In this task, you are given news articles and you need to generate a highlight, i.e., a short summary, with a maximum length of 10 lines.

Ex Input:
The mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv underwent emergency surgery after being shot in the back, city officials and police said Monday, amid continuing unrest in the region. The attack on Mayor Gennady Kernes happened around noon local time, the Kharkiv city office official website said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the shooting. After a two-hour operation, Kernes was out of surgery but in critical condition, the city office said. "The surgery was successful. His life-threatening condition is expected to go on for several days," a statement said. "He was unconscious when brought to the hospital." The online statement also said a bullet casing was found at the scene. Police said an investigation unit was trying to determine the circumstances of the shooting. In a major challenge to Kiev's new leaders, armed rebels have captured towns and government buildings across eastern Ukraine and are holding a team of European monitors hostage. Western nations accuse Moscow of supporting the separatist gunmen who are occupying official buildings in cities across the region. Sanctions . The United States on Monday imposed sanctions against seven Russian government officials and 17 companies linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin in its latest action to punish Moscow for its actions in Ukraine. The White House said the seven Russians, including two from Putin's inner circle, are now subject to a freeze on any assets they hold in the United States and a ban on U.S. travel. In addition, the United States will deny export license applications for any high-technology items that could contribute to Russian military capabilities. The Commerce and State departments will revoke any existing export licenses that meet these conditions, the White House said in a statement. "The sanctions build on the ones that were already in place. We're moving forward with an expanded list of individuals," U.S. President Barack Obama earlier told reporters in Manila, Philippines. The move, Obama said, was to spur Putin to "walk the walk, not just talk the talk" in resolving the crisis in Ukraine. If the latest round of sanctions does not work, the next phase could target economic sectors like banking, Obama said. The European Union also announced Monday that it was imposing sanctions on 15 people who are "responsible for actions which undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine." A list of the people targeted by the latest sanctions will be published Tuesday and will go into effect at the same time, the Council of the European Union said. The sanctions will include asset freezes and travel bans. U.S. and Russian defense secretaries speak . U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke on the phone with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday. According to a Pentagon description of their conversation, Shoigu "reiterated his assurance that Russian forces would not invade Ukraine." Hagel, the Pengaton said, called for an end to what he described as "Russia's destabilizing influence inside Ukraine" and "warned that continued aggression would further isolate Russia and result in more diplomatic and economic pressure." The Russian government's description of the call said Shoigu "definitively denied the groundless allegations of the presence of Russian sabotage and military intelligence groups on Ukrainian territory" and criticized what he called "anti-Russian hysteria recently unleashed in the Western press." He also criticized what he said was an "unprecedented" increase in activity of U.S. and NATO troops in Eastern Europe near the Russian border, according to the Russian government's description of the call. Ukrainian soldier killed . A homemade bomb exploded near Ukrainian soldiers who were in the eastern Donetsk region Monday, killing one and injuring another, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said. The death came days after Ukrainian forces said they killed five pro-Russian militants in an operation to clear roadblocks near the city of Slavyansk last week. Police are investigating Monday's blast, the Defense Ministry said. A CNN team covering a pro-Ukraine rally in Donetsk watched violence unfold Monday as pro-Russian separatists wielding batons beat demonstrators who said they wanted to see a united Ukraine. Observer freed . Pro-Russian separatists holding a European military observer team in eastern Ukraine released one of the observers for medical reasons Sunday, shortly after parading them before cameras. At least seven of the inspectors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe appeared at a news conference staged by Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the self-declared mayor of Slavyansk, who referred to them as "prisoners of war." The freed observer was from Sweden and had been suffering from diabetes, Ponomarev spokeswoman Stella Khorosheva told CNN. Michael Bociurkiw, an OSCE spokesman in Kiev, called it "a welcome development." The monitors were seized Friday outside Slavyansk, one of the flashpoints in the standoff between Ukraine's interim government and pro-Russian factions challenging its authority in the east. They said that although they have diplomatic status, they went along with Sunday's news conference because the mayor asked them to. Germany strongly criticized the group's appearance before the media. The "parading of OSCE observers and Ukrainian security forces as prisoners is abhorrent and a flagrant violation of their human dignity," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement. He added that Russia had a duty to "influence" the separatists so that the other members of the mission could be freed as soon as possible. Putin has repeatedly criticized what he says is Kiev's use of force against Ukrainian civilians.

Ex Output:
The European Union announces it's imposing sanctions on 15 people .
Defense ministers from the United States and Russia discuss Ukraine .
U.S. imposes sanctions against 7 Russians, 17 companies linked to Putin .
The mayor of Kharkiv is in critical condition after emergency surgery .


