By Ben Nuckols
Soft-spoken but brimming with confidence, Dev Shah asked precise questions about obscure Greek roots, rushed through his second-to-last word and rolled to the Scripps National Spelling Bee title Thursday night.
Dev, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, had his spelling career interrupted by the pandemic, then didn't make it out of his regional bee last year. He got through his highly competitive regional this year for his third and final try at the national title, and he ended up holding the trophy over his head as confetti fell.
His winning word was “psammophile,” a layup for a speller of his caliber.
“Psammo meaning sand, Greek?” he asked. “Phile, meaning love, Greek?”
He soaked up the moment by asking for the word to be used in a sentence, something he described a day earlier as a stalling tactic. Then he put his hands over his face as he was declared the winner.
Charlotte Walsh, a 14-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, was the runner-up.
The iconic 7-Eleven Slurpee cup just got a makeover. The company rolled out the new cups on Monday as part of its "Anything Flows" campaign, and they feature a colorful design on the front with a big "S" resembling the swirly top of the icy drink.
From the end of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to the beginning of a new zombie apocalypse, here's what's going on in entertainment.
One person was killed and multiple people were sent to local hospitals after a boat capsized Monday during a tour of an underground cavern system built to carry water from the Erie Canal beneath the western New York city of Lockport, officials said.
There was plenty of uncertainty in the run-up to this year’s Tony Awards, which at one point seemed unlikely to happen at all because of the ongoing Hollywood writer’s strike.
Classical music concerts have been popular since the age of Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart, but you've probably never thought about attending one in a cemetery. Our own Chloe Aiello spoke with Andrew Ousley, founder of Death of Classical, to learn more about a concert series held in the catacombs of the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
You may not know her name, but you've probably seen her face. Madhulika Sharma has graced Vogue India and ELLE Magazine and modeled for popular brands such as Reformation and Skims. Cheddar's own Hena Doba spoke with Sharma to discuss her globe-spanning modeling career, her education in fashion history, and working alongside Kim Kardashian.
The intimate, funny-sad musical “Kimberly Akimbo” nudged aside more splashier rivals on Sunday to win the best new musical crown at the Tony Awards on a night when Broadway flexed its muscle in the face of Hollywood writers’ strike and fully embraced trans-rights with history-making winners.
The ChatGPT chatbot, personified by different avatars on a huge screen above the altar, led the more than 300 people through 40 minutes of prayer, music, sermons and blessings.
New York's Assembly and Senate passed a bill to create a commission that would consider reparations for slavery.
New Orleans' Big Freedia, who many heard on Beyonce's new hit "Break My Soul," talks about upcoming business ventures and music projects, including a new show called Big Freedia Means Business on Fuse TV.
