A U.S. Navy installation in Washington was given the all-clear Thursday after locking down for several hours over unconfirmed reports that an active gunman was on the loose, authorities said.

The Navy said on Twitter that there was "no sign of shooting" and that all personnel were fine. 

The United States and Cuba have reached a deal to reopen embassies in Washington and Havana, in a major step toward ending decades of Cold War enmity.

President Barack Obama is expected to issue a statement at 11:00 am (1500 GMT) Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden about the deal, which constitutes one of the major foreign policy achievements of his presidency.

A top U.S. official is expected to visit Beirut to discuss with top Lebanese officials the demarcation of the maritime border with Israel, an issue which was thoroughly discussed by Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Speaker Nabih Berri over the weekend.

Amos Hochstein, who serves as the Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs leading the Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR) at the U.S. Department of State, will travel to Beirut this week.

French President Francois Hollande's envoy is expected to visit Beirut in the coming weeks in an effort to revive France's efforts to resolve the Lebanese presidential deadlock.

An Nahar daily on Thursday quoted ministerial sources as saying that the Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the French Foreign Ministry, Jean-François Girault, will visit Beirut at the end of the month or in early July.

President Barack Obama urged Beijing to take "concrete steps" to ease tensions over cyber hacking and its wide-ranging maritime claims, as the United States and China ended three days of candid talks.

American officials have voiced deep concerns about both issues at the annual strategic and economic dialogue aimed at setting guidelines to steer future ties between the world's two leading economies.

The Pentagon said Tuesday that there are some Shiite fighters at an Iraqi military base where Washington just sent 450 reinforcements, but they were not working with U.S. forces, underscoring concerns over links with the sectarian fighters.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said that while there is a "small group" of Shiite fighters at the Taqaddum base, there numbered only in the lower double digits, did not form full units and did not interact with U.S. forces. 

Japan's premier Shinzo Abe was heckled Tuesday at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest episode in the Pacific War, as anger flared over the U.S. military's continuing presence.

In a highly charged ceremony on Okinawa, Abe was shouted at by locals angry at the size of the United States' presence on the subtropical islands.

The U.S. is struggling to implement its training program for moderate Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State group, according to figures released Thursday by the Pentagon.

Only "100 to 200" fighters have actively begun training at U.S. sites in Jordan and Turkey, according to Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren, of the 5,000 forces the military says it wants to train over the year.

U.S. Ambassador David Hale has said that jihadists are seeking to saw the seeds of hate in Lebanon but that the Lebanese are capable of defeating them if they stay committed to state institutions.

“Extremist groups from across the border seek to sow seeds of hate, divide the Lebanese people, and destroy our shared values of mutual respect and understanding,” said Hale on Monday at a ceremony held in BIEL on the occasion of U.S. Independence Day.

A French court on Friday acquitted former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of pimping charges, drawing a line under the latest in a series of legal woes over his sexual escapades.

The 66-year-old economist merely nodded his head in acknowledgment of the verdict, the finale of a colorful trial which dragged intimate details of his sex life into the public eye.