AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST
Aurora attacker took gun to work he shouldn't have owned
AURORA, Ill. (AP) - The man who opened fire and killed five co-workers including the plant manager, human resources manager and an intern working his first day at a suburban Chicago manufacturing warehouse, took a gun he wasn't supposed to have to a job he was about to lose.
Right after learning Friday that he was being fired from his job of 15 years at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, Gary Martin pulled out a gun and began shooting, killing the three people in the room with him and two others just outside and wounding a sixth employee, police said Saturday.
Martin shot and wounded five of the first officers to get to the scene, including one who didn't even make it inside the sprawling warehouse in Aurora, Illinois, a city of 200,000 about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Chicago.
After that flurry of shots and with officers from throughout the region streaming in to help, he ran off and hid in the back of the building, where officers found him about an hour later and killed him during an exchange of gunfire, police said.
"He was probably waiting for us to get to him there," Aurora police Lt. Rick Robertson said. "It was just a very short gunfight and it was over, so he was basically in the back waiting for us and fired upon us and our officers fired."
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Chicago police: Jussie Smollett assault case has 'shifted'
CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago police said Saturday the investigation into the assault reported by Jussie Smollett has "shifted" due to information received from two brothers questioned in the case, and attorneys for the "Empire" actor blasted reports alleging he played a role in his own attack.
Chicago police had arrested, then released the two Nigerian brothers without charges late Friday and said they were no longer suspects in the attack.
"We can confirm that the information received from the individuals questioned by police earlier in the Empire case has in fact shifted the trajectory of the investigation," Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in an emailed statement Saturday. "We've reached out to the Empire cast member's attorney to request a follow-up interview."
Guglielmi did not elaborate on what he meant by a shift in the case.
Smollett's attorneys later Saturday issued a statement saying the actor would continue to cooperate with police, but felt "victimized" by reports that he might have been involved in the attack.
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In Brexit limbo, UK veers between high anxiety, grim humor
LONDON (AP) - It's said that history often repeats itself - the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Many Britons feel they are living through both at the same time as their country navigates its way out of the European Union.
The British government awarded a contract to ship in emergency supplies to a company with no ships. It pledged to replace citizens' burgundy European passports with proudly British blue ones - and gave the contract to a Franco-Dutch company. It promised to forge trade deals with 73 countries by the end of March, but two years later has only a handful in place (including one with the Faroe Islands).
Pretty much everyone in the U.K. agrees that the Conservative government's handling of Brexit has been disastrous. Unfortunately, that's about the only thing this divided nation can agree on.
With Britain due to leave the EU in six weeks and still no deal in sight on the terms of its departure, both supporters and opponents of Brexit are in a state of high anxiety.
Pro-EU "remainers" lament the looming end of Britons' right to live and work in 27 other European nations and fear the U.K. is about to crash out of the bloc without even a divorce deal to cushion the blow.
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US-backed Syria force says IS holding 1,000 civilians
AL-OMAR OIL FIELD BASE, Syria (AP) - Islamic State militants are preventing more than 1,000 civilians from leaving a tiny area still held by the extremist group in a village in eastern Syria, a spokesman for the U.S.-backed Syrian militia fighting the group said Sunday.
"Regrettably, Daesh have closed all the roads," Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, told The Associated Press, referring to IS by its Arabic acronym.
SDF officials have said the extremists are hiding among civilians in a tented village and using a network of caves and tunnels. IS, which once ruled a proto-state in large parts of Syria and Iraq, is clinging to an area less than a square kilometer (square mile) in the village of Baghouz, in eastern Syria.
The extremists may include high-level commanders, and could be holding hostages among those trapped inside.
Occasional coalition airstrikes and clashes continue inside the village of Baghouz. Artillery rounds were meant to clear land mines for the SDF fighters to advance. SDF commanders say the end of IS' self-declared caliphate is near.
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State Department: Nauert out as pick for UN ambassador
WASHINGTON (AP) - Heather Nauert, picked by President Donald Trump to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations but never officially nominated, has withdrawn from consideration, the State Department said.
Nauert, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a department statement that "the past two months have been grueling for my family and therefore it is in the best interest of my family that I withdraw my name from consideration."
Nauert's impending nomination had been considered a tough sell in the Senate, where she would have faced tough questions about her relative lack of foreign policy experience, according to congressional aides.
A potential issue involving a nanny that she and her husband had employed may also have been a factor in her decision to withdraw, according to one aide. That issue, which was first reported by Bloomberg on Saturday, centered on a foreign nanny who was legally in the U.S. but did not have legal status to work, according to the aide, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The aide said some involved in the vetting process saw Nauert's inexperience and questions about her ability to represent the U.S. at the U.N. as a larger issue.
