Miss NC Grabs Miss USA Crown

North Carolina's Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA 2009 in Las Vegas this weekend. The 21-year-old aspiring motivational speaker edged out runners-up from California and Arizona. Dalton will get a New York apartment for the year, a publicity team, a film school scholarship, and an undisclosed salary. In a rare moment of drama during the pageant, Miss California's negative answer about same-sex marriage elicited boos and cheers from the audience.

"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage," she said. "I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised." (More beauty pageant stories.)