U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Syrian National Council will demonstrate at international talks in Tunis on Friday that there is an alternative to President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"We believe that the Syrian National Council, which will be there sitting at the table, will show that there is an alternative to the Assad regime, one that respects the rights of all Syrians," she told reporters in London on Thursday.

The vice president is hitting the road — to what the White House wrote as "Road Island," mistakenly spelled R-O-A-D instead of R-H-O-D-E.

A release outlining Joe Biden's plans for the week showed him traveling to Providence in misspelled "Road Island" on Thursday for a campaign event. The vice president is scheduled to visit Boston and Manchester, N.H., on the same day. No misspellings there.

The United States Wednesday dismissed Syria's call for a referendum on a new constitution, which critics see as a move designed to ease global outrage over the government's bloody crackdown.

"It's actually quite laughable -- it makes a mockery of the Syrian revolution," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Protestors linked to the "Occupy" movement apparently threw a smoke bomb over the White House fence on Tuesday, capping a day of protests in Washington, the Secret Service said.

No arrests were made after demonstrators from the Occupy DC group marched on the White House, and protesters were peacefully dispersed, as officers dealt with the device, a Secret Service spokesman said.

The United States on Wednesday denied that it was to blame for the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist by a car bomb, after Tehran said Washington and Israel were responsible for the attack.

"The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this. We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this," said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

U.S. President Barack Obama promised Saturday to do "whatever it takes" to maintain growth in the U.S. economy as he announced a summit with business leaders dedicated to job creation at home.

"This year, I'm going to keep doing whatever it takes to move this economy forward and to make sure that middle class families regain the security they've lost over the past decade," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said Tuesday he would reassess his White House bid after suffering a heavy defeat in Iowa's first vote of the 2012 U.S. presidential elections.

"With the voters' decision tonight in Iowa, I have decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race," Perry told supporters.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for talks with rival political leaders on Tuesday to head off a worsening crisis since an arrest warrant was issued for the Sunni vice president, an aide said.

"Maliki is calling for a conference of heads of political blocs and political leaders to discuss their differences, and to sort out the current security and political crisis," Ali Mussawi, media adviser to the premier, told Agence France Presse.

The United States was Sunday "closely monitoring" reports on North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's death and said it was committed to stability on the Korean peninsula and the security of its allies.

Kim's death, announced by North Korea's official media, posed an immediate and grave foreign policy crisis for Washington and its allies, given Pyongyang's history of belligerence and its nuclear arsenal.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday lifted sanctions on Libya's central bank and a key investment bank freeing tens of billions of dollars to ease a post-Gadhafi cash crunch.

The United States immediately announced it would unblock more than $30 billion dollars of assets of the Central Bank of Libya and its subsidiary, the Libyan Foreign Bank (LFB). Britain said it would release more than $10 billion.