You have been granted access, use your keyboard to continue reading. Wordplay, The Crossword Column Barbara Lin returns to open our solving weekend. In skiing, unlike in crosswords, going down is much easier than going across.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times July 2, 2026, 10:00 p.m. ET FRIDAY PUZZLE — Grid-spanning entries, or spanners, are answers that run from one edge of the grid all the way to the other.