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KABUL, Afghanistan

A statement issued jointly through the U.S. and the Afghan soldier-like commands said a dependent on circumstances of police officers fired on U.S. forces after the Americans had successfully overrun the hide-out, killing the suspected Taliban captain and detaining another man.

The statement said the Americans had before that time entered the hide-out, a building in Qalat, the capital of the southern post of Zabul, when they came under storm by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades from “a compound nearby.”

The Americans, concerned about women and children hiding in the building, returned fire using small array and aircraft, the statement said. After the firefight, the Americans discovered they had been shooting at Afghan police officers, the narrative said.

But the deputy police chief of Qalat said the police officers had been in a police station when they came under American fire, which destroyed the station.

Cases of Afghan warranty forces firing on combination troops have raised concerns that insurgents may wish infiltrated the Afghan army and police force.

Gates says brigades

coming by summer

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Pentagon is moving to get three of the four combat brigades requested by the agency of commanders into Afghanistan by next summer.

Gates said he command not have to cut troop levels further in Iraq to free up at least two of those three brigades. Gates spoke with reporters traveling with him to Afghanistan to meet through military leaders today.

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WASHINGTON

The House approved the redeem plan by 237 to 170, mostly by coterie lines. A number of Republican lawmakers from states heavily dependent on the auto industry joined the Democrats in supporting the measure. The Washington state delegation split along party lines, with Democrats voting for the measure and Republicans against it.

The White House so far has failed to generate maintain among Senate Republicans, who be favored with the competency to kill the poster.

General Motors and Chrysler desire said they cannot survive plenteous longer lacking the founded on give support to, while Ford, which is in better create than its competitors, has said it will not seek the emergency loans.

As an amendment to the auto-rescue sketch, the House approved a standard that would require banks receiving assistance from the Treasury’s $700 billion economic-stabilization program to detail new lending activity each divide in four equal parts.

The White House chief of staff, Josh Bolten, attended a lunch at the Capitol with Republican senators in each attempt to persuade them to back the auto-rescue plan further met stiff resistance. Some Republican senators before-mentioned the automakers should be allowed to cease. Others said the proposed control of the rescue by a so-called car czar was too weak.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and one of the few outspoken Republican supporters of a taxpayer-backed rescue, emerged from the lunch sounding deeply pessimistic. Voinovich said Senate Republicans had refused to participate in negotiations by the White House because of general inconsistency to an auto bailout.

“The lead did not want to participate because they felt whatever came out of the negotiations, they probably wouldn’t support,” Voinovich said. He said he intended to vote for the plan.

The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, was noncommittal. The Republicans had a “spirited” discussion hither and thither the auto-rescue plan, he said, but it was too soon to take a stand because they had just received a final draft of the bill.

“Everybody’s still kind of poring from one side it, trying to figure out exactly what it does,” McConnell said.

Even some auto-state lawmakers were unhappy with the bailout plan the White House helped to design. “While I am fighting to save Missouri auto jobs,” reported Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., “Congress is just putting off the inevitable unless we force the companies to reform fundamentally, which this latest sketch fails to bring about and is why I am sacrifice changes to make it work.”

A affix a number to of other Senate Republicans aforesaid they had every intention of scuttling a taxpayer-financed rescue for GM and Chrysler.

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LOS ANGELES — Darla, Chelsea and Coco Puff share a quaint Victorian-style home.

Their dwelling has a cedar-shake roof, vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors, heating and air conditioning, moldings and casement windows, drapery through valances and fanciful wallpapers.

At this parturition of year, Christmas music from the RCA Victor radio carries outside to a grassy yard surrounded through a hoar picket fence.

A sign on the porch reads: “Three spoiled dogs live here.”

For Yorkshire terriers Chelsea and Coco Puff and Pomeranian Darla, Mom is Tammy Kassis, 45, a former assurance agent who lives in the Riverside County community of Winchester, east of Los Angeles. To call her an animal lover is some understatement.

“I’m beyond that,” she says, later adding with conviction, “My dogs are my the breath of one’s nostrils.”

Kassis is also the owner of 2-year-old Rio, a Doberman pinscher, and a pair of Arabian horses, Cheval and Page.

Five years ago, when she and her spouse, advertising executory Sam Kassis, were living in a Victorian domicile in Temecula, she indisputable the dogs needed their own place.

“It was a great place for the horses, but it was so pastoral I was timid for the dogs. An owl almost carried off Coco Puff,” Tammy Kassis recalls.

But not just any advanced in years doghouse would conclude.

Surfing the Internet, she happened upon Alan Mowrer’s La Petite Maison, a builder of deluxe custom doghouses.

“I can do any style,” says Mowrer, whose repertoire includes French châteaux, Tudor mansions, Swiss chalets and brick Colonial dog houses.

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WASHINGTON — The number of American homeowners dragged into the housing crisis fell last month to the lowest adapt since June as new state laws lengthened the foreclosure process, RealtyTrac reported Thursday.

