Small fox with unusually large ears / SUN 5-14-23 / Miniature cheese wheel brand / Electrical wiring nexus / Potential scenario in which a piece of software might be helpful / Cocktails named after motorcycle attachments / Holding areas in Capture the Flag / Potential scenario in which a piece of software might be helpful / Conflict over seceding from the Galactic Republic in sci-fi

Constructor: Sid Sivakumar

Relative difficulty: Medium? 

THEME:"Alternate Endings" — visual representations of ZIPPER / MERGES (114A: With 116-Across, procedures in which drivers take turns joining a single stream, as demonstrated five times in this puzzle); so ... two Down answers end up "merging" into a single answer following those little yellow merge signs; the new "merged" answers alternates the remaining letters in the two original Downs, creating a new stand-alone answer. So, e.g., the -LAYA (missing from JAMBA-) and the -EPER (missing from TIMEK-) "merge like a zipper" to create LEAPYEAR (L from LAYA, E from EPER, A from LAYA, P from EPER, etc.). The theme answers are all, thus, figurative LANES (34A: Divisions represented by the highlighted answers in this puzzle):

Theme answers:

• JAMBA-LAYA (15D: Meat-and-vegetables dish with Creole and Cajun varieties) + TIMEKE-EPER (1D: Person with a stopwatch) => LEAP YEAR (47D: Many a presidential election occurs in one)
• "HOW CAN T-HAT BE?" (7D: "Is it even possible?!") + SILVER M-EDAL (8D: It'll take a second to get it) => HEAD TABLE (58D: Where newlyweds are typically seated a at wedding reception)
• RED LAN-TERN (14D: Chinese New Year decoration) + SWITC-HBOX (21D: Electrical wiring nexus) => THE BRONX (53D: Where hip-hop originated)
• IDEA-L GAS (55D: Theoretical substance for which a chemistry law is named) + ROTISS-ERIE (42D: Revolutionary cooking device?) => LEG RAISE (87D: Exercise that strengthens hip flexors)
• STYLIN-G GEL (46D: Hair salon goo) + DAYC-ARES (62D: Toddler drop-off locales) => GAG REELS (89D: Compilations of laughably bad takes)

Word of the Day: BABYBEL (12D: Miniature cheese wheel brand) —

Mini Babybel (/ˈbæbɪbɛl/) is a brand of small snack cheese products that are individually packaged and available in various flavours. It is a product of Le Groupe Bel (French for 'The Bel Group'), a company with roots in the Jura region of France, started by Jules Bel in 1865. Half of the global production of Mini Babybel is made in Évron, a commune in the northwest of France.

In the United States Le Groupe Bel produces the Mini Babybel cheeses in Kentucky. In March 2016, Bel Brands USA opened a new plant in Brookings, South Dakota. At the time, Bel Brands projected that its 250 employees would produce 1.5 million Mini Babybel cheese wheels a day. In July 2018, Le Groupe Bel announced that the company had 12,700 employees in 30 subsidiaries around the world and that their first Canadian office would be in Quebec. (wikipedia)

Please clap. The puzzle desperately wants you to clap for the architectural gimmick. There is no theme here. There's a visual gimmick. Content means nothing. Answers are just driven into other answers ... because. Also, I still don't know what these "highlighted answers" are that the clue on LANES is referring to (34A: Divisions represented by the highlighted answers in this puzzle). The online version (see grid, above) doesn't have any "highlighted answers"; I'm looking at the newspaper version, and nothing seems to be highlighted, so I'm at a loss. Does "highlighted" simply mean "indicated by the little yellow merge signs"? I dunno. [Aha! For some reason I got a different clue for LANES, why!!? ... anyway, the "correct" clue is [Divisions represented by the answers to starred clues in this puzzle]—OMG you guys got *starred clues*!? LOL, what was that like?] I'm sure this is an architectural marvel, I can see the structural complexity, but it was tedious to solve. It was especially tedious for me to solve because I thought I could power through with my usual software, which did not show me the merge signs because it cannot handle these added-feature-type puzzles. And I did power through. But without the little mergey signs, I could not see where the missing parts of those Down answers had gone to. I feel bad, because it seems obvious in retrospect, but nope. I filled the puzzle completely, correctly, but couldn't see the zipper merge at all. Oh well. Anyway ... that's all. I don't have anything else to say about this theme. You don't see ZIPPER / MERGES much in the States. Or I don't. They really are the way to go. Very common in NZ, where my wife is from and where we visit occasionally. Takes all the erratic driving behavior out of the merging equation. Much saner, much less stressful. I am enjoying thinking about actual ZIPPER / MERGES more than I am thinking about what it was like to solve this puzzle. When I prefer thinking about traffic to thinking about the puzzle, well ... I don't like thinking about traffic in the first place, so there you go.