About the theme

US States covers a cross-section of the country though many short ones land in the filler-difficulty zone — Iowa, Ohio, Utah, Idaho are four-letter hides. The long ones (Mississippi, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Tennessee, Oklahoma) anchor every grid they fit on. A theme that scales: the 8×8 carries the short names; the 20×30 carries most of the long ones too. The filler reads as you'd expect — heavy on common-English letters because most state names are anglicised.