U.S. President Barack Obama has stressed the importance of better intelligence cooperation between Washington and Tel Aviv to stop Hizbullah from obtaining more missiles with which to target Israel.

“As much intelligence cooperation and sharing as we’re already doing, we need to do better if we want to stop Hizbullah from continuing to get missiles that can be trained on Tel Aviv,” Obama told The Forward, a newspaper published in New York for a Jewish-American audience, in an interview.

U.S. President Barack Obama vowed Monday to push for police officer safety after a Texas sheriff's deputy was gunned down from behind and shot multiple times at close range.

Darren Goforth, 47, was killed late Friday in the Houston area, and local officials have blamed ramped-up rhetoric against police officers in the United States in protests against perceived police brutality.

President Barack Obama held out the people of New Orleans on Thursday as an extraordinary example of renewal and resilience 10 years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, while visiting residents on tidy porch stoops and sampling the fried chicken at a corner restaurant,

"There's something in you guys that is just irrepressible," Obama told hundreds of residents assembled at a bustling new community center in an area of the Lower 9th Ward that was once under 17 feet (5.2 meters) of water. "The people of New Orleans didn't just inspire me, you inspired all of America."

U.S. President Barack Obama will tout New Orleans' inspirational if incomplete resurgence Thursday, 10 years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the "Big Easy" and shattered Americans' confidence in government.

Obama will travel to Louisiana to mark the rebirth of a city eulogized by Tennessee Williams as the "last frontier of Bohemia," but which in August 2005 became a Hobbesian dystopia of death and looting.

Saudi King Salman will visit the United States next month for the first time since acceding the throne and following a rift over America's rapprochement with Iran, a diplomat said Wednesday.

The monarch, who pulled out of a Gulf leaders' summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in May at the last minute, would travel to Washington on September 4, the Saudi diplomat said.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday apologized to Tokyo after WikiLeaks claimed Washington had spied on Japanese politicians, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

Obama held a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Wednesday morning, spokesman Yoshihide Suga said, adding that the pair agreed to work together on global economic issues in the wake of a stock market meltdown sparked by fears over China.

Syrian President Bashar Assad described on Tuesday as "legitimate" the presence of fighters from Hizbullah in Syria to back his forces against anti-regime gunmen.

"The difference (between Hizbullah and foreign anti-regime fighters) is legitimacy. Who invited Hizbullah to Syria?" Assad asked. 

Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Japan and daughter of late president John F. Kennedy, was criticized on Tuesday for using private email for official business.

The latest revelations about a high ranking diplomat were given greater resonance in the light of the scandal hanging over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

President Barack Obama declared an emergency Friday for wildfire-ravaged Washington state, as Australia and New Zealand sent firefighters to help U.S. crews struggling to contain deadly blazes across America's drought-stricken West.

Obama's declaration releases federal funds to help in relief efforts in the northwestern state, where several fires are burning out of control and three firefighters have been killed.

The United States will respond firmly if Iran fails to honor the accord aimed at curbing its nuclear program, President Barack Obama said Friday, as he works to win over undecided U.S. lawmakers.

"We have a wide array of unilateral and multilateral responses that we can employ if Iran fails to meets its commitments," Obama said in a letter dated August 19 and sent to Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat in the House of Representatives who announced that he will vote to approve the accord.