CNN, KOCO, KFOR, OKLAHOMA DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS

By Karina Tsui, CNN

(CNN) — Richard Glossip, 63, was released on bond Thursday –– the latest dramatic turn in a nearly three-decade legal saga that had seen the former Oklahoma death row inmate scheduled for execution nine times before his conviction was overturned last year by the Supreme Court.

Over the years, the case evolved into one of the nation’s most closely watched death penalty battles –– marked by last-minute reprieves and questions over the integrity of his conviction in the alleged murder-for-hire plot of his boss.

The case centers on the 1997 killing of Oklahoma City motel owner, Barry Van Treese, and testimony against Glossip from Van Treese’s admitted killer, Justin Sneed, the only evidence linking Glossip to the murder.

Sneed’s testimony became the foundation of the prosecution’s case, and has, over the decades, spurred doubts about his conviction – Glossip has never wavered in maintaining his innocence.

Here’s a look at how the case unfolded over the past 29 years:

January 7, 1997 – Van Treese is killed the motel. Within days, Sneed, a hired handyman, and Glossip, the motel’s manager, are arrested.

Sneed, then 19, admitted to beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat. He avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty and agreeing to testify that Glossip orchestrated the killing as part of a murder-for-hire plot.

1998 – Glossip is convicted of murder and sentenced to death after Sneed testified Glossip asked him to carry out the killing so he could run the motel himself.

2001 – The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturns Glossip’s conviction, ruling he received ineffective legal representation during his trial.

2004 – Glossip’s second trial ends with him again being convicted and sentenced to death.

June 2022 – An independent review commissioned by a bipartisan group of Oklahoma lawmakers raises sweeping concerns about the integrity of the investigation and prosecution that sent Glossip to death row.

The review “revealed the state’s intentional destruction of evidence” including financial records that could disprove prosecutors’ theory Glossip was motivated to kill Van Treese because he was embezzling money from the motel.

The review also found Sneed’s testimony was tainted by detectives’ tactics during questioning.

“Our conclusion is that no reasonable jury, hearing the complete record and the uncovered facts detailed in this report, would have convicted Richard Glossip of capital murder,” said attorney Stan Perry with the law firm Reed Smith, which conducted the investigation.

An amendment to the review also found letters written by Sneed in pris

By Jessie Yeung, Sylvie Zhuang, CNN

(CNN) — US President Donald Trump spent his final morning in Beijing in Zhongnanhai — the highly secretive, tightly guarded leadership compound of China’s ruling Communist Party.

Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping strolled through its pristine gardens, with Trump admiring the roses and Xi offering to send seeds before they held talks over tea and lunch.

The central seat of power in China, the venue is sometimes compared to the White House or the Kremlin. Only a handful of American leaders have ever stepped beyond the centuries-old red ochre walls that separate the compound from the rest of the capital.

Security is extremely tight, with access to the compound overseen by an elite military unit responsible for the personal safety of top party leaders. Images of the enclosure are tightly censored and obscured on digital mapping platforms.

Xi himself called attention to the location on Friday, saying he had chosen it as thanks for Trump hosting him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in 2017. That meeting was the first time the men had met, just a few months after Trump took office in his first term.

Zhongnanhai – which takes its name from two large lakes located within its grounds – “is the place where leaders of the (communist) party and the central government of China work and live, including myself,” Xi told Trump on Friday.”

“After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, we (the communist party) have been here, including Chinese leaders: Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and so on,” said Xi.

Garden of emperors

Zhongnanhai was once an imperial garden, used by emperors to relax and enjoy leisure time when they weren’t living and working in Beijing’s Forbidden City.

The gardens’ centuries-long history was a point of pride on Friday, with Xi pointing out the age of various trees in the compound — including a large tree one he said was about 490 years old. “In other places within this compound, there are trees that have lived to be over 1,000 years old,” Xi told Trump.

At one point, Xi encouraged Trump to touch the trees, voicing his appreciation for the garden’s life and history.

Later in their stroll, Trump remarked to Xi: “Nice place. I like it. I could get used to this.”

