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bright spots so far.
• Ben Sasse won the GOP nomination for the seat being vacated by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb. Sasse was the closest thing to a tea party candidate in the three-man race, largely because he feuded last fall with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the epitome of establishment Republicanism.
• But Sasse is hardly the out-of-right-field firebrand that some tea partyers cherish. A college president with degrees from Harvard and Yale, he worked for the U.S. departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. Those endorsing him ranged from non-mainstream players -- including Sarah Palin and the Club for Growth -- to well-established Republicans such as five-term Rep. Jeff Fortenberry and former Gov. Kay Orr.
• Sasse, 42, had "visiting scholar status" at the Brookings Institution, the venerated left-of-center think tank near the White House.
• Several factors make the Nebraska results rather weak tea for tea party celebrations. Sasse's conservative credentials don't differ greatly from his opponents', especially Shane Osborn. Osborn had the conservative group FreedomWorks' endorsement before it was switched to Sasse.
• ___

• KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- A reluctant Ukrainian government agreed to launch discussions Wednesday on giving more powers to the regions under a peace plan brokered by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but it remains wary of engaging with pro-Russian insurgents who have declared independence in two eastern regions.
• Ukraine's prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was to chair the first in a series of round tables set to include national lawmakers, government figures and regional officials in line with proposals drafted by the OSCE, a top trans-Atlantic security and rights group that includes Russia and the United States.
• Russia has strongly backed the Swiss-drafted road map, but Ukraine has remained cool to the plan and U.S. officials view its prospects for success skeptically.
• Ukraine and the West have accused Moscow of fomenting the unrest in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian insurgents seized administrative buildings, fought government forces and declared independence for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions after a controversial weekend referendum. The Ukrainian government and Western

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