu qrpnl.
• Gurer ner znal pvgvrf va Verynaq; pbairefryl, "vr" vf va "pvgvrf."

Solution, rot-13'd:

ehaare /  Onaare / Zbir snfg gb frg hc snyfr synt bcrengvba / Obfavn / on
gehgu /  gRrgu / Zvfyrnqvat snpgf nobhg jngre syhbevqngvba / Rfgbavn / rr
ehzbe /  nEzbe / Fhoireg qrsrafr ntnvafg qvfvasbezngvba / Netragvan / ne
pehry /  pNzry / Qvfehcg qrfreg fhccyl yvarf jvgubhg zrepl / Nezravn / nz
ehva /    Gjva / Cresrpg vzcbfgbe yrnirf jerpxntr / Gnvjna / gj
pvgehf / pVgvrf / YvzrJver gebwna hfrq ba cbchyngvba pragref / Verynaq / vr
ivehf / ivArf / Uvqr znyjner va bofbyrgr fubeg ivqrbf / Avtre / ar
ehzoyr /  Tnzoyr / Pbhagresrvg orgf ba BXP Guhaqre / Tnoba / tn

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump lives in the White Hous—oh whoops SPOILER REDACTE—too late, you say? OK, The USA clown President Trump lives in the White House and nobody is happy about it. Even he would prefer to live in Florida, much to the dismay of Floridans. Welp, I guess I accidentally spoiler-ed the first item in this puzzle, so I can write it in. If you write in the other items, the circled letters should spell out where Trump can live after he's been deposed and exiled:

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• Gehzc'f "obar fchef" xrcg uvz bhg bs HF zvyvgnel freivpr, fb ur jvyy arire rnea n checyr urneg.
• Gubfr zhfvpny byqvrf ner Cvax Syblq naq Lryybj Fhoznevar
• N oyhr zbba vf ener, vs ~naahny vf ener

Puzzle solution, rot-13'd:

juvgr / Ubhfr / Gehzc vf n qvftenpr gb guvf irel cynpr 
erq / fBk / Obfgba fyhttref 
oyhr / Zbba / Enevgl 
checyr / uRneg / Lbh pna nibvq guvf ol snxvat obar fchef 
cvax / sYblq / ♫ V'yy frr lbh ba gur qnex fvqr bs gur zbba ♫ 
tbyq / zRqny / Avpr Bylzcvpf fbhirave 
lryybj / Fhoznevar / ♫ Bhe sevraqf ner nyy nobneq ♫ 
oynpx / Frn / Fuberyvar ubzr gb Chgva'f Cnynpr 

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It is March and the lovely EnigMarch people have challenged puzzle designers to write a puzzle inspired by today's word: "hollow". Hmm, does "hollow" have any interesting synonyms? Oh yeah, gulf.

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) wants to rename The Gulf of Mexico to The Gulf of America. And he throws a tantrum whenever anyone points out how stupid that is.

I looked through a bunch of Wikipedia pages to find other The Thingy of Other Country things he might want to rename next. We already filled in MEXICO below. Fill in the others and when you're done, the circled letters spell out a geographical feature that might be appropriate to name after America soon.

Nations: Egypt, India, Iraq, Madagascar, Mexico, Ukraine

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• Uzz, zbfg bs gurfr pbhagevrf unir qvssrerag ahzoref bs yrggref.
• Gur Cevapr bs Rtlcg jnf n Qernzjbexf zbivr. Gur Crathvaf bs Znqntnfpne jnf n Qernzjbexf GI fubj. Pbafvfgrag!
• Pevpxrg'f xvaq bs n ovt qrny va Vaqvn, V guvax?

