AP News Digest 3 a.m.

Monday 24 January 2022 08:01 GMT

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Here are the AP’s latest coverage plans, top stories and promotable content. All times EST. For up-to-the minute information on AP’s coverage, visit Coverage Plan at https://newsroom.ap.org.

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TOP STORIES

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RUSSIA-UKRAINE - Russia’s Foreign Ministry has rejected a British claim that Russia is seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration and that former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate. Britain’s Foreign Office on Saturday also named several other Ukrainian politicians it said had links with Russian intelligence services. Murayev is the leader of a small party that has no seats in Ukraine’s parliament. The U.K. government made the claim based on an intelligence assessment without providing evidence to back it up. It comes amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia’s designs on Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denied the U.K. accusations on Sunday. By Jim Heintz and Jill Lawless. SENT: 1,050 words, photos. UNITED STATES-UKRAINE — The State Department is ordering the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to leave the country and allowing non-essential staff to leave Ukraine. The move comes amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine despite talks between U.S. and Russian officials. The State Department stresses that the Kyiv embassy will remain open and that the departure of families and some non-essential personnel is not an evacuation. At the same time, officials are warning all Americans against travel to Ukraine as well as to Russia, pointing in part to tensions between those two countries and, in Russia, because of potential harassment of U.S. citizens. By AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee. SENT: 360 words, photos.

UKRAINE-SPHERE OF INFLUENCE — The crisis in Ukraine is hardly going away. A showdown of two world views that could upend Europe, it carries echoes of the Cold War and resurrects an idea left over from the 1945 Yalta Conference: that the West should respect a Russian sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe. Since coming to power in 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin has systematically been bent on repairing what he views as the humiliation of the breakup of the Soviet Union 30 years ago. Russia’s present demands are based in part on Putin’s rejection of Ukraine and Belarus as truly separate, sovereign nations, but rather as part of an historic Russian motherland. By By John Daniszewski. SENT: 1,200 words, photos.

See full coverage of Ukraine here.

GEORGE FLOYD-OFFICERS-CIVIL RIGHTS — The federal trial for three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights as Derek Chauvin pinned the Black man’s neck to the street is set to begin Monday with opening statements. J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority. All three are charged for failing to provide Floyd with medical care. Thao and Kueng face an additional count for failing to stop Chauvin, who was convicted of murder and manslaughter in state court last year. Legal experts say prosecutors must prove Kueng, Lane and Thao willfully violated Floyd’s constitutional rights. Defense attorneys are likely to blame Chauvin for the killing. By Amy Forliti and Steve Karnowski. SENT: 530 words, photos.

VIRUS OUTBREAK-CHINA - Chinese authorities have lifted a monthlong lockdown of Xi’an and its 13 million residents as infections subside ahead of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in less than two weeks. Meanwhile, the 2 million residents of one Beijing district are being tested following a series of cases in the capital. SENT: 570 words, photos.

AFGHANISTAN AID-EXPLAINER – As winter deepens, a grim situation in Afghanistan is getting worse. Freezing temperatures are compounding misery from the downward spiral that has come with the fall of the U.S.-backed government and the Taliban takeover. An estimated 23 million people, half the country, face severe hunger and nearly 9 million are on the brink of starvation. By Ben Fox. SENT: 1,060 words, photos.

BURKINO FASO-MILITARY — Residents in Burkina Faso’s capital say gunfire has erupted in the same area as embattled President Roch Marc Christian Kabore’s home. The development late Sunday came hours after mutinous soldiers seized control of a military base in the capital, Ouagadougou. Government officials earlier in the day denied that Kabore had been detained by the soldiers but his whereabouts were not immediately known. Several people in the vicinity of the president’s home also told The Associated Press that they could hear helicopters hovering overhead. Anti-government protesters who support the mutineers also set fire to a building belonging to the president’s political party in the latest sign his government is in danger. By Sam Mednick. SENT: 890 words, photos.

ELECTION 2022-REDISTRICTING -- Democrats braced for disaster when state legislatures began redrawing congressional maps, fearing that Republican dominance of statehouses would tilt power away from them for the next decade. But as the redistricting process reaches its final stages, that anxiety is beginning to ease. By Nicholas Riccardi and Bobby Caina Calvan. SENT: 1,320 words, photos.

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