On July 29, 14-year-old basketball star Semaj Miller was gunned down in South Los Angeles.
At six-foot-seven-inches tall, the Compton teenager was expected to go far with the L.A. City Wildcats, an association that helped launch the career of NBA player James Harden.
Now the community is mourning his loss.
"Semaj was such a talented kid who lost his life too soon," Rapper Percy “Master P” Miller, a coach and part-owner of the team, told Cheddar. "We have to stop this senseless killing, gun violence in our community. It's not the police. This is us killing us."
Miller lamented that gun violence is robbing the next generation of its talent, as well as those who could find success and come back and invest in their communities.
"This kid could have been the next LeBron James, could have been the next James Harden," he said. "We'll never get to know how talented this kid could have been."
Stepping outside of the rhetoric used in recent protests against police violence, the rapper said it was the responsibility of citizens to stop the violence in their own communities.
"I know we're out here protesting for Black Lives Matter, but my thing is, 'Okay, our kids matter,'" he said. "This is our future."
Miller didn't outline specific preventive measures but emphasized parenting and education.
"It's got to start in our community. We have to stand up for these kids. We have to protect them. We have to educate them," he said.
While the secondary market for NFTs isn't likely to garner the same headlines as multi-million dollar deals, experts agree the future of the crypto art market depends on more than one-off, high-profile purchases.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet for more than $2.9 million. The tweet from 2006, which says “just setting up my twttr,” was bought by Bridge Oracle CEO Sina Estavi.
A second mass shooting in a week rattles the nation. What we know, what we don't, and what the political response might be. Plus, the cursed AstraZeneca vaccine facing new questions, upsets rule the day in the women's NCAA tourney and how fat did we get during Covid?
American Cornhole League co-founder and commissioner Stacey Moore spoke to Cheddar about partnering with sports betting giant DraftKings and touted the players in one of the newer televised sports to gain in popularity.
Casinos in Atlantic City are pinning hopes on the rising vaccination rates and the return of live sports to drive people back to in-person gaming.
Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey talked to Cheddar about his concern that once the news cycle moves on, Americans will forget about the threat that remains against Asian and Asian American people.
Breaking news overnight on the AstraZeneca vaccine. Some new eligibility expansions, the latest from the border, the Cinderella stories after the first weekend of March Madness, and more.
Rep. Mark Takano (D- Calif. 41st District) discusses the need to pass the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act especially in the wake of the shooting deaths of eight people in Atlanta area spas, six of them being women of Asian descent.
Maxine Williams, chief diversity officer at Facebook, spoke to Cheddar from the all-virtual SXSW to discuss Facebook's progress on improving diversity and inclusion within the social media giant.
U.S. health officials are relaxing social distancing recommendations for schools, now saying students can sit as close as 3 feet to each other in classrooms.