Puzzle solution, rot-13'd:

thys / zrkvPb / Orggre guna "Gur Thys bs FcnprK Qroevf," V thrff
crathvaf / znqntnfpnE / GI fubj znlor frg va Ghkrqb Cnex be fbzrguvat
gvzrf / vaqvN / Ubzr bs cerfgvtvbhf Pevpxrgre bs gur Lrne njneqf
cevapr / rtlcG / Terng frggvat sbe byq Puevfgvna fgbel, whfg nfx Wbua Fzvgu
ehffvna vainfvba / hxenvaR / Batbvat fvapr 2014
2003 vainfvba / vEnd / Znxrf zber frafr, HFN unq JZQf ng gur gvzr

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) wants to take away birthright citizenship! It's in the USA constitution, but it's not like he swore an oath to uphold that old rag, right? Anyhow, federal judges keep stopping him. This must be very frustrating.

So let's take away from some other -ships. Below are some clues for some -ship words. The clues are kinda vague, so you probably want to look at the "What remains" section down there. For each of those, you want to add one letter, then re-arrange, and then put a -ship on the end. That will give you one of the -ship words. You can see that we added a T to carotid to get the dictator in dictatorship.

Keep track of those letters you added. When you're done, you'll get the name of a ship that was directed about as well as Trump directs the USA. It feels like he's trying to reach Autocracy; but his track record says he'll hit Bankruptcy (again) first.

What remains: aileron, carotid, fired!, reverie, rich man, spartan, spliced

Clues, rot-13'd:

• Nvyreba trgf n G.
• Vg gheaf bhg qvfpvcyrfuvc vf n guvat. Frr, V'z glcvat vg urer naq gurer nera'g nal erq fdhvttyrf.
• Jub'f zbfg yvxryl gb trg n punveznafuvc?

Solution, rot-13'd:

pnebgvq / qvpGngbefuvc / Nhgbpenpl
fcnegna / cnegVfnafuvc / Gvyg
nvyreba / erynGvbafuvc / Vg zvtug or znevgny
evpu zna / puNveznafuvc / Avpr obneq frng
sverq   / sevrAqfuvc   / Tbbq jvyy
fcyvprq / qVfpvcyrfuvc / Sbyybjvat
erirevr / erPrvirefuvc / Onaxehcgpl

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) have canceled science grants to study mice because they think the scientists are trying to make mice transgender. This is, of course, stupid nonsense. How could they believe it?

One theory: They don't know the difference between the words transgender and transgenic. It would be nice to think that the people pointlessly wrecking so much did so because they were just ¼ wrong. (Does -der/ic count as three letters or two? If we split the difference and say 2½ letters, that's about a quarter of the word.)

(The Snopes fact-checkers pointed out a hole in this "transgenic" theory. They think Trump believed a remarkably-wrong investigation that "found" university experiments turning mice transgender. The investigation was stupid; it would only convince the most gullible… Oh no! Anyhow, let's stick with the "transgenic" theory for now because I can make a puzzle out of it.)

So now I see we must explain the differences between words, because those words are mostly the same. But in each pair of words, one has IC, and the other has 1-3 other letters. E.g.: here we see that Voice and Volume are mostly the same (looking like Vo_e), but VoⓁⓊⓂe has a few different letters, which we circle:

Ic-words, transposal'd: Cceins, Ceiov, Ceips, Cfiinot, Cino, Ciost, Cirstt
These are the IC-words, each a transposal (that's old-timey wordplay jargon for "anagramming"). We crossed out Ceiov, because we already figured out Voice.

When you're done, the circled letters should spell out a science-y way Congress might try to find a spine.

