There are times when the Scripps National Spelling Bee transforms into a geography bee.

The best young spellers in the English language are competing at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

Bruhat Soma was unbeatable before he arrived at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and neither the dictionary, nor his competitors, nor a lightning-round tiebreaker challenged him on the way to victory.

Dev Shah is the champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is down to 11 finalists, many of whom flash their knowledge onstage by asking questions even though they know the answers.

Competitors in the Scripps National Spelling Bee are trying to adjust their preparation so they don't get tripped up by onstage, multiple-choice vocabulary questions.

The WNBA and Scripps have signed a multiyear deal to televise Friday night regular-season games on ION.

A speller has been reinstated into the Scripps National Spelling Bee field after successfully appealing that he was denied relevant root information about a word.

LeVar Burton has been hired as host of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

COVID-19 vaccine makers tell Congress to expect a big jump in the delivery of doses over the coming month. The companies insisted Tuesday, Feb. 23, at a hearing that they will be able to provide enough vaccine for most Americans by summer. By the end of March, Pfizer and Moderna expect to have provided the U.S. government with a total of 220 million vaccine doses, up sharply from the roughly 75 million shipped so far. AdLooking ahead to summer, Pfizer and Moderna expect to complete delivery of 300 million doses each, and J&J aims to provide an additional 100 million doses. “The most pressing challenge now is the lack of supply of vaccine doses,” Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, said as she opened the hearing.

In this screenshot provided by SpellPundit, spellers and organizers of the SpellPundit Online National Spelling Bee participate in semifinals Tuesday night, May 26, 2020. The bee was launched after the Scripps National Spelling Bee was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Scripps National Spelling Bee will return this year in a mostly virtual format, with the in-person competition limited to a dozen finalists who will gather on an ESPN campus at Walt Disney World in Florida, Scripps announced Monday. Instead of compressing the entire competition into a week — spellers routinely refer to Bee Week as a highlight of their young lives — the bee will be stretched over several weeks. Virtual format notwithstanding, the bee will return to its roots as a purely oral spelling competition.

The upstart ex-spellers who launched an online spelling bee to fill the void left by the canceled Scripps National Spelling Bee had little trouble running an efficient, and sufficiently challenging, competition. When the two other remaining spellers misspelled words back to back before his turn, victory in the closest thing to a national spelling bee in this pandemic-disrupted year was his for the taking. The National Spelling Bee has always been limited to kids in middle and elementary schools, which means Navneeth and six other finalists in the SpellPundit bee will be too old to compete next year. This was also the end of the line for Simone Kaplan, the charismatic runner-up in last year's unusual Scripps bee, which ended in an eight-way tie for first place. Nidhi Achanta, who tied for second in the SpellPundit bee, is also in eighth grade, but the other runner-up, Harini Logan, is a poised sixth-grader who ought to be formidable when the Scripps bee returns.

Like dozens of other veteran spellers in their final year of eligibility, Anson Cook had big plans for this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee, which was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The SpellPundit bee, with spellers competing from their homes over Zoom, concludes Thursday night, the same time the Scripps winner would have been decided. The champion receives $2,500, a pittance compared to the National Spelling Bees first prize of $50,000, but worth a middle-schoolers time and effort all the same. Most of the spellers who would have been favorites at the national bee quickly signed up, including the top three still-eligible finishers from last year. Yes, eight: Last year's Scripps bee ended in an eight-way tie when organizers ran out of words difficult enough to challenge the best spellers.

There will be no fidgeting at the National Spelling Bee microphone, no banter with pronouncer Jacques Bailly, no pointed questions about definitions or languages of origin, no dreaded bell that signals a misspelled word. This year's Scripps National Spelling Bee was canceled Tuesday, the latest beloved public event to be scrapped because of the coronavirus pandemic. The bee will return next year, Scripps said, but that's little comfort to the eighth-graders who are missing out on their last shot at the national stage. “The Scripps National Spelling Bee is an in-person live event, the same way that a basketball game is or a football game or a soccer game or a tennis match,” Kimble said. In the meantime, Simone, Navneeth and other top spellers will compete in an online bee conducted by SpellPundit on the same dates as the vacated Scripps bee.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee won’t be held as scheduled this year because of the coronavirus, meaning years of preparation by some of the country's top spellers could go for naught. Kimble expressed confidence that the logistics of holding a bee later this year could be worked out. The Scripps bee began in 1925 and this year's, if it happens, would be the 93rd. Simone, a 14-year-old from Davie, Florida, had her regional bee called off earlier this week. A bee held in the fall would present new challenges for the academically gifted teenager, whose nonstop, year-round bee preparation includes regular private coaching sessions.