Good morning and welcome to Kid News, generously underwritten today by the Jones family of

Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, to shout out Ben for his 10th birthday.

Ben, your mom, dad, David Luna, and Etsy, what you to know, it's been a wonderful decade

of watching you grow into the math loving, hockey playing, amazing person that you are.

And that they're excited for the upcoming move and all the adventures to come.

I'm Kim, today is Wednesday, May 31, 2023.

And we begin with the Harbor and Baltimore Maryland abuzz with the nation's best spellers.

The semi-finals of the 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee take place there today, with

the finals and the crowning of this year's champion on tap for tomorrow night.

This year, 231 spellers are in their spots as national competitors by advancing through

regional bees and competing against students representing all 50 states, the District of

Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Department of Defense Schools

in Europe.

The top prize is $50,000, a trophy and some serious bragging rights.

In 1925, the first year of the competition, the winning word was gladiolis, like the flower.

50 years later, it was incisor, a type of tooth.

And last year, it was more hen, the name for a certain species of water bird.

It goes up, must come down, and late last night, a SpaceX capsule carrying decorated American

astronaut Peggy Whitson and her crew of three splashed down off the Florida coast.

The mission wasn't one of NASA's, it was carried out by a private company called Axiom,

which wants to make spaceflight routine, even for those who aren't professional astronauts.

Aside from Whitson, also along for the ride were an American businessman and two Saudis.

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