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• Uvfgbevnaf zvtug pbzcner gbqnl'f byvtnepuf gb lrfgreqnlf eboore onebaf
• Gung jrveq sybj pyhr vf n Qhar ersrerapr
• Yvrf va vairfgvtngvba ner yvrf, ohg va yvgrengher jr whfg chg gurz va gur svpgvba frpgvba

Puzzle solution, rot-13'd:

ibVPr / ibYHZr / 🗣️ / 🔊
VPba / ONEba / Snfuvba ____ / Eboore _____
fgbVP / fgbC / Vaqvssrerag n yn Mrab / 🛑
sVPgvba / sHAPgvba / Yvrf va yvgrengher / Sbez sbyybjf _____
fpraVP / fpraG / Avpr, nf va ivrj / Nebzn, nf va c-h
fgeVPg / fgeHg / Evtvq / Fjnttre
fcVPr / fcERr / Vg zhfg sybj / Enzcntr, ohg sbe fubccvat

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

There's no story or secret message today. This is just a word ladder. If it's working correctly, then typing a letter in one square will make that letter also appear in the appropriate squares in the same row and in the adjacent rows above and below.

But if typing in letters haphazardly is no fun, know this: these are the names of USA presidents since 1937 ordered by their average approval ratings in polls. Highest approval rating is at the top, lowest is at the bottom.

Lowest average approval rating, hmm. Who could it be?

If you would have preferred a tougher step-linking challenge, check out the Raddle daily puzzle page. I tried it out and I liked it so far.

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) needs to appoint cabinet members and agency heads! He certainly doesn't want to choose based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, because that's liberal code for excluding failsons such as himself. Instead, he will choose based on merit. But, to fit the theme of this puzzle, he must give the meaning of merit a 180-degree turn.

For each dunderhead listed below, choose a job for them based on their qualifications. Write the four-letter job code in the blanks. You can see we already wrote ECON in for Kevin Hassett. When you're done, the circled letters should spell out another word for "turn".

EⒸO N   :

Kevin Hassett
He coauthored Dow 36,000, a book which predicted a 4x rise in the stock market (a year before the market fell 37%). In early 2020, he predicted coronavirus deaths would be near-zero by May and thus encouraged the administration to re-open the economy.

_ _◯_   :

Linda McMahon
When vetted for the Connecticut Board of Education, she lied about having a bachelor's degree in education.

_◯_ _   :

Sean Duffy
His understanding of climate change could explain his later elimination of electric vehicle incentives: "If you say the climate's changing, is it coming from CO₂ or is it coming from the sun?" (Must have been a strong contender for head of NOAA, but that job went to the Sharpiegate guy, so find another job.)

◯_ _ _   :

Pete Hegseth
Encouraged Trump to pardon soldiers convicted of war crimes.

_ _ _◯   :

Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Spread anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation.

_◯_ _   :

Billy Long
During his time representing Southwest Missouri in Congress, he pursued legislation to abolish the Internal Revenue Service.

Job codes (and full titles)

DEFE : Secretary of Defense

ECON : Director of the National Economic Council

EDUC : Secretary of Educaction

HEAL : Secretary of Health and Human Services

REVE : Commisioner of Internal Revenue

TRAN : Secretary of Transportation

Hints:

• I guess you could Google these people, but I bet you can figure it out by reading their qualifications.

Solution, rot-13'd:

Xriva Unffrgg        : rPba
Yvaqn ZpZnuba        : rqHp
Frna Qhssl           : gEna
Crgr Urtfrgu         : Qrsr
Eboreg S Xraarql We. : urnY
Ovyyl Ybat           : eRir

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump (egged on by his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk) said he was doing his part to help the economy by imposing tarriffs, but in fact fell into a trap. Now investors have figured out that the economy is trashed and they're selling off stock in American companies. Kind of interesting how trap and part are spelled backwards-ly.

Anyhow, solve this puzzle and the circled letters will tell you a word for someone who does things backwards-ly from what he said.

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• Xabg naq gbax ner erirefrf. Lrnu, gung jrveq rzbwv vf fhccbfrq gb or n xabg.
• Qrre naq errq ner nabgure cnve. Lrc, gung'f n qrre.
• Cnjf naq fjnc tb gbtrgure. Gung rzbwv xvaqn fhttrfgf fjnccvat, fbegn.