Ex Input:
Washington (CNN) -- House Democrats are bracing for a rough election night next Tuesday, and top leaders are making a major push for rank and file members to open their wallets to help save those vulnerable Democrats who are in danger of losing their seats. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep Steve Israel, D-New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, held a conference call Tuesday afternoon with House Democrats and told them it was time to pony up -- and gave them a Friday deadline. According to a source on the call, a dozen House members and two Democratic candidates pledged almost $500,000 during the session. Several Democratic sources told CNN that members are expecting Republicans to pick up some seats, but they still believe that many House Democrats in competitive districts are positioned to survive if they get support. The DCCC has invested heavily in field operations with 950 staff in 40 districts. But the surge of outside money from GOP groups on new television and radio spots, combined with contributions from several wealthy GOP candidates, has Democrats concerned. In a memo circulated to House Democrats, the DCCC chairman argued that the uptick in GOP spending by outside groups was something the committee was prepared to counter. Israel wrote that despite the effort by Republicans and their allies, "not a single Democratic incumbent is out of contention. This is a stark contrast from 2010, where many incumbents were already down and out despite our best efforts." But Israel also said, "This climate is incredibly challenging and only getting harder." So, with seven days left before the midterms, the leaders stepped up the pressure on members to give now. The DCCC has consistently out-raised its GOP counterpart over the course of the 2014 election cycle. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, House Democrats have raised over $172 million for the midterms, while House Republicans have raised about $131 million. For Democrats, much of the money has been brought in by top leaders like Pelosi, Israel and Rep Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat. The purpose of the call on Tuesday was to make it clear that they expect others, especially those who were given plum committee posts by their leaders, to lend a hand. There are always members in both parties who sit on money in their campaign accounts at the end of an election cycle. Some of these members might be considering a bid for the Senate or governor, or may be reluctant to share the cash with their colleagues. But the ones who spent hours hosting fundraisers and trekking over to the Democratic headquarters to dial donors for dollars are frustrated with colleagues who don't reach their targets and don't seem to suffer major repercussions. According to a DCCC dues sheet obtained by CNN, about 90% of House Democrats have contributed to the campaign committee, but 77 -- less than half of the House Democratic caucus -- have paid the full amount of dues for the 2014 midterms. Leaders were expected to raise between $450,000 and $800,000 for this cycle, and data from the DCCC shows 37 House Democrats exceeded their goals. Democrats on key committees overseeing banks, telecommunications companies, and other industries who donate to campaigns are also expected to raise significant money -- between $200,000 and $500,000 per election cycle, depending on their committee and seniority. But the 2013-2014 dues sheet shows many of those committee leaders fell short on their fundraising goals. For example, Michigan Rep Sander Levin, who is the top Democrat on the tax writing committee, gave $525,000 -- more than his assigned $500,000. But California Democratic Rep Henry Waxman, who is the most senior Democrat on the Energy and Commerce panel, and a close ally of Pelosi's, has sent in $10,000 of his $500,000 in dues. Waxman's office did not respond to an inquiry from CNN. Internal tallies of members' campaign contributions are regularly shared among House Democrats. Making sure fellow Democrats see the spreadsheets that show who is paying up and who isn't is a tool leaders hope will shame those who haven't given significant amounts yet to write checks. But it's also a list leaders keep in mind when they decide who gets to keep slots on powerful committees in the next Congress.

Ex Output:
Democratic leaders seek campaign donations from rank and file representatives .
As midterm vote nears, Democrats want final push for incumbents in tight races .
Representatives are asked to give their extra funds to help in those races .


Ex Input:
The ancient world was full of strange animals that have gone extinct, such as a group of marine species with claw-like structures emerging from their heads. A new study suggests that these creatures were related to spiders and scorpions. Researchers discovered the fossilized remains of a species in southwest China that provides new insights into the evolution of animals in the modern era, scientists said. They report their findings in the journal Nature. Scientists believe that the creature -- 1 inch long, and with two pairs of eyes -- lived 520 million years ago and that it crawled or swam in the ocean. They were able to reconstruct the creature's nervous system to gain insights about its evolutionary relationships to animals familiar to us. "For the first time, we are able to use fossilised neural anatomy to sort out how fossil animals are related to animals today," study co-author Xiaoya Ma of the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum in London wrote in an e-mail. This creature belongs to the Alalcomenaeus genus, and its place in the animal kingdom lies in "a group of weird extinct animals" called the "megacheiran" or "great appendage" arthropods, Ma said. The species of the Alalcomenaeus group had elongated, segmented bodies with about 12 pairs of appendages they used for swimming or crawling. They also had a pair of long, scissor-like head claws, most likely for grabbing or sensing. Scientists say the reconstruction of the new creature's nervous system is the most complete for an arthropod living at that time, in the Cambrian geological period. Discovery makes a splash: The rarest whale . The brain and central nervous system of the creature are organized in a way that is similar to those of the chelicerata, the group that includes horseshoe crabs and scorpions. This suggests a close evolutionary relationship between the ancient Alalcomenaeus and the living chelicerata. A distinct group of arthropods called the mandibulates includes lobsters, insects, centipedes and millipedes. Last year at the same site in China -- called the Chengjiang formation near Kunming -- Ma and colleagues discovered a 520 million-year-old crustacean-type nervous system in an animal called Fuxianhuia. Taken together, these discoveries suggest that by 520 million years ago, the two major groups of arthropods had diverged. Their common ancestor must have been older, researchers said. "This means the ancestors of spiders and their kin lived side by side with the ancestors of crustaceans," co-author Nick Strausfeld, neuroscience professor at the University of Arizona, said in a statement. Strausfeld's team used sophisticated imaging techniques to look at the inch-long Alalcomenaeus fossil. One kind of scan revealed that iron had built up in the nervous system as the creature fossilized. They also used a technique called computed tomography that reconstructs 3-D features. By combining these images and discarding any data that weren't in both, they were able to create a sort of negative X-ray photograph, "and out popped this beautiful nervous system in startling detail,"  Strausfeld said. It confirmed what scientists had believed from the creature's outward appearance: The extinct genus Alalcomenaeus was related to chelicerates (spiders, scorpions and others). They also saw that the brain in the fossil was like the brains found in modern scorpions and spiders. If researchers find a fossil with features shared by this creature and the crustacean-like fossil Ma and colleagues found last year, that could be a common ancestor of both. There's plenty more weirdness from ancient history to uncover. 18-foot oarfish discovered .

Ex Output:

The fossil is 520 million years old and was found in China .
Using multiple images of the animal, the researchers discovered the nervous system .
They also saw the brain was like those of today's spiders, scorpions .
The work shows the early evolutionary differences, researcher says .