AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

Sirens warned of incoming missiles in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and in Bahrain, while Saudi Arabia said it destroyed two drones over its oil-rich eastern region and Kuwait's National Guard said it shot down six drones.

Later in the morning, sirens also sounded in Jerusalem, and sounds of explosions could be heard in Tel Aviv as Israel's defense systems worked to intercept incoming fire, not long after the military said it detected an Iranian missile launch.

“We are definitely not looking for a ceasefire,” Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, wrote defiantly on X. "We believe that the aggressor should be punched in the mouth so that he learns a lesson so that he will never think of attacking our beloved Iran again.”

Along with firing missiles and drones at Israel and at American bases in the region, Iran has also been targeting energy infrastructure which, combined with its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, sent oil prices soaring.

War with Iran delivers another shock to the global economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The war with Iran is doing collateral damage to the world economy.

The conflict is driving up energy and fertilizer prices; threatening food shortages in poor countries; destabilizing fragile states such as Pakistan; and complicating options for the inflation fighters at central banks like the Federal Reserve.

Causing much of the pain: the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of world’s oil passes — was effectively shut down after the U.S. and Israel launched missile strikes Feb. 28 that killed Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“For a long time, the nightmare scenario that deterred the U.S. from even thinking about an attack on Iran and which got them to urge restraint on Israel was that the Iranians would close the Strait of Hormuz," said Maurice Obstfeld, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. “Now we’re in the nightmare scenario."

With a key shipping route cut off, oil prices have surged — from less than $70 a barrel on Feb. 27 to a peak of nearly $120 early Monday before settling closer to $90. They’ve taken gasoline prices with them.

Europe rallies around Cyprus days after the Iran war's first drone attack on EU territory

PAPHOS, Cyprus (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday pledged to defend Cyprus and dispatch additional warships to the Eastern Mediterranean to strengthen allies' security in the region unsettled by the Iran war.

Macron said he was visiting Cyprus primarily to show solidarity with the country, where a Shahed drone struck a British air base on the southern coast last week. It was the first drone attack of the war on European territory.

"When Cyprus is attacked, it is Europe that is attacked," Macron said after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at Cyprus' main air base near the southwestern town of Paphos. "We are bound to one another by strategic partnerships.”

Macron had ordered the French frigate Languedoc to waters off Cyprus, a fellow European Union member, to bolster its anti-drone and anti-missile defenses. Last week, France also sent ground-based anti-drone and anti-missile defenses.

Greece has dispatched four F-16 fighter planes to the Paphos air base, and its frigates Kimon and Psara are already patrolling off Cyprus, tasked with intercepting any missiles or drones.

Global shares surge, echoing a rally on Wall Street as oil prices sank back to about $90

TOKYO (AP) — Global shares rebounded Tuesday from their sharp declines a day before as global investors wagered that the war with Iran may not last too long.

But the gains fell far short of losses Monday, when oil prices neared $120 per barrel before falling back to about $90. U.S. shares were set to rise, with Dow futures up 0.4% at 47,970.00. S&P 500 futures rose 0.4% to 6,830.75.

Helping to assuage investors' fears, U.S. President Donald Trump told CBS News he thinks “the war is very complete, pretty much.” He also made other comments that seemed to threaten intensified action against Iran if it makes any “attempt to stop the globe’s oil supply.”

France's CAC 40 added 1.9% in early trading to 54,248.39, while Germany's DAX surged 2.4% to 23,966.97. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 1.6% to 10,410.08.

In Asia, Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 added 2.9% to finish at 54,248.39 after the government released revised economic data that showed Japan's economy grew slightly faster than initially estimated in the final quarter of last year, boosted by solid business investments.

China's exports surge in Jan-Feb despite waning trade with the US

HONG KONG (AP) — China's exports jumped nearly 22% in the first two months of the year from a year earlier, powered by a surge in shipments of computer chips, autos and electronics.

The export figures released by China’s customs agency on Tuesday were much better than economists had forecast. They far exceeded the 6.6% annual pace of growth recorded in December.

Shipments to the U.S. fell 11% in January and February, narrowing from a 30% drop in December. Exports to the European Union increased almost 28% while those to Latin America climbed 16%.

Exports to the rest of Asia, including Japan and India, also were sharply higher.

China’s exports have been a bright spot for its economy despite tensions with the U.S. Chinese exports climbed 5.5% for 2025 as its trade surplus surged to a record of nearly $1.2 trillion. Higher shipments to other regions have helped offset weaker exports to the U.S. after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a variety of higher tariffs on imports from many countries.

