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

It identified the vessels as the MSC Francesca and the Epaminodes. The ship’s owners could not be immediately reached for comment.

The seizures represent an escalation after the U.S. earlier seized two Iranian vessels as ceasefire talks were due to take place in Islamabad.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two ships came under fire in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, underscoring the ongoing threat to global energy supplies and complicating efforts to bring the United States and Iran together for talks to end the war.

The Iran war could make petroleum products from clothes to crayons more costly

NEW YORK (AP) — It might be hard to imagine the Iran war weighing on stuffed toys with names like Snuggle Glove, Bizzikins and Wobblies, but even plush playthings are not immune when oil shipments from the Middle East are constrained.

Like many soft toys, the creatures developed by a manufacturer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum. Three weeks after the war started, suppliers in China notified Aleni Brands that getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more, CEO Ricardo Venegas said.

“I think this situation demonstrates how much oil permeates throughout our system, and we can’t get away from it,” said Venegas, who founded Aleni Brands last year and is in the process of adding product lines. “Who would have thought that the price of a toy would have a direct relationship with oil?”

It's not just toys. Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas go into making more than 6,000 consumer products, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Computer keyboards, lipstick, tennis rackets, pajamas, soft contact lenses, detergent, chewing gum, shoes, crayons, shaving cream, pillows, aspirin, dentures, tape, umbrellas and nylon guitar strings are just a few of them.

So far, the war's most tangible and immediate effect for many people outside the conflict zone has been spiking gasoline prices. Travelers also are seeing higher airfares and flight fees as airlines respond to the rising cost of jet fuel. Consumers may find themselves paying more for food, furniture or any of the myriad of goods transported by trucks that run on diesel.

Pope visiting Equatorial Guinea prison in spotlight after US migrant deportations

MONGOMO, Equatorial Guinea (AP) — Pope Leo XIV is visiting one of Equatorial Guinea’s notorious prisons on Wednesday, drawing attention to human rights abuses denounced by campaigners, particularly after the U.S. began deporting third-country migrants to the Central African country.

Leo’s visit to the prison in the port city of Bata continues the tradition of Pope Francis, who made such visits a priority of his pontificate. Francis’ aim was to give prisoners hope and to remind them the church was with them, while also shining a spotlight on judicial abuses, overcrowding and other injustices.

The visit marks the final full day of a marathon 11-day, four-nation tour that took the pope from Algeria in the north to Angola in the south, via Cameroon.

Leo opened his day with a Mass in Mongomo, an eastern city on the border with Gabon that has experienced major development since Equatorial Guinea's oil boom in the 1990s. President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo comes from Mongomo and the city, with opulent buildings and curated gardens behind gild-tipped gates, has benefited from government investment and infrastructure even though no official institutions are located here.

Thousands of cheering people poured into the grand entryway to Mongomo's Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, a monumental church consecrated in 2011 and modeled on St. Peter's Basilica, to welcome Leo as he arrived in his covered popemobile.

Global benchmarks are mixed in cautious trading amid uncertainty about US-Iran ceasefire talks

TOKYO (AP) — Global shares were mixed in cautious trading Wednesday, as investors watched for next steps in the U.S.-Iran conflict after President Donald Trump extended a ceasefire that was set to expire.

France's CAC 40 slipped 0.2% in early trading to 8,221.18, while the German DAX inched down less than 0.1% to 24,256.40. Britain's FTSE 100 was virtually unchanged at 10,497.60. U.S. futures were set to drift higher with Dow futures up 0.4% at 49,509.00. S&P 500 futures rose 0.4% to 7,131.00.

Inflation in the U.K. climbed in March after a sharp jump in prices at the pump in the wake of the disruption to energy supplies caused by the Iran war, official figures showed Wednesday.

In Asian trading, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.4% to finish at 59,585.86.

The government reported a trade deficit of 1.7 trillion yen ($10.7 billion) in the fiscal year that ended in March, the fifth straight fiscal year of deficits. However, exports jumped nearly 11.7% in March and imports rose almost 10.9% in a sign that manufacturers may be bouncing back from the shocks of higher tariffs Trump imposed after returning to office last year.

Iranians have long sought work and relative stability in Turkey. The war could force some to return

ISTANBUL (AP) — Sadri Haghshenas spends her days selling borek — a layered, savory pastry — at a shop in Istanbul, but her mind is on her daughter in Tehran.

The family had to send her home to Iran after they ran into difficulties renewing her visa, despite fears that a shaky ceasefire could soon collapse.

For years, short-term residency permits have allowed tens of thousands of Iranians to pursue economic opportunities and enjoy relative stability in neighboring Turkey. But it's a precarious situation, and the war has raised the stakes.

“I swear, I cry every day,” Haghshenas said, raising her hands from behind the counter of the pastry shop. “There is no life in my country, there is no life here, what shall I do?”

