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The calving season did have some bright spots. Several females gave birth for the first time, and that gives hope for the future, the aquarium said in a statement. The whale population only has about 70 reproductive females left.“With past calf counts ranging from 39 to zero, we never know how any calving season will unfold. While the calf count is relatively low this year, I am encouraged by four new mothers being added to the reproductive pool,” said Philip Hamilton, senior scientist in the Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.

The whales can weigh up to 150,000 pounds (45,360 kilograms) and were heavily exploited during the era of commercial whaling. They’ve been protected for decades, but have been slow to recover.In recent years, scientists have said the whales have strayed from established protected zones in search of food, and that has put them at elevated risk of entanglements and collisions. The whales migrate from the south to New England and Canada to feed on tiny ocean organisms.Joanne Lagatta arrived at the University of Wisconsin in 1995 with a flawless academic record and an achievement on her resumé that she didn’t like to talk about — but that no other undergrad on the sprawling Madison campus could claim: Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.

The bee winner in 1991 at age 13, Lagatta nonetheless struggled adjusting to life outside her rural hometown of Clintonville, Wisconsin — until she got a push from a professor who was a devoted spelling-bee fan.“I went in thinking I was a smart kid who had won a National Spelling Bee, and I must be able to compete with the highest-level academic kids. I signed up for a bunch of advanced classes I clearly had no place being in. I thought I was going to fail my chemistry class,” Lagatta says. “I went to my professor. He stared me down and said, ‘I know who you are. I know what you’re capable of. You are not failing my class.’ He pushed me through that class. I certainly didn’t get an A, but I didn’t fail.”

Lagatta, now 47, turned out fine. She’s a neonatologist at Children’s Wisconsin, a hospital in Milwaukee. And like many former champions of the National Spelling Bee — which celebrates its 100th anniversary when it starts Tuesday at a convention center outside Washington — she says the competition changed her life for the better because it taught her she could do hard things.

Winners of the spelling bee aren’t celebrities, exactly. Those who competed before it was televised by ESPN — it now airs on Scripps-owned ION — aren’t often recognized by strangers. But they have to accept being known forever for something they accomplished in middle school. Google any past bee champion, and it’s one of the first things that pops up.— Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum star in the space race rom-com

about a NASA launch director (Tatum) and a Madison Avenue marketing executive tasked with selling the mission to the moon. The film, which debuted in theaters in July, hits Apple TV+ on Wednesday., AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr praised it as “lighthearted and breezy with a pleasing screwball energy, giving Johansson the opportunity to use the full wattage of her movie star power.”

— Does espresso go with eggnog? Find out when Sabrina Carpenter hosts a holiday variety music special that streams on Netflix starting Friday, Dec. 6. “It’s an hour of literal nonsense,” Sabrina told Time magazine about the special. “If people are expecting boring, me singing by a tree, it’s not that. It’s so fun, so chaotic. There are so many guests that I’m excited about.” Those guests include Chappell Roan, Tyla, Shania Twain, Kali Uchis, Quinta Brunson, Cara Delevingne, Kyle Mooney, Nico Hiraga, Megan Stalter, Sean Astin, Owen Thiele and Jillian Bell.— Lauren Mayberry, vocalist and percussionist from the