All the puzzle data, also rot-13'd:

o / ongf / 🦇🦇🦇 / 🔪🔪🔪
n / qenj / fxrgpu / cebgrpg
p / znpf / Abg CPf / genc
x / xabg / 🪢 / Ubaxl-____
j / sybj / Znepu 1 / 🐺
n / cnjf / 🐾🐾🐾 / 🔄
e / qrre / 🦌 / Evire-fvqr cynag
q / qhny / Univat qbhoyr angher / Cenvfr
f / ntrf / Pngna vf ____ 10+ / Tnzr znpuvar
e / engf / 🐀🐀🐀 / ⭐
n / yvnz / ____ Arrfba / 📨
v / rivy / 👿 / Abg cer-erpbeqrq
y / ybbc / 🪢 cneg / Zretr
    

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump and his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk have canceled hundreds of contracts while accomplishing nothing! Alas, they have disrupted government operations, breaking many things.

Below are clues for many broken things, specifically broken seven-letter words. Each word was broken in half. We gathered up the left-halves and the right-halves. Whoopsie, we lost the middles, the "hearts," as it were. Using the clues, can you figure out the broken words? You can see how we figured out "Madison" from mad and son.

Some might think Trump and Musk are heartless, but when you've figured out the words' missing hearts, you'll find another adjective.

Left-hand words: cab, car, fur, kit, mad, off, run, ski, wet

Right-hand words: ace, age, and, hen, per, red, son, van, way

Some hints, rot-13'd

• Gur svefg frg bs sbhe urneg-yrggref sbezf n jbeq. Fb qbrf gur ynfg frg bs sbhe urneg-yrggref.
• Fxv naq cre tb gbtrgure
• Pnoontr vf byq-gvzrl fynat sbe zbarl

Puzzle solution, also rot-13'd:

znqvfba / Sngure bs gur Pbafgvghgvba
sheanpr / Fbhepr bs ubg nve
xvgpura / Cynpr sbe n pnovarg
ehanjnl / Bhg bs pbageby
fxvccre / Pncgnva be bar jub syrrf gbja
pnenina / Tebhc bs iruvpyrf(!)
pnoontr / $, fynatvyl
jrgynaq / Fjnzc, r.t., Jnfuvatgba QP
bssrerq / Gevrq gb znxr n qrny

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump and his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk don't understand gender and it's led to a bizarre pronoun-phobia! Pronouns are handy referential-ish words; it's hard to communicate clearly without them. The first word of the US Consititution is a pronoun. (Then again, those guys do their best to ignore the Constitution…)

They removed the pronouns from several words and names below. Fortunately, we kept track of the pronouns, so now we can add them back in. We figured out that MAPSYCHCGRL was really Mai the Psychic Girl. Can you fill in the others to restore clear communication? When you're done, the circled letters should spell out a referential-ish word, itself made up of four pronouns.

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• I nyy, rl naq E v,ire ner nyernql va beqre.
• Na nantenzzvat gbby yvxr Ahgevzngvp pbhyq fher uryc jvgu gur gbhtuvrf.
• NTR ure, vg jbhyq or va beqre vs lbh fjnccrq gur pbyhzaf nebhaq.
• 'Fbhaqf yvxr "Ybfg Jntrf"' vf n pnfvab pvgl.

All the puzzle data, rot-13'd:

zncflpuptey  /  zNv gur cflpuvp tvey     / vg, ur, v, v / 1980f znatn
i / inYyrl / nyy, rl / Hapnaal, Qrngu, be Buvb
yt  /   Ynf irtnf  / nf, nf, ir / Fbhaqf yvxr "Ybfg Jntrf"
zp / zHfvp / hf, v / Nhqvb neg
qba   / qvivFvba    / ivf, v, v / ÷
ntr  /  ureVgntr         / ure, vg / Yrtnpl
e / evIre    / ire, v / Obql bs jngre
nepn / nzRevpn / zr, v / N erchoyvp, vs lbh pna xrrc vg

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump and his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk are halting a huge-yet-arbitrary chunk of research at the NSF, NIH, and possibly other science agencies I overlooked!

