How 'poor judgment' felled military star Petraeus

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - David Petraeus was a star on the battlefield, commanding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but was undone by "poor judgment" in engaging in an extramarital affair that led to his downfall as CIA director.

Just two days after his 60th birthday, Petraeus stepped down from the spy agency where he had held the top office since September 6, 2011.

"After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation," Petraeus told the shadow warriors he commanded at CIA.

It was a stunning downfall for a revered military man who was seen as one of the top American leaders of his generation and was once considered a potential contender for the White House.

Petraeus was credited with pulling Iraq from the brink of all-out civil war and for battlefield successes in Afghanistan after overseeing a surge of 30,000 troops ordered by President Barack Obama in late 2009. He became known for counter-insurgency strategies that were seen as gaining ground against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"I don't think he was professionally overrated. His were genuine accomplishments," said James Carafano, a war historian with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

At the time of his nomination to the CIA post, some Washington insiders had said the White House wanted to find a prominent position for Petraeus to ensure he would not be recruited by Republicans as a challenger to the 2012 Obama-Biden ticket.

When he was nominated to lead the CIA there were some concerns in intelligence circles that the high-profile four-star Army general might not be able to lead from the shadows as appropriate for a spy chief.

But once he took over the head office at the U.S. spy agency, Petraeus kept a decidedly low public profile.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, expressed regret about the resignation of "one of America's best and brightest" and said it was an "enormous loss" for the country.

"At CIA, Director Petraeus gave the agency leadership, stature, prestige and credibility both at home and abroad. On a personal level, I found his command of intelligence issues second to none," she said.

RESIGNATION ACCEPTED

After accepting his resignation about a year-and-a-half after nominating Petraeus to the CIA post, Obama said: "By any measure, he was one of the outstanding General officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end."

Earlier this week, in a Newsweek article entitled "General David Petraeus's Rules for Living," he listed 12 lessons for leadership. Number 5 was: "We all will make mistakes. The key is to recognize them and admit them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear­ view mirrors - drive on and avoid making them again."

In 2010 Petraeus stepped into the breach as the new commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to replace General Stanley McChrystal who was fired by Obama in a scandal over an article in which McChrystal and his aides made mocking comments about the president and some of his top advisers.

In 2009 Petraeus was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and underwent radiation treatment. The media-friendly general joked at that time at a Washington event that reporters were only gathered "to see if the guy is still alive."

Petraeus, born in Cornwall, New York, lives in Virginia with his wife Holly. They have two grown children, a son who was an Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, and a daughter.

Petraeus's wife, Holly, is an activist and volunteer who champions military families, and she continued that work after her husband retired from the military and moved to the CIA.

She currently is assistant director of the office of servicemember affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she tries to keep unscrupulous lenders from taking advantage of military personnel. The bureau was championed by Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, who was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts this week.

Holly Petraeus is the daughter of four-star General William Knowlton, who was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when Petraeus was a cadet.

She briefed the press at the Pentagon on her efforts recently and was introduced by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who called her "a true friend of the Department of Defense and a dedicated member of our military family."

Petraeus has four Defense Distinguished Service Medal awards, three Distinguished Service Medal awards, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, and the State Department Distinguished Service Award.

He has a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Diane Bartz; Editing by Warren Strobel and Jackie Frank)

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NATO: 2 international troops die in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says two service members with the U.S.-led military coalition have died in Afghanistan.

One service member was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan. Another died as a result of a non-battle related injury in the country's south.

NATO did not release any other information about Friday's deaths pending notification of family members.

So far this year, 371 international troops have died in Afghanistan.

Fighting is winding down with the advent of cooler weather but the Taliban still continue to target coalition and Afghan forces, especially with roadside bombs.

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Roger Waters plays with band of wounded veterans

NEW YORK (AP) — Roger Waters honored wounded veterans in New York by performing with them at the annual Stand Up for Heroes benefit, Thursday night.

The founding member of Pink Floyd took to the stage of the Beacon Theater with 14 wounded soldiers he met recently at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He rehearsed with them at the hospital, and for the past few days in New York.

The event benefited the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps returning veterans and their families, and featured Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Ricky Gervais, Robin Williams, and others.

