U.S. officials say the United States will no longer be sharing nuclear information with Russia over Moscow’s noncompliance with the New START treaty, which Russian President Vladimir Putin backed out of last month. 

The arms control pact between the U.S. and Russia, signed by then-Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. The agreement envisages on-site inspections to verify compliance.

Officials at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department said the U.S. offered to continue providing this information to Russia – even after Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the treaty last month. Still, Moscow informed Washington that it would not be sharing its data. Now, both the U.S. and Russia have stopped sharing biannual nuclear weapons data altogether. 

‘We obviously would like to see Russia back in New START in full compliance. We believe that the New START Treaty is good for both our countries. It’s good for the world when our two countries are in full compliance,’ National Security spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday. 

‘Since they have refused to be in compliance with that particular modality of New START, we have decided to likewise not share that data.’ 

The White House, which has previously accused Russia of multiple treaty violation, has said Russia’s refusal to comply is ‘legally invalid’ and the decision to withhold the nuclear data is yet another violation.

Despite being extended shortly after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, New START has been tested by Russia’s war in Ukraine. It has been on life support for more than a month since Putin announced Russia would no longer comply with its requirements.

On-site inspections have been dormant since 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions on resuming them were supposed to have taken place in November 2022, but Russia abruptly called them off, citing U.S. support for Ukraine. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.  

The U.S. Supreme Court won’t review a congressional redistricting law enacted by the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature that some voters and Democrats saw as political gerrymandering.

The nation’s highest court said Monday without explanation that it won’t hear an appeal of a Kansas Supreme Court ruling from May 2022 that upheld the redistricting law, which was challenged by 11 voters.

The appeal centered on the Kansas court’s rejection of critics’ claims that the new congressional map was racially gerrymandered. The Kansas court also ruled that the state constitution permits partisan gerrymandering.

The GOP map had appeared to hurt the chances of reelection last year for the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, in her Kansas City-area district. But Davids still won her race in November by 12 percentage points.

The law also moved the liberal northeastern Kansas city of Lawrence into a district with heavily Republican western Kansas.

The Legislature must redraw political boundaries at least once every 10 years to ensure that districts are as equal in population as possible. The Kansas Supreme Court split 4-3 on whether the state constitution allows partisan gerrymandering.

The Kansas court’s majority said the state constitution doesn’t bar lawmakers from considering partisan factors in drafting their maps. It added that state courts would have no clear standard for what constitutes improper gerrymandering absent a ‘zero tolerance’ standard.

The press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized a children’s book about deceased former Cuban leader Fidel Castro while also assailing progressives who criticize Republicans over book bans. 

Christina Pushaw retweeted an image Monday of the back of the ‘Who was Fidel Castro?’ children’s illustration novel being sold in a bookstore.

‘Found in the Florida Keys,’ she wrote along with a sickly-green face emoji. ‘The same progressives who scream all day that Republicans banned teaching ‘true history,’ think THIS is true history and want to indoctrinate your kids with it.’

Republicans have been criticized over what critics have said are attempts to ban books in from public school libraries. Those books tend to contain graphic sexual content. Pushaw’s tweet was in response to a tweet about the illustration book about the communist leader being sold in a Florida bookstore. Florida is home to more than 1 million Cuban exiles who fled Castro’s regime. 

An image tweeted of the book shows the back asking about who was the Cuban leader, whether he was a ‘boy who loved sports – especially baseball,’ a lawyer that helped the poor or the leader of the Cuban revolution. 

The correct answer in the book was ‘All of the above!’ Castro died in 2016 after nearly 50 years of inspiring both loyalty and loathing from his countrymen while maintaining an iron grip on Cuban politics as its militaristic communist dictator. His brother, Raul Castro, took power when Fidel’s health declined. Miguel Diaz-Canel has ruled Cuba as the communist party’s first secretary since 2018.

The novel is part of the ‘Who Was?’ book series by Penguin Random House. The series features children’s books about various leaders and famous figures such as deceased athlete Jim Thorpe, civil rights icon U.S. Rep. Jon Lewis, Frank Sinatra and Sen. John McCain. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to the publisher. 

President Joe Biden on Tuesday falsely claimed it’s illegal to own a flamethrower while delivering remarks on jobs and the economy, which veered into weapons following Monday’s deadly school shooting in Nashville.

