NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks ended another volatile day lower on Wall Street Thursday, bringing the market closer to its first bear market since the beginning of the pandemic.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden and Finland have pushed ahead with their bids to join NATO even as Turkey insists it won’t let the previously nonaligned Nordic countries into the alliance because of their alleged support for Kurdish militants.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Abortion providers in Oklahoma say they will no longer provide the service in the state after the governor signs the latest pro-life measure heading to his desk.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (BP) – The California Southern Baptist Convention (CSBC) is asking fellow Southern Baptists to join them in Anaheim and consider taking the next step. In a video called “Consider California,” released by the CSBC, church leaders take viewers on a tour of the Golden State and highlight the need for Gospel impact.

RIO PIEDRAS, Puerto Rico (BP) – Students at Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR) have not only a space to study, but also a safe place to ask spiritual questions, thanks to a Send Network church plant.

NASHVILLE (BP) – Churches are taking another look at their security plans after a weekend when 10 died in a shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store and another the next day at a California church.

EASTANOLLEE, Ga. – Eight more students made professions of faith during the past week in the Tugalo Baptist Association where churches have opened off-campus Christian learning centers near schools to teach Bible classes. That brought the total number of salvation decisions to 38 since August at the learning centers in Stevens and Banks counties, said Associational Missions Strategist Mike Blount.

McDonald’s is selling all of its restaurants in Russia 30 years after the burger chain became a powerful symbol of easing Cold War tensions between the United States and Soviet Union. It shuttered all Russian locations in March because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

NEW YORK (AP) — Investors on Wall Street need a place to hide. The stock market’s skid this year has pulled the S&P 500 close to what’s known as a bear market. Rising interest rates, high inflation, the war in Ukraine and a slowdown in China’s economy have caused investors to reconsider the prices they’re willing to pay for a wide range of stocks, from high-flying tech companies to traditional automakers.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that details of some of the conversations between the nation’s four largest railroads about their rates can now be included in lawsuits challenging billions of dollars they charged their customers. But the mixed ruling will also exclude some documents.

TOKYO (AP) — The money was supposed to be COVID-19 assistance for low-income households in a small Japanese town, but police say it was mistakenly wired to a bank account of a resident who refused to return it and spent most of it on online gambling.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Alabama coach Nick Saban called out Texas A&M, saying the school was “buying” players with name, image and likeness deals. The Aggies signed the top recruiting class in the country earlier this year.

PRAGUE (AP) — Prague’s zoo has introduced to the public a pair of critically endangered Chinese pangolins. It is only the second animal park on the European continent to have them. The arrival of the rare acquisition from Taiwan is the result of a political fallout with China.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — On May 5, five U.S. federal agents boarded the massive Russian-owned superyacht Amadea that was berthed in Lautoka harbor in Fiji. The ship’s captain wrote in a frantic WhatsApp message to lawyer Feizal Haniff, who represents the company that legally owns the yacht that “They want to take 20 crew and sail east!”

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia says hundreds more fighters have emerged from the Mariupol stronghold and surrendered. The Red Cross is working to register the fighters as prisoners of war, as the end of a key battle in the conflict draws closer.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian soldier facing the first war crimes trial since the start of the war in Ukraine has testified that he shot a civilian on orders from two officers. On Thursday, he pleaded for his victim's widow to forgive him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans applied for jobless aid last week, but the total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits is at a 53-year low. Applications for unemployment benefits rose by 21,000 to 218,000 for the week ending May 14, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Russia says it will be up to the residents of the areas in Ukraine controlled by Russian troops to determine their future status. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that people living in such places must “determine how and with whom they want to live.”

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The white man accused of killing 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket appeared briefly in court Thursday after a grand jury indicted him on a first-degree murder charge. Assistant district attorney Gary Hackbush said the indictment of Payton Gendron, 18, was handed up Wednesday.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean propaganda describes an all-out effort to fight a suspected COVID-19 outbreak that has sickened nearly 2 million people. But defectors say fear is palpable among North Korean citizens who lack access to hospital care and struggle to afford even basic medicine.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street was headed for more losses at the open following the previous day’s rout as investors remained anxious over the impact of persistent high inflation on corporate profits and consumer spending.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Officials in California's Orange County are still trying to determine why a gunman opened fire in a Taiwanese Presbyterian church in Laguna Woods. They say 68-year-old David Chou, who has links to both Taiwan and China, was motivated by political hatred against Taiwan.

Blue is the brown horse that lives at the mouth of our hollow.  (“Holler” if you are from the mountains.) Everybody loves Blue.  It’s not unusual to see little kids walking up our narrow road with carrots in hand, taking them to their favorite horse.  Cars are often stopped by his pasture, ours included.  Drivers and walkers speak in hushed tones drawing Blue right over. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to speed production of infant formula and has authorized flights to import supply from overseas. He is facing mounting political pressure over a domestic shortage caused by the safety-related closure of the country’s largest formula manufacturing plant.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — More than 2,000 firefighters battling the largest U.S. wildfire are digging back-up fire lines and rearranging fire engines around homes in northeast New Mexico. Fire officials say they expedited efforts Wednesday to get ahead of the flames in anticipation of a return to windy, dangerous conditions in the days ahead.