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Anchored by Jake Tapper, The Lead airs at 4 p.m. ET on CNN.
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national lead
Trayvon Martin's parents push for criminal civil rights case
While George Zimmerman is likely trying to put his high profile murder trial behind him, the parents of the teenager he said he killed in self-defense are holding out hope that his legal woes are far from over.
Zimmerman was acquitted on second degree murder and manslaughter charges in the death of Trayvon Martin. But The Miami Herald reports that Martin's parents met this week with Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents about the possibility of a criminal civil rights case against Zimmerman.
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politics lead
Analysis: How loyal should campaign staff be?
Campaign manager Danny Kedem made headlines this week by jumping ship from the fast-sinking S.S. Anthony Weiner, as the mayoral candidate floundered in yet another digitized sex scandal, and slipped to fourth in the polls.
But do campaign staffers have a duty to go down with the ship?
"If you have a problem defending your boss to the press, or you feel that you'd have to lie if you were defending your boss to the press, you shouldn't be doing that job," said CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger. "He felt he was misled by his own candidate, and could therefore no longer defend him."
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world lead
Analysis: Al Qaeda in Yemen 'perfectly capable' of attacking U.S.
The U.S. government prepared to close 21 embassies and consulates in the Middle East in reaction to a potential terrorist threat that could be coming from al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen.
Former CIA operative Bob Baer said more regions could be in danger, given the terrorist group's methods of deception.
"Al Qaeda is capable of putting out disinformation over phone lines. In fact it is [standard operating procedure] for them, so I don't think we should limit this to the Middle East, and that's why the warning goes out to Europe as well, and the rest of the world," said Baer.
"It could be the United States. These guys are perfectly capable of hitting here, and yet showing signs they're going to hit elsewhere," said Baer.
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politics lead
9th woman accuses San Diego mayor of sexual harassment
Yet another woman is coming forward to accuse Democratic San Diego Mayor Bob Filner of sexual harassment.
Emily Gilbert is a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, who said she was singing at a fundraiser when she met Filner.
He "hugged me a little too closely. And then put his arm around me like this, and then he proceeded to slide his arm down, and then give a little grab to my derriere," Gilbert told San Diego's Fox5 news station.
Starting Monday, Filner will enter a behavior counseling clinic for two weeks. Filner's lawyer said the city should pay the mayor's legal fees because it never gave him sexual harassment training.
The city council voted on that Tuesday, and essentially told him to go harass himself.
buried lead
Fake Cubans hoping for fast track to citizenship now under scrutiny
Miami (CNN) - All Luis had to do was hand a Cuban birth certificate to immigration officials and he was on his way to becoming a U.S. citizen.
"I started to receive my work permission, I went to the DMV, got my driver's license, I get my Social Security and that was it," he said.
Those are the privileges afforded to Cubans who flee the Castro regime and make it to the United States to seek asylum.
But Luis, who asked CNN not to use his real name, was not entitled to the privileges. He's Venezuelan, not Cuban. The forged birth certificate he said he bought for $10,000 was enough to pass initial scrutiny and he was able to live free and clear in the United States for years.
Luis is not alone. Pretending to be Cuban has become a trend in visa fraud, according to Alysa Erichs, special agent in charge of theU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations office in Miami.
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