A teenage basketball prodigy has become the first African American to win the US Scripps National Spelling Bee. Zaila Avant-garde, a 14-year-old from New Orleans, Louisiana, cruised to victory with the word “murraya”, a type of tropical tree. To get to that point she had to spell out “querimonious” and “solidungulate”. Despite practising for up to seven hours a day, she describes spelling as a side hobby – Zaila’s main focus is on becoming a basketball pro. She already holds three world records for dribbling multiple balls at once, and has appeared in an advertisement with the NBA megastar Stephen Curry. Zaila saw off a field of 11 finalists on Thursday to win the title and bagged a first-place prize of $50,000 (£36,000) at the event in Orlando, Florida. In the final round, she beat 12-year-old Chaitra Thummala of Frisco, Texas.(BBC)…[+]