‘We need to act. These are weapons of war,’ Biden said in Durham, North Carolina. ‘I’m a Second Amendment guy – I have two shotguns. … You know, but our states – everybody thinks somehow the Second Amendment is absolute.’

‘You’re not allowed to go out and own an automatic weapon,’ he continued. ‘You’re not allowed to own a machine gun. You’re not allowed to own a flamethrower. You’re not allowed to own so many other things.’

‘Why in God’s name do we allow these weapons of war in our streets and at our schools?’ he added.

WATCH: BIDEN FALSELY STATES FLAMETHROWERS ARE ILLEGAL

Flamethrowers, however, are widely legal in the United States and are not considered a firearm by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Flamethrowers are only illegal in Maryland and require a permit in California. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden’s administration also said that staying away from partisan politics after the Covenant School shooting is impossible. Audrey Hale, a transgender former student at the private Presbyterian school, killed three children and three adults in the attack.

Principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton made the comments during a Tuesday Air Force One press gaggle. Dalton stated that partisan politics would be a necessary part of the conversation until Republicans can ‘get behind’ an assault weapons ban and other gun control measures.

‘This is yet another attack in a school — six people shot dead,’ a reporter said. ‘Without getting into partisan party politics, what is it about America that this can happen, and we don’t see any meaningful momentum for gun control?’

‘What you’ve seen from this president is a commitment to act, adding the most significant bipartisan gun safety legislation in 30 years. … This president has been extremely forward leaning and aggressive in trying to tackle this issue of gun safety … but there is a limit to his executive power, and there is a need for Congress to do more in this moment,’ Dalton responded.

‘You asked me to stay away from partisan politics here, but it’s impossible for me to do that,’ Dalton continued. ‘The reality is we need Republicans in Congress to get on board with an assault weapons ban, to get on board with universal background checks, to get on board with requiring safe storage.’

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed reporting.

The death penalty could be abolished in Ohio under upcoming bipartisan legislation announced Tuesday — the latest in what has been years of effort to end capital punishment in the state.

State senators from both sides of the aisle called for an end to the practice, citing the financial blow to taxpayers to keep an inmate on death row, the lack of lethal injection drugs that has led to an unofficial moratorium on executions in the state, the danger of executing an innocent person and questions over a state’s right to end a life.

‘This isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue,’ said bill sponsor Sen. Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat. ‘No matter what a person’s reason for supporting this legislation, it’s critical for our own collective humanity.’

The proposal is far from new. Antonio and GOP Sen. Steve Huffman of Tipp City introduced the measure last session. It failed to get any traction, as it has for several legislative sessions despite support from some of the majority Republicans.

But growing public opposition to the death penalty has Antonio hopeful this time around, she said at Tuesday’s press conference, as does a fresh General Assembly that includes a dozen Senators who support ending the death penalty.

First-term Republican Sen. Michelle Reynolds said she backs the measure because she is ‘pro-life’ and believes human life should not be used as a bargaining chip.

‘Life is our most precious gift, and our statutes should uphold and uplift this,’ Reynolds said.

It’s not clear where legislative leadership could take the bill. GOP Senate President Matt Huffman — Steve Huffman’s cousin — supports the death penalty, though he previously said he’s open to debate and discussion on the topic. Republican House Speaker Jason Stephens also said he was open to further debate in Legislature.

Currently, Ohio has an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment, after GOP Gov. Mike DeWine instructed lawmakers to find an alternative method to lethal injection, citing the state’s inability to obtain the needed drugs. He has delayed several executions since.

The state’s last execution was July 18, 2018, when Ohio put to death Robert Van Hook for killing David Self in Cincinnati in 1985. Ohio currently has 134 people on death row, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association opposes the legislation, calling it ‘dangerous’ and saying it would cut Ohio’s ‘worst criminals’ a break.

Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, a supporter of the death penalty, said in a statement that the bill provides a platform to discuss a needed overhaul of Ohio’s capital punishment system, calling it ‘a farce and a broken promise of justice.’

President Biden has been traveling across the country to meet with state leaders in an effort to ramp up semiconductor production across the United States.

‘America is coming back. We’re determined to lead the world in the manufacturing of semiconductors,’ President Biden said Tuesday.

