Author: Shekari Philemon

Teachers in American public schools do not look like the children in front of them, and the gap is widening in the direction nobody wants.Roughly 15 percent of public school students are Black. Just over 6 percent of the adults teaching them are. Nearly 4 million teachers serve about 51 million students, and close to 80 percent of that workforce is white and female. Fewer than 2 percent of all teachers in the country are Black men. The share of teachers of color climbed steadily for decades, from 13 percent in the late 1980s to 20 percent by 2018. Then…

Von Miller is heading home. The future Hall of Fame pass rusher agreed to a one-year deal with the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, returning to the state where he grew up and attended DeSoto High School before heading to Texas A&M. The 37-year-old enters his 15th NFL season with 138.5 career sacks, more than any other active player. He recorded nine sacks last season with the Washington Commanders, his highest single-season total since 2021, when he split time between the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams. He posted on social media Sunday night to announce the news, showing himself in…

The Indianapolis Colts and the Pacers each donated $125,000 to American Red Cross flood relief efforts in the state on Sunday, joining with the WNBA’s Fever and the G League’s Noblesville Boom in a joint response to flooding that has killed at least seven people and displaced many more across Indiana. The announcement came before the Colts’ afternoon training camp practice at Grand Park Sports Complex in suburban Indianapolis. President Trump has issued an emergency declaration for more than half of Indiana’s 92 counties as the region experiences some of its worst flooding in decades. Colts co-owner Kalen Jackson expressed…

LeBron James has launched a YouTube channel dedicated to golf, debuting the venture with a 90-minute-plus video of a 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers reunion trip to Scotland that took place in June, featuring several teammates from the team that ended Cleveland’s 52-year championship drought. The debut video brings together Kevin Love, J.R. Smith, Richard Jefferson, Tristan Thompson and Channing Frye for a golf trip that doubled as a reunion marking the 10th anniversary of the historic championship. The 2016 Cavaliers came back from a 3-1 deficit against the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA title, one of the most remarkable…

Tyrese Haliburton said he was shocked to discover that his regular-season return from a torn Achilles tendon, one of the more anticipated NBA comeback stories heading into the new season, was not scheduled for national television when the NBA released its full schedule earlier this week. Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers star, sat out the entire 2025-26 season after tearing his Achilles in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. He is making his regular-season return when the Pacers open on the road at the New Orleans Pelicans on Oct. 21. The two nationally televised games that day are the Minnesota…

Candace Parker carried a basketball to the podium at the Basketball Hall of Fame ceremony Saturday night in Springfield, Massachusetts, and spoke to it as the reason she was there. The gesture was both playful and sincere, a reflection of how she and her fellow inductees framed their speeches as love letters to the game itself. Parker, who won three WNBA titles, two MVP awards, two NCAA championships at Tennessee, two Olympic gold medals and became a first-ballot Hall of Famer, broke down at the close of her speech while describing her relationship with basketball as something that began 27…

Basketball mourned Don Nelson Thursday as Hall of Famers, former players and coaches gathered at a Dallas church for a celebration of life honoring the man who compiled more regular-season coaching wins than anyone in NBA history except Gregg Popovich, who died Sunday at 86. Among those who spoke was Hall of Fame guard Steve Nash, who was coached by Nelson with the Dallas Mavericks for six seasons. Nash expressed gratitude to the family for sharing him with the basketball world, and specifically for sharing him with Nash himself. He said the coach functioned as a mentor and significant presence…

Terrion Arnold plans to sign a one-year contract with the Seattle Seahawks, sources told  NFL Network on Thursday, ending a free agent search that took the cornerback to four teams before Seattle emerged as his choice. He worked out for the Seahawks on Sunday and had previously visited the Houston Texans, New Orleans Saints and New York Giants. He chose Seattle after head coach Mike Macdonald confirmed the team’s interest earlier in the week and after his workout was featured in the second episode of Hard Knocks, which also showed general manager John Schneider weighing the potential implications of signing…

Ben Shelton defended his National Bank Open title Thursday night in Montreal, defeating fellow American Brandon Nakashima 6-3, 7-6 (4) in an all-American final to claim his seventh career ATP Tour title and become the first repeat champion in Canada since Rafael Nadal won consecutive titles there in 2019. The 23-year-old did not drop a set throughout the tournament. The fifth seed dominated Thursday’s final in 1 hour and 27 minutes, serving at 142 miles per hour without surrendering a single break point throughout the match. The win moves him to sixth in the world ranking. He also won titles…

Alex Eala arrives in Cincinnati as a different player than the one who started the North American hard-court swing, and she knows it. A 7-1 record on hard courts this season, a maiden WTA title at the DC Open and a run to the round of 16 in Toronto have pushed the 21-year-old Filipina to a career-high ranking of No. 20 and earned her the 17th seed at the Cincinnati Open, giving her a first-round bye as the US Open draws closer. The seeding is one measure of the distance she has traveled in a few months. Cincinnati is the…