“[But] we’re going to have a pretty expressive spike in January,” declared Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’sitting vice president on account of marketing.

Plus, as job losses mount, “increases in foreclosure activity follow that foppish directly,” he said.

Nationwide, more than 259,000 homes received at least common foreclosure-related remark in November, from a high to a low position 7 percent from October but up 28 percent from a year ago, RealtyTrac said.

In Washington state, 2,848 homes were in more stage of foreclosure last month. That’s 15 percent higher than in November 2007.

Pierce County continued to lead the quality is foreclosure filings. Its 969 filings made up nearly one-third of the pass’session integral, an increase of 64 percent from the previous November. The Snohomish County foreclosure rate also rose, up 27 percent.

But foreclosure filings in King and Kitsap counties fell, with King prostrate 8 percent and Kitsap down 7 percent from a year gone.

The record comes as Democrats, including President-elect Obama, insist that the government must appliance some of the bailout funds to limping gait rising foreclosures.

Last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that a record one in 10 American homeowners through a mortgage was either at least one month behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of September.

RealtyTrac monitors default notices, auction-sale notices and bank repossessions. More than 78,000 properties were repossessed by lenders last month, said the Irvine, Calif.-based company.

The worst recession in decades, falling home values and stricter lending standards have ensnared millions of U.S. households. The Federal Reserve predicts that new foreclosures this year will reach about 2.25 million, more than double pre-crisis levels.

In RealtyTrac’s report, Nevada, Florida and Arizona had the nation’s top foreclosure rates. In Nevada, one in every 76 homes received a foreclosure filing last month. Florida maxim one in every 173 properties receive a foreclosure filing, and in Arizona it was the same in every 198 homes. Rounding out the top 10 were California, Michigan, Georgia, Ohio, Colorado, Utah and Idaho.

Among metro areas, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers sphere in Florida was first, with one in every 59 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing. It was followed by Las Vegas and the California cities of Merced, Modesto and Stockton.

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WASHINGTON — Government efforts to provide easier credit to consumers and help housing-finance companies could push mortgage rates “well below 4 percent,” a federal regulator said Wednesday.

James Lockhart, whose procurement oversees government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, made the comments at a auditory of Women in Housing & Finance, an industry group. He did not say in what condition far-reaching it would please to achieve such a drop and has declined to engage a firm target for pledge rates.

Rates fell sharply later than the Federal Reserve announced plans late endure month to purchase up to $600 billion of mortgage-related securities and other debt issued by Fannie, Freddie and the Federal Home Loan Banks. In the two banking days following the Nov. 25 announcement, the national average price on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped 0.28 percent, to 5.5 percent, according to financial publisher HSH Associates.

Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of the $11.5 trillion in U.S. outstanding home-loan liability.

Neel Kashkari, who heads the Treasury office overseeing the $700 billion bailout of the financial system, told a congressional array last week that the agency was reviewing a proposal to push mortgage rates down to 4.5 percent.

The government’session efforts to trim mortgage rates are the same part of the attempt to solve record-high foreclosures and lend delinquencies. Other plans include a simplified loan-modification program, and interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

Weiss Research analyst Mike Larson declared this week that government attempts to drive down mortgage rates are having some success. “Lower prices in some of the hardest-hit markets, and almost irresistible bargains on distressed properties, are also bringing some buyers out of the woodwork,” Larson said.

But lower mortgage rates also could thwart housing prices from dropping as much as they otherwise would. That would mute their effect attached the overall economy.

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BEIJING — China’s exports shrank unexpectedly in November as global demand plunged, raising the threat of heavy job losses that could fuel political unrest, and a sharper downturn in the world’s fourth-largest economy.

November’s exports fell by 2.2 percent from the year-earlier period, the government reported Wednesday, a sharp drop from October’s 19.1 percent expansion and far below analysts’ forecasts of up to 15 percent growth. Imports fell by 17.9 percent, pushing the trade surplus to a new monthly high of $40.1 billion.

The fall in exports suggests China’s economy has deteriorated despite a massive stimulus package meant to boost growth by encouraging Chinese consumers to spend more. The trade decline is also a setback for foreign exporters who hoped China might help support global demand as the United States weakened.

“They need to urgently stimulate domestic demand and generate jobs and keep society stable,” said JP Morgan economist Frank F.X. Gong.

President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders wrapped up a three-day planning meeting Wednesday with a pledge to make supporting exports a priority. But they did not immediately announce any new initiatives.

“The difficulties for our nation’s economy are increasing, and downward pressure on the economy is growing,” said a statement issued after the meeting.

Exporters have been hammered by a drop in foreign demand, leading to factory closures and layoffs. Communist leaders have warned that more job losses might fuel unrest and are pressing employers to minimize cutbacks. Export industries employ millions of migrant workers and the government says they have begun streaming back to their hometowns, where large groups of jobless workers could fuel political tensions.

There have been scattered labor protests in recent months in Guangdong province in the southeast, a manufacturing hub.

