AP News Digest 6 p.m.

APTOPIX Palin NY Times (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

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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NEW/DEVELOPING

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Adds: HIV VIRUS MUTATION; TV-BLACK HISTORY MONTH; BRITAIN-POLITICS; POLICE SHOOTING-MINNEAPOLIS; ARGENTINA-TOXIC-COCAINE; OPIOD-CRISIS-TRIBES; GREAT LAKES-WINTER WATER; BLACK MAN’S DEATH-MISSOURI; LOCAL REDISTRICTING-GEORGIA; MEDIA-CNN-ZUCKER

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ONLY ON AP

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SANCTIONS-MARITIME TECHNOLOGY — A maritime intelligence company whose data is used by the U.S. government to investigate sanctions violations says that since January 2020 it has detected more than 200 vessels using technology to hide a ship location that was previously available only to militaries. One of the more egregious examples involves an oil tanker that could be tracked sailing to Iraq even as it was in reality loading crude in Iran, which is banned from selling its oil by U.S. sanctions. By Joshua Goodman. SENT: 1,270 words, photos.

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TOP STORIES

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UNITED STATES-SYRIA-MILITARY RAID —President Joe Biden says the leader of the Islamic State group has been killed in Syria during an operation by an elite U.S. military force. A U.S. official says Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi exploded a bomb that killed himself and members of his family during the overnight raid in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. By Ghaith Alsayed, Lolita C. Baldor, Bassem Mroue and Zeke Miller. SENT: 1,380 words, photos, video.

SYRIA-IS-LEADER — The leader of the Islamic State group, killed in a U.S. raid overnight in northwest Syria, was a veteran insider and top ideologue of the extremist movement, believed to have played a key role in one of its most horrific atrocities: the enslavement of thousands of women from Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority. By Bassem Mroue. SENT: 1,000 words, photos.

SYRIA RAID-CIVILIAN CASUALTIES — Facing criticism for civilian deaths in U.S. airstrikes, the Biden administration targeted the leader of Islamic State in a way that was riskier for American forces, landing dozens of U.S. commandos outside his Syrian hideout. But the U.S. raid still brought the deaths of women and children. By Ellen Knickmeyer and Chris Megerian. SENT: 960 words, photos.

UKRAINE TENSIONS — The U.S. accuses the Kremlin of an elaborate plot to fabricate an attack by Ukrainian forces that Russia could use as a pretext to take military action against its neighbor. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby says the alleged scheme included production of a graphic propaganda video that would show staged explosions and use corpses and actors depicting grieving mourners. By Aamer Madhani, Lorne Cook and Suzan Fraser. SENT: 1,300 words, photos, video. With UKRAINE TENSIONS-THINGS TO KNOW— Developments around Ukraine. SENT: 1,060 words, photos.

UKRAINE TENSIONS-WAR WEARY EUROPE — Many European nations are wary about spending big on their militaries, scarred by losing tens of millions of lives on their soil in two world wars. Now, as Russian pressure builds at the Ukrainian border, they’re facing a painful reality: Much of Europe remains reliant on U.S. might to deter another potentially huge conflict in its own backyard. Some EU policy makers are sounding the alarm. By Raf Casert. SENT: 910 words, photos.

For full coverage of Ukraine.

MED--VIRUS OUTBREAK-VACCINE FUTURE — COVID-19 vaccines are saving an untold number of lives, but they can’t stop the chaos when a hugely contagious new mutant bursts on the scene, leading people to wonder: Will we need boosters every few months? A new vaccine recipe? A new type of shot altogether? By Lauran Neergaard. SENT: 985 words, photos.

BEIJING OLYMPICS-PREVIEW — It's time to raise the curtain on the Beijing Winter Olympics, one of the most difficult-to-navigate Games in history due to COVID and a multitude of issues that trouble many who are coming to China to compete. By National Writer Eddie Pells. SENT: 1,200 words, photos, video.

META-RESULTS-FALLOUT — Meta is putting a lot of virtual eggs — and billions of dollars — into the metaverse basket, and Wall Street is pretty anxious about it. Shares of the company formerly known as Facebook saw a historic plunge after the social media giant reported a rare profit decline. SENT: 820 words, photos. WITH: FINANCIAL MARKETS — A historic plunge in the stock price of Facebook’s parent company helped yank other tech stocks lower on Wall Street, abruptly ending a four-day winning streak for the market. SENT: 555 words, photos.

