By Jonathan Hawkins, CNN

(CNN) — At 29 years old with three world titles and millions of followers on social media, you could forgive most sports stars for easing back a little and enjoying their success.

Toprak Razgatlıoğlu, however, is not interested in resting on any laurels. Instead, this year the former World Superbike star chose to jump on an untried bike in MotoGP and break new ground as the first ever Turkish rider to compete at the pinnacle of two-wheeled motorsport.

Razgatlıoğlu has neither the build nor the demeanor one might expect of a triple World Superbike champion. At a rangy 6-foot-1, he towers over most riders on the MotoGP grid, while his affable, laid-back disposition reflects both an unconventional upbringing and a path to the top that has involved hard work and personal tragedy.

Son of a stunt rider

Born in the ancient Turkish beach resort of Alanya – where legend has it Egyptian queen Cleopatra herself once bathed in the warm Mediterranean waters – Razgatlıoğlu has motorcycling in his genes. His father, Arif Razgatlıoğlu, had national fame of his own as a stunt rider and was known as “One Wheel Arif.”

“In Turkey, he was very famous, everyone knew him, you know, all the young boys, many people, if you were riding a bike, everyone knew my father,” Razgatlıoğlu tells CNN Sports proudly at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.

Like many of his peers on the grid, Razgatlıoğlu began riding at a very young age. “I’m starting, five years old maybe? But at seven years old, I started stunt riding, riding like a stunt rider. First, I learn riding the bike, then the next, wheelie,” he smiles.

But despite his family heritage in stunt riding, Razgatlıoğlu didn’t take to it like his father. “I started as a stunt rider, (but) at 10 years or 11 years old, I say, ‘You know, I don’t like it – it’s not so fun.’ Yeah, maybe I make a wheelie on a bike, I always enjoy, but I like to race.”

Razgatlıoğlu says his father always supported his decision to forge his own destiny.

“We have many videos, because (my dad) was always, ‘I make a video,’” he recalls. “I think I was maybe 13 years old, maybe 12 years old, we have a video with my father, he says, ‘One day, my son will race in MotoGP.’”

Renting and racing bikes

Bike racing is an expensive pastime, and Razgatlıoğlu’s family had to make sacrifices and be creative to sustain his passion.

“We are not a rich family, but my father always sold bikes, and we were always going to race. In Turkey, we had a shop, a rental shop, and we would give a bike out to rent, then when the bike came back in; we change the fairing, we put on the racing fairing, and in the night, we go to the racetrack,” Razgatlıoğlu laughs.

“And I’m racing the bike, then after we come back home, in the morning, we change the fairing again, and the bike is going out to rent.”

Eventually, Razgatlıoğlu found his way into the Red Bull Rookie’s Cup, a youth competition that has forged a path for many top MotoGP racers. Peter Clifford, director of rider development and media for the Red Bull Rookies Cup, first spotted Razgatlıoğlu on social media.

“He was posting photos of him wheelieing things, you know, he probably was only 11 or 12 at the time, but he obviously had enormous motorcycle skill. And I thought, ‘Well, that’d be fantastic to try and channel those skills in the Rookies Cup.’ So, he applied for the Cup, and actually initially didn’t get in because he’d got zero road racing experience.”

Eventually, the teenager found his way into the Cup via a selection event, but Razgatlıoğlu says he struggled to make an impact, partly because of

By Ray Sanchez, Kyung Lah, CNN

(CNN) — The tightknit and family-friendly city of Lake Elsinore in Riverside County is about 70 miles southeast and a world apart from the glitz and glamour of the Hollywood Hills.

Celeste Rivas Hernandez grew up in Lake Elsinore, where she was a regular at the corner store down the street from her home. Neighbors still recall her strolling around with her backpack and long curly black hair atop her 5-foot-2 frame.

Kayleigh Cortez, a neighbor, remembered the first time she saw Celeste three years ago.

“I’m like, ‘Oh, look at that girl. She had big, beautiful curls. That’s a beautiful little girl,’” Cortez recalled.

The next time Cortez saw Celeste was when her picture appeared in the news after her dismembered and decomposed body was discovered in the trunk of a Tesla owned by the alt-pop singer who goes by the name d4vd. The car was parked on a street in the upscale Hollywood Hills neighborhood where the artist, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, had rented a multimillion-dollar home in the hills under the iconic Hollywood Sign.

