AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Virginia Beach attacker notified boss of plans to leave job

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — The gunman who attacked his colleagues at a Virginia Beach government office building resigned by email hours before the shooting, a city official said Sunday as authorities sought a motive in the assault that killed 12 people.

Officials gave no indication why 40-year-old DeWayne Craddock had notified a superior of his intention to leave his job as a civil engineer in the utilities department. He was an employee “in good standing” and showed “satisfactory” job performance, City Manager Dave Hansen said.

Police Chief James Cervera described a chaotic scene as officers entered the building and pursued the assailant through a tightly packed warren of offices that the chief likened to a maze or a honeycomb. They exchanged fire in a protracted gunbattle. Cervera did not know how many rounds were fired but said it was “well into the double digits.”

“In the police world, anything more than three to five shots is a long gunbattle,” he said.

At one point, the suspect fired at officers through a door and a wall and hit one officer, who was saved by a bulletproof vest. Then the firing stopped, and police realized the gunman was holed up in an office.

___

Mass shootings transform how America talks, prays, prepares

CHICAGO (AP) — Pardeep Singh Kaleka has surveyed the landscape of an America scarred by mass shootings.

Seven years ago, a white supremacist invaded a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and killed six worshippers — among them Kaleka’s father, who died clutching a butter knife he’d grabbed in a desperate attempt to stop the shooter. Now, whenever another gunman bloodies another town, Kaleka posts a supportive message on social media. Then later, either by invitation or on his own initiative, he’ll journey to the community to shore up others who share his pain.

He’s been to Newtown, Connecticut. Charleston, South Carolina. Pittsburgh. “We’ve become kind of a family,” Kaleka says.

It’s true. The unending litany of mass shootings in recent years — the latest, on Friday, leaving 12 dead in Virginia Beach, Virginia — has built an unacknowledged community of heartbreak, touching and warping the lives of untold thousands.

All the survivors, none of them unscathed. The loved ones of the living and dead. Their neighbours, relatives and colleagues. The first responders, the health care workers, the elected officials.

___

Trump heads to Europe at a time of remembrance, turmoil

WASHINGTON (AP) — Like a bull who keeps returning to the china shop, President Donald Trump is headed back to Europe, where on previous visits he has strained historic friendships and insulted his hosts. This time, he faces an ally in turmoil and a global call to renew democratic pacts.

The agenda for Trump’s weeklong journey is both ceremonial and official: a state visit and an audience with Queen Elizabeth II in London, D-Day commemoration ceremonies on both sides of the English Channel and his first presidential visit to Ireland, which will include a stay at his coastal golf club.

But the president will arrive at a precarious moment, as he faces a fresh round of impeachment fervour back home and uncertainty on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will step down days after Trump visits and French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to use the 75th anniversary of the World War II battle that turned the tide in Europe to call for strengthening the multinational ties the U.S. president has frayed.

“My greatest hope is this: the president and all the leaders stay focused on the extraordinary heroism of that of D-Day and focusing on what brought allies to that position,” said Heather Conley, senior vice-president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Dark clouds are forming once again in Europe, and rather than encourage those forces we need to find much better tools to defeat them.”

___

Top North Korean official reappears days after purge report

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A senior North Korean official who had been reported as purged over the failed nuclear summit with Washington was shown in state media on Monday enjoying a concert alongside leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korean publications on Monday showed Kim Yong Chol sitting near a clapping Kim Jong Un and other top officials during a musical performance by the wives of Korean People’s Army officers.

Kim Yong Chol has been North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator and the counterpart of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo since Kim Jong Un entered nuclear talks with the U.S. early last year. He travelled to Washington and met President Donald Trump twice before Kim’s two summits with Trump.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo last week cited an unidentified source to report that Kim Yong Chol had been sentenced to hard labour following the collapse of the second summit in February over what the Americans described as excessive North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for only a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities. Kim Jong Un since then has said the United States has until the end of the year to come up with mutually acceptable terms for a deal to salvage the negotiations.

Chosun Ilbo also reported that senior envoy Kim Hyok Chol, who was involved in pre-summit working-level talks with American officials, was executed with four other officials from the North’s Foreign Ministry for betraying Kim Jong Un after being won over by the United States.

___

Oklahomans clean up after flood; Arkansans brace for crest

SAND SPRINGS, Okla. (AP) — Storm-weary residents in Oklahoma were gutting waterlogged homes Sunday as the Arkansas River continued its slow crest rolling hundreds of miles downstream, even as many kept a cautious eye on this week’s weather forecasts showing more rain.

In the Tulsa suburb of Sand Springs — among the first communities inundated when the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers started releasing more water from a dam upriver to control more severe flooding elsewhere — soggy couches and recliners and dumpsters full of carpet, drywall and insulation lined residential streets covered in silt deposited by floodwaters.

