Maryland

BALTIMORE - Alexander Kinyua, the 21-year-old accused of killing a man and eating his organs, has been formally indicted on charges of first-degree murder and assault and is being held at a Maryland state mental hospital, the Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.

BALTIMORE - Janelle Stewart said she was alarmed as she listened to the words about human sacrifice tumbling from the mouth of fellow Morgan State student Alexander Kinyua at a widely attended campus forum about hazing.

But the January outburst wouldn't be the only troubling incident involving Kinyua. He was thrown out of the ROTC program that same month after an incident that involved the destruction of property, and he was known to some on campus for carrying a machete and wearing tribal-inspired facepaint.

Those events earlier this year seem portentous now that Kinyua has been charged in back-to-back incidents of violence. He's accused of assaulting another student May 19 and of murdering 37-year-old Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie six days later. Police say Kinyua chopped Agyei-Kodie to pieces and gorged on the man's heart and brain.

OXON HILL, Md. -- The story of this spelling bee champion begins in the car, on the daily commute to kindergarten with father at the wheel.

"He'd ask me words that he saw on the signs, on billboards, and he'd ask me to spell them," Snigdha Nandipati said. "I remember my favorite word to spell was 'design' because it had the silent 'g."'

It didn't take long for Krishnarao Nandipati to realize his daughter had a special talent. He began entering her in bees in the third grade. Soon she was winning them, and Thursday night the 14-year-old girl from San Diego captured the biggest prize of them all: the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- The words start flying here Tuesday at the Scripps National Spelling Bee as 278 youngsters vie to become the 85th champion of the country's longest-running educational competition.

The spellers, who come from across the United States and its territories, plus eight other countries, start out taking a computer-screen quiz of 50 words. Scores from half of those spellings are added to onstage spelling scores during Wednesday's preliminary rounds to determine who moves on to Thursday's semifinals.

Nearly 40 percent of the competitors are eighth-graders, and the most common age is 13.

And then there's Lori Anne Madison, who, at age 6, has already made her mark on the Bee as the youngest speller ever to reach the national stage.

BALTIMORE -- A year ago, Graham Motion was one of the most popular figures at Pimlico Race Course.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- After Austin Lanham injured his knee playing rugby at the University of Maryland in 2004, he devoted his attention to another big "sport" on college campuses.

Not football or basketball, but beer pong.

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Pamela J. White convicted Eliyahu Werdesheim, one of the two brothers accused of assaulting a teenager in Baltimore, of false imprisonment and second-degree assault Thursday afternoon, following a week-long trial. The second brother, Avi, was cleared of all charges.