By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is hoping separate phone calls Monday with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will make progress toward a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine.

Trump expressed his hopes for a “productive day” Monday — and a ceasefire — in a social media post over the weekend. His effort will also include calls to NATO leaders.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to the media on Monday that Putin and Trump will speak at 5 p.m. Moscow time (1400 GMT), about 10 a.m. Eastern, and called the conversation “important, given the talks that took place in Istanbul” last week between Russian and Ukrainian officials, the first such negotiations since March 2022.

Trump has struggled to end a war that began with Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and that makes these conversations a serious test of his reputation as a dealmaker after having claimed he would quickly settle the conflict once he was back in the White House, if not even before he took office.

The Republican president is banking on the idea that his force of personality and personal history with Putin will be enough to break any impasse over a pause in the fighting.

“His sensibilities are that he’s got to get on the phone with President Putin, and that is going to clear up some of the logjam and get us to the place that we need to get to,” said Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff. “I think it’s going to be a very successful call.”

Trump’s frustration builds over failure to end war

Still, there are fears that Trump has an affinity for Putin that could put Ukraine at a disadvantage with any agreements engineered by the U.S. government.

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Bridget Brink said she resigned last month as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine “because the policy since the beginning of the administration was to put pressure on the victim Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia.”

Brink said the sign that she needed to depart was an Oval Office meeting in February where Trump and his team openly berated Zelenskyy for not being sufficiently deferential to them.

“I believe that peace at any price is not peace at all,” Brink said. “It’s appeasement and as we know from history, appeasement only leads to more war.”

Trump’s frustration about the war had been building before his post Saturday on Truth Social about the coming calls, which he said would begin first with Putin at 10 a.m. Monday.

Trump said his discussion with Putin would focus on stopping the “bloodbath” of the war. It also will cover trade, a sign that Trump might be seeking to use financial incentives to broker some kind of agreement after Russia’s invasion led to severe sanctions by the United States and its allies that have steadily eroded Moscow’s ability to grow.

Trump’s hope, according to the post, is that “a war that should have never happened will end.”

His treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump had made it clear that a failure by Putin to negotiate “in good faith” could lead to additional sanctions against Russia.

Bessent suggested the sanctions that began during the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden were inadequate because they did not stop Russia’s oil revenues, due to concerns that doing so would increase U.S. prices. The United States sought to cap Russia’s oil revenues while preserving the country’s petroleum exports to limit the damage from the inflation that the war produced.

No ceasefire but an exchange of prisoners

Putin recently rejected an offer by Zelenskyy to meet in-person in Turkey as an alternative to a 30-day ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, including Washington.

Those talks ended on Friday after less than two hours, without a ceasefire in place. Still, both countries committed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each, with Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, saying on Ukrainian television Saturday that the exchanges could happen as early as this week.

While wrapping up his four-day trip to the Middle East, Trump said on Friday that Putin had not gone to Turkey because Trump himself wasn’t there.

“He and I will meet, and I think we’ll solve it or maybe not,” Trump told reporters after boarding Air Force One. “At least we’ll know. And if we don’t solve it, it’ll be very interesting.”

Zelenskyy met with Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, and top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Rome on Sunday, as well as European leaders, intensifying his efforts before the Monday calls.

Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelenskyy, left, and Vice President JD Vance greet each other as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, center, looks on ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s formal inauguration of his pontificate with a Mass in St. Peter’s Square attended by heads of state, royalty and ordinary faithful, Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

The Ukrainian president said on the social media site X that during his talks with the American officials, they discussed the negotiations in Turkey and that “the Russians sent a low level delegation of non-decision-makers.” He also said he stressed that Ukraine is engaged in ”real diplomacy” to have a ceasefire.

“We have also touched upon the need for sanctions against Russia, bilateral trade, defense cooperation, battlefield situation and upcoming prisoners exchange,” Zelenskyy said. “Pressure is needed against Russia until they are eager to stop the war.”

The German government said Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French, British and Italian leaders spoke with Trump late Sunday about the situation in Ukraine and his upcoming call with Putin. A brief statement gave no details of the conversation, but said the plan is for the exchange to be continued directly after the Trump-Putin call.

In a post on X about the conversation, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Putin on Monday “must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe.”

The push came as the Kremlin launched its largest drone barrage against Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, firing a total of 273 exploding drones and decoys, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday. The attacks targeted the country’s Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.

Witkoff spoke Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” and Brink appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

By JIANG JUNZHE, Associated Press

HONG KONG (AP) — Global shares fell Monday and U.S. futures and the dollar also weakened after Moody’s Ratings downgraded the sovereign credit rating for the United States because of its failure to stem a rising tide of debt.

The future for the S&P 500 lost 1.2% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8%. The U.S. dollar slipped to 144.92 Japanese yen from 145.65 yen. The euro advanced to $1.1254 from $1.1183.

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury was at about 4.54%, up from 4.44% late Friday.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX retreated 0.1% to 23,733.96 while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.5% to 7,851.46.

Britain’s FTSE 100 declined 0.5% to 8,643.23.

Chinese markets fell after the government said retail sales rose 5.1% in April from a year earlier, less than expected. Growth in industrial output slowed to 6.1% year-on-year from 7.7% in March.

That could mean rising inventories if production outpaces demand even more than it already does. But it also may reflect some of the shipping boom before some of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods took effect.