Trump pushes GOP on voting bill, demanding an end to most mail balloting

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday he won’t sign any other legislation into law until Congress passes a strict proof-of-citizenship voting bill that he says also must end Americans' ability to vote by mail, a startling demand months before the midterm elections.

Trump told House Republicans during their annual retreat at his golf club in Florida that he doesn't think they will win elections unless voting laws are toughened up to prevent fraud — even though mail ballots are popular in many states and federal law already requires that voters in national elections be U.S. citizens, with scant evidence that noncitizens ever try to vote.

The president wants to bolster the so-called SAVE America Act, which the House has already approved, and he pressed the Senate to push past its filibuster rules to send it to his desk. Voting experts have said the bill could disenfranchise some 20 million American voters who don't have birth certificates or other documents readily available, a number that would likely swell with the additional ban on mail balloting that Trump is demanding.

“I'm not going to sign anything until this is approved,” Trump said, calling it his No. 1 priority.

“It'll guarantee the midterms,” he said. “If you don't get it, big trouble.”

FBI hunts for clues after 2 men charged with lighting bombs at NYC protest

NEW YORK (AP) — Investigators are trying to learn more about two Pennsylvania men accused of bringing homemade bombs to a protest outside the home of New York City’s mayor.

Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, told authorities after their arrests that they were inspired by the Islamic State group, law enforcement officials said, but much remains undisclosed about their motives and how much they planned.

The FBI said Monday that it had conducted multiple searches in connection with the investigation, including an examination of a Pennsylvania storage unit. Tests were being performed on some of the devices recovered at the scene.

Balat’s lawyer, meanwhile, portrayed him as a confused teenager who didn’t know what he was doing.

Prosecutors, police and FBI officials say Balat and Kayumi, who lived in Philadelphia’s suburbs, drove to New York City on Saturday and joined a throng of counter protesters at a small, anti-Muslim rally organized by the far-right Christian nationalist Jake Lang.

Georgia voters choosing a successor to Marjorie Taylor Greene in US House

ATLANTA (AP) — Months after Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from Congress after a falling out with President Donald Trump, voters in her Georgia district will vote for her successor in a special election Tuesday.

With top candidates including Republicans Clay Fuller and Colton Moore and Democrat Shawn Harris, this round of voting could be only the first step in an elections marathon in northwest Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.

Fuller, a district attorney endorsed by Trump, is hoping to avoid an April 7 runoff, which would be necessary if no candidate wins a majority of votes in the district that stretches across 10 counties from suburban Atlanta to the Tennessee state line.

“We need to win this thing on March 10 and send an America First warrior to fight for President Trump,” Fuller told a crowd in Rome, Georgia, on Feb. 19 before a speech by Trump.

But with 12 Republicans, three Democrats, a Libertarian and an independent running in the all-party special election, that may be difficult, even after five Republicans withdrew

New Mexico prosecutors launch search of Jeffrey Epstein's secluded former Zorro Ranch

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — State investigators began searching a secluded ranch in New Mexico on Monday where financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein once entertained guests amid allegations that the property may have been used for sexual abuse and sex trafficking of young women.

The office of state Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced that the search was being done with the cooperation of the current ranch owners.

Torrez last month reopened an investigation of the ranch. New Mexico’s initial case was closed in 2019 at the request of federal prosecutors in New York, and state prosecutors say now that “revelations outlined in the previously sealed FBI files warrant further examination.”

Epstein purchased the sprawling Zorro Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Santa Fe, in 1993 from former Democratic Gov. Bruce King and built a hilltop mansion with a private runway.

The property was sold by Epstein’s estate in 2023 — with proceeds going toward creditors — to the family of Don Huffines, a candidate in Texas for state comptroller who won the Republican primary last week.

15 years after Fukushima meltdown, an innkeeper makes radiation surveys to revitalize her hometown

ODAKA, Japan (AP) — Fifteen years after the 2011 nuclear disaster, color-coded radiation maps hang on the wall of Futabaya Ryokan, the family-run inn Tomoko Kobayashi operates in her near-deserted hometown in northeastern Fukushima.

Kobayashi conducted her own radiation surveys before reopening the inn in 2016. Now, she and other monitors share radiation data as part of efforts to rebuild this once-bustling textile town.

“These empty lots used to be filled with shops,” Kobayashi says of the pre-disaster town as she heads to a radiation monitoring lab, walking past a kindergarten she attended as a child. It's now used as a museum because there are too few children since the nuclear crisis.

“There used to be businesses, community activity and children playing," she says. "We used to live our ordinary daily lives here, and I hope to see that again.”

Only about one-third of Odaka’s pre-disaster population of 13,000 have returned over the past decade.