After China’s imperial era ended in 1912, Zhongnanhai was repurposed as a presidential compound. Decades later, Chairman Mao Zedong established it as the center of political power after the communist victory in China’s civil war.

Back then, Mao deliberately didn’t choose the Forbidden City for his office – wanting to distance the new China from its past failed imperial system. And, working and living in the previous emperor’s palace would have been inconsistent with the Communist Party ideology of “serving the people.”

Since then, Zhongnanhai has undergone significant razing and renovation, including the addition of office buildings, swimming pools, and more. Today, the 1,500-acre site boasts repurposed pavilions and temples, and is synonymous with the party’s elite.

Later during Xi and Trump’s stroll, video from Chinese state media shows, the two took photos in front of a room that was once used for ballroom dancing and to display foreign and Chinese films when the party leadership first moved to the compound.

US presidents visit

Former US President Richard Nixon met Mao in Zhongnanhai during his groundbreaking trip in 1972 – the first time an American president had visited China.

Thirty years later, President George W. Bush also entered Zhongnanhai, alongside China’s then-President Jiang Zemin. The last US president to see Zhongnanhai was <

By Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration is racing to fill a widening leadership vacuum within the US Department of Health and Human Services, amid months of upheaval that have shaken Americans’ trust and stoked GOP fears of a backlash at the ballot box in November.

Senior health officials plan to settle on a new nominee to run the Food and Drug Administration within the next few weeks, in hopes of rapidly stabilizing an agency whose prior leader had alienated several elements of President Donald Trump’s political coalition, a senior administration official told CNN.

They are also plotting a broader shakeup of senior FDA staff meant to reset the agency’s strained relationship with its vast workforce and ease deepening concerns across the health care industry, two senior officials said.

And as it works to contain the hantavirus outbreak, the White House is also pushing for the quick confirmation of more conventional picks to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and serve as surgeon general, after failing repeatedly to advance candidates closely aligned with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement.

“It needs a lot of sorting out,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres said of the turmoil across HHS. “It’s not exactly a well-oiled machine.”

The fresh urgency surrounding the health department comes as Trump tries to shore up key political weaknesses ahead of midterm elections that could cost him control of Congress, stall his agenda and open his administration up to a raft of Democratic investigations.

White House officials earlier this year decided that HHS under Kennedy required an overhaul following a tumultuous period marked by controversial vaccine policies, constant personnel problems and messaging missteps that had dented its standing with voters and a swath of frustrated GOP lawmakers.

The White House since then has grown more deeply involved in the department’s decisionmaking, Trump officials and others familiar with the matter said, working with Kennedy to shift away from controversial issues like vaccines and toward more mainstream affordability issues like drug pricing and health insurance.

It’s a move that has irked many in Kennedy’s MAHA movement, who aligned with Trump in hopes he would embrace radical changes to the nation’s health system. Some prominent MAHA influencers have cautioned in recent weeks that Republicans are at risk of alienating their voters ahead of November — a warning that only grew louder after FDA commissioner Marty Makary resigned earlier this week under pressure from Trump and his close aides and allies.

“Marty Makary was one of the few people inside Washington willing to challenge the corporate capture of our health agencies,” Vani Hari, a wellness influencer known for her “Food Babe” blog, wrote on X. “If reformers who challenge the system keep getting pushed out, it only proves how deeply entrenched these special interests really are.”

But Trump officials have largely brushed aside those concerns in favor of refocusing HHS and its leadership, overseeing a restructuring of Kennedy’s senior staff in February that set the stage for a broader revamp.

Top White House and HHS officials subsequently spent several weeks assembling new leadership at the CDC, which had been mired in crisis since Kennedy’s abrupt ouster last August of then-Director Susan Monarez over vaccine disagreements. Trump’s new CDC nominee, Erica Schwartz, is a public health veteran and former deputy US surgeon general.

The White House then abandoned an effort to install Read more

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Despite Eurovision’s insistence it is apolitical, politics has always been part of the continent-wide song contest, as much a feature as whatever constellation of pyrotechnics and power ballads are on display that year.

But where, previously, politics was somewhat of a punchline, a useful indicator for cynical fans to guess which country might award points to another, this year it is threatening to overshadow the entire contest.

