By ILLIA NOVIKOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is forging ahead with early plans for joint weapons production with some international allies, top officials said, while warning Wednesday of potential consequences of the U.S. decision to halt some arms shipments promised to help Kyiv fight off Russia’s invasion.

“Any delay or hesitation in supporting Ukraine’s defense capabilities will only encourage the aggressor to continue war and terror, not seek peace,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said.

A renewed Russian push to capture more land has put Ukraine’s short-handed defenses under severe strain in the all-out war launched by Moscow nearly 3½ years ago. Russian missiles and drones are battering Ukrainian cities. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to find a peace settlement have stalled.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said it hadn’t received any official U.S. notification of a suspension or revision of agreed arms delivery schedules. Officials have requested a phone call with their U.S. counterparts to verify the status of specific items in the pipeline, it said in a statement.

As Washington — Ukraine’s biggest military backer — has distanced itself from Ukraine’s war efforts under President Donald Trump, a bigger onus has fallen on European countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday held their first direct telephone call in almost three years. Macron’s office said that during their two-hour conversation, the French leader underlined France’s “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and called for a ceasefire.

Washington’s decision could remove some of the most formidable weapons in Ukraine’s battlefield arsenal, including some air defense missiles, precision-guided artillery and other weapons, according to AP sources.

The U.S. decision should prompt European Union countries to spend more on developing Ukraine’s defense industry, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said.

“It just underlines the need for Europe to do more, and also to invest more in Ukraine,” Lund Poulsen told reporters. “We could do even more, to give them a stronger way of fighting back.”

Denmark on Tuesday took over the EU’s rotating presidency for six months. It is already investing directly in Ukraine’s defense industry, which can produce arms and ammunition more quickly and cheaply than elsewhere in Europe.

Denmark is also allowing companies from Ukraine to set up shop in Denmark and manufacture military equipment on safer ground. Lund Poulsen said the first companies could start work as soon as September, and he urged European partners to follow suit.

Ukraine prepares for joint investments in defense

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his daily address on Tuesday evening said officials are preparing with a sense of urgency for upcoming meetings with EU countries and other partners to talk about cooperation in weapons manufacturing.

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced that draft legislation on joint weapons production with allies is expected to be put to a vote in the Ukrainian parliament later this month. The proposed laws were shown to national defense companies on Tuesday, Umerov said.

The program includes plans to create a special legal and tax framework to help Ukrainian defense manufacturers scale up and modernize production, including building new facilities at home and abroad, according to Umerov.

Earlier this week, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said during a visit to Kyiv that Germany aims to help Ukraine manufacture more weapons more quickly. He was accompanied on the trip by German defense industry representatives.

Washington concerned about reduced stockpiles

The U.S. is halting some weapons deliveries to Ukraine out of concern that its own stockpiles have declined too far, officials said Tuesday. Certain munitions were longer-term commitments promised to Ukraine under the Biden administration, though the Defense Department didn’t provide details on what specific weapons were being held back.

The details on the weapons in some of the paused deliveries were confirmed by a U.S. official and former national security official familiar with the matter. Both requested anonymity to discuss what is being held up as the Pentagon has yet to provide details. The halt includes some shipments of Patriot missiles, precision-guided GMLRS, Hellfire missiles and Howitzer rounds.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. chargé d’affaires, John Hinkel, on Wednesday to discuss ongoing defense cooperation.

Deputy Foreign Minister Maryana Betsa thanked the U.S. for its continued support, but emphasized the “critical importance” of maintaining previously allocated defense packages, especially for bolstering Ukraine’s air defense.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Pentagon’s decision will help bring a settlement closer, because “the fewer weapons supplied to Ukraine, the closer the end of the (war) is.”

Europe can’t fill all the gaps

Under Trump, there have been no new announcements of U.S. military or weapons aid to Ukraine. Between March and April, the United States allocated no new aid to Ukraine, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute, which tracks such support.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022. For the first time since June 2022, European countries surpassed the U.S. in total military aid, totaling 72 billion euros ($85 billion) compared with 65 billion euros ($77 billion) from the U.S., the institute said last month.

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Analysts say Ukraine’s European allies can fill some of the gaps and provide artillery systems. But they don’t possess alternatives to the U.S.-made HIMARS missiles and air defense systems, especially Patriots, which are crucial to help defend Ukrainian cities.

It’s not clear how much weaponry Ukraine possesses or what its most urgent needs are.

Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

By ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — A U.S. judge has ruled that China’s Huawei Technologies, a leading telecoms equipment company, must face criminal charges in a wide reaching case alleging it stole technology and engaged in racketeering, wire and bank fraud and other crimes.

U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly on Tuesday rejected Huawei’s request to dismiss the allegations in a 16-count federal indictment against the company, saying in a 52-page ruling that its arguments were premature.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. accuses Huawei and some of its subsidiaries of plotting to steal U.S. trade secrets, installing surveillance equipment that enabled Iran to spy on protesters during 2009 anti-government demonstrations in Iran, and of doing business in North Korea despite U.S. sanctions there.

