Long Story Short Play today

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45 puzzles so far

Long Story Short gives you a sentence and asks you to cut it to five of its own words, keeping the meaning. Every past sentence is here with its answer and a note on which words were doing the work. A new one lands every day at midnight.

• A Marin center refused the owl John Murnane rescued because it was not a Marin resident, so he drove it ninety minutes himself, and it now keeps visiting his garden.23 September 2026
• John Hanson has now returned an illustrated magazine that was borrowed from Concord Public Library in 1894, soon after a yearlong freeze on overdue fines began.22 September 2026
• The kea's beak had split, leaving the alpine parrot unable to eat, and was rebuilt over 48 days with a gel hardened under an ultraviolet lamp.21 September 2026
• At Camden Lock, a 71-year-old woman, Beatrice Millar, took off her shoes, jumped in after a drowning man and saved him by holding his head above water.20 September 2026
• On Interstate 30 near Texarkana, Texas, Mitchell Royal pulled a woman from her burning pickup about thirty seconds before the whole cab was gone.19 September 2026
• In Vietnam, the family dog, Den, stayed beside a lost six-year-old overnight on a mountain 10 km from home until searchers found the pair at 9 am.18 September 2026
• Eight-year-old Kingsley Espitia jumped into Bass Lake fully clothed and pulled a three-year-old from the water, and this week, the Otter Tail County sheriff gave him an award.17 September 2026
• Troy police formed a human chain down the seawall and rescued both the eight-year-old in the Hudson River and the neighbor who went in after her.16 September 2026
• So that siblings in foster care can stay together, Christian Bale opened a 12-home village built around a garden in Palmdale, California.15 September 2026
• Tommy Price was on a 66-mile run in 2022 when a cardiac-arrest dropped him face down in the snow with no pulse, and four years later the survivor finished the same route.14 September 2026
• Having sworn, after the Reddit post, never to write about him publicly again, the mortified Yale woman submitted an anonymous birthday story about the observant naval officer instead.13 September 2026
• After sending him off in an ambulance, Oklahoma City firefighters mowed the rest of the sick man's lawn, since he had only got halfway before he fell ill.12 September 2026
• Just after noon a Cook County landfill supervisor stood over the motionless bald eagle, certain the bird was dead, until its poop proved it alive.11 September 2026
• Tyler Richards, a fourth-grader in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, spent the summer collecting cans and bottles and raised 2300 dollars for a new playground at his school.10 September 2026
• Weldon Bowen, a Marine veteran who turned a hundred on Saturday in Tyler, received over 4000 birthday cards after the state of Texas requested 100.9 September 2026
• Karl Wenner turned 70 acres of his barley farm near Klamath Falls into a wetland, home now to 140 bird species and twenty thousand ducks.8 September 2026
• Tacoma's Point Defiance Zoo opened in 1905, and on 17 August 2026 it welcomed its first porcupette in 121 years, a baby prehensile-tailed porcupine called a coendou.7 September 2026
• Thin and unwell near Nakanocho Station last October, an apprentice by January, the stray cat nursed by Choshi railway staff was promoted in May to full stationmaster.6 September 2026
• A Seattle dog called Eclipse rode the bus alone to the park, a few stops off, in a red harness, with her own pass on her collar.5 September 2026
• Pushing the freezer aside with his trunk, a wild elephant raided a small shop near Thailand's Khao Yai park for sweets, eating ten bags in ten minutes.4 September 2026
• After a call from an Ohio church, a friendly pygmy goat rode to the county fair in the back seat of a police cruiser.3 September 2026
• 91-year-old Dale Sanders, known as Grey Beard, finished the Appalachian Trail, the oldest ever to do it.2 September 2026
• After a prank order of pizzas in Wyoming, one pizzeria owner gives the whole lot to the ER.1 September 2026
• After twenty-three years of renting, tenant Jane inherited her retired pharmacist landlord's Melbourne unit.31 August 2026
• On 27th August, Greece celebrates the feast of its lost-things saint, Phanourios, who is asked for everything from keys to estranged partners to courage.30 August 2026
• Rex, a wobbly four-month-old kitten who never could walk, gets in the wheelchair Michael Hawley built him from Lego.29 August 2026
• Little Skyler, at seven years old, wears fifty sweaters, all at once, for a Guinness world record.28 August 2026
• In thirty years at an Ohio children's hospital, one surgeon draws ten thousand cartoons on little bandages.27 August 2026
• After four straight weekends on top and two billion dollars of tickets, Tom Holland's Spider-Man now nears Titanic.26 August 2026
• From Wellfleet in November to a Coney Island afternoon eight months later, turtle Pancake rejoins the Atlantic.25 August 2026
• LEGO has recreated Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica in bricks, its biggest ever.24 August 2026
• At D23, Disney World finally confirmed it is building Villains Land, an area for its baddest characters.23 August 2026
• Help! Lyft charged me $150 for vomiting in a car, but I didn't do it.22 August 2026
• After DNA tests exposed mislabeling, Georgia restaurants now disclose imported shrimp on menus.21 August 2026
• Johnny Depp is discussing a return as Captain Jack Sparrow in a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean.20 August 2026
• This weekend the Beatles film recreated Abbey Road, actors walking the famous zebra crossing for the cover.19 August 2026
• The stolen school piano was returned because a caretaker recognised it in a junk shop.18 August 2026
• The last giant sundaes were licked by thirty cheering children after the van broke down.17 August 2026
• Volunteers, not the council, reopened the railway line that collapsed in March.16 August 2026
• Overnight parking was allowed on every street until the mayor banned it.15 August 2026
• The damaged cargo plane landed safely because one pilot ignored panicked controllers.14 August 2026
• Guards searching nine dockside warehouses finally recovered the six stolen bronze statues.13 August 2026
• One judge, deliberating late and alone, delayed the famous high profile trial.12 August 2026
• Furious unions, calling the terms an insult, rejected all final contract offers.11 August 2026
• Brown flood water, rising within ten minutes, ruined the entire ground floor.10 August 2026

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