President Joe Biden's special envoy for North Korea said Friday the United States is "preparing for all contingencies" in close coordination with its South Korean and Japanese allies as it monitors North Korean arrangements for a possible nuclear test explosion that outside officials say could be imminent.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials have said they detected North Korean efforts to prepare its northeastern testing ground for another nuclear test, which would be its seventh since 2006 and the first since September 2017, when it claimed to have detonated a thermonuclear bomb to fit on its intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Thousands of people have attended the annual Jerusalem Pride Parade amid heavy protection by Israeli police, who arrested three people suspected of threatening the event.

Past years have seen religious radicals attack participants. Jerusalem is home to a large ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and other conservative religious groups, and many residents oppose the event.

Israeli police arrested dozens of Palestinians but no Jews during a nationalist march through Jerusalem this week in which crowds of Jews chanted racist slogans, assaulted Palestinians and vandalized Palestinian property, an Israeli newspaper reported.

Israeli police had said after Sunday's march that over 60 people were arrested, but have refused to give a breakdown, despite queries by The Associated Press. The Haaretz daily reported Thursday that it checked arrest records name by name, and found that no Jews were among those detained. It said two Jews were arrested in a separate, related incident.

Iran said on Friday it has launched an investigation into the death of a member of its Revolutionary Guards and denied reports that he had been assassinated.

"A member of the Revolutionary Guards died in recent days in an accident in his home," the official news agency IRNA said, citing what it called an informed source. 

In northern Syria, residents are bracing for a new fight. With the world's attention focused on the war in Ukraine, Turkey's leader says he's planning a major military operation to push back Syrian Kurdish fighters and create a long sought-after buffer zone in the border area.

Tensions are high. Hardly a day passes by without an exchange of fire and shelling between the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters, and Turkish forces and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition gunmen.

U.S. wildlife officials have agreed to revise the critical habitat designation for Florida manatees, which have been dying in record numbers because water pollution is killing a main food source.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a court settlement made public Wednesday that it will publish a proposed revision by Sept. 12, 2024. The agreement comes in a long-running court case involving the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the Save the Manatee Club.

Scientists have discovered the world's largest plant off the Australia coast — a seagrass meadow that has grown by repeatedly cloning itself.

Genetic analysis has revealed that the underwater fields of waving green seagrass are a single organism covering 70 square miles (180 square kilometers) through making copies of itself over 4,500 years.

A quick-thinking custodian safely confined a curious cougar in an empty classroom after it entered a Northern California high school Wednesday morning, authorities said.

The custodian was opening Pescadero High for the school day when the juvenile mountain lion was spotted, said Detective Javier Acosta with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office. No students or teachers were on campus at the time, Acosta said.

A jury's finding that both Johnny Depp and his ex-wife, Amber Heard, were defamed in a long-running public dispute capped a lurid six-week trial that also raised questions about whether the two actors can overcome tarnished reputations.

The verdict handed down Wednesday in Virginia found that Depp had been defamed by three statements in an op-ed written by Heard in which she said she was an abuse victim. The jury awarded him more than $10 million. But jurors also concluded that Heard was defamed by a lawyer for Depp who accused her of creating a detailed hoax surrounding the abuse allegations. She was awarded $2 million.

Energized at Wembley by Lionel Messi's assists, Argentina's players threw their superstar teammate in the air after he inspired them to a second title in a year.

National team success is finally coming for the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner, late in his trophy-filled club career.