Feds will look into black teen's fatal shooting

ORLANDO, Fla. -

The federal Justice Department says it has begun an investigation into the fatal shooting death of an unarmed black teen in Florida by a neighborhood watch captain.

The agency said in a statement late Monday that it will perform an independent review of the evidence and take appropriate action.

Police have described the man who fired the shot, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, as white; his family says he is Hispanic and not racist.

Zimmerman claims he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month in self-defense during a confrontation in a gated community in Sanford.

College students around Florida rallied Monday to demand Zimmerman's arrest, though authorities say they may be hamstrung by a state law that allows people to defend themselves with deadly force.

Romney seeks a decisive primary win in Illinois

CHICAGO - His confidence surging, Mitt Romney pointedly ignored his Republican rivals on the eve of Tuesday's high-stakes primary election in Illinois and turned his fire instead on the Democrat he hopes to oust in the fall.

Romney pushed into President Barack Obama's home territory, assailing Obama's economic credentials on the Chicago campus where the president taught for more than a decade. At the same time, GOP contender Rick Santorum struggled to explain why the nation's unemployment rate is not his top concern and why the economy isn't the issue that defines the race even as he tried to rally anti-Romney conservatives.

The contrasts offered a look inside two campaigns seemingly moving in different directions, just one day before Illinois voters decided what could be the most significant Republican contest through the end of the month.

"Freedom is on the ballot this year," Romney told students and supporters at the University of Chicago, contending that the nation's recovery from recession was being limited by an "assault on our economic freedom" by Obama. "I am offering a real choice and a very different beginning," he said.

Romney was trying to show he was more than ready to rise above the grinding GOP primary battle and move toward a general election matchup against Obama. The front-runner, he has secured more delegates than his opponents combined, and his nomination seems more assured each week as Santorum's shoestring campaign struggles under the weight of continued disorganization.

Gunman kills

four at French Jewish school

TOULOUSE, France - A gunman on a motorbike opened fire Monday at a Jewish school, killing a rabbi and his two young sons as they waited for a bus, then chased down a 7-year-old girl, shooting her dead at point-blank range. It was the latest in a series of attacks on minorities that have raised fears of a racist killer on the loose.

Authorities said the same weapon, a powerful .45-caliber handgun, was used in two other recent shootings in southwestern France, also involving an assailant who fled by motorbike. Those attacks left three people dead - military paratroopers of North African and Caribbean origin.

The shootings echoed across a nation that has been focused on an upcoming presidential race in which issues about religious minorities and race have gained prominence. President Nicolas Sarkozy - facing a hard re-election battle - raised the terrorism alert level in the region to its highest level, while also noting a possible racist motive.

"This act is despicable, it cannot go unpunished," Sarkozy said in a prime-time address to the nation. "Each time this man acts, he acts to kill, giving his victims no chance."

Suspect has sketchy memory of massacre

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. - The Army staff sergeant accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians in a nighttime shooting rampage has a sketchy memory of the night of the massacre, his lawyer said Monday after meeting his client for the first time.

Lawyer John Henry Browne said Robert Bales remembers some details from before and after the killings, but very little or nothing of the time the military believes he went on a shooting spree through two Afghan villages.

"He has some memory of some things that happened that night. He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little," Browne told The Associated Press by telephone from Fort Leavenworth, where Bales is being held.

Pressed on whether Bales can remember anything about the shooting, Browne said, "No," but added: "I haven't gotten that far with him yet."

In an earlier interview with CBS, Browne said unequivocally that Bales can't remember the shootings.

- The Associated Press