Her body was found a day after what would have been her 15th birthday.

“Hollywood will always entice kids,” said Cortez, 36, who has a 14-year-old daughter. “Getting to meet a celebrity or doing something out of the norm is cool for any young teen. Lake Elsinore is small. It’s kind of quiet. It’s not like hustle and bustle.”

About a year after Cortez first saw Celeste on the street, family and friends began to report the girl as missing, starting in early 2024. She and d4vd appeared together in a Twitch livestream that January. Between then and March 2024, he was photographed getting out of a black Tesla near the seventh grader’s home.

Celeste was also photographed backstage at one of his Los Angeles shows in June 2024. She was last seen alive going to d4vd’s home in April 2025.

She was 13 at the time, a teenager seen in widely circulated photos with thick, dark curls that highlight her soft smile.

She loved Hello Kitty, and the missing persons poster in Lake Elsinore said she was last seen wearing Hello Kitty slippers.

“I don’t want her remembered as a rebellious kid or a runaway,” said Cortez, who started and tends to a makeshift memorial outside the home where Celeste lived with her family.

“She was a daughter, a sister, a friend. She was a young girl just trying to figure out life, and she doesn’t get to grow up,” Cortez said. “She doesn’t get to get married or have any children because someone took that away from her.”

Young victim’s life cut short

On Monday, following a monthslong investigation, Burke, 21, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. The Los Angeles District Attorney added “special circumstances” to the charge, which makes the sentence eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors say he had a sexual relationship with the young girl and killed her after she threatened to expose it. He allegedly engaged in “continuous sexual abuse” of Celeste starting in September 2023 until September 2024, according to a criminal complaint.

Blair Berk, one of d4vd’s attorneys, wrote in a statement on Monday, “The actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death. We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”

Celeste died of “multiple penetrating injuries,” according to an autopsy report released Wednesday. She had wounds on her chest and abdomen that “may represent sharp force injuries,” the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said in the

By Arit John, CNN

(CNN) — If Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has his way, the Democratic path to winning back the US House will run through his state.

Shapiro has committed to helping Democrats flip four Republican-held seats. He’s endorsed in three of the districts, including one where his chosen candidate is locked in a competitive primary. And in a bid to rebuild Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party, Shapiro recruited an ally as state chairman and donated $925,000 from his campaign account this cycle, including $400,000 in April, according to his campaign.

Winning those seats while running up the score in his own reelection would bolster Shapiro’s political resume if he decides to run for president in 2028. But there is also some political risk for Shapiro, who is betting he can help Democrats oust longtime Republican incumbents and boost his pick in the 7th District.

“Josh is not someone who puts his name behind something without a lot of oomph … he’s not someone who is going to want to be embarrassed,” said one Pennsylvania Democratic strategist who asked to be anonymous to speak candidly.

The governor surprised some Democrats and frustrated others when he recruited and endorsed Bob Brooks, the president of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association, to take on Rep. Ryan Mackenzie.

Brooks supporters argue he’s better positioned to win over working-class voters in the district than the other three candidates in the race: former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell, former nonprofit executive and energy engineer Carol Obando-Derstine, and former Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure.

“I think the world of Josh Shapiro, and I think he’s a wonderful governor, and I just could not understand why he would want to involve himself in such a competitive primary,” said former Rep. Susan Wild, who recruited and is backing Obando-Derstine. “Invariably, you’re going to be pissing off several different candidates’ bases.”

The real challenge will come in November, when Democrats hope to defeat Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan, Scott Perry, and Mackenzie.

Bresnahan and Mackenzie were elected in 2024 after defeating Democratic incumbents in close races. Fitzpatrick and Perry are longtime Democratic targets who have withstood past efforts to unseat them.

Democrats hope that the favorable midterm environment will help get their candidates over the edge in all four races. They also note that President Donald Trump won’t be on the ballot to help boost turnout. Instead, Shapiro — who won his 2022 race by 15 points — will be at the top of the ticket.