In 1990, the U.S. produced around 37% of chips used around the world. That percentage has plummeted over time to just 12%. Constructing and operating a fabrication facility, or ‘fab,’ in the U.S. became more expensive. Costs soared 25% to 50% higher than abroad. 

‘We sort of had this blasé attitude that if we had the MIT graduates here, we won the Nobel Prizes here, we did the design here. Manufacturing didn’t matter,’ Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said. ‘Both parties just watched as industry after industry went offshore. Whether that was steel, whether it was aluminum, and unfortunately, all of the semiconductor production.’

Nearly three years ago, the coronavirus pandemic exposed the first signs of U.S. vulnerability when it came to semiconductor manufacturing.

‘The reality is we had a whole world clambering for electronics to work at home and to study at home, and those electronics are chock full of chips. So, no surprise, demand for chips just went off the charts,’ Semiconductor Industry Association President John Neuffer said. 

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said shortages of masks and gloves revealed other vulnerabilities in U.S. manufacturing, since many items needed during the pandemic were made in China. He worked alongside Democratic colleagues including Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly to look into other products made almost exclusively overseas.

‘The advanced semiconductors that operate everything from your cell phone to the F-35 to Javelin and Stinger missiles, virtually all of that was made in Asia and not here in America anymore,’ Cornyn said.

Neuffer said most U.S. fabs were operating at full capacity but they couldn’t keep up with the demand needed.

Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law last year following a bipartisan push from lawmakers. It’s incentivized companies to build and manufacture on U.S. soil.

‘We eventually were able to catch up. That’s the short term. The CHIPS Act is really for the long term,’ Neuffer said. ‘There’s been an overconcentration of certain aspects of our supply chain and what we’re trying to do right now is diversify. Right now, 75% of manufacturing has happened in Asia. That’s been in East Asia. That’s probably too much.’

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo spoke about the CHIPS for America Program on ‘Special Report’ this past February. Semiconductor companies have been able to apply for those incentives through the initiative.

‘Congress has sent $52 billion to us here at the Commerce Department and it’s our job to invest that, working with companies to make chips in America,’ Raimondo said. ‘Every governor out there thinks the next chip factory will be in their state. They will compete. I’m sure they’ll put incentives on the table and that’s what they should do.’

Many companies began breaking ground on new facilities and expansions before the CHIPS Act was officially signed, including New York-based GlobalFoundries.

‘We need the right economics to continue to add capacity in the U.S.,’ GlobalFoundries CEO Thomas Caulfield said. ‘We have a facility that needs to grow to full scale in upstate New York in what we call Fab 8. The chips will be an integral part of the economics to close the funding gap, to create that capacity that can compete globally against all the players in manufacturing.’

Since the end of 2022, at least 23 new chip fabs have been announced and nine will increase production, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. Companies including Intel and TSMC have announced plans to build new fabs in Arizona.

‘Nationwide, we have suppliers that all over the country that’ll be providing the tooling and the materials needed to build the best semiconductor chips in the world,’ Kelly said. ‘These are also jobs that you don’t need a four-year degree to get and you can actually get a salary you can raise a family on.’

Private investments topping $210 billion in all are expected to help create around 44,000 jobs in the industry. Over $60 billion is being invested in Texas manufacturing. Companies including Samsung and Texas Instruments are planning new facilities in that state.

‘It takes a while to change, to open up diverse sources, so it’s probably going to be 2024 until you see manufacturing,’ Cornyn said. ‘But Texas Instruments is expanding their current footprint. Samsung in Texas, Intel in Ohio, Micron in New York, so all this takes a little while, but we’ve got not a minute to waste.’

U.S. domestic production is expected to increase in the near future, but competing abroad with Taiwan could take some time.

‘I would say it’s going to take us years. The CHIPS funding gives us the tools we need to start manufacturing these semiconductor chips here,’ Kelly said. ‘What it means for our country: that we don’t have to go across the Pacific Ocean to get something so critical that’s in everything that has an on/off switch.’

Caulfield pointed out it took around three decades to create the imbalance in semiconductor production around the world.

‘This didn’t happen overnight for our industry,’ Caulfield said. ‘It’s going to take decades to correct that issue. So this is a good start and the sooner we get going on this as an industry, the better we’ll be.’

The shortage has also eased, but technology is enhancing, and the demand for chips is expected to grow.

