U.S. President Barack Obama announced Sunday that he and top lawmakers had reached an 11th-hour deal to avert a first-ever U.S. debt payment default that would have sown chaos across the world economy.

"I want to announce that the leaders of both parties in both chambers have reached an agreement that will reduce the deficit and avoid default, a default that would have had a devastating effect on our economy," he said.

China has demanded that the United States stop spy plane flights near the Chinese coast, saying they have "severely harmed" trust between the two countries, state-run media reported Wednesday.

The comments came after Taiwanese media reported two Chinese fighter jets attempted to scare off an American U2 reconnaissance plane that was collecting intelligence on China while flying along the Taiwan Strait in late June.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was on Tuesday to fly to Washington where he would meet top U.S. officials, including new U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, his office said.

"He is due to fly on Tuesday afternoon for a three-day visit to the United States during which he will meet with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta," spokesman Barak Seri told Agence France Presse.

The United States said Saturday it was "encouraged" by surprise talks between North and South Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear program, but remained cool on resuming disarmament talks.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told regional foreign ministers at an Asian security forum in Indonesia that the onus remained squarely on the North to prove its sincerity before the stalled six-party talks could resume.

U.S. official Frederic Hof is making routine visits to Beirut to follow up the dispute between Lebanon and Israel on their maritime borders, Western diplomatic sources in Beirut said Friday.

The sources told As Safir daily that Hof is visiting Lebanon along with cartographers in an expression of Washington’s interest in solving the feud over oil and natural fields and setting the stage for possible U.S. investments in the sector in the future.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said that he had been informed that a search is underway for the four suspects in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case.

In an interview with al-Hurra TV, Feltman said that the search for the four Hizbullah members against whom arrest warrants were issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was “the responsibility of the Lebanese government.”

The United States should stay out of a surge in tension in the disputed South China Sea, a Chinese government mouthpiece said Wednesday after Washington backed its ally the Philippines in the row.

"Looming over the South China Sea is the image of another big nation, the United States," said a commentary in the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's main propaganda outlet.

The Washington building known as the "temple of invention" when it was built in 1836 to hold the nation's patents is revisiting its roots, hosting a new "Great Hall of American Wonders" to explore 19th-century innovations through art.

The idea for this major exhibit that opened Friday at the Smithsonian American Art Museum was sparked in part by talk among experts that the United States is losing its edge in innovation as other countries spend more on research and export more technology and foreign companies gain more U.S. patents. Curators pulled together artworks, inventions and scientific discoveries from the 1800s in an unusual project for the museum to show how Americans came to believe they have a "special genius" for invention.

General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan and most celebrated military leader of his generation, stepped down on Monday after a checkered year at the helm of what is America's longest war.

At a ceremony in Kabul Petraeus passed the baton to John Allen, a former subordinate who made his name in Iraq by striking tribal alliances considered integral in reversing al-Qaida's momentum after years of appalling violence.

The Dalai Lama said Saturday that U.S. President Barack Obama shared "genuine concerns" about human rights in Tibet during a White House meeting held despite protests by China.

Obama is "president of the greatest democratic country, so naturally he is showing concern about basic human values, human rights, religious freedom," the Dalai Lama said after his meeting in response to a question from Agence France Presse.