What a difference a year makes.

North and South Korea sat down to talk Tuesday after a year of mounting tensions, with North Korea testing ever-more capable missiles and conducting its largest nuclear detonation ever, and the U.S. and its allies responding with sanctions and harsh rhetoric.

Pope Francis urged concerted international efforts Monday to rebuild trust on the Korean peninsula and in Syria, using his annual foreign policy address to demand that political leaders put the dignity of their people before war, profit or power.

In a wide-ranging speech to ambassadors from some 185 nations, Francis reaffirmed the need to respect the status quo of Jerusalem and refrain from any initiative that exacerbates hostilities.

Jordan's intelligence service has foiled a "massive" scheme of simultaneous attacks on military installations, shopping centers and other targets by a cell linked to Islamic State extremists, the state news agency said on Monday.

The Petra agency said the cell planned to carry out the attacks last November, seeking to harm national security and create chaos. It says security forces arrested 17 people and seized weapons and other materials.

Iran's foreign minister has warned neighboring countries over fomenting insecurity in his country, a reference to anti-government protests that have roiled Iran over the past two weeks.

Mohammad Javad Zarif addressed a security conference in Tehran on Monday, echoing the Iranian authorities' stance which alleges that foreign countries have stirred up unrest linked to the protests.

Trump administration officials and allies are rallying to the president's defense, trying to contain the fallout from an explosive new book that questions Trump's fitness for office.

Chief policy adviser Stephen Miller, in a combative appearance Sunday on CNN, described the book as "nothing but a pile of trash through and through."

Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio used the eighth annual benefit for the J/P Haitian Relief Organization to publicly praise each other's philanthropic work.

DiCaprio was the guest of honor at the $15,000-a-plate dinner Saturday night at Milk Studios, which raised more than $3.5 million for Penn's Haitian Relief Organization and its nonprofit partners.

Plainly agitated by a new book portraying him as dysfunctional, President Donald Trump is bemoaning his country's "very weak" libel laws and making the case that he's "like, really smart" and, indeed, a "very stable genius."

Trump defense of his mental fitness in a series of tweets was a singular episode in a presidency rife with moments unlike any that have come before in that office.

Syrian government forces and allied militiamen are advancing on the largest remaining rebel-held territory in the country's north, forcing thousands of civilians to flee toward the border with Turkey in freezing winter temperatures.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said overnight that U.S. President Donald Trump's "hopes" that the protests in Iran will snowball and lead to regime change or chaos will be dashed along with the hopes of "the Israelis and Saudis."

In his first comments since protests in Iran broke out, Nasrallah said protesters with legitimate grievances have been exploited by political factions who attached political slogans to their protests.

As Iranians take to the streets in the biggest demonstrations in nearly a decade, residents of the increasingly tense capital say they sympathize with the protesters' economic grievances and anger at official corruption.

The Associated Press spoke to Iranians in Tehran on Tuesday, the sixth day of protests that have seen at least 21 people killed and hundreds arrested across the country. The protests, which have erupted in several cities, are the largest since those that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election.