Monday, May 18, 2026 —🎵 It's a Small World, After All 🎶

How she does it remains a mystery, but Rena Cohen has a definite knack for crafting wonderfully clever and gentle themes, embedded in a grid with some fine answers — today's crossword being an excellent case in point. We were shocked by 54D, Marsupial often mistermed a "bear", KOALA (wait: you mean all those zoo signs are lying to us?!); inspired by the phlegmatic 46A, "___ Calm and Carry On", KEEP (yay, Britain!); and another useful factoid, 56D, There are 100 of these in every Scrabble game...