“Governor Shapiro is fighting to keep getting stuff done for our Commonwealth and to put a stop to Trump’s chaos, cruelty, and corruption that is harming Pennsylvania families,” Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said in a statement. “That means winning this November – and the Governor is going to keep showing up, delivering his message, and working to elect leaders up and down the ballot who will actually fight for Pennsylvanians and help put an end to Washington’s corruption and disastrous policies.”

A crowded primary in the Lehigh Valley

Democrats’ best pick-up opportunity in the state may be the 7th District. Mackenzie beat Wild in 2024 by just 1 percentage point. Wild, who flipped the district in 2018, chose not to run again.

Brooks, who has been endorsed by a broad range of state and national politicians, has made Shapiro’s support the centerpiece of his pitch to voters. His campaign website’s “red box” — where campaigns signal strategies to super PACs and outside groups — stresses that it is “most important that likely Democratic primary voters learn that Brooks is endorsed by Governor Josh Shapiro.” The governor held a fundraiser for Brooks last December and appea

By Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) — The path to identifying Rex Heuermann as the Gilgo Beach serial killer began with Shannan Gilbert.

Gilbert, a 23-year-old sex worker, had gone missing in May 2010 after a visit to a client in Oak Beach, a Long Island, New York, community near Gilgo. Spurred by her mother, police began to search for her – and ultimately uncovered the remains of nearly a dozen people, mostly young female sex workers, along a stretch of Ocean Parkway.

Yet when Heuermann pleaded guilty to murdering eight women earlier this month, Gilbert was not among the victims.

In fact, Gilbert is one of at least four people whose remains were found along the parkway who have not been connected to Heuermann’s killing spree. Aside from Gilbert, the deaths of a mother-daughter pair have been tied to a different suspected killer in an ongoing murder case. Meanwhile, the remains of an Asian person found in 2011 have still not been identified.

“Gilgo Beach can be described as a dumping ground,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said late last year in announcing an arrest in the mother-daughter killings. “There are a number of bodies that are not connected to the Gilgo Beach killer. It’s a wasteland out there. It’s probably a good place to drop a body.”

Heuermann, a 62-year-old architect, is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at a hearing June 17. He pleaded guilty to the murders of seven women – Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Sandra Costilla – and admitted to killing an eighth, Karen Vergata. Costilla was the only victim whose remains were found elsewhere.

Here’s a closer look at the four other people found dead along Long Island’s Ocean Parkway in 2010 to 2011 and the status of their investigations.

Shannan Gilbert

Featured in the non-fiction book “Lost Girls,” and later in a Netflix film starring Amy Ryan, Gilbert may be the best known of the Gilgo Beach victims – even though officials have not connected her death to Heuermann.

In the early morning hours of May 1, 2010, Gilbert, a sex worker who advertised on Craisglist, was driven to a home in Oak Beach to meet a client, according to Suffolk County police. In the house, Gilbert called 911 and repeatedly said, “There is somebody after me,” according to audio released in 2022.

She fled the home and asked for help from multiple neighbors, who also called 911, and then went into a nearby marsh, according to police.

Her skeletonized remains were found in December 2011 in the marsh, partially entangled in overgrown shrubbery, the Suffolk County Office of the Medical Examiner wrote. Her cause and manner of death were listed as “undetermined.”

However, an independent autopsy performed by former New York chief medical examiner Michael Baden concluded there was “insufficient information to determine a definite cause of death, but the autopsy findings are consistent with homicidal strangulation.” He noted that part of her neck bone was missing from her remains – parts that may be fractured during a homicidal strangulation.

Suffolk County police cleared the driver and client of any criminal

By Alejandra Jaramillo, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Thursday brushed off remarks by Prince Harry asking the US for more action to end the war in Ukraine, saying the British royal does not speak for the United Kingdom.

“I know one thing, Prince Harry is not speaking for the UK, that’s for sure. I think I am speaking for the UK more than Prince Harry. But I appreciate his advice very much,” Trump said, before quipping: “How’s he doing? How’s his wife?”

“Please give him my regards,” Trump added.

Harry recently visited Ukraine, where he called on the US to increase support for Kyiv and urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “choose a different course.”

King Charles III and Queen Camilla are scheduled to visit Washington next week, including stops at the White House and the US Capitol.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The post Trump dismisses Prince Harry’s comments on Ukraine ahead of royal visit appeared first on News Channel 3-12.