Words of the Week #1

Hi all! This is my first "Words of the Week" puzzle. Each week in 2023, I aim to upload one crossword (either on Sunday or Monday) with some answers related to the previous week's news. To get the answers, I am scraping headlines from ~50 news sources (about 2/3 in the US and the rest international) and compiling frequency lists of phrases. If anyone is interested in my code, let me know and I will put it on Github.

For a little bit about my crossword making ideology: I personally do not watch TV or movies basically ever, so I try to minimize clues that ask you to know the names of actors/movies/TV shows. When I include TV/movie answers, I do my best to make it related to awards (e.g., Oscar winners, Palme d'Or winners) or well known cultural franchises (e.g., Star Wars) rather than a specific person or media. I am a global geopolitics nerd, so even on top of the fact that some of the answers in "Words of the Week" are pulled from the news, a good number of the other answers are related to politics, geography, and history.

This is my first crossword shared publicly, so feedback is welcome. I'm deeply sorry about 37A, but I think the rest of the clues are pretty decent.

Words of the Week #1 - 01.08.23

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