Haghshenas and her husband moved to Turkey five years ago with their then-teenage daughters and have been living on tourist visas renewable every six months to two years.

The AP Interview: Cyprus president says EU needs a clear playbook on helping members under attack

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — European Union leaders meeting in Cyprus need to start preparing a playbook on what should happen if an EU country under attack puts out a call for help from bloc partners, the president of Cyprus said.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, President Nikos Christodoulides said EU leaders will discuss “giving substance” to Article 42.7 of the bloc’s treaties, which oblige all 27 member states to assist each other in times of crisis.

The article states that if a nation is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, its partners should provide “aid and assistance by all the means in their power.” It has never been used before so there’s no hard and fast rules on how EU members should respond to any call for assistance.

“We have Article 42.7 and we don’t know what is going to happen if a member state triggers this article,” Christodoulides said ahead of an EU-Mideast summit he is also hosting later this week, expected to focus on the Iran war and its fallout. “So we’re going to have a discussion and prepare, let’s say, an operational plan of what is going to happen in case a member state triggers this article, and there are a number of issues.”

The issue resonates particularly with Christodoulides, who appealed for help from fellow EU countries last month when a Shahed drone struck a British air base on the island’s southern coastline. Cypriot officials said the drone was launched from Lebanon whose capital is just 207 kilometers (129 miles) away from Cyprus’ southern coast. Greece, France, Spain, The Netherlands and Portugal dispatched ships with anti-drone capabilities to help defend the island.

PHOTO ESSAY: AP photographer chronicles Chernobyl’s painful legacy of silence, sacrifice and danger

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Efrem Lukatsky, a Kyiv-based photographer for The Associated Press, was living in the city on April 26, 1986, when the explosion and fire struck the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, about a two-hour drive away. He has visited the plant and the “exclusion zone” around it dozens of times. He recalls the disaster that has haunted him and Ukraine for 40 years.

It began with whispers at work.

There was no official announcement about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when it happened in 1986 — only fragments of information passed quietly among colleagues.

I was in my late 20s at the time and was a specialized underwater welder for a Kyiv institute that sent me to offshore platforms and classified military bases across the Soviet Union.

Southern Poverty Law Center charged with defrauding donors with payments to extremist informants

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with more than $3 million paid to informants through a now-defunct program to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups. Prosecutors allege some of the money was used by extremists to carry out other crimes, but court papers did not include specific examples.

“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Blanche said.

The civil rights group faces charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the case brought in the federal court in Alabama, where the organization is based.

The indictment came shortly after the SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its disbanded informant program to gather intelligence on extremist group activities. The group said the program was used to monitor threats of violence and the information was often shared with local and federal law enforcement.

Warsh says he got no pressure from Trump to cut rates even as president publicly pushes for them

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Reserve said Tuesday that he never promised the White House that he would cut interest rates, even as the president renewed his calls for the central bank to do so.

“The president never once asked me to commit to any particular interest rate decision, period,” Kevin Warsh, a former top Fed official, said under questioning by the Senate Banking Committee. “Nor would I ever agree to do so if he had. ... I will be an independent actor if confirmed as chair of the Federal Reserve.”

Warsh’s comments came just hours after Trump, in an interview on CNBC, was asked if he would be disappointed if Warsh didn’t immediately cut rates and responded, “I would.”

The comments underscore the challenge faced by Warsh, 56, a financier and former member of the Fed's board of governors whom Trump named in January to replace the current Fed chair, Jerome Powell. Democrats on the committee accused Warsh of flip-flopping on interest rates over the years, supporting higher interest rates under Democratic presidents and advocating rate cuts during Trump's time in office. Investors are watching the hearing closely to see how Warsh balances Trump’s demands with worsening inflation, as the war in Iran pushes up the price of gasoline.

Higher inflation typically leads the Fed to raise rates, or at least keep them unchanged, rather than cut them. When the Fed changes its key rate, it can affect mortgages, auto loans, and business borrowing.

Democrat Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida resigns before the House can sanction her in ethics case

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida resigned from office on Tuesday moments before the start of a hearing that could have led to a recommendation that she be expelled from Congress.

Cherfilus-McCormick was the subject of a more than two-year investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which had determined recently that she had violated multiple federal laws and House rules. Support from her own party was increasingly in doubt.

It's the third resignation in a little more than a week from a House lawmaker. Reps. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, and Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, announced within hours of each other that they were leaving Congress. Both men were facing sexual misconduct allegations and possible expulsion.

In a statement, Cherfilus-McCormick said the House committee denied her new attorney's request for more time to prepare a defense. She also said she would not pretend that the investigation had been anything other than a “witch hunt,” and rather than play political games, she would resign, effective immediately.

“But let me say this plainly: we should be very careful about the precedent we are setting in this country, we do not punish people before due process is complete," she said. "We do not allow allegations alone to override the will of the people. That is a dangerous path, and one that should concern every American, regardless of party.”