Guess the News

Guess the News takes a real headline from the day's papers, blanks out one word and hands you the rest. The headline sits in a grey card with its date above it and its source outlet credited underneath, so you always know which newsroom's house style you are trying to reproduce. One input box, one Submit button, and two escape hatches: a hint button and a Reveal. The site's own line is that it is powered by real headlines, and it favours the odd stories that get drowned out rather than the front page.

1. Read the dated headline and note the outlet credited under it.
2. Type your candidate into the fill in the blank box and hit Submit.
3. Tap Want a hint? when the sentence will not give it up, once per hint you want.
4. Hit Reveal if you would rather see the word than keep guessing.

A headline is a piece of compressed writing where every word is load-bearing, and blanking one out is a neat way of proving it. The puzzle is half vocabulary and half ear for newspaper style, because the sentence will happily accept three words that make sense and only one that a subeditor would have printed. Crediting the source under each headline is a small touch that does a lot of work, and the hint ladder is well judged, giving you length and syllables before it ever gives you a letter.

The interesting feedback loop here is the hint ladder rather than a right or wrong stamp. Hints do not replace each other, they accumulate as a bulleted list under the board, and they arrive in a fixed order: first the length of the missing word, then how many syllables it has, then its first letter. That sequence is deliberately front-loaded with the least useful information, so a player who takes all three has effectively been handed a crossword clue.

Today's headline

One puzzle a day, dated, with the site stating that a new headline lands at midnight Eastern US.

• Read the whole headline, including the part after the blank.
• The credited outlet is a real constraint. A word that fits the sentence but not that paper's register is usually the wrong word.
• Take hints in order rather than reaching for Reveal. They stack in a list, so the length hint stays on screen once you have asked for syllables.