Pope Francis challenged Europe to retake its role as a peacemaker and bridgebuilder as he arrived Wednesday in Portugal to open World Youth Day, hoping to inspire the next generation of Catholics to work together to combat conflicts, climate change and other problems facing the world.

Francis was spending five days in Lisbon, blending a state visit and pilgrimage to the Catholic shrine at Fatima with the raucous trappings of World Youth Day, the Catholic jamboree that aims to rally young Catholics in their faith. More than 1 million young people from around the world were expected to attend the gathering, which culminates with a papal Mass on Sunday.

Human-caused global warming made July hotter for four out of five people on Earth, with more than 2 billion people feeling climate change-boosted warmth daily, according to a flash study.

More than 6.5 billion people, or 81% of the world's population, sweated through at least one day where climate change had a significant effect on the average daily temperature, according to a new report issued Wednesday by Climate Central, a science nonprofit that has figured a way to calculate how much climate change has affected daily weather.

Not everyone is hostile to the coups in Niger and other African nations in the past few years that have worried the West. In the "family photo" for last week's Russia-Africa Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin stood next to Ibrahim Traore, the young military officer who seized power in Burkina Faso in September.

It was an uncomfortable moment for many leaders elsewhere in Africa. "The normalization and dignifying of military takeovers must trouble our great continent," Kenya's principal secretary for foreign affairs wrote while sharing the photo this week.

The glittering towers of the Moscow City business district dominate the skyline of the Russian capital. The sleek glass-and-steel buildings -- designed to attract investment amid an economic boom in the early 2000s – are a dramatic, modern contrast to the rest of the more than 800-year-old city.

Now they are a sign of its vulnerability, following a series of drone attacks that rattled some Muscovites and brought the war in Ukraine home to the seat of Russian power.

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched a surprise military drill Wednesday on disputed islands in the Persian Gulf, just as the U.S. military increase its presence in the region over recent ship seizures by Tehran.

The drill focused primarily on Abu Musa Island, though the Guard also landed forces on the Greater Tunb Island as well, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported. Ships, drones and missile units took part in the drill, the report said.

Israel is holding over 1,200 detainees — nearly all of them Palestinians — without charge or trial, the highest number in over three decades, an Israeli human rights group said.

The detainees, 99% of whom are Palestinians, are held under Israel's policy of "administrative detention," without trial and under allegations that Israeli authorities keep secret.

Russian troops hit port infrastructure in Ukraine's Odesa region with Shahed drones overnight, the Ukrainian military reported, damaging a grain elevator and causing a fire at facilities that transport the country's crucial grain exports.

Since leaving a deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain to world markets through the city of Odesa, Russia has hammered the country's ports with strikes. Since July 17, Russian forces have fired dozens of drones and missiles at the port of Odesa and the region's river ports, which are being used as alternative routes.

Foreign nationals lined up outside an airport in Niger's capital Wednesday morning waiting for a third evacuation flight, while a regional bloc continued talks about its response to the coup that took place last week.

French forces in the capital, Niamey, evacuated hundreds of mostly French nationals to Paris on two flights Tuesday, following concerns that their citizens and other Europeans risked becoming trapped by last week's military coup, which ousted and detained President Mohamed Bazoum.

Russia pulled out of a deal brokered by the U.N. and Turkey to allow Ukraine's grain to flow during a global food crisis. It helped stabilize food prices that soared last year after Russia invaded Ukraine — two countries that are major suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to developing nations.

Lebanon, Egypt -- the world's largest wheat importer, and other lower-income Middle Eastern countries like Pakistan worry about what comes next.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday described the deadly clashes at the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp as “painful.”