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France's yellow vests mark 3 months amid racist tensions
PARIS (AP) - Paris authorities opened an investigation Sunday into anti-Semitic remarks hurled at a noted philosopher during a yellow vest protest in the capital, an incident that raised national concerns about the movement's ascendant radical fringe.
The Paris prosecutor's office said Sunday an investigation was launched into "public insult based on origin, ethnicity, nationality, race or religion."
A few demonstrators targeted philosopjer Alain Finkielkraut with insults on the sidelines of a yellow vest protest through Paris on Saturday. The shocking incident prompted criticism from French President Emmanuel Macron and other prominent figures.
Meanwhile, yellow vest demonstrators called for multiple rallies around Paris and some other French cities Sunday, including a march expected to start at the Arc de Triomphe monument. The increasingly divided movement has held protests every Saturday since Nov. 17, but some groups are holding rallies this Sunday to celebrate the movement's 3-month birthday.
An online invitation to Sunday's main Paris march says "Let's stay peaceful."
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Patrick Caddell, pollster to Jimmy Carter, dies at 68
WASHINGTON (AP) - Patrick Caddell, the pollster who helped propel Jimmy Carter in his longshot bid to win the presidency and later distanced himself from Democrats, has died, a colleague said Saturday night. He was 68.
Caddell died Saturday in Charleston, South Carolina, after suffering a stroke. That's according to Professor Kendra Stewart of the College of Charleston, who confirmed the death to The Associated Press.
After working with Democrats in the 1970s and 1980s, Caddell eventually drifted away from the Democratic Party and began advising supporters of Republican Donald Trump and was a contributor to Fox News for a time.
Caddell worked for 1972 Democratic nominee George McGovern, then joined with Carter in the mid-1970s to develop a campaign strategy to overcome the cynicism spawned by the Vietnam War and Watergate. In an oral history for the University of Virginia's Miller Center, Caddell said Carter's best bet was to present himself as an outsider who could help heal the country.
As a student at Harvard, Caddell had studied Southern politics and was helpful to Carter and his close advisers as they studied how to maneuver their campaign between the competing forces of the McGovern liberals and supporters of conservative firebrand George Wallace.
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Iran blasts US efforts to turn Europe against nuclear deal
MUNICH (AP) - Iran's foreign minister is blasting the United States' "unhealthy fixation" with his country and condemning the Trump administration's efforts to press European countries to pull out of the nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Mohammad Javad Zarif addressed the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, a day after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence prodded European powers Germany, France and Britain to follow Washington in withdrawing from the deal and to "stop undermining U.S. sanctions."
The U.S. withdrew unilaterally last year from the 2015 agreement, which offers Iran sanctions relief for limiting its nuclear program.
Zarif says "we have long been the target of an unhealthy fixation, let's say obsession" from the U.S. He said Pence "arrogantly demanded that Europe must join the United States in undermining its own security and breaking its obligations."
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John Collins: Favorite dunker is Hawks teammate Vince Carter
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - John Collins has a favorite dunker. Not surprisingly, it's his Atlanta teammate Vince Carter.
Collins will represent the Hawks in the dunk contest, one of the events during All-Star Saturday Night. The 3-point contest and skills competition are also on the evening docket.
Collins had perhaps the best dunk of the Rising Stars game Friday night, going with a pass off the backboard to himself for a slam over Dallas' Luka Doncic. He says he's got three or four dunks ready to go for Saturday night.
He won't reveal what to expect: "No hints," he said Saturday morning.
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From Bogart to millennials: Italian hat maker tries new look
SPINETTA MARENGO, Italy (AP) - Hats off, Bogie.
The traditional Italian hat maker Borsalino, whose fedora has defined the rough-and-tumble images of Robert Redford, Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart, has a plan to appeal more to women and millennials by pushing into high-end fashion, streetwear and even sportswear.
The recent troubles of the company, which has been rescued financially by a private equity fund, underline the difficulties facing Italian companies - not only fashion brands - seeking scale to stay competitive and grow in the age of globalization.
Entering new markets, targeting new demographics and expanding retail presence all require cash. And even the best-laid business plan can be complicated by a company's bad baggage, and Borsalino came with plenty of that.
The 162-year-old hat maker, arguably Italy's oldest fashion brand, was founded in the northwestern Italian city of Alessandria by Giuseppe Borsalino, whose family sold control decades ago. By the time the Swiss-Italian private equity firm Haeres Equita was approached about investing in 2015, the company had been mismanaged and bled dry by the previous owner.