Soft-spoken but brimming with confidence, Dev Shah asked precise questions about obscure Greek roots, rushed through his second-to-last word and rolled to the Scripps National Spelling Bee title Thursday night.
Dev, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, had his spelling career interrupted by the pandemic, then didn't make it out of his regional bee last year. He got through his highly competitive regional this year for his third and final try at the national title, and he ended up holding the trophy over his head as confetti fell.
His winning word was “psammophile,” a layup for a speller of his caliber.
“Psammo meaning sand, Greek?” he asked. “Phile, meaning love, Greek?”
He soaked up the moment by asking for the word to be used in a sentence, something he described a day earlier as a stalling tactic. Then he put his hands over his face as he was declared the winner.
Charlotte Walsh, a 14-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, was the runner-up.
The Walt Disney Co. will be laying off several thousand employees this week, a second round of cuts that’s part of a previously announced plan to eliminate 7,000 jobs this year.
Longtime CNN host Don Lemon is out at the cable news network a little over two months after apologizing to viewers for on-air comments about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, CNN announced Monday.
Prince William gave a British restaurant customer the surprise of their life. While on an official visit to the city of Birmingham, William and his wife Kate Middleton stopped by a popular Indian restaurant, and the prince took a call from a customer looking to book a table.
