
Ayana Archie
NPR reporterAyana Archie is the overnight breaking news reporter for National Public Radio. She graduated from the University of Maryland-College Park’s Merrill School of Journalism in May 2020.
Her love for journalism stemmed from a natural gravitation toward writing. She’d write whatever she could — short stories, plays, even a manuscript for a children’s book. Her first journalism experience was reporting for her high school’s newspaper and the culture magazine. This experience carried on to college, where she was able to diversify her storytelling through other skills, such as photojournalism, podcasting, and videography.
She is a former arts and culture reporter for her university’s independent student newspaper, The Diamondback. She has previous experience at CNN Digital, where she covered a range of topics, including social issues, climate and the Capital Gazette shooting. She served as the president of her university’s award-winning National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) student chapter her senior year.
In 2019, she participated in The New York Times Student Journalism Institute, as well as interned on the metro desk at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In the fall of that year, she completed her senior capstone as a Capital News Service reporter, covering Maryland politics on Capitol Hill. She completed a spring internship at CNNPolitics.com before taking on a full-time role at the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, as a breaking news reporter.
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Kotb has been at NBC for 26 years, including on the Dateline and Today programs. She said she decided to leave her role after she recently turned 60.
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Bruhat Soma spelled 29 out of 30 words correctly in Scripps’ second-ever spell-off, in which competitors have 90 seconds to spell as many words given to them as possible.
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The trophy was presented to the team by tennis legend Billie Jean King, who is a founding advisory board member for the league, which currently has six teams.
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Chapman won the award for her 1988 hit "Fast Car," which got renewed attention after singer Luke Combs released a cover of the song earlier this year.