U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to London on Thursday to host with his British counterpart a meeting of members of the coalition against the Islamic State group.

Kerry's spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the one-day talks with foreign ministers from about 20 countries, including Arab states, would focus on "our shared efforts to degrade and defeat ISIL," an acronym by which the group is known.

Barack Obama speaks to the nation Tuesday in a State of the Union address that comes as Washington undergoes a political sea-change and the U.S. president readies to lock horns with ascendant Republicans.

The annual speech, the most important in the U.S. political calendar, comes two years to the day of his scheduled departure from the White House in 2017, and the American president does not have an easy road ahead of him.

A total of 63 percent of Americans approve of recent moves by the United States and Cuba to restore diplomatic ties and two-thirds favor lifting the economic embargo altogether, a survey released Friday said.

Despite those assessments, only 32 percent of Americans think that the warming of ties between the Cold War-era foes will lead to more democracy in Cuba, the Americas' only communist state, according to the Pew Research Center report.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday urged Congress not to impose new sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, threatening to veto any such legislation that lands on his desk.

"Congress needs to show patience," Obama told a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, adding that new sanctions would "jeopardize the possibility of... providing a diplomatic solution to one of the most difficult and long-lasting national security problems that we've faced in a very long time."

The United States and Britain agree to maintain tough sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine, President Barack Obama said Friday.

"We agree on the need to maintain strong sanctions against Russia until it ends its aggression in Ukraine and on the need to support Ukraine as it implements important economic and democratic reforms," Obama said during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron kicked off two days of talks Thursday at the White House, with the British leader promising progress on the "new threat" of cyber security. 

Cameron referenced the recent cyberattack allegedly launched by North Korea against Sony Pictures in a video posted just before the talks.

The U.S. House on Wednesday defied President Barack Obama by adopting Republican measures blocking his controversial immigration reform efforts, but the bill is unlikely to survive in its current form.

Lawmakers voted 236 to 191 to fund the Department of Homeland Security through September 30, the end of fiscal year 2015.

White House advisor John Podesta will take on a senior role in Hillary Clinton's likely presidential campaign, U.S. media reported Tuesday, in one of the clearest signs she is running in 2016.

Podesta, who is close to the Clinton family and has appeared at events with her, is leaving the White House in February, a White House official confirmed while declining to discuss Podesta's future plans.

A Republican congressman from Texas offered a swift apology Monday after he essentially compared U.S. President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler in a tweet about last week's deadly attacks in France.

"Even Adolph (sic) Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris," Randy Weber posted on Twitter, after the U.S. leader failed to join the more than a million people who marched through the French capital in an unprecedented show of defiance against Islamist extremism.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that America was committed to a "comprehensive" nuclear deal with Iran, and said that Palestinian ICC membership was not "constructive," officials said.

"The United States is focused on reaching a comprehensive deal with Iran that prevents Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and verifiably assures the international community of the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program," the White House said in a statement.