Latest news with #TheBee
USA Today
29-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Scripps National Spelling Bee 2025 finals: How to watch, stream, start time
Scripps National Spelling Bee 2025 finals: How to watch, stream, start time An orthographic, prepubescent champion will be crowned Thursday when the 2025 Scripps Spelling Bee wraps up with its final round outside of Washington D.C. Nine spellers, ages 12-14, advanced to the final round over the first two days of the national competition. That is a cutdown from the 99 who made it to the quarterfinals Wednesday, with 57 advancing to the semifinals. The remaining nine will square off in the finals beginning at 8 p.m. ET on ION with The Scripps Cup (and a $50,000 cash prize) on the line. Faizan Zaki, the 2024 runner-up, is among the group from which a champion will be named during the Bee's 100th anniversary celebration. Scripps National Spelling Bee finals live stream, TV channel The Bee's finals will air on Scripps-owned channel ION. The finals will also air on Scripps' other national networks: Bounce, Grit, ION Mystery and Laff, as well as its free, ad-supported streaming channels ION Plus, Scripps News, Bounce XL, Grit Xtra, Laff More and Scripps National Spelling Bee finals start time The finals begin at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. Fans can head to and enter their zip code for instructions on how to watch the Bee in their specific area. Who will win the 2025 Spelling Bee? Zaiki, a 13-year-old from Dallas, Texas, is a strong candidate based on track record. He's the lone returning finalist and is competing in his fourth Bee. He advanced to the quarterfinals with a perfect score of 35 in the Round 3 preliminaries test Tuesday afternoon (the minimum score needed to advance was 13).
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pedro Pascal Helps Emma Stone As She Fights a Bee at Cannes 2025
At the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, a bee stole the spotlight, and Emma Stone had to take the help of her co-stars, Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler, to save the day. The unexpected red carpet incident happened during the premiere of Eddington, Ari Aster's upcoming film, which brought a star-studded cast to the event. A routine photo op turned into a hilarious showdown at Cannes 2025 when a bee decided to join the Eddington cast on the red carpet. Videos from the event show Pedro Pascal spotting the insect first, blowing air towards it to shoo it away. Emma Stone immediately noticed his reaction and mouthed, 'Is that a bee?' When Pascal confirmed her suspicions, Stone alerted Butler, who tried to help by blowing the bee away, only to accidentally redirect it toward her. The Poor Things actress dramatically ducked as the bee swooped near her face, prompting Pascal to laugh while shielding her. Butler then joined in, waving the insect away until it finally buzzed off. The viral moment led to endless memes and edits online. One user dubbed it ''Emma Stone vs The Bee' a short film.' While another wrote, 'Oh my god i LOVE this picture Emma Stone trying to back off from flying at her bee Pedro Pascal wheezing at the scene and Austin Butler just there serving jawline and side profile.' The incident added a touch of levity to the otherwise intense premiere of Eddington, a Western film set in pandemic-era New Mexico. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as a small-town sheriff and Pascal as a mayor caught in a tense community standoff. Stone and Butler also play key roles in the film, which explores the psychological unraveling of a town during lockdown. Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on ComingSoon. The post Pedro Pascal Helps Emma Stone As She Fights a Bee at Cannes 2025 appeared first on Mandatory.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
A roller derby renaissance in Fresno? Meet the team bringing the sport back
Uniquely is a Fresno Bee series that covers the moments, landmarks and personalities that define what makes living in the Fresno area so special. It's Tuesday night and Jodie Mettler is playing referee, calling out faux penalties to a dozen or so women as they skate close circles around the roller hockey rink at Fresno's Cary Park. It's the last practice for Ash City Roller Derby before a weekend scrimmage in Los Angeles and the skaters are working on team skills like position, blocking and formations. A tripod of players throw hip blocks in one direction, then shifts the other direction and clips a skater as she tries to take a wide roll around the group. Mettler forgot her whistle, so she yells out a quick 'tweet,' forcing a skater off to the side of the rink to do 10 squats. This is a practice, after all. After a few minutes of this work, the team huddles up to discuss the drill, then sets off to run it again. 