‘If you’ve ever sat in an electric car or you have a big display panel, that all requires a lot of chips,’ Neuffer said. ‘Where we have 5G now, we’re going to be moving to 6G. These are all products that require a ton of chips. The combination of existing and emerging markets for chip technology suggests demands for semiconductors are going to be very, very high for the years and decades ahead.’

Lawmakers and experts have agreed it’s not just semiconductor manufacturing that needs to step up. 

‘Our products, our cars, our dishwashers, our dryers, our refrigerators are still not produced in the United States,’ Khanna said. ‘I don’t want a situation where the advanced chips are made in America, but everything consumers buy is made in China, so we need to do a lot more.’

Caulfield agreed and said U.S. manufacturing for products requiring chips needed to keep up with U.S. semiconductor production. 

‘Probably the biggest issue we still need to contend with is to make sure the demand for all this capacity we want in the U.S. materializes,’ Caulfield said. ‘The last thing we want to do is in industry, create capacity in the U.S. and have it go underutilized.’

The Manhattan grand jury wrapped its proceedings Monday afternoon with no vote in former President Trump’s case, two sources told Fox News.

The secret grand jury reconvened Monday in New York City after its proceedings related to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into Trump were canceled twice last week.

Two sources told Fox News on Monday afternoon that the grand jury heard from one witness, David Pecker. Pecker, who has previously testified before the grand jury as part of this case, served as president of National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc.

Bragg has been investigating the $130,000 hush-money payment that then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford. That payment was made in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

Cohen has said Trump directed the payments. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 through his own company and was later reimbursed by Trump’s company, which logged the payments as ‘legal expenses.’

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing with regard to the payments made to Daniels, and he has repeatedly said the payments were ‘not a campaign violation’ but rather a ‘simple private transaction.’

The Trump Organization ‘grossed up’ Cohen’s reimbursement for Daniels’ payment for ‘tax purposes,’ according to federal prosecutors who filed the 2018 criminal charges against Cohen for the payments.

Federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Daniels payment in 2019, even as Cohen implicated him as part of his plea deal. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.

The grand jury is set to reconvene Wednesday, but it is unclear if they will meet related to the Trump investigation.

Over the weekend, Trump suggested the case had already been dropped against him.

‘I think they’ve already dropped the case,’ Trump told reporters aboard his plane after appearing at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas.

‘It’s a fake case,’ he said. ‘Some fake cases, they have absolutely nothing.’

When asked for comment about Trump’s claim the case has been dropped, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital: ‘This has been dropped because everyone knows this was a partisan witch-hunt by a radical, leftist DA that sought to politically weaponize the Justice system to influence an election.’

Meanwhile, Bragg has slammed House Republicans who have called for him to testify on Capitol Hill about the investigation.

‘We evaluate cases in our jurisdiction based on the facts, the law, and the evidence. It is not appropriate for Congress to interfere with pending local investigations,’ the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

The office told Fox News Digital that Bragg stands by his previous pledge to publicly state the conclusion of the investigation, ‘whether we conclude our work without bringing charges, or move forward with an indictment.’

When Bragg took over as district attorney in January 2022, he stopped pursuing charges against Trump and suspended the investigation ‘indefinitely,’ according to one of the top prosecutors who resigned from the office in protest.

Prosecutors Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who had been leading the investigation under former DA Cyrus Vance, submitted their resignations after Bragg began raising doubts about pursuing a case against Trump.

The Manhattan DA’s investigation into Trump began in 2019 by then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance. The probe was focused on possible bank, insurance and tax fraud. The case initially involved financial dealings of Trump’s Manhattan properties, including his flagship Fifth Avenue building, Trump Tower, and the valuation of his 213-acre estate Seven Springs in Westchester.

The investigation last year led to tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and its finance chief, Allen Weisselberg.

Grand jury deliberations and votes are secret proceedings, and an indictment typically remains under seal until an arraignment.

Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report.

Gov. Tony Evers has directed that flags to be flown at half-staff in the state Tuesday to honor a Wisconsin soldier who died in World War II and whose remains were recently identified.

Evers’ order directs that U.S. flags and Wisconsin state flags be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset Tuesday to honor U.S. Army Private First Class William LaVerne ‘Sonny’ Simon.

Simon’s remains will be buried Tuesday with full military honors in his hometown of Middleton, Wisconsin, nearly 80 years after he died in Germany.