Alas, our puzzly chemists' supplies were disrupted. They tried to make some words, but each word is missing two chemical symbols. For example, they tried to make "staffers", but were missing flourine (F) and iron (Fe), so they got staFFers = stars. Can you reconstruct the other words they were trying to make? Each is missing two symbols. Despite what you might think from that "staffers" example, the symbols might not be right next to each other.

When you're done, the circled letters should spell out the general character of the disruption.

Missing chemistry symbols: Ac, As, Ba, Co, F, Fe, H, Lu, Nd, O, P, Po, Si, Ti

Some hints, rot-13'd:

• Pbonyg naq cubfcubehf tb gbtrgure.
• Arbqlzvhz naq bkltra tb gbtrgure.
• Npgvavhz naq Ulqebtra tb gbtrgure.

All the puzzle data, rot013'd:

fgnef / fgnSsref / Sr S / Betnavmngvba crbcyr
znal / pBzcnal / Pb C / Nffbpngvba
enz / enaqBz / Aq B / Jvgubhg ernfba
fbba / fbYhgvba / Yh Gv / Abg cerpvcvgngr
bcgvba / bccbfVgvba / Cb Fv / Erfvfgnapr
oryy / onFronyy / Nf On / Nzrevpn'f cnfggvzr
zvar / znpUvar / Np U / Qrivpr

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

Oh no! The USA clown President Trump and his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk fired hundreds of people at the NOAA, the USA's weather prediction agency! We can expect billions of dollars in damage to transportation and other sectors that rely on weather. We can see the effects already below. E.g. That "heat flow" has a problem: it contains letters from "waft" but should have letters from "wind". So we cross out the letters W, A, F, T from heat flow to get H E L O. Then we add the letters W I N D to the right places HELO to get Whieldon, as in the influential pottery-maker Thomas Whieldon. (Gee, that's kind of obscure, like a puzzle designer was pretty desperate to shoehorn "flow" into this puzzle somehow. Let's hope the rest of the answers are easier!) No doubt that "Thomas _____" is the clue that points to Wieldon, so write it into the top set of blanks. Now do that for the rest of the entries.

When you're done, the circled letters should spell out the root of the problem (and dare we hope its solution?).

Weather phenomena: calm, clear, corona, dry, fog, frost, gale, heat, ice, mist, rain, scud, smog, sun, waft, wind

Some rot-13'd Hints:

• Gur Ahgevzngvp fvgr vf tbbq ng fbyivat nantenzf. R.t., sbyybj guvf yvax vs lbh jnag gb xabj n anzr lbh pna znxr sebz URYB + JVAQ
• Svefg lbh zvtug svther bhg juvpu jrngure curabzraba tbrf jvgu rnpu jebat-nafjre. Jura lbh pebff nyy gubfr bhg, lbh'yy unir srjre jrngure curabzran gb guvax nobhg jura gelvat gb sbez evtug-nafjref.
• Qel tbrf jvgu "ng gur ntr"
• Nanepul pyhrf "haerfg"
• Fphq tbrf jvgu zvfg.

All the puzzle data, all rot-13'd:

  
urng sybj / jnsg / jvaq / juvRyqba / Gubznf ___
zbeavatf / fzbt / tnyr / Yrneavat / Xabjyrqtr
ng gur ntr / urng / qel / gentRql / Qvfnfgre
rnfg Gvzbe / zvfg / fphq / rqhPngbef / Grnpuref
aneengvir / enva / vpr / pernGvir / Vaabingvir
sbbgcevagf / sebfg / pnyz / pbzcynVag / Wrerzvnq
qverpgvbany / pyrne / pbeban / pbBeqvangvba / Unaq-rlr _____
sbetrg / sbt / fha / hAerfg / Nanepul

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