Jared

@Nathan Baltich They circled clues all point to the center of the puzzle when read as a "sign" word. (E.g. It's not a RATS sign, it's a STAR sign.) The clue at the center of the puzzle is "yes", so all of the signs point to yes. As for the crossing, yeah, that one felt a bit harsh for a Tuesday, no argument there.

@Laura "Forty-niner" was a term for people who migrated to California, either temporarily or permanently, as a part of the gold rush (most of whom did so in 1849, hence the term.) As gold prospectors, yes, that's about what they did.

@Laura "Forty-niner" was a term for people who migrated to California, either temporarily or permanently, as a part of the gold rush (most of whom did so in 1849, hence the term.) As gold prospectors, yes, that's about what they did. (Edited to add that I think I misread the ellipses in your comment and now realize that you understood the term already, but thought "examiner" itself was a bit of a stretch. Which, yeah, this one needed help from crosses for me as well.)

@Donnie No, it's like saying Target is a competitor of Walmart.

There's a common theme in costumes, especially for those in their 20's, to dress up as "sexy ____", where the blank has spanned anything from the "usual" e.g. sexy nurse, sexy nun, sexy firefighter, or sexy librarian, etc. to the outlandish and creative, like a sexy Pez dispenser or something. It's to the point that it's almost a meme about how if something exists, someone's made a sexy version of it for a Halloween costume.

@Charles Maybe? But the crossings were all pretty straightforward, so even as someone who frequently struggles with proper nouns, I found today's puzzle to be pretty casual - typical Tuesday fare.