During President Donald Trump’s first term in office, his administration raised national security concerns and began lobbying Western allies against including Huawei in their wireless, high-speed networks.

In its January 2019 indictment, the Justice Department accused Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions and charged its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, with fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.

Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, was arrested in Canada in late 2018 on a U.S. extradition request but released in September 2021 in a high-stakes prisoner swap that freed two Canadians held by China and allowed her to return home.

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Chinese officials have accused the U.S. government of “economic bullying” and of improperly using national security as a pretext for “oppressing Chinese companies.” In their motion to dismiss the broad criminal case, among other arguments Huawei’s lawyers contended that the U.S. allegations were too vague and some were ”impermissibly extraterritorial,” and do not involve domestic wire and bank fraud.

The biggest maker of network gear, Huawei struggled to hold onto its market share under sanctions that have blocked its access to most U.S. processor chips and other technology. The limits led it to ramp up its own development of computer chips and other advanced technologies.

The company also shifted its focus to the Chinese market and to network technology for hospitals, factories and other industrial customers and other products that would not be affected by U.S. sanctions.

By Amanda Hernández, Stateline.org

More people in the United States died by gun suicide in 2023 than any year on record — more than by gun homicide, accidental shootings and police shootings combined.

A new report analyzing federal mortality data found that suicides involving firearms made up 58% of all gun deaths in 2023 — the latest year with available data. In total, 27,300 people died by gun suicide in 2023, according to the report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions and the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention.

The findings are based on finalized data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In all, 46,728 people died from gun-related injuries in 2023, according to the CDC’s Wonder database.

Gun homicides fell for the second year in a row, dropping from 20,958 in 2021 to 19,651 in 2022 and 17,927 in 2023. Despite the decline, the 2023 total ranks as the fifth highest on record for gun homicides, according to the report.

Rural, less populated states recorded the highest gun suicide rates in 2023. Wyoming led the nation with about 19.9 gun suicide deaths per 100,000 residents — nearly 10 times the rate of Massachusetts, which had the lowest at about 2.1 per 100,000.

“People are just using guns when it comes to considering suicide because it’s highly lethal and it’s easily accessible,” said Rose Kim, the lead author of the report and the assistant policy adviser at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. “That’s really a deadly combination, and it’s really driving the suicide epidemic in our country.”

Suicide has remained the leading category of gun death in the U.S. for nearly three decades, according to the report. That trend has continued even as public attention and legislative action have largely focused on gun homicides and mass shootings.

More than a handful of both Republican-led and Democratic-led states have passed or enacted new gun policies this year, ranging from permitless carry in North Carolina and a statewide ban on “red flag” or extreme risk protective orders in Texas to bans on assault-style weapons in Rhode Island to rapid-fire devices in Oregon.

Recently, the Michigan Senate approved legislation that would ban bump stocks and ghost guns. In Washington state, a new law set to take effect in May 2027 will require prospective gun buyers to obtain a five-year permit through the Washington State Patrol.

Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey in March signed into law a bill that made Alabama the 26th state to outlaw gun conversion devices, also known as auto sears, which can turn semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic weapons. In April, she signed into law a measure that allows people experiencing suicidal thoughts to surrender a firearm to a licensed gun dealer.

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Kim said some state policies can help reduce gun deaths, such as safe storage laws, firearm purchaser licensing and extreme risk protection orders. “It’s also important to recognize that there are public health interventions, evidence based, that can really address gun suicides and save lives,” she said in an interview.

Men were nearly seven times more likely than women to die by gun suicide in 2023, according to the Johns Hopkins report. The highest rate of firearm suicide was among men 70 and older.

For the fourth consecutive year, firearms remained the leading cause of death among youth under 17 in 2023, with 2,581 deaths recorded.

Among young people aged 10 to 19, gun suicide totals remained relatively unchanged year over year — 1,252 in 2023 compared with 1,238 in 2022 — but racial and ethnic breakdowns showed stark disparities.

Since 2014, the gun suicide rate for Black youth 10 to 19 had more than tripled, rising from 1 death per 100,000 people to 3.3 in 2023. In contrast, the rate for white youth in the same age group increased more gradually, from 2.6 to 3 per 100,000 people. It was the second consecutive year that Black youth had a higher rate than their white peers.

Gun suicides among Hispanic youth 10 to 19 also nearly doubled from 2014 to 2023, according to the CDC’s data.

Stateline reporter Amanda Hernández can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Police identified on Wednesday a 14-year-old who died in a motorized scooter crash in St. Paul as Kevin Reitmeier.

Officers responded to the West Side about 8:50 a.m. Tuesday on a report of a crash. Kevin, of St. Paul, was operating the scooter and a 13-year-old was a passenger. The driver of a pickup truck struck them at Ohio and George streets.

Preliminary information indicates the scooter was being operated in the street, ran a stop sign before the crash, and that neither of the teens wore helmets, said Alyssa Arcand, a St. Paul police spokeswoman.

Kevin was pronounced dead at the hospital. The 13-year-old boy was in critical, but stable condition as of Wednesday morning, according to Arcand.

Police said the pickup driver did not show signs of impairment and is cooperating with the investigation.

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