By ILLIA NOVIKOV, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is ready to resume direct peace talks with Russia in Istanbul on Monday, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, following days of uncertainty over whether Kyiv would attend a further meeting proposed by Moscow.

But Ukrainian officials have insisted that the Kremlin provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the more than three-year war, before the two delegations sit down to negotiate.

“Ukraine is ready to attend the next meeting, but we want to engage in a constructive discussion,” Andrii Yermak said in a statement on the website of Ukraine’s Presidential Office late Thursday.

“This means it is important to receive Russia’s draft. There is enough time – four days are sufficient for preparing and sending the documents,” Yermak said.

Ukraine and its European allies have repeatedly accused the Kremlin of dragging its feet in peace efforts, while it tries to press its bigger army’s battlefield initiative and capture more Ukrainian land.

Kyiv’s Western partners, including the U.S., are urging Moscow to agree to an unconditional ceasefire, something Kyiv has embraced while the Kremlin has held out for terms more to its liking.

Ukraine’s top diplomat, Andrii Sybiha, also told reporters on Friday that Kyiv is waiting for Russia to clarify its proposals ahead of a next round of talks.

“We want to end this war this year. We are interested in establishing a ceasefire, whether it is for 30 days, 50 days, or 100 days. Ukraine is open to discussing this directly with Russia,” Sybiha said at a joint news conference in Kyiv with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan.

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Sybiha and Fidan also held the door open to a future meeting between Presidents Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin of Russia, possibly also including U.S. President Donald Trump. Fidan said the ongoing peace push in Istanbul could be “crowned with” such a meeting.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday told reporters that a Russian delegation will head to Istanbul and stand ready to take part in the second round of talks on June 2.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday publicly invited Ukraine to hold direct negotiations with Moscow on that date. In a video statement, Lavrov said Russia would use Monday’s meeting to deliver an outline of Moscow’s position on “reliably overcoming” what it calls the root causes of the war. Russian officials have said for weeks that such a document is forthcoming.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov on Wednesday said that Ukraine isn’t opposed to further direct talks with Russia, but that they would be “empty” if Moscow were to fail to clarify its terms. Umerov said he had personally handed a document setting out Ukraine’s position to the Russian side.

Low-level delegations from Russia and Ukraine held their first direct peace talks in three years in Istanbul on May 16. The talks, which lasted two hours, brought no significant breakthrough, although both sides agreed to the largest prisoner exchange of the war. It was carried out last weekend and freed 1,000 captives on each side.

Fidan on Friday voiced a belief that the successful swap has “proved that negotiations can yield concrete results.”

“There are two paths in front of us. Either we will turn a blind eye to the continuation of the war, or we will reach a lasting peace within the end of the year,” he told reporters in Kyiv.

Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press Business Writer

Snack food maker Mondelez International is suing the Aldi supermarket chain, alleging the packaging for Aldi’s store-brand cookies and crackers “blatantly copies” Mondelez products like Chips Ahoy, Wheat Thins and Oreos.

In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Illinois, Chicago-based Mondelez said Aldi’s packaging was “likely to deceive and confuse customers” and threatened to irreparably harm Mondelez and its brands. The company is seeking monetary damages and a court order that would stop Aldi from selling products that infringe on its trademarks.

This combo of images shows, Mondelez’s Wheat Thins, left, and, Aldi’s Thin Wheat, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Glenview, Ill. (AP Photos/Nam Y. Huh)

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with Aldi.

In the lawsuit, Mondelez displayed side-by-side photos of multiple products. Aldi’s Thin Wheat crackers, for example, come in a gold box very similar to Mondelez’s Wheat Thins. Aldi’s chocolate sandwich cookies and Oreos both have blue packaging. The supermarket’s Golden Round crackers and Mondelez’s Ritz crackers are packaged in red boxes.

Aldi, a German discount chain with U.S. headquarters in Batavia, Illinois, keeps prices low by primarily selling products under its own labels.

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The chain has faced lawsuits over its packaging before. Last year, an Australian court found that Aldi infringed on the copyright of Baby Bellies snack puffs for young children. In that case, Aldi’s packaging featured a cartoon owl and similar colors to the name-brand packaging.

Earlier this year, a U.K. appeals court ruled in favor of Thatchers, a cider company, which sued Aldi over design similarities in the packaging of its lemon cider.

Mondelez said in its lawsuit that the company had contacted Aldi on numerous occasions about “confusingly similar packaging.” Mondelez said Aldi discontinued or changed the packaging on some items but continued to sell others.

