So what is the reason for including an S today? I think the last time they did this, it was the 1500th puzzle.
Very unusual to have a S in the puzzle. It was fun.
We’re five away from 1,000 puzzles played. At the moment we have 931 Geniuses, but only 326 Queen Bees. For quite some time we didn’t know about Queen Bee, and after we found out, we didn’t start regularly to try for them until a couple of years ago.
I believe it’s the third S. The first was April Fools Day a couple of years ago
One of the few times where I saw the panagram as my first word.
Google claims that S has been in the Spelling Bee twice before today.
I’m typing here!
Can’t get any more ninja than that. 
I’m disappointed UKASE is not accepted. OK, it’s an obscure word, but I know lots of obscure words.
I tried it twice and googled it to make sure it’s a word.
It’s in M-W, OED, Collins and Wiktionary
I read on reddit that it’s Sam’s birthday today
Highest scoring (350) natural QB for me today. Previous high was 344 on 2025-01-22 and I had a 340 point natural earlier this month.
I guess Sam blinked when it came to adding NICTITATE to the approved word list.
Or NICTATE, even.
I see what you did there.
And sad that MINDMELD isn’t accepted today.
I tried that as well.
We got to Genius and Queen Bee pretty quickly and easily today, our 1,000th puzzle and 936th Genius, officially. Not as good as many of you, but also lower than reality, since we started playing during Covid in Spring 2020, before they started keeping records.
I must be losing my edge. Today was the second time in a week that I hit Genius before I found the panagram (I actually still haven’t found today’s anagram, as of this posting).
[Hint spoilered]
That’s probably because it’s a compound word that should really be 2 words
They don’t allow TONTINE any more. It appeared ten times from 2018 to 2025, but has been disallowed five times since January 2025.
Ten times, sure, of course it stopped. All the original members are dead.
It’s not that uncommon for me to get Genius without the pangram and today was one of those days. I have a fairly busy evening so it will likely stay that way.