© 2026 Western New York Public Broadcasting Association

140 Lower Terrace St.
Buffalo, NY 14202

Toronto Address:
130 Queens Quay E.
Suite 903
Toronto, ON M5A 0P6


Mailing Address:
Horizons Plaza P.O. Box 1263
Buffalo, NY 14240-1263

Buffalo Toronto Public Media | Phone 716-845-7000
BTPM NPR Newsroom | Phone: 716-845-7040
Differing shades of blue wavering throughout the image
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Sunday Puzzle: You TOR Through it!

Sunday Puzzle
NPR
Sunday Puzzle

On-air challenge: When you're done with today's puzzle, I hope you can say you tore through it. Every answer is a word or name with the accented syllable "tor" somewhere inside.

Ex. Like important things from the past --> HISTORIC
1. Kind of college that selects the U.S. president
2. 19th-century English queen
3. Opinion piece in a newspaper
4. Class with one-on-one instruction
5. Well-known for something bad
6. Person who gets all bent out of shape
7. Math function signaled by an exclamation point
9. ___ Guinea (Central African country)
10. Administrative capital of South Africa
11. Use of force or threats to get money
12. Large room for a school gathering
13. Chicken ___ (Japanese dish)
14 Kind of question that's not meant to have an answer

Last week's challenge: Last week's challenge came from listener Peter Collins, of Ann Arbor, Mich. Think of a well-known author (9,6). Change the first letter of the last name and anagram those six letters to spell a word. Now read everything together — the author's first name plus the anagram with a letter changed of the last name — and you'll get a certain professional athlete. Who was it?

Challenge answer: Charlotte Bronte --> Charlotte Hornet

Winner: Julia Wheeler of Kansas City, Missouri.

This week's challenge: This week's challenge comes from listener Chad Graham, of Philadelphia. Name a famous singer (6,4). Remove the last letter of the first name and the first letter of the last name. The result, reading left to right, is a word for some singing. What is it?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, June 8th at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.

Produced by Lennon Sherburne contributed to this story

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Will Shortz
Will Shortz has been the puzzle master for NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday since the program's start in 1987.