The lawsuit also alleges that Aldi infringed on Mondalez’s trade dress rights for the packaging of Nutter Butter and Nilla Wafers cookies, and its Premium cracker brand.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is giving back some of its winning week and month on Friday following a mixed set of profit reports from Gap, Ulta Beauty and other companies navigating the challenges created by President Donald Trump’s on-and-off tariffs.

The S&P 500 was down 0.4% in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 119 points, or 0.3%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% lower.

Gap helped drag the market down even though the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company behind Banana Republic and Old Navy fell 19% after saying tariffs on imports from China and other countries could add up to $300 million to its costs this fiscal year. It has strategies set to mitigate up to half of that before it hits its profits.

This week and month on Wall Street have been dominated by questions about what will happen with Trump’s tariffs, which investors worry could grind the economy into a recession, erode companies’ profits and layer even more challenges on households who are already sick of inflation.

Hopes had largely been rising that the worst of such worries had passed, which in turn sent stocks rallying, after Trump paused his tariffs on both China and the European Union. A U.S. court then on Wednesday blocked many of Trump’s sweeping tariffs. That has the S&P 500 on track for its first winning month in four and potentially its best in nearly two years.

But the tariffs remain in place for now while the White House appeals the ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade, and the ultimate outcome is still uncertain. Trump also briefly shook markets shortly before the U.S. stock market opened for trading Friday, when he accused China of not living up to its end of the agreement that paused their tariffs against each other.

“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

The impact was limited though, and futures for U.S. stock indexes quickly pared much of their losses. Since Wednesday’s ruling, analysts and investors have been saying Trump and his administration would likely find new avenues to impose tariffs on trading partners.

Trump has said he’s using tariffs to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States and that U.S. households and businesses may feel some pain in the process.

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American Eagle Outfitters is one of the companies that has withdrawn its financial forecasts for the upcoming year, in part because of uncertainty about the economy. Its stock dropped 5.1% after it reported a larger loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected and said it will keep its outlook for 2025 withdrawn.

On the winning side of Wall Street was Ulta Beauty, which climbed 14.5% after the retailer reported stronger sales and profit than analysts forecast and raised the top end of its forecasted range for revenue this fiscal year. That was even though CEO Kecia Steelman called the operating environment “fluid.”

Red Robin Gourmet Burger soared 75.7% after reporting a profit for the latest quarter, when analysts expected a loss.

Shares of SharpLink Gaming rose another 51% to bring its gain for the week to a whopping 1,680% after the marketing company said it would raise $425 million to buy the cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain. The company delivers leads to U.S. sportsbooks and global casino companies and has been expanding into the global crypto gaming market.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were relatively steady after a report showed that the measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower in April than economists expected.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.42% from 4.43% late Thursday.

The Fed has left its benchmark borrowing rate steady at its last three meetings, in part due to uncertainty about how tariffs will impact inflation.

In stock markets abroad, European indexes rose modestly while Asian markets fell.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A key U.S. inflation gauge slowed last month as President Donald Trump’s tariffs have yet to noticeably push up prices, while American incomes jumped.

Friday’s report from the Commerce Department showed that consumer prices rose just 2.1% in April compared with a year earlier, down from 2.3% in March and the lowest since September. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.5% from a year earlier, below the March figure of 2.7%. Economists track core prices because they typically provide a better read on where inflation is headed.

The figures show inflation is still declining from its post-pandemic spike, which reached the highest level in four decades in July 2022. Economists and some business executives have warned that prices will likely head higher as Trump’s widespread tariffs take effect, though the timing and impact of those duties are now in doubt after they were struck down late Wednesday in court.

On a monthly basis, overall prices and core prices both increses just 0.1% from March to April.

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At the same time, incomes — before adjusting for inflation — rose a healthy 0.8%. Much of that gain reflected an increase in Social Security benefits for some retired teachers, fire fighters, and federal workers whose incomes previously weren’t fully counted toward Social Security benefits.

The inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve said at their most recent meeting May 6-7 that inflation is still elevated, compared to their target of 2%. Fed officials, who focus more on core prices, broadly support keeping their key interest rate steady while they evaluate the impact of the tariffs on inflation and jobs.

Consumer spending rose 0.2% in April from March, the report said, but that’s down from the big 0.7% rise in March.

The court ruling last Wednesday said that most of Trump’s tariffs were unlawful, including his duties on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China, as well as those on more than 50 other countries. Tariffs on steel, aluminum, and cars were implemented under different laws and remain in place.

But the duties were allowed to remain in effect while the Trump administration appeals the ruling against them. And administration officials say they will find other legal authorities, if needed, to implement the tariffs. As a result, what tariffs will end up in place and for how long remains highly uncertain.