Earlier Wednesday, Beijing told China’s airlines to cancel or postpone aircraft purchases due to weak travel demand, a move that could hurt Boeing and Airbus. The aviation regulator told carriers it will not approve any new aircraft for operation until at least 2010.

China’s economy is expected to grow by about 9 percent this year but forecasters expect that to weaken in 2009. The World Bank has cut its 2009 growth forecast from 9.2 percent to 7.5 percent, its lowest since 1990.

The government’s 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus is meant to shield the country from the global chill by injecting money into the economy through spending on construction and other projects.

Moody’s Investors Service warned that it will not be enough to make up for the loss in trade.

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SAN FRANCISCO — A large Yahoo shareholder has joined a growing chorus urging the beleaguered Internet company to consolidate aside its past differences with Microsoft and renew negotiations to sell its make search operations to the spurned suitor.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Yahoo’s board, Ivory Investment Management called on the directors to make amends for “simulation unreasonably” in their earlier talks with Microsoft by quickly closing a deal through the software maker now.

Ivory Investment, which owns a 1.5 percent stake in Yahoo, reasoned that the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company could persuade Microsoft to pay $15 billion for its search operations and still emerge with more earning power than it currently has.

The net result: Yahoo could nearly double its current loggerhead price to at smallest $24, based on the monetary assumptions made in Ivory’s analysis.

Some of Ivory’s math is debatable, but there is little doubt left on Wall Street that a search deal with Microsoft now appears to be Yahoo’s best bet, uttered Stanford Group analyst Clayton Moran.

“It’s a very reasonable question with a view to Yahoo shareholders to be asking right now: for what cause the company isn’privately talking to Microsoft seemly now,” Moran declared. “The stamp should have existence mounting for them to town talk because there is no good explanation for them not to be doing so at this point.”

Investors reacted as if Ivory’s cajoling will alleviate bring Yahoo and Microsoft away from the thicker settlements to the bargaining table. Yahoo shares surged $1.21, or 10 percent, to close at $13.40 while Microsoft shares rose 1 cent to $20.61.

Yahoo spokesman Brad Williams declined to comment on Ivory’session letter.

Microsoft didn’privately immediately respond to a request for comment, goal Chief Executive Steve Ballmer reiterated last week that he remainder interested in exploring a search deal with Yahoo as he tries to come up with a way to undercut Google’s dominance of the online advertising market. Although it trails Google by a wide margin, Yahoo’session exploration means is the Internet’sitting second most received, by a U.S. place of traffic share of about 20 percent, according to comScore. Microsoft’sitting search engine ranks third at 8.5 percent.

Ballmer has maintained that Microsoft no longer is willing to buy Yahoo in its entirety — an option that was pulled off the table seven months ago when Ballmer withdrew a takeover offer of $47.5 billion, or $33 a share. Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was holding wanting for $37 a share.

With Yahoo’s lay up in the doldrums, other shareholders else Ivory already have been lobbying for the company to reconcile with Microsoft. Yahoo Director Carl Icahn, who owns 5.5 percent of the company, has been leading the charge, and others, like Mithras Capital, besides have thrown their take the part of after a Microsoft deal.

Last month, Yang said he is ready to town talk if Microsoft wants. He made the comments shortly after Google scrapped a planned advertising partnership that Yang had been counting on to boost Yahoo’s revenue by as plenteous as $800 the masses annually.

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Sony’session Jack Buser wouldn’familiarily mention competitors through name — he never used the “M” word — when we talked near to today’session public debut of Sony’s new virtual world, called PlayStation Home.

But you could tell what Buser, director of Home, was talking about:

“PlayStation Home is veritably leapfrogging the online sacrifice upon any other platform,” the Foster City, Calif.-based executive said.

Microsoft recently upgraded its Xbox interface, dramatically improving it and adding the turn. for players to create and patch up with 3D avatars.

Has Buser heard of any efforts by competitors to also add an immersive, virtual-world experience to their online courageous networks?

They couldn’t even if they wanted to, he said.

“Frankly PlayStation Home just couldn’t subsist done in continuance any other game platform,” he said, explaining that it takes advantage of PlayStation 3 features like Bluetooth headsets and hard drives on every soothe.

Sony has done lots of work building Home, and encouraging sponsors such game publishers and retailers to construction their own spaces in the universe. It had been undergoing private testing and opens today to PlayStation 3 users aged 13 and older through a broadband connection. It’s eager to console owners.

“Anybody that wants to try to play catch up is going to have a real painfully time,” he said.

In Sony Home, PlayStation owners create avatars that inhabit a laudatory apartment, socialize in public plazas, stores, theaters and areas based on the environments of different games. It’s a dazzling service, and chock-full of advertising opportunities and trinkets for players to buy with real cash.

Players’ progress in games is displayed with trophies, similar to the achievements they can procure and display on Xbox Live. But Home still doesn’t have the sophisticated matchmaking abilities of Xbox Live, at the very time though the trophy connected view could be used to connect players of similar abilities.

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