My time: 10:23, three minutes slower than the record. I DON'T LIKE TO BRAG, but that's pretty good considering the amount of white space on this grid!
Theme: a minor one, but the five black crosses make up a QUINCUNX, and each one can also be called a PLUS SIGN.
I mostly loved the fill. This amount of used squares is impressive, doubly so with things like QUEBEC, XANADU, RETURN OF THE JEDI, and so on. I'm not as happy about the various ADA, ANA, ANNA, ENE, and so on, but I guess that's inevitable with this kind of grid.
I have heard of the SALT talks, but couldn't have told you that Carter and Brezhnev signed SALT II. SALT I was signed by Nixon and Brezhnev.
ADA Yonath, an Israeli chemist, won one-third of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 for for "studies of the structure and function of the ribosome."
Ugh, sports are so boring, college sports perhaps more so. "Two-time NCAA football champs on the 2010s" are the CLEMSON / TIGERS. They have three titles in all, and won in 2016 and 2018. They have a lot of championship wins. Once I had the latter team name, I came up with the school, thanks to some filled crossing and a vague memory of its appearance on February 6, 2018.
"Setting for The Great Escape" is not Alcatraz or even a gulag, but a STALAG. I probably should have known that.
"Bronze: Lat." is AES. What? It's a neuter noun meaning debt, gong, money, or several base metals. Why is Lat. abbreviated?
French food I have never heard of in my life: CLAFOUTI. I had to get every letter of that from crossfill! properly spelled clafoutis, it is a baked French dessert of fruit, traditionally black cherries, arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. The clafoutis is dusted with powdered sugar and served lukewarm, sometimes with cream.
There are a lot of theater clues in the NYT puzzle. This one is director Trevor with three Tonys. That's Trevor NUNN, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 2008 "The Telegraph" named him among the most influential people in British culture. He has also directed works for film and television.
"Veep" actress ANNA Chlumsky appeared on February 4, 2019.
Political commentator ANA Navarro has appeared several times, most recently July 1, 2018.
Same with SADR City, last seen September 27, 2018.
I noted that SOLE is a relative of flounder on September 7.
Clever clue: "Type face?" is EMOTICON. "Some last a lifetime" is BANS. "Overseer of millions at work, perhaps" is CFO. "Needing to be tucked in, say?" is UNMADE. "Ornaments" is meant to be read as a verb and the answer is TRIMS.
I did this puzzle in good time, and it was fun. Nothing to GNASH at here.
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