Defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida will take "a few years," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, with success on a larger scale in the desperately poor country a much longer proposition. He acknowledged that the Taliban has a firm hold on parts of the country President Barack Obama has called vital to U.S. security.

The Obama administration is pressing ahead with its broad overhaul of financial regulation by proposing to hike the fees big financial firms pay for federal oversight while easing the burden for smaller ones, officials said.

The new two-tiered, pay-for-regulation approach is intended to partly cover the costs of more vigorous bank regulation and a new consumer financial protection agency. It reflects the administration's view that large banks and lenders should pay more because they are more complex and expensive to regulate, a Treasury Department official said.

About a dozen state officials were joined by 18 representatives from the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments and the Bureau of Prisons on the tour of the lockup in Standish, said Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections.

The prison in Standish, 145 miles north of Detroit, and a military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., are being considered to house the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters currently at the Guantanamo Bay prison, if it is closed by 2010 as President Barack Obama has ordered.

A total of 24.4 percent of homes had their prices reduced in July, up from June's 23.6 percent. The average discount was 10 percent from the original price, or $40,173 of a median house value, Trulia.com said in its monthly price report obtained exclusively by Reuters prior to its release.

A former state employee responsible for some of Texas' most vulnerable residents was convicted of injuring them during orchestrated fights at a state facility for the developmentally disabled.

Jesse Salazar, 25, was one of six former employees at the Corpus Christi State School charged in an abuse scandal that police described as a "fight club."

The jury found Salazar guilty of intentionally causing injury to a disabled person, a third-degree felony. The trial immediately moved into the penalty phase. Prosecutors asked for the maximum of 10 years in prison, while Salazar requested probation. The jury did not reach a decision on the sentence before the end of the day and was to resume deliberations Friday.

The man had refused to leave his red Volkswagen Beetle and withstood four rounds of chemical agents tossed inside the car after police broke a rear window. About an hour later, officers shot out the drivers window with a bean bag gun, used a Taser on the man and pulled him out.

The "feed over email" (FOE) system delivers news, podcasts and data via technology that evades web-screening protocols of restrictive regimes, said Ken Berman, head of IT at the U.S. government's Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is testing the system.

The race to create a vaccine for the H1N1 flu virus could put people at a greater risk than the illness the vaccine is designed to prevent after being rushed to the public before it can be determined properly that it's safe - or if it even works.