MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge in Miami has ruled that the premier of the British Virgin Islands can be released on a $500,000 bond, following his arrest on drug-smuggling charges in a U.S. government sting in South Florida. In a surprise decision, federal Judge Alicia Otazo-Reyes on Wednesday rejected prosecutors’ argument that Andrew Fahie would flee the U.S. if released pending trial on cocaine charges.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma has joined Texas this week with new abortion restrictions. The new law signed Tuesday by Oklahoma's governor offers a preview of what abortion care might look like if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A procession of family, friends and colleagues gathered to honor late U.S. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, who is lying in state in Salt Lake City. Hatch died on April 23 in Salt Lake City at age 88. He was honored in the Utah Capitol rotunda on Wednesday.

HOUSTON (AP) — Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker won his 2,000th game Tuesday night, becoming the 12th skipper in major league history to reach the milestone and the first Black man to do it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The traditionally insular Supreme Court is about to face the full force of public pressure and abortion politics. The justices are deciding whether to throw out the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. A leaked draft opinion suggests the conservative justices are prepared to overturn the 1973 opinion that gives women legal access to the procedure.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Record-low mortgages below 3% are long gone. Credit card rates will likely rise. So will the cost of an auto loan. Savers may finally receive a yield high enough to top inflation. The half-point hike in its benchmark short-term rate that the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday won’t, by itself, have much immediate effect on most Americans. But additional large hikes are expected to be announced in June and July, and economists foresee the fastest pace of rate increases since 1989.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve intensified its drive to curb the worst inflation in 40 years by raising its benchmark short-term interest rate by an sizable half-percentage point. The half-point hike in the Fed’s key rate — its largest since 2000 — raised it to a range of 0.75% to 1%, the highest point since the pandemic struck two years ago.

BOSTON (AP) — The Satanic Temple is requesting to fly a flag over Boston City Hall after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the city violated the free speech rights of a conservative activist seeking to fly a Christian flag outside the downtown building. The Salem-based group tweeted a copy of an application it filed with the city Tuesday to raise a flag to mark Satanic Appreciation Week in July.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein may be headed for a historic victory in Northern Ireland, which has been led by British unionist parties since it was founded as a state a century ago. Opinion polls suggest Sinn Fein will become the largest group in the 90-seat Northern Ireland Assembly after Thursday's vote.

ATLANTA - Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law SB 116, known as “Betsy’s Law,” the maternity supportive housing legislation authored by Sen. Randy Robertson and carried by Rep. Sharon Cooper in the House.

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. – Steven Greene launched his ministry at Beulah Baptist Church in Douglasville with a flurry of excitement and enthusiasm. He began his pastorate on Easter Sunday morning with a powerful message on Luke 24: 36-49 where the third Gospel tells about the resurrected Christ making an appearance to His disciples. Both Greene and his message were heartily received by a large congregation of members and guests.

Eminem, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Eurythmics, Duran Duran and Pat Benatar have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a list that also includes Dolly Parton, who initially resisted the honor. Parton had gone on social media to “respectfully bow out” of the process, saying she did not want to take votes away from the remaining nominees and had not “earned that right.” The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation responded by saying ballots had already been sent and it was up to the voters to decide if Parton was elected.

DALLAS (BP) – Whether it’s from a video posted on social media or a microphone at the SBC Annual Meeting, you don’t have to listen to Bart Barber long before you know he cares about Southern Baptist polity. Barber, senior pastor of FBC Farmersville, Texas, is scheduled to be nominated for SBC president by Matt Henslee at the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP) – Though he’s a busy senior professor of missions at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Robin Hadaway will be somewhat of a hometown presidential candidate when the SBC Annual Meeting takes place in Anaheim this summer. Hadaway and his wife, Kathy, live in nearby Oceanside, Calif., where he pastored before they became International Mission Board missionaries.

CAPE CORAL, Fla. (BP) – For more than 30 years Tom Ascol has been known as a leader with deep theological convictions through his work at Grace Baptist Church and Founders Ministries. While Ascol, 65, has never held an office as a trustee or board member of the Southern Baptist Convention, he has been an influencer, and his name is one of the most well-known in Southern Baptist life. “You’d have to ask the people who didn’t ask me,” Ascol joked when asked why he’s never served as an entity trustee or SBC committee member. “It’s never something I aspired to. I’ve always had plenty to do.”

NEW YORK (AP) — New York's attorney general is announcing that the company behind the TurboTax tax-filing program will pay $141 million to customers across the United States who were deceived by misleading promises of free tax-filing services. Under the terms of a settlement signed by the attorneys general of all 50 states, Intuit Inc. will suspend TurboTax’s “free, free, free” ad campaign and pay restitution to nearly 4.4 million taxpayers.

WASHINGTON (BP) – The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee offers a prayer guide for 2022 National Day of Prayer May 5, to help participants focus prayers on the seven pillars of influence in America. The unique needs of the government, military, media arts, business, the educational system, the church and the family, from a biblical worldview, are succinctly stated in the guide.

LONDON (AP) — The first regular-season NFL game in Germany will be between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks at the home of soccer club Bayern Munich. The NFL says the game will take place at the Allianz Arena on Nov. 13.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis hasn’t made much of a diplomatic mark in Russia’s war in Ukraine: His appeals for a truce have gone unheeded, and his planned meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was called off. Francis has been seemingly unable to capitalize on his moral authority, soft power or direct line to Moscow to nudge an end to the bloodshed or at least a cease-fire.

Arizona Cardinals three-time All-Pro receiver DeAndre Hopkins has been suspended six games for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances. It’s a stunning blow for the Cardinals, who finished with an 11-6 record last season but faded down the stretch when Hopkins was out of the lineup because of injuries.

FLORENCE, Ala. (AP) — Authorities say an Alabama inmate had a “special relationship” with the jail official authorities believe assisted his escape. The Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office said in a Tuesday news release that inmates indicated there was a special relationship between the two, and investigators were able to confirmed that.

LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — Residents of the small northeast New Mexico town of Las Vegas have been watching aircraft disappear into a giant plume of smoke to fight a growing wildfire that has burned hundreds of square miles, destroyed about 170 homes and threatens more destruction. Officials on Tuesday predicted winds will return this weekend to whip again through the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

WASHINGTON (AP) — When a draft of the opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito in the Mississippi abortion case was leaked late Monday, the potential outcome — the overruling of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey — was not a surprise. Even before oral arguments in the current case were heard, the justices had revealed themselves.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward its eastern waters on Wednesday. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile was fired from the North’s capital region and flew to the waters off its eastern coast.

BEIJING (AP) — Beijing is closing some 10% of the stations in its vast subway system as an additional measure against the spread of the coronavirus. The subway authority in a brief message says only that the closure of 40 mostly downtown stations is being taken as part of epidemic control measures.