Today's theme: ARREST. 48A. Run in, and a hint to the ends of the answers to starred clues. To "run someone in" is to bring them to the police station.
The last word of each of the theme entries means to nab an alleged lawbreaker. Nab is related to kidnap. Arrest is from Latin: ad+re+stare (to-back-stand). Stare comes from the base *sta- "to stand", and also gives us the lovely crosswordese word "STET", an editor's directive to let the text stand (without correction).
18. *If absolutely necessary: IN A PINCH. If you pinch (steal) something, you get pinched (grabbed as though with pincers).
20. *Ranger, for one: FORD PICKUP.
37. *"Am I missing something here?": WHAT'S THE CATCH.
55. *Like manual laborers: BLUE COLLAR. Arrest sense is to grab someone by the collar.
59. *Boisterous frat party: BEER BUST. I wanted BASH here instead of BUST before I figured out the theme. Both mean to smash, like on a drunken spree, which has the "wild party" meaning. Prohibitionists used to bust in to speakeasys and arrest everyone they could catch.
Somewhat related: 3D. Capture: CORRAL. and 7D. Capture: TRAP.
Al here, with a Dan Nador puzzle no less. Maybe it's just me being on Dan's wavelength most of the time, but I kind of blew through this one. Very doable puzzle, perhaps not as punny or fun as Dan's past puzzles have been though, nearly half the words were three or four letters. No J,Q,X,Z so not very scrabbly.
ACROSS:
1. Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida __": LOCA. The crazy life.
5. Start of many addresses: HTTP. Internet Addresses, otherwise known as URLs: Universal Resource Locators. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol makes it possible for browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer to traverse the World Wide Web. URLs can start with HTTP:// but that is only one example. Many other types of internet transfer protocols are too numerous to list here, but some examples are FTP (file transfer), NNTP (network news), and SMTP (simple mail)
9. Lawyers' org.: ABA. American Bar Association.
12. Schools for Jules: ECOLES. French. And 39D. Lycée attendee: ELEVE. French for student. Lycée is the last three years of education before University.
15. Prefix with sol: AERO. Aerosol
16. Heater: GAT. Slang for a gun, taken from Gatling
17. On the line: AT RISK. Could easily tip one way or another.
22. "It's the real thing" soft drink: COKE. Coca Cola marketing campaign. Good Grief!
23. Govt. watchdog: EPA. Environmental Protection Agency.
24. Not just my: OUR. Plural possessive.
25. Current pioneer: TESLA. Nicola. Has the unit of magnetic force named after him.
26. Quandary: DILEMMA. Latin: DI (two) lemma (premise).
30. One who raised Cain: EVE. Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve's sons.
32. Sea salt?: TAR. A sailor. Could be from the job of applying tar to the bottoms of ships, or from the tarpaulin that they sometimes used in clothing. Also Gob.
33. Spare tire site?: WAIST. Not so easy to deflate.
35. Refuse to budge: INSIST. Latin: In (upon) sistere (take a stand). Related: assist (stand by), and once again STET (let stand).
40. Blacks out: FAINTS.
41. Coeur d'__: ALENE. City in Idaho.
42. Many a CBer's workplace: RIG. Citizen's Band radios. Do they still use those? Seems kind of dated. Big rig = Semi-trailer.
43. Brit. recording giant: EMI. Electric & Musical Industries Ltd.
45. "CHiPs" star: ESTRADA. Erik. California Highway Patrol motorcyle cop. His character name was Ponch. (Poncherello)
49. Kind of alcohol: ETHYL. Ethanol, the kind we drink.
51. Little john?: LAV. Abbreviation (little) for lavatory. A British crossword style of clue.
53. Lady's man: SIR. English Lords are addressed as: Sir.
54. Language that gave us "plaid": ERSE. Scottish Gaelic. The word means: Irish.
61. Lisa's "Friends" role: PHOEBE. Lisa Kudrow/Phoebe Buffay.
62. "Happiness __ Warm Puppy": "Peanuts" book: IS A.
63. Manipulative type: USER.
64. Drives: IMPELS.
65. Relative of -trix: ESS. Feminine suffixes: dominatrix, baroness
66. Place with a pool, informally: THEY. Another misplaced clue? I can't make any sense of this one.
67. Apt name for a Dalmatian: SPOT.
DOWN:
1. Flipped (through): LEAFED. Book pages
2. Eight-footers?: OCTOPI. Tentacles count as feet? Or are octopi 8 feet long?
4. "Put __ on it!": A LID.
5. Three-line verse: HAIKU. 5-7-5 syllable meter. Does not need to rhyme: Yesterday it worked. / Today it is not working. / Windows is like that.
6. Professor's goal: TENURE. A guarantee they get to keep the position, usually requires research and publishing credentials, which means that rather than spending their time on students, they might be concentrating their time elsewhere. I had at least one prof like that. Schools need a different reward system IMHO.
8. Appear unexpectedly, with "up": POP. Maybe that's why dads are called pops? No, darn it, from an old French word similar to pappa.
9. Religious doubter: AGNOSTIC. Someone that asserts that it cannot be known whether God exists, compare Atheist, who asserts that there is no God, and Gnostic, who asserts that it is knowable.
10. Political repercussions: BACKLASH. Machinery too. I can see how they're related...
11. Deep down: AT HEART.
13. Sixth sense, for short: ESP. Extra (beyond) Sensory Perception.
14. Schuss, e.g.: SKI. From old Norse: skið "stick of wood".
19. Diamonds, to hoods: ICE.
21. Oregon highlight: COAST. Michigan's freshwater shoreline, at 3,288 miles is the longest in the world. Alaska has the most total coastline of the 50 states though, at 6,640 miles. Oregon only has 296, just sayin'.
25. Letter?: TENANT. One who lets (rents or leases) a room, apartment, or house.
27. McGregor of "The Men Who Stare at Goats": EWAN. Also the young version of Obi Wan Kenobe in Star Wars.
28. Hot Wheels maker: MATTEL. Mattel toys have not been made in the USA since 2002.
29. Midler's "Divine" nickname: MISS M.
31. Bad habits: VICES. If you have any, you should try to clamp down on them...
34. "J to __ L-O!": Lopez remix album: THA. Words fail me.
36. Trick ending?: STER. Suffix: trickster
37. Many a server, in the old days: WAITRESS. Not sure why it was necessary to specify "the old days", but then again, I don't go to restaurants very often. Did I miss something?
38. Boat rocker, to say the least: HIGH SEAS. Nicely done.
40. It's thrown in: FREEBIE. Also a Frisbee.
44. "Gotta think about it": I'LL SEE.
46. Napping: ASLEEP.
47. Don Quixote's devil: DIABLO. Spanish.
50. "__ out!": ump's call: YER. Baseball terseness.
52. "Back in the Saddle Again" autobiographer: AUTRY. Gene. Birth name: Orvon Eugene Autry.
55. Outback: BUSH. See Kazie's pic.
56. Cost-of-living stat: CPI. Consumer Price Index.
57. Electrical unit: OHM. Resistance measurement. Color code mnemonic for reading the values: Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly = Black Brown Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet Gray White
58. Cuts off: LOPS.
60. On the other hand: BUT.
Answer Grid
Al
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