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MORE ON THE OLYMPICS

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2008 VS 2022 — The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are opening with the same concerns that loomed over the 2008 Beijing Olympics: China’s record on human rights and its treatment of Tibetans and Uyghur Muslims in western China. SENT: 1,090 words, photos.

OLY-AVOIDING-COVID — Athletes can spend decades trying to become the best in the world, and another year or two to qualify for what could be their only trip to the Olympics. And this year, they realize, it can start to fall apart with a single sneeze. With Beijing Olympic organizers adopting a “zero COVID” policy and strict testing just to get on flights to China, skiers, sliders and skaters are taking extreme measures to avoid the coronavirus and its omicron variant. SENT: 970 words, photos.

OLY-BEIJING-TORCHBEARER — At the age of 17, Kamaltürk Yalqun was chosen to help carry the Olympic flame ahead of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. The following decade saw Beijing impose policies on his home region of Xinjiang that split apart his family and his Uyghur community. Today, he is an activist in the United States calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Games, which has seen the Olympic flame returned to China. SENT: 905 words, photos.

RUSSIA-CHINA — American and European officials may be staying away from the Beijing Winter Olympics because of human rights concerns, but Russian President Vladimir Putin will be on hand even as tensions soar over his buildup of troops along his country’s border with Ukraine. SENT: 920 words, photos.

VIRUS OUTBREAK-MEYLEMANS — Belgian skeleton racer Kim Meylemans was permitted to enter one of the Olympic villages hours after she tearfully turned to social media and detailed how upset she was about being in isolation over coronavirus concerns. SENT: 880 words, photo.

BEIJING-METOO-EXPLAINER — The controversy surrounding Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s accusations of sexual assault against a former top politician continues to cast a shadow over the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. SENT: 970 words, photos.

OLY-CUR-ICE CUBE-EXPLAINER — Somewhere under the four sheets of curling ice being used for the Beijing Olympics is the swimming pool where Michael Phelps splashed his way to history in the 2008 Summer Games. SENT: 890 words, photos.

GLIMPSES-GREAT WALL — Even a shortened Olympic torch relay had time for a stop at the Great Wall of China. SENT: 130 words, photo.

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TRENDING NEWS

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MICHAEL-AVENATTI-STORMY-DANIELS — The jury deliberating the fate of Michael Avenatti on criminal charges that he ripped off his star client, Stormy Daniels, told a judge that it is deadlocked on the first of two counts. SENT: 345 words, photos.

HASTY-PUDDING- “Ozark” actor Jason Bateman is being feted as 2022 Man of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals. SENT: 240 words, photos.

MUSIC-ACM-HOST — Country music icon Dolly Parton will be hosting this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas, bringing her star power to the show’s new streaming home on Prime Video. SENT: 215 words, photo.

BRITAIN-BAFTA-NOMINATIONS — Sci-fi epic blockbuster “Dune” and Jane Campion’s dark Western “The Power Of The Dog” lead the nominations for this year’s British Academy Film Awards. SENT: 275 words.

NYC-MAYOR-DINNER-WITH-CUOMO — New York City Mayor Eric Adams is pushing back against the suggestion there was anything wrong with his dinner this week with disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. SENT: 260 words, photos.

PALIN-NY TIMES — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is back in a New York City courtroom more than a week after her libel trial against The New York Times was postponed because she tested positive for COVID-19. SENT: 510 words, photo.

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MORE ON THE VIRUS OUTBREAK

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VIRUS-OUTBREAK-TEACHER-SHORTAGES — U.S. school administrators dealing with pandemic-driven teacher shortages are getting creative to keep their classrooms staffed. But some experts are warning there are longer-term problems with the teacher pipeline that cannot be solved with emergency substitutes, bonuses and loosened qualifications. SENT: 1,015 words, photos.

VIRUS-OUTBREAK-FOREIGN NURSES — Many American hospitals are looking abroad for healthcare workers, saying they’re facing a dire shortage of nurses amid the slogging pandemic. It could be just in time as there’s an unusually high number of green cards available this year for foreign professionals seeking to move to the United States. SENT: 1,290 words, photos.

VIRUS-OUTBREAK-MEDICARE-COVID-TESTS — The Biden administration says people with Medicare will be able to get up to eight free over-the-counter COVID tests per month, starting in early spring. SENT: 510 words, photos.

