Thursday, May 1, 2025, Aidan Deshong and Adam Levav

This theme makes no sense to me. CIRCLESBACK (Brings up a prior topic ... or a hint to making sense of the answers to this puzzle's starred clues) means, I guess, that we skip the circled letters the first time we see them and then add them to the end of the word. So "baseline" at 18-Across, wherein the S and the first E are circled, becomes "balinese" (*Cat breed named after an Indonesian island from which it didn't originate). And "kimonos" (K and I) becomes "monoski" (*Relative of a snowboard). And so on. Meh.

Honestly, it started off badly for me with ARTLAB (Schoolroom that serves as a studio). Isn't that just a classroom where they teach art? Who says ARTLAB? 

"Is for the people" is a fun clue for ARE. And "Places to carry out some takeout orders, for short?" (ORS) was good. Is it fair to say that someone ONMEDS is "Popping pills, say"? And aren't people "inducted into" something? "President posthumously inducted in the World Golf Hall of Fame, informally" (IKE) sounded weird. And while I'm complaining - "Turns into stars, say?" is a bit too cute for CENSOR. When do you ever see  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars blocking out a word?

- Horace