Jamie Casto was helping clean up the house where her 65-year-old uncle has lived for 14 years.

Though Casto, 35, said her uncle didn’t have flood insurance because he was told he lived in a 500-year floodplain, a rust-colored line 4 feet from the concrete floor of the garage clearly marked how high water had gotten before they were able to get into the house Friday.

Casto is trying to help her uncle fill out paperwork to apply for emergency loans to help get the house back in order.

___

AP FACT CHECK: Trump denies calling Duchess Meghan ‘nasty’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that he never called Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex and the wife of Britain’s Prince Harry, “nasty.”

The president used the adjective while discussing Meghan in a recent interview with Britain’s The Sun newspaper in the run-up to his state visit to the U.K. on Monday. But debate on social media since then has raged over whether his use of “nasty” referred to the duchess herself or the negative things she said about him in 2016.

Trump and his defenders have accused the news media of spreading a deliberately false narrative about him.

A look at the claim:

TRUMP: “I never called Meghan Markle ‘nasty.’ Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold!” — tweet Sunday.

___

White House: Trump ‘deadly serious’ about Mexico tariffs

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top White House official said Sunday that President Donald Trump is “deadly serious” about imposing tariffs on imports from Mexico, but acknowledged there are no concrete benchmarks being set to assess whether the U.S. ally is stemming the migrant flow enough to satisfy the administration.

“We intentionally left the declaration sort of ad hoc,” Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“So, there’s no specific target, there’s no specific percentage, but things have to get better,” Mulvaney said. “They have to get dramatically better and they have to get better quickly.”

He said the idea is to work with the Mexican government “to make sure that things did get better.”

On Monday, top officials from the two countries will start meetings in Washington. Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez plans talks with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Two days later, delegations led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard will meet.

___

D-Day veterans look forward to Channel crossing

DOVER, England (AP) — It took but a few moments for retired Rear Adm. John Roberts to get back into the swing of military life as he arrived Sunday at the English Channel port of Dover to board a ship bound for Normandy and events marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

His white beret in place, medals glittering on his chest, he stepped from a bus to find an honour guard and immediately began inspecting the Sea Cadets, one by one. Then the 95-year-old gingerly climbed into a jeep — slowly because his knees are a problem — and cheerfully waved a British flag as photographers jostled to capture the moment. The thought of getting on the boat, though, made him pause.

“I haven’t been afloat for 40 years now,” he said, chuckling. “I hope I’m not seasick.”

Roberts and about 300 other veterans of the Normandy invasion left Dover on Sunday for a six-day trip that will take them back to the landing beaches on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

The cruise will take the veterans to Dunkirk and Poole before arriving in Portsmouth, where Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump will join other world leaders for a commemoration of D-Day on June 5. They will leave Portsmouth Harbor that evening and arrive in Normandy the next morning, retracing the crossing they made in 1944.

___

In Asian-led ‘Always Be My Maybe,’ ethnicity is secondary

The newly released Netflix movie “Always Be My Maybe,” is an Asian American rom-com with a twist: Ethnicity isn’t central to the plot.

It’s just stand-up comedian and actress Ali Wong and “Fresh Off the Boat” actor Randall Park playing best friends and soul mates who happen to be Asian, which may be the most refreshing part of all.

“It wasn’t the type of thing where we sat down and said before we wrote it, ‘OK, we got to represent and make sure we’re making the perfect Asian American movie,’” Park told The Associated Press. “It was more like, ‘Let’s make a really heartfelt and really funny romantic comedy, a movie that we’d really love to see.’”

In the flick, best friends Sasha (Wong) and Marcus (Park), who grew up next door to each other in San Francisco, lose touch after a night of passion. They are reunited 15 years later when Sasha, now a celebrity chef, temporarily moves back home to launch a new restaurant.

Meanwhile, Marcus works for his father’s air conditioning company while playing in a band. Despite both of them being in relationships and having opposite lifestyles, it’s clear the more-than-friends feelings are still there.

___

Warriors beat Raptors 109-104 to even NBA Finals

TORONTO (AP) — Klay Thompson scored 25 points before leaving with a hamstring injury, Stephen Curry had 23 and the Golden State Warriors ran off the first 18 points of the second half on their way to a 109-104 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday night that tied the NBA Finals at one game apiece.

With Kevin Durant already out and Thompson eventually joining him in the fourth quarter, the Warriors relied on a champion’s heart to overcome their weary bodies.

Andre Iguodala, himself slow to get up after a hard fall in the first half, made the clinching 3-pointer with 5.9 seconds left after the Raptors scored 10 straight points to cut it to 106-104.

Kawhi Leonard had 34 points and 14 rebounds for the Raptors. They had won five straight since falling behind 2-0 in the Eastern Conference finals.

Game 3 is Wednesday night at Golden State.