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leadership of President Viktor Yanukovych.
• "I want to calm everyone down -- there will be no dispersal," Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko said on the ministry's website. "No one is encroaching on the rights of citizens to peaceful protest."
• Three police buses that had been parked outside the building all night drove away to the protesters' shouts of "Shame!" Another group of police that had been stationed outside the Kiev city hall building, which has been occupied by protesters for weeks, departed from the scene.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Heading into a congressional election year, Americans hold Congress in strikingly low regard, and nearly two-thirds say they would like to see their House member replaced, a new poll finds.
• Even though Americans are feeling somewhat better about the economy -- and their personal finances -- elected officials in Washington aren't benefiting from the improved mood, the Associated Press-GfK poll found.
• President Barack Obama's approval rating was negative: 58 percent disapprove of the job he's doing as president, while 42 percent approve.
• Obama isn't running for office again, however, whereas all 435 House seats and one-third of the Senate's seats are on the ballot next November. And nearly 9 in 10 adults disapprove of the way lawmakers are handling their jobs.
• The low opinions of Congress don't necessarily signal major power shifts next year in the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate. House Democrats need to gain at least 17 net seats to claim the majority. But many House districts are so solidly liberal or conservative that incumbents can withstand notable drops in popularity and keep their seats.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The National Transportation Safety Board is holding a hearing Wednesday to try to learn why so many things went wrong when an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport in July, leaving three people dead and more than 150 injured.

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