The leaders of nine southern European Union countries met in Malta on Friday to discuss common challenges such as migration, the EU's management of which has vexed national governments in Europe for years.

The nations represented at the one-day huddle included host Malta, France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Cyprus, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. Slovenia and Croatia, with Adriatic Sea coasts, were added to the so-called "Med Group" in 2021. While Portugal has a long Atlantic Ocean border, the European Union considers it partially in the Mediterranean region.

Chaos erupted as a gunshot rang out during a protest in northern New Mexico where officials had planned to install a statue of Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate, an event that county officials had already postponed anticipating that tempers would flare.

One man was struck by the gunfire and rushed to the hospital as Rio Arriba County sheriff's officials took the suspected shooter, 23-year-old Ryan Martinez, into custody. Authorities said they were not currently seeking any other suspects in connection with the shooting.

A powerful bomb exploded in a crowd of people celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's birthday in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 52 people and wounding nearly 70 others, authorities said. It was one of the deadliest attacks in recent years.

TV footage and videos on social media showed an open area near a mosque strewn with the shoes of the dead and wounded. Some of the bodies had been covered with bedsheets. Residents and rescuers were seen rushing the wounded to hospitals, where a state of emergency had been declared and appeals were being issued for blood donations.

The United States has quietly acknowledged that Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard successfully put an imaging satellite into orbit this week in a launch that resembled others previously criticized by Washington as helping Tehran's ballistic missile program.

The U.S. military has not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press since Iran announced the launch of the Noor-3 satellite on Wednesday, the latest successful launch by the Revolutionary Guard after Iran's civilian space program faced a series of failed launches in recent years.

Rana Hariri doesn't know when she'll be able to send her children back to school, as Lebanon's grinding economic crisis thrusts the fate of public education into uncertainty.

Lack of funding for the school system has precipitated repeated teachers' strikes and school closures, resulting in children being increasingly pulled out of the formal learning system, and in some cases being forced to work.

Lebanese singer and actress Najah Salam, who surged to fame in the mid-20th century in the Middle East for her songs promoting pan-Arabism, has died, her family said Thursday. She was 92.

Her family did not disclose the cause of her death.

Hundreds of Lebanese Armenians scuffled with riot police on Thursday outside the Azerbaijan Embassy in northern Beirut during a protest against the Azerbaijani military offensive that recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh from the enclave's separatist Armenian authorities.

Protesters waved flags of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and burned posters of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the demonstration in the Ein Aar suburb of the Lebanese capital.

Wall Street turned lower early Thursday as concerns over interest rates, rising oil prices and a possible government shutdown hung over markets.

Futures for the Dow Jones industrials inched back about 0.1% before the bell, while the S&P 500 lost 0.2%.

The Right Livelihood Award — known as the "Alternative Nobel" — was awarded Thursday to environment activists from Kenya and Cambodia, a human right defender from Ghana and a humanitarian group that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

The 2023 laureates "stand up to save lives, preserve nature and safeguard the dignity and livelihoods of communities around the world," the award foundation said, adding that they "fight for people's right to health, safety, a clean environment and democracy."

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is facing a severe drought that may affect around 500,000 people by the end of the year, authorities said.

Many are already struggling to access essential supplies such as food and water, because the principal means of transportation in the region is waterways, and river levels are historically low. Droughts also impact fishing, a means of subsistence for many riverside communities.