VIRUS-OUTBREAK-AFRICA-TESTING — Unlike rich countries, African nations have very limited access to COVID-19 tests, especially at-home tests. In the absence of vaccines, that discrepancy has denied millions of poor people an easy way to stem the spread of the coronavirus, health officials say. The World Health Organization has not yet issued advice for how people in all countries might use self-tests. SENT: 1,125 words, photos.

VIRUS OUTBREAK-WHO EUROPE — The director of the World Health Organization’s Europe office says the continent is now entering a “plausible endgame” to the pandemic and that the number of coronavirus deaths is starting to plateau. SENT: 420 words, photo.

VIRUS-OUTBREAK-JAPAN-CLOSED BORDER — Hundreds of thousands of foreigners have been denied entry to study, work or visit families in Japan, which has kept its doors closed to most overseas visitors during the pandemic. SENT: 1,125 words, photos.

VIRUS OUTBREAK-CANADA PROTESTS — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said a military response to the ongoing Ottawa protest against COVID-19 measures is “not in the cards right now.″ SENT: 550 words, photo.

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WASHINGTON/POLITICS

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SUPREME COURT-KRUGER — Leondra Kruger serves on the California Supreme Court and she’s won praise for her intellect, energy and demeanor on the bench. She’s among the group of Black women whose names are being floated as a possible replacement for retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. SENT: 1,070 words, photo.

SUPREME COURT-O’CONNOR-KENNEDY — For years the Supreme Court moved to the left or right only as far as Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy allowed. They held pivotal votes on a court closely divided between liberals and conservatives. Now, though, a more conservative court that includes two men who once worked for Kennedy is taking direct aim at major opinions written by the two justices, now retired. SENT: 1,095 words, photos.

BIDEN-CRIME — President Biden pledges to New Yorkers and the nation that the federal government will step up its fight against gun violence by working more closely with police and communities to stop the surging bloodshed. SENT: 1,070 words, photos, video.

REPUBLICAN MEETING-CHENEY — Republican Party officials looking to punish GOP Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for perceived disloyalty to Donald Trump water down a resolution that sought to expel them from the House Republican Conference. UPCOMING: 500 words, photos by 7 p.m.

ELECTION-WORKER-THREATS — Lawmakers in a handful of states are seeking greater protections for election officials amid growing concerns for their safety after they were targeted by threats of violence following the 2020 presidential election. SENT: 1,035 words, photos.

LOCAL REDISTRICTING-GEORGIA — Republican state lawmakers in Georgia are reaching down to redraw election districts for county officials in Democratic controlled counties, a power grab possible in part because there’s no federal oversight of redistricting in Georgia for the first time in decades. SENT: 800 words.

FIRST BLACK CONGRESSMAN — Congressional leaders name a room in the U.S. Capitol for Joseph Rainey, who more than 150 years ago became the first Black person elected to the House of Representatives. SENT: 690 words, photos. (Stands for CONGRESS-JOSEPH RAINEY on 2 p.m. digest.)

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NATIONAL

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WINTER WEATHER — More than 200,000 homes and businesses lost power across the U.S. as freezing rain and snow weighed down tree limbs and encrusted power lines, part of a winter storm that caused an apparent tornado in Alabama, dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of the Midwest and brought rare measurable snowfall to parts of Texas. By Kathleen Foody and Jill Bleed. SENT: 970 words, photos.

OPIOD-CRISIS-TRIBES — Money that will flow to Native American tribes as part of an opioid drug settlement with a major manufacturer and three distributors won’t come quickly. But tribal leaders say it will play a part in healing their communities from an epidemic that has disproportionately killed Native Americans. SENT: 1,100 words, photos.

POLICE SHOOTING-MINNEAPOLIS — A man fatally shot by Minneapolis police executing a search warrant in a homicide investigation did not live in the apartment raided by the SWAT team, according to a civil rights attorney citing the man’s family. SENT: 700 words, photos.

CHICAGO POLICE-LAQUAN MCDONALD — Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke left prison after serving less than half of his nearly seven-year sentence for killing Black teenager Laquan McDonald, angering community leaders who feel the white officer’s punishment didn’t fit his crime. SENT: 890 words, photo.

BLACK MAN'S DEATH-MISSOURI — The family of a Black Missouri man killed by his neighbor has called for the resignation of the county coroner over his handling of the case as well as his social media posts that they describe as racist. SENT: 680 words, photo.

CALIFORNIA BUS SHOOTING — Authorities say a 21-year-old man opened fire on a Greyhound bus in Northern California, killing a 43-year-old woman and wounding four others before he was arrested, naked, inside a nearby Walmart. SENT: 480 words, photo.

