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I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!

For readers of a certain age and inclination, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! was one of the great video games of all time. It is remarkable how much entertainment the good people at Nintendo managed to squeeze out of such primitive technology. Indeed, (Z) has the ROM on his desktop right now, and it's a grand total of... 262K. For a modern video game, that's not even enough for the configuration file.

We mention this because we really wanted to get "Mike" in last week, and we couldn't do it. Why? We will let reader J.L. in Walnut Creek, CA, explain:

Each headline includes a word from the NATO alphabet:

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Nicely done! You guys deserve an Oscar for continuing to have a new theme each week.

"Oscar," of course, is "O" and "Mike" is "M." Incidentally, we gave the hints on Friday that Donald Trump would hate the theme (because he hates NATO) and on Saturday that we tried to squeeze "Foxtrot" in there somewhere, because that is "F."

Here are the first 50 readers to figure it out (we allowed answers equivalent to "NATO" Alphabet, like "military alphabet" or "phonetic alphabet"):

J.C. in Keene, NH
M.F. in Goshen, KY
P.Q. in Metuchen, NJ
K.E. in Peoria, IL
K.F. in Berea, KS
J.L. in Walnut Creek
D.N. in Waltham, MA
S.E. in Orlando, FL
J.N. in Zionsville, IN
D.M. Austin, TX
J.H. in Sturbridge, MA
T.M. in New York City, NY
J.P. in Fredericksburg, VA
A.C. in Kingston, MA
R.R. in Lancaster, PA
M.B. in Albany, NY
C.K. in Aston, PA
K.W. in Lafayette, IN
C.B.L. in Warwick, RI
E.K. in Arlington, MA
K.J. in Hapeville, GA
R.E. in Birmingham, AL
B.S. in Ottawa, ON, Canada
P.J. in Quakertown, PA, who asks, "What's your vector, Victor?"
J.A.W. in Queens, NY

S.S. in Santa Monica, CA
I.H. in Washington, DC
P.H. in Buffalo Grove, IL
T.S. in Sydney, NSW, Australia
D.S. in Fort Collins, CO
L.D. in Bedford, MA
D.D. in Carversville, PA
B.R. in Arlington, MA
R.H.O. in Portland, ME
E.P. in Long Beach, CA
S.R.G. in Grecia, Costa Rica
S.F. in Hutto, TX
C.H. in Arlington, TX
M.K.M. in Marblehead, MA
H.B. in Berlin, Germany
S.K. in Ardmore, PA
T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts
K.O. in Winnipeg, MB, Canada
M.M. in Manahawkin, NJ
D.L. in Brookfield, IL
E.B. in Hannover, Germany
J.H. in Flint, MI
P.M. in McKinney, TX
E.Å. in Trondheim, Norway
M.T. in Simpsonville, SC

We've been thinking about using this theme for quite a while, actually, since re-watching Top Gun (speaking of 1980s pop culture) a couple of months back.

As to this week's theme, it's a single word in every headline (though you could argue it's two words, in one case). We think it would fit best in the Trivial Pursuit category "Wild Card," though we suppose it could maybe go in "Nicknames." As to a hint, we think that political theorist Friedrich Engels, singer Faith Evans and former representative Fred Eckert (R-NY) would be at an advantage, if they tried to solve it.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com, with subject "September 20 Headlines." (Z)

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