“After an improvement in March, China’s economy looks to have slowed again last month, with firms and households turning more cautious due to the trade war,” Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a report.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.1% to 23,332.72 and the Shanghai Composite Index was nearly unchanged at 3,367.58.

E-commerce giant Alibaba’s shares in Hong Kong skidded 3.4% following a report that U.S. officials are scrutinizing a potential Apple-Alibaba deal to integrate AI features into iPhones in China.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gave up 0.7% to 37,498.63 while the Kospi in Seoul dropped 0.9% to 2,603.43.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.6% to 8,295.10.

Taiwan’s Taiex was 1.5% lower.

In oil trading early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 47 cents to $61.50 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 50 cents to $64.91 per barrel.

Wall Street cruised to a strong finish last week as U.S. stocks glided closer to the all-time high they set just a few months earlier, though it may feel like an economic era ago.

The S&P 500 rose 0.7%. It has rallied to within 3% of its record set in February after it briefly dropped roughly 20% below it last month.

Gains have been driven by hopes that Trump will lower his tariffs against other countries after reaching trade deals with them.

The Dow industrials added 0.8% and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.5%.

Trump’s trade war sent financial markets reeling because they could slow the economy and drive it into a recession, while also pushing inflation higher.

This week featured some encouraging news on each of those fronts. The United States and China announced a 90-day stand-down in most of their punishing tariffs against each other, while a couple of reports on inflation in the United States came in better than economists expected.

That uncertainty has been hitting U.S. households and businesses, raising worries that they may freeze their spending and long-term plans. The latest reading in a survey of U.S. consumers by the University of Michigan showed sentiment soured again in May, though the pace of decline wasn’t as bad as in prior months.

Charter Communications rose 1.8% after it said Friday that it has agreed to merge with Cox Communications in a deal that would combine two of the country’s largest cable companies.

Hope remains that this week’s better-than-expected signals on inflation could give the Federal Reserve more leeway to cut interest rates later this year if high tariffs drag down the U.S. economy.

DULUTH – As spring fishing ramps up on Lake Superior, anglers are hitting the water in pursuit of steelhead, lake trout, coho and chinook salmon. To help protect wild steelhead, Minnesota Sea Grant is distributing free identification decals to help anglers distinguish between steelhead and other salmon species while they’re out on the water.

Minnesota fishing regulations require that all wild steelhead be released. These are naturally reproducing fish and are protected by a catch-and-release rule.

The decals are free, but recipients are asked to complete a five-minute survey at the end of the angling season. The survey provides information on the effectiveness of the decal and helps the Sea Grant determine if there’s interest in similar identification tools for other Lake Superior fish.

Wild steelhead can be identified by their intact adipose fin – the small, fleshy fin located on the fish’s back. Hatchery-raised steelhead have a clipped (missing) adipose fin and may be harvested, with a daily limit of three fish over 16 inches.

In 2024, Minnesota Sea Grant surveyed 75 of the 150 or so anglers who requested a steelhead identification decal. Half of the respondents said they used the decal to identify the fish they caught. Most importantly, 19% of those who said they caught a wild steelhead also said they would have mistakenly kept the fish if they had not used the identification decal.

“We’re pleased to see anglers using the steelhead identification decals,” Don Schreiner, Minnesota Sea Grant fisheries specialist, said in a statement. “Protecting wild steelhead from harvest allows these fish to spawn, which helps increase the steelhead population.”

When asked where they fished, 67% of the decal users reported fishing on Lake Superior by boat, 37% in tributary streams and 27% from shore, with a few anglers fishing at multiple locations. When asked about decal placement, 40% of anglers affixed it to their boat, another 40% to their tackle box and 12% to a cooler. The remaining 8% of respondents indicated that they had not attached the decal. Additionally, 76% of respondents said that others were interested in the decal and learned from it. More than 80% of respondents also expressed interest in receiving identification decals for fish of other species.

“We thank everyone who participated in our survey and shared their experiences,” Schreiner said. “We anticipate conducting another survey of decal recipients in late 2025.”

For more information on Minnesota Sea Grant’s “Steelhead or Salmon? Which Did You Catch?” project, go to z.umn.edu/MNSG-Steelhead-Salmon.

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Today is Monday, May 19, the 139th day of 2025. There are 226 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 19, 1920, ten people were killed in a gun battle between coal miners, who were led by a local police chief, and a group of private security guards hired to evict them for joining a union in Matewan, West Virginia.

Also on this date:

In 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded at the Tower of London after being convicted of adultery.

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Today in History: May 16, China’s Cultural Revolution begins

In 1883, William Cody held the first of his “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” shows in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

In 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House, where the two leaders agreed on May 1, 1944, as the date for the D-Day invasion of France (expansion plans for the invasion caused the date of the landing to be delayed by a month).

In 1962, film star Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday to You” to President John F. Kennedy during a Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

In 2018, Britain’s Prince Harry wed American actor Meghan Markle in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Today’s Birthdays:

TV personality David Hartman is 90.
Musician-composer Pete Townshend (The Who) is 80.
Singer-actor Grace Jones is 77.
Former racing driver Dario Franchitti is 52.
Basketball Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett is 49.
Country musician-producer Shooter Jennings is 46.
Comedian-actor Michael Che is 42.
Singer Sam Smith is 33.
Media personality-singer JoJo Siwa is 22.