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Anchored by Jake Tapper, The Lead airs at 4 p.m. ET on CNN.
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sports lead
Seeking relevance, Lance Armstrong speaks one day before 100th Tour de France
Lance Armstrong lied about his use of performance enhancers for years. Worse than that, he ruthlessly decimated anyone who accused him of doing so. Armstrong isn’t the only cyclist to be caught by the United States Anti-doping Agency, but unlike athletes who hid from the media after public disgrace, Armstrong runs toward it.
On Friday, just one day before the 100th Tour de France, Armstrong told French newspaper Le Monde that he still considers himself the record holder with seven wins from the famed race.
That’s a bold statement considering all of his titles and wins were wiped from the history books.
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national lead
Key eyewitness testifies in George Zimmerman trial
The George Zimmerman murder trial is captivating the country, bringing a renewed focus to issues of racial profiling and self-defense.
Prosecutors are out to shatter claims that Zimmerman killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in self-defense, but the state's case took a bizarre turn Friday when one witness’ testimony appeared to support some of Zimmerman's claims.
John Good lives in the subdivision where the deadly confrontation took place. He's one of the few people who actually saw some of what took place that evening in February 2012.
“Well going back to when they were vertical I could tell the person on the bottom had a lighter skinned color,” said Good.
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pop lead
More than just friends? Ernie, Bert drawn into same-sex marriage debate
If you didn’t learn about friendship from Ernie and Bert, chances are your kids - or their friends - did. The Sesame Street pals are yin and yang, and despite their differences, they’re “old buddies” to the end.
Their companionship also has some wondering if the pair might be more than just friends.
Sesame Workshop, which produces Sesame Street, has attempted to quash that notion before, but it’s come up again.
This time the questions are sparked by The New Yorker cover depicting the two in an embrace watching the Supreme Court, which decided two cases allowing for same-sex marriages this week.
national lead
10-yr.-old survives 2 lung transplants
Sarah Murnaghan, the 10-year-old girl who received a lung transplant earlier this month, is now out of a coma and responsive after her second lung transplant.
Her family released a statement today and revealed that Sarah's new lungs failed hours after the transplant back on June 12th. After the failure she was put on a machine that functioned as her heart and lungs.
Sarah's mother, Janet Murnaghan, spoke with press Friday and said after the first lung transplant failed they were told Sarah would die.
“This all happened very fast and we weren't expecting it and frankly we were told in those three days that she was gonna die. And so it was never something that we wanted to keep a secret for any period of time but it was something we felt that in that moment we weren't prepared to live out her dying in public.”
Sarah has a long road of recovery ahead of her, she cannot talk yet, but doctors and her parents are just relieved she is awake and breathing.
buried lead
More whistleblowers coming forward against investigator, senator says
There may be yet more allegations to come out against the federal inspector general already accused of a cover-up, nepotism and abuse of authority - the sorts of misdeeds he is responsible for outing.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, said Friday on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” that since he and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, went public with the claims on Thursday that “more whistleblowers are coming forward.”
The two senators wrote in a letter to Charles Edwards, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting inspector general, that they “have been alerted by numerous whistleblowers to allegations of misconduct and abuse by you in your position.”
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