'It's all game play tonight,' says Mettler, a founding member of Ash City Roller Derby who skates under the moniker Bae-Phomet. She's number 666, obviously. Since July, Ash City Roller Derby has been working to revive the full-contact sport in Fresno. The league's name is a double play on words: Ash, as in the tree, which in Spanish is Fresno; and also ash, as in the metaphorical remains from which the phoenix was reborn. There was time when Fresno was a roller-derby town. At one point, there were three teams in two separate leagues. Crowds were consistent, if not huge. Up to 1,000 people came out to watch matches at The Fresno Convention Center, and later the fairgrounds in the late 2000s and early 2010s. In 2008, The Fresno Bee ran a week's worth of profiles of Smog City Roller Grrls in advance of a home match at the Fresno Convention Center. Columnist Mike Osegueda called the team's resident speedster, Betty Rocker, a 'certified roller derby star ... who might actually be the top sports star in Fresno right now.' That team ended in 2008, but spawned a pair of others: NoTown Roller Derby and Valley Fever, the later of which morphed into the Central California Area Derby. Mettler joined the NoTown team the week after she moved to Fresno in 2010. She skated under the name Cherry Pie (number 3.142). Finding the team was one of the first things she did in town. 'That was a priority.' Roller Derby goes back nearly 100 years to days of banked-track endurance racing, but early versions of the sport as it's known now became popular in the 1950s and '60s first on radio and later on TV, where it evolved into a kind of professional wrestling on wheels. A story in The Bee in 1956 announced a run of National Roller Derby League matches at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. There would be bouts three nights a week for 13 weeks. League founder Leo Seltzer said he expected crowds of 9,000 a night. When the league came to Fresno's Kearney Bowl in 1960 (the Bay Bombers faced off against the Los Angles Braves), an announcement ran in The Bee alongside a story on the Indy 500. Eventually, the sport fell out of favor and by the 1980s was forgotten or only remembered with fond nostalgia. That was until the 2000s, when it saw an underground revival, thanks to slew of documentaries and at least one major studio film, the Elliot Page feature 'Whip-It.' That was Jessica Meredith's entry into the sport. She'd skated before, the way kids do, but she wasn't an athlete. As a 20-year-old queer person of color, she was mostly looking for a community. She found that in a derby team in Merced, where she was living at the time. It was immediate, says Meredith, who skates under the name Afrodisiac. 'I, to this day, have not found an experience anything like that.' That community and camaraderie is what led her to reach out on social media last summer. The sport had all but disappeared in Fresno during the pandemic and she wondered if anyone else wanted it back. 'We had no idea that other people felt the same way.' Now, roller derby is by no means a mainstream sport. The only way to really watch it live is in person (at scrimmages and more official matches set up by leagues across the country) or on Twitch. 'The joke is that ESPN will pick up fake horse riding before they'll pick up roller derby,' Mettler says. For the uninitiated: This isn't the dystopian battle sport depicted in sci-fi films. There's no ball. Points are scored as one skater laps around a pack of defenders in a series of two-minute 'jams.' Bouts are run in two, 30-minute periods. It isn't played on a banked-wood track (at least per the set of rules that Ash City plays under) and there isn't any fighting (staged or otherwise). It is still full-contact. Hip and body checks are allowed. And things are less DIY then they were in the 2000s, when the majority of the sport was centered out of Texas (where it was insanely popular), Mettler says. Nowadays, there's an international world cup and the skaters look to be seen as the athletes they are. So, it's not the speed competition that people might remember. 'It's a slower game,' Mettler says. 'It's strategic, right from the whistle.' Ash City is still a new team with a mix of veterans and newbies. Its matches are sanctioned by the The Women's Flat Track Derby Association, though Ash City is not yet an official member. That requires the organization to go through an apprenticeship program. The team runs on $10 monthly dues, with no coaching staff and no official home rink (someplace with a roof and air conditioning where Ash City could schedule matches without concern for heat or rain). The club would love to get back inside the Fresno Fairgrounds, at least for match days, but there's an expense that makes that difficult, Mettler says. So, the team (15 skaters, per its Instagram page) meets at Cary Park twice a week for practice. Some of the woman skate more. Meredith travels to Visalia twice a week to skate with the V Town Roller Derby team. They also host boot camps to recruit and train new members. The last one ran six weeks and had 30 skaters. On May 31, the team is hosting its first mixed-level hometown scrimmage. It start at 10 a.m. with a $5 suggested donation for spectators ($10 for those looking to compete). Mostly, the skaters are out here just making it work, Meredith says, because none of them want to see the sport die again. 'We're here to stick around,' she says. 'When people think of roller derby in Fresno, I don't want it to ever be a question.'
