Spelling Bee Champ Breaks 'German Curse'

This year's National Spelling Bee winner is a 13-year-old eighth-grader from New York. Arvind Mahankali triumphed on the word "knaidel," meaning dumpling, thus conquering his trouble with German-derived words; they've knocked him out of the running in the previous two competitions. "The German curse has turned into a German blessing," he said. Mahankali became the first boy to win the contest since 2008, USA Today notes.

The Scripps national contest began Tuesday in Oxon Hill, Maryland, with 281 competitors; the number was whittled down to 11 finalists in last night's bout. Along with his trophy, Mahankali gets $30,000 in cash, a US savings bond of $2,500 courtesy of Merriam-Webster, and a $2,000 collection of reference materials from Encyclopedia Britannica. So what's next for Mahankali? Not Disney World: "I shall spend the summer, maybe the entire day, studying physics," he said, per CNN. (More Scripps National Spelling Bee stories.)