The U.S. House of Representatives vote late Monday to prohibit the use of funds for American military operations in Libya.

Lawmakers adopted the amendment to a military appropriations bill by a vote of 248 to 163.

U.S. sources have informed caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri about a plan to assassinate him in Beirut, “which was supposed to be carried out in May,” Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai reported.

In a report published Monday, the newspaper said the U.S. warnings to Hariri “coincided with similar warnings from the Saudi and French authorities.”

The White House significantly toughened its stance on Syria on Friday, calling for an "immediate end to brutality and violence" and warning President Bashar Assad was leading his nation on a "dangerous path."

White House spokesman Jay Carney issued a statement after Syrian forces killed at least 25 people in nationwide democracy protests and as security forces launched a long-feared crackdown on the northwestern flashpoint town of Jisr al-Shughur.

The March 8 leadership has expressed fear that the U.S. would impose sanctions on Lebanese officials if the new cabinet did not abide by U.S. conditions, al-Liwaa daily reported Tuesday.

The newspaper quoted informed sources as saying that the U.S. continues to veto an attempt to put the justice ministry within the share of Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun in the government.

The United States is not looking to "hold China down" but is worried about its new weaponry and wants a stronger dialogue with its expanding military, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

Gates, speaking to reporters on his plane en route to a security forum in Singapore, said he was encouraged by recent signs of progress in security ties with China even amid the rapid military buildup.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday said the U.S. military will preserve its presence in the Pacific despite possible Pentagon budget cuts.

Gates, speaking during a stop in Hawaii, said he planned to tell a security conference in Singapore this week that budget pressures would not alter Washington's role in Asia.

The United States will ask the U.N. atomic watchdog to report Syria to the U.N. Security Council over its alleged illicit nuclear activity, according to a draft resolution obtained by Agence France Presse on Monday.

At a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors next week, Washington will urge member states to report Syria to the Security Council, despite an apparent pledge by Damascus to break a three-and-a-half-year silence over its alleged nuclear ambitions.

An American citizen detained in North Korea since November on unspecified charges was Saturday on a plane heading back to the United States with a U.S. delegation, Chinese state media reported.

Official Chinese news agency Xinhua said that a team from the U.S. State Department had flown out of communist North Korea with the detained man.

HSBC, Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale are among a number of banks holding $53 billion (37 billion euros) of Libyan state assets, documents leaked to an NGO revealed on Thursday.

Global Witness said that on June 30, 2010, HSBC held $292.69 million across 10 accounts and Goldman Sachs had $43 million in three accounts, in various currencies.

Online retail giant Amazon said Thursday that sales of digital books for the Kindle electronic reader have surpassed sales of print books.

"Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books," Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said in a statement.