Thursday, August 25, 2022 - EREBUS (the deity, not the manufacturer!)

An ingenious Thursday crossword by Olivia Mitra Framke and Andrea Carla Michaels, who discovered how to amusingly squeeze US states together, to great effect, in this 5-square-on-the-JAMCR-scale-worthy puzzle. We have all the deets inside, just waiting for you to discover. Remember that if you haven't done the crossword, and want to be able to follow along, just wander over to xwordinfo.com -- there you can see the entire grid filled out (so, huge spoiler alert before you go there...