The conspiracy theory writes itself. Start looking, and you’ll notice how many New York Times crossword puzzles are co-constructed (the preferred term for what most people would refer to as co-written) by a professional crossword constructor and someone with a day job—it’s hard not to see all the artists, web developers, professors, and other titles that imply a degree of wealth and elite connections.

The New York Times’s crossword editor discovered his interest in puzzles as a child. Now he counts at least one former president among his fans.

If completing the Telegraph crossword is a daily tradition then it may be gratifying to learn that your brain is 10 years younger than your actual age. Researchers at the University of Exeter and King’s College London carried online testing on more than 17,000 healthy people aged 50 to gauge their memory, attention and reasoning.

A 91-year-old woman is under investigation in Germany after filling in blank spaces on a crossword-themed artwork in a museum. "Reading-work-piece" is a 1965 piece by avant garde artist Arthur Koepcke and features the phrase "insert words". The woman began writing on it using a ballpoint pen during a visit by senior citizens to Nuremberg's Neues Museum. Museum officials say they believe the work can be restored and said the woman was reported for insurance reasons.

Researchers have designed a web-based platform which uses artificial neural networks to answer standard crossword clues better than existing commercial...

Cryptic crossword No 26,596

You probably think you’re aone (hyphenated), tackling your Sunday Times cross­word with a ballpoint. But you’re not a crossword obsessive until you’ve competed in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Every spring, more than 500 speed solvers gather at the Will Shortz–marshaled event in Brooklyn, New York, for seven rounds of high-stakes word crossing, culminating in a final face-off among the top three finalists.

I’m a confirmed puzzler, but the cryptic was beyond me. Until the actress Julia McKenzie took me aside...