The Sun
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Local band Kaya on organising, playing first music festival
NOT too long ago, local band Kaya was an opening act for various artistes, sharing the stage with prominent acts such as Yuna, Steve Thornton, Zainal Abidin and Salam Musik. The band, which started out as a two-piece in 2010, has since solidified its presence, having won several competitions and launching its debut album On Toast in 2018 to a sold-out crowd at The Bee in Publika. Adding to that is its very own music festival. In celebration of its latest singles Go It Alone and Party All Night, the band recently organised and played its first music festival at JioSpace in Petaling Jaya. Titled Party All Night: A Kaya Experience, the band gathered a line-up of local artistes to share the stage, while celebrating how far Kaya has come through a medley of its best hits. Speaking to theSun, the band dishes on the experience of putting the festival together and priorities for this year. Did everything go according to plan? Honestly, seeing everything come together was surreal. As with any live event, there were a few curveballs but the energy that night made it all worth it. The crowd, the music, the vibes, it all just clicked in the best way possible. How long did it take to put everything together? The idea had been brewing for a while but things really picked up about two months out. It was a whirlwind of chaos and excitement, but we had an amazing team and some supportive partners who made it all possible. How did the idea for a festival first come about? Initially, we were thinking of a simple single launch. But a friend of ours from Team Sound & Light jumped in and pitched the idea of going bigger, such as a 1,200 pax festival kind of big. He saw the lack of platforms for upcoming indie artiste and wanted to do something real about it. So we came together and built 'A Kaya Experience' as a celebration of the local live music scene. A stage for any Malaysian artiste to work towards – big, loud and full of heart. What was the process of picking the line-up like? It was all organic. We reached out to artistes we have performed with before, as well as those we have admired from afar. The goal was to create a line-up that captured the diversity and soul of the local sound. Raw, real and uniquely ours. It was not just about the headliners. It was about celebrating homegrown talent in every form. What are some memories from the festival that you will carry with you? Too many to count! The crowd sang every word back to us, the energy during our finale when everyone had their hands in the air and the impromptu jam sessions backstage. But above all, just witnessing the community come together for the love of music is something we will never forget. Will there be more festivals in the future? Absolutely! The response was a clear sign that there is a hunger for this kind of space. We could not have done it without our crew and the incredible crowd that showed up with love. If you are an artiste who would like to be part of the next one, drop us a DM – we are always listening. The festival was in celebration of your recent singles Go It Alone and Party All Night, could you elaborate on what those songs are about? Go It Alone is a love song but delivered in a kind of cool and nonchalant way. It is 'I love you but I am going to play it chill', although deep down, it is only ever about you. Party All Night, on the other hand, is a straight-up funk anthem meant for dancing, vibing and letting go. It is a feel-good energy, pure and simple. How would you like the latest singles to present you to new and longtime listeners? We hope these songs show our range. We have always enjoyed bending genres, breaking a few rules and staying honest with our lyrics. These tracks are just a glimpse of where we are headed – a little evolution, a lot of heart. Will this release inspire a potential album? Or do you already have one planned? Let us just say we are cooking. Whether it is an album or something else, there is definitely more coming. The creative momentum is strong right now, so stay tuned. What do you hope to achieve this year? We want to keep building. Tour more, create more and reach new audiences. Most of all, we want to keep growing, as artistes and collaborators in this community. The band is known for its genre-blending sounds. Are there things you did in 2024 that you would never want to do again? Nothing we regret, but we have definitely drawn a line when it comes to saying 'yes' to shows that underpay or do not value the artiste. We are done with that and we hope more musicians feel empowered to do the same. The scene can only thrive if we start respecting our worth.