Five countries – Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Iceland – are boycotting this year’s event over Israel’s continued participation in it, marking the biggest crisis in the contest’s 70-year history.

The furor has dampened the festivities of the normally high-camp, joyful, gaudy extravaganza, in which acts representing different, mostly European countries each perform a song, competing to be crowned the winner after a public and jury vote.

It was watched by 166 million people on TV last year and has become a key cultural touchstone for the LGBTQ+ community. But only 35 countries traveled to Vienna, Austria for this year’s contest, which culminates in Saturday’s grand final, representing the lowest number of competitors since 2004. Visiting fan numbers may also be down.

“We can see that there are tickets still available for the final on Saturday, which is kind of unheard of,” Frank Dermody, president of the Irish Eurovision Fanclub, told CNN from Vienna. Where around 800 Irish fans will normally travel to the host city, this year only about 40 have made the trip, he said.

“There’s a lot of people from other countries who are not coming as well. They just don’t feel comfortable. They might get FOMO in the coming days and just turn up to the city itself but right now I would say there’s a smaller than average crowd,” he said.

Rule changes after claims of influence effort

Israel’s participation in the contest has proven controversial for the past two years due to its war in Gaza, sparking some protests and boycotts from fans.

In December, divisions between the countries who make up the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes Eurovision, burst into the open when they met to discuss the matter.

They ended up not holding a vote on Israel’s participation in the contest but introduced “targeted changes” to “reinforce trust, transparency and the neutrality of the event,” the EBU said in December. Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia promptly announced their boycott, and Iceland joined a week later. At the time, Israel’s foreign minister said he was “ashamed” of the countries boycotting the contest.

That all came after rumors and accusations that the Israeli government had influenced the results of the last two competitions by promoting a mass voting campaign.

The EBU has never commented publicly on such allegations, but a New York Times investigation published Monday described a “well-organized campaign by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government that embraced Eurovision as a soft power tool, and a secretive contest organizer that was ill-equipped to respond.”

Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment to CNN. Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, said in a statement that his ministry “has identified a sharp and coordinated surge in antisemitic and anti-Israel discourse surrounding Eurovision 2026.”

Under the contest’s previous rules, one person could vote up to 20 times, meaning that a few hundred people could sway the public vote, the Times found. Eurovision director Martin Gree

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) -

CIF-Southern Section Baseball Division 4 First Round:

Grand Terrace 8, San Marcos 4: The home Royals fell behind 5-0 after two innings and could not climb out of that early hole as their season ends at 16-12. San Marcos got RBI singles from Landon Johnson and Quinn Melton.

(Sophomore Quinn Melton drove in a run in the final inning for the Royals. Entenza Design).

Rio Mesa 6, Hesperia 0: Spartans play at Claremont in second round on Tuesday, May 19th.

Palm Desert 11, Pacifica 7

CIF-SS Division 6 First Round:

Foothill Tech 3, Bloomington 2: Dragons host Canyon Springs in second round on Tuesday, May 19th.

Calvary Chapel/SA 8, Hueneme 2

CIF-SS Division 8 First Round:

Nordhoff 3, Bishop Diego 1: Jaxson Middough had a 2-run triple in the bottom of the third for the Rangers who play at Nuview Bridge in second round on Tuesday, May 19th. The Cardinals RBI was from Zach Fisher.

Rio Hondo Prep 14, Beacon Hill 1

CIF-SS Softball Division 2 First Round:

Camarillo 4, South Hills 3: Scorpions hosts Huntington Beach in second round on Saturday, May 16th.

CIF-SS Division 4 First Round:

St. Bonaventure 11, Valencia/V 4: Seraphs play at Harvard-Westlake in second round on Saturday, May 16th.

Oxnard 14, Pasadena Poly 0: Yellowjackets hosts Apple Valley in second round on Saturday, May 16th.

Rio Mesa 9, Segerstrom 6: Spartans at Mission Viejo in second round on Saturday, May 16th.

CIF-SS Division 6 First Round:

El Monte 11, Santa Paula 10

CIF-SS Division 8 First Round:

San Bernardino 17, Channel Islands 9

Workman 18, Valley Christian Academy 3

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