GREAT LAKES-WINTER WATER — Winter is changing across the Great Lakes region, and scientists want to know what that will mean. Teams from more than a dozen U.S. and Canadian universities and government agencies will venture onto the frozen surfaces of all five lakes this month. SENT: 735 words, photo.

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INTERNATIONAL

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BRITAIN-POLITICS — Four of Boris Johnson’s most senior staff have quit, triggering new turmoil for the embattled British prime minister. SENT: 530 words, photos.

MIGRATION-EUROPE — European Union interior ministers agreed to create a new decision-making body amid efforts to beef up the 27-nation bloc’s borders, and to kick-start desperately needed reforms to the EU’s malfunctioning asylum system on a step-by-step basis. SENT: 740 words, photos. WITH: MIGRATION-TURKEY — Turkey: 19 migrants now found dead at border with Greece. SENT: 375 words, photos.

BRITAIN-PLATINUM-JUBILEE-MOMENTS-OF-CHANGE — Britain is marking Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee on Sunday, 70 years after she was proclaimed queen. The world has undergone profound changes since she became queen and so has the monarchy. SENT: 1,070 words, photos.

ARGENTINA-TOXIC-COCAINE — A batch of cocaine that has killed at least 20 people in Argentina appears to have been laced with a synthetic opioid, and police are scrambling to get as much of it off the streets as they can. SENT: 550 words, photos.

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HEALTH/SCIENCE

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HIV-VIRUS MUTUATION — Scientists have found a previously unrecognized variant of HIV that’s more virulent than usual and has quietly circulated in the Netherlands for the past few decades. HIV medicines worked just as well in people with the mutated virus as everyone else. SENT: 400 words, photo.

MED--PRETERM BIRTH-ORAL HEALTH — A new study raises the possibility that simply chewing sugarless gum might make a difference in reducing early births. Researchers presented the results at a conference on Thursday. It shows that in the African country of Malawi, rates of premature birth were slightly lower in study participants who chewed the gum sweetened with xylitol, compared to those who didn’t. UPCOMING: 630 words, photos by 5 p.m.

SAVING THE GREAT SALT LAKE — With the Great Salt Lake in dire condition, a new burst of energy dedicated to preserving the lake has come from the conservative Republicans who control state government, including the governor and the powerful House speaker who said his realization this summer of the lake’s precarious position “terrified” him. SENT: 1,190 words, photos.

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BUSINESS/ECONOMY

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ECONOMY-JOBS REPORT — Last month, U.S. employers might have shed jobs for the first time in about a year, potentially raising alarms about the economy’s trajectory. Yet even if the January employment report coming Friday were to show a deep loss of jobs, there would be little mystery about the likely culprit: omicron. SENT: 835 words, photos.

WHISKEY-SALES — When COVID-19 shuttered much of the economy in 2020, Bill Thomas sold off his whiskey inventories to keep his Washington, D.C., whiskey bar afloat. By the next year, he was replenishing inventories. Thomas’ restocked supplies reflect the start of a comeback for on-premise spirits sales at U.S. restaurants and bars. SENT: 595 words, photos.

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ENTERTAINMENT

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MEDIA-CNN-ZUCKER — The abrupt ouster of CNN chief executive Jeff Zucker because of a workplace relationship has left some prominent employees feeling angry and uncertain about the direction of their network at a pivotal moment. SENT: 890 words, photos.

TV-BLACK HISTORY MONTH — How U.S. history is told and taught is being challenged and potentially constricted on several fronts, but television’s approach to Black History Month is firmly in overdrive. SENT: 830 words, photos.

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SPORTS

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BLACKHAWKS-SCANDAL — The Chicago Blackhawks have resolved a pair of lawsuits stemming from the organization’s handling of allegations by a former first-round pick that he was sexually assaulted by an assistant coach in 2010. But questions raised by the suits live on, not just in Chicago, but well beyond. After he resigned his position with the Blackhawks, Brad Aldrich worked or volunteered for USA Hockey, the University of Notre Dame and Miami University in Ohio before returning to his native Michigan. SENT: 1,230 words, photos.

FBN--COMMANDERS-INVESTIGATION — Former Washington Commanders employees and members of Congress are pressuring the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell to release a report about the team’s history of sexual harassment and its sexist, hostile workplace culture. SENT: 625 words, photos.

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HOW TO REACH US

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