‘A decorated military veteran, Private Simon served our state and country well, giving his life in defense of the values and freedoms we hold most dear,’ Evers said Monday in a statement.

Simon was a member of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, when he was reported unaccounted for on Nov. 5, 1944, during the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest in Germany.

Simon’s remains were later discovered and interred as unidentified in 1950 at the Ardennes American Cemetery. Those remains were sent in April 2019 to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency laboratory for analysis and identification.

Evers said the remains were positively identified as Simon’s due to the ‘efforts of his surviving sister and brother’ and work by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

A plurality of Democrats say they want President Biden to step aside and not seek a second term in the White House next year, according to a new national survey

Forty-four percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters questioned in a Monmouth University Poll released on Monday said the president should step aside and allow someone else to run as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer in 2024. A quarter of respondents said Biden should seek re-election next year, with 30% saying they had no preference.

The poll’s release comes as the president gears up to run for re-election. Biden has repeatedly said he intends to seek a second term in the White House, but he has yet to make any formal announcements. However, the president hinted toward a re-election campaign during a speech early last month to party leaders and activists at the DNC’s winter meeting, which was held this year in Philadelphia.

‘We’re just getting started,’ Biden told a boisterous crowd. ‘I intend to get… more done.’ 

‘Let me ask you a simple question – are you with me?’ the president asked the crowd. The question instantly elicited cheers and loud chants of ‘four more years.’

While no major Democrats are expected to primary challenge the president, best-selling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson earlier this month launched her second straight long-shot bid for the party’s presidential nomination.

But if the president surprises the political word and decides not to seek another term, the Monmouth poll indicates that Democrats have no clear idea on whom they’d like to see as their party’s 2024 nominee.

Just over half of those questioned (51%) couldn’t offer a name when asked who they would like to see as the Democrats’ standard-bearer next year if the president declined to run again.

Vice President Kamala Harris grabbed the backing of 13%, with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – the runner-up in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic nomination races – and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – who ran in 2020 – both at 6% support. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts – another 2020 Democratic presidential contender – was at 4%, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 3%. No one else topped 1% in the survey.

While only a quarter of those questioned said they wanted Biden to run for re-election, the president enjoyed a favorable rating of 74% in the poll.

‘Democrats appear to be saying they like the job Biden has done, but maybe it’s time for him to move on when his term is up. However, no top tier of candidates emerges when these voters are asked to name a preferred alternative. Part of that could simply be the holding pattern that Democrats are in because Biden has signaled that he will, in fact, run,’ Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray said.

The Monmouth University poll was conducted March 16-20, with 542 Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters nationwide. The survey’s sampling error for results in the release was plus or minus 6.3 percentage points.

Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman has missed nearly 83% of Senate roll call votes since checking himself into a hospital to receive treatment for clinical depression last month. 

According to government watchdog GovTrack, Fetterman has missed 53 of the 64 Senate roll call votes held during February and March. His average falls well beyond the lifetime record for missed votes for all current senators, which stands at 2.3%.

Wednesday will mark six weeks since Fetterman first checked into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the night of February 15, and there is still no clear indication as to when he might return to work. His office has provided periodic updates, including that he is making progress towards his recovery, as well as that he has been able to continue doing some work from the hospital.

On March 6, Fetterman’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, posted on Twitter that the senator ‘will be back soon,’ and included pictures of the two sitting together working from a table at the hospital.

Last week, Fetterman’s communications director, Joe Calvello, also said the senator would be back ‘soon,’ but did not provide any further details on the time frame beyond that it would be ‘at least over a week.’

Fetterman’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital specifically about the day-to-day operation of the office in his absence, however his staff has reportedly been filling gaps wherever needed in order to keep the office going.

Jentleson told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star earlier this month that staff would likely be doing the same amount of work even if Fetterman were physically present in the office, and touted that between a third and half of the staff were policy experts.

He also noted in the report that Fetterman ‘certainly will miss votes’ considering his condition, but that this was a ‘pretty good time’ out of any other time during the calendar year to miss because of the lack of significant legislation.

The votes Fetterman missed include a number of judicial and other nominations, as well as a bipartisan bill that sought to strike down a new Labor Department rule encouraging retirement fiduciaries to consider environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues in their investments.

Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.