The Sun
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Local band Kaya on organising, playing Party All Night: A Kaya Experience
NOT too long ago, local band Kaya was an opening act for various artistes, sharing the stage with prominent acts such as Yuna, Steve Thornton, Zainal Abidin and Salam Musik. The band, which started out as a two-piece in 2010, has since solidified its presence, having won several competitions and launching its debut album On Toast in 2018 to a sold-out crowd at The Bee in Publika. Adding to that is its very own music festival. In celebration of its latest singles Go It Alone and Party All Night, the band recently organised and played its first music festival at JioSpace in Petaling Jaya. Titled Party All Night: A Kaya Experience, the band gathered a line-up of local artistes to share the stage, while celebrating how far Kaya has come through a medley of its best hits. Speaking to theSun, the band dishes on the experience of putting the festival together and priorities for this year. Did everything go according to plan? Honestly, seeing everything come together was surreal. As with any live event, there were a few curveballs but the energy that night made it all worth it. The crowd, the music, the vibes, it all just clicked in the best way possible. How long did it take to put everything together? The idea had been brewing for a while but things really picked up about two months out. It was a whirlwind of chaos and excitement, but we had an amazing team and some supportive partners who made it all possible. How did the idea for a festival first come about? Initially, we were thinking of a simple single launch. But a friend of ours from Team Sound & Light jumped in and pitched the idea of going bigger, such as a 1,200 pax festival kind of big. He saw the lack of platforms for upcoming indie artiste and wanted to do something real about it. So we came together and built 'A Kaya Experience' as a celebration of the local live music scene. A stage for any Malaysian artiste to work towards – big, loud and full of heart. What was the process of picking the line-up like? It was all organic. We reached out to artistes we have performed with before, as well as those we have admired from afar. The goal was to create a line-up that captured the diversity and soul of the local sound. Raw, real and uniquely ours. It was not just about the headliners. It was about celebrating homegrown talent in every form. What are some memories from the festival that you will carry with you? Too many to count! The crowd sang every word back to us, the energy during our finale when everyone had their hands in the air and the impromptu jam sessions backstage. But above all, just witnessing the community come together for the love of music is something we will never forget. Will there be more festivals in the future? Absolutely! The response was a clear sign that there is a hunger for this kind of space. We could not have done it without our crew and the incredible crowd that showed up with love. If you are an artiste who would like to be part of the next one, drop us a DM – we are always listening. The festival was in celebration of your recent singles Go It Alone and Party All Night, could you elaborate on what those songs are about? Go It Alone is a love song but delivered in a kind of cool and nonchalant way. It is 'I love you but I am going to play it chill', although deep down, it is only ever about you. Party All Night, on the other hand, is a straight-up funk anthem meant for dancing, vibing and letting go. It is a feel-good energy, pure and simple. How would you like the latest singles to present you to new and longtime listeners? We hope these songs show our range. We have always enjoyed bending genres, breaking a few rules and staying honest with our lyrics. These tracks are just a glimpse of where we are headed – a little evolution, a lot of heart. Will this release inspire a potential album? Or do you already have one planned? Let us just say we are cooking. Whether it is an album or something else, there is definitely more coming. The creative momentum is strong right now, so stay tuned. What do you hope to achieve this year? We want to keep building. Tour more, create more and reach new audiences. Most of all, we want to keep growing, as artistes and collaborators in this community. Are there things you did in 2024 that you would never want to do again? Nothing we regret, but we have definitely drawn a line when it comes to saying 'yes' to shows that underpay or do not value the artiste. We are done with that and we hope more musicians feel empowered to do the same. The scene can only thrive if we start respecting our worth.