Before the show, Waters chatted with veterans and called the experience "fantastic." He says he's "looking forward to pulling for the rest of these guys with their comrades" during the healing process.

He says that he shares "enormous empathy with the men."

"I lost my grandfather in 1916 and my father in 1944, so I've been around the sense of loss and what loss from war can do to people," Waters said.

"I never talk about the politics because it's not relevant to me. I'm not interested in it," he said. "What I am interested in is the burdens these guys bear and would never question motive or even dream of talking about any of the politics."

He added: "If any of us have a responsibility in our lives it is to tear down the walls of indifference and miscommunication between ourselves and our fellow men."

Waters said he rehearsed with many of the soldiers at the hospital in between their medical procedures. Before the show, he walked the red carpet with Staff Sgt. Robert Henline, who was not in the band. In 2007, Henline was the sole survivor of a roadside bombing north of Baghdad. As a result, he suffered burns over 38 percent of his body and his head was burned to the skull.

Henline, who fought for his life after the attack, has endured more than 40 surgeries.

Still, he maintains a sense of humor. On the open red carpet on a chilly night, Waters pushed closer to Henline for warmth.

"Get next to the burn guy. I'm good. I'm heated up," Henline joked.

No surprise. The retired soldier says he's been doing stand-up comedy for the past year and a half.

Waters performed three songs with the veterans, including the Pink Floyd classic, "Wish You Were Here."

Waters said he didn't think there would be a reunion with his former band.

"I think David (Gilmour) is retired by and large. I shouldn't speak for him. But that's the impression I get."

Waters then added: "Hey whatever. All good things come to an end."

While his mammoth tour of "The Wall" ended this summer, Waters promised the theatrical version would hit the Broadway stage in the near future.

The Bob Woodruff Foundation has supported more than 1 million veterans, service members, and their families since it began in 2008.

_____

John Carucci covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him at —http://www.twitter.com/jcarucci_ap

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Calif. city plans to provide transgender surgeries

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.

The city's Health Commission voted Tuesday to create a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. San Francisco already provides transgender residents with hormones, counseling and routine health services, but has stopped short of offering surgical interventions, Public Health Director Barbara Garcia said Thursday after the vote was announced.

The idea for a new program that included surgeries came out of conversations between public health officials and transgender rights advocates who wanted mastectomies, genital reconstructions and other surgeries that are recommended for some transgender people covered under San Francisco's 5-year-old universal health care plan.

At the urging of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, the commission agreed this week to drop sex reassignment surgery from the list of procedures specifically excluded from the Healthy San Francisco plan.

But Garcia described the move as "a symbolic process" for now because the city currently does not have the expertise, capacity or protocols in place to provide the surgeries through its clinics and public hospital.

"The community felt the exclusion on Healthy San Francisco was discriminatory and we wanted to change that as the first step," she said.

Instead of expanding the existing plan, the Health Commission approved the establishment of a separate program that covers all aspects of transgender health, including gender transition. Garcia hopes to have it running by late next year, but said her department first needs to study how many people it would serve, how much it would cost, who would perform the surgeries and where they would be performed.

"Sex reassignment surgery is not the end all. It's one service that some transgender people want and some don't," she said. "We can probably manage this over the next three years without much of a budget increase because we already have these (other) services covered."

San Francisco in 2001 became the first city in the country to cover sex reassignment surgeries for government employees. Last year, Portland, Ore. did the same. The number of major U.S. companies covering the cost of gender reassignment surgery for transgender workers also doubled last year, reflecting a decades-long push by transgender activists to get insurance companies to treat such surgeries as medically necessary instead of elective procedures.

Kathryn Steuerman, a member of a transgender health advocacy group in San Francisco, said the city's latest move would help residents avoid going into debt to finance operations related to gender transition, as she did.

"I am filled with hope and gratitude that we are achieving this level of support for the well-being of the transgender community," Steuerman said.

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11,000 flee Syria in huge one-day exodus

DEAR ABBY: My brother lost his wife, the love of his life, three years ago. He has three children. His oldest, a 25-year-old daughter, "Jenny," told him that "when you marry, it is for life." She has threatened that if he dates someone or sees anyone, she will be out of his life and he won't be able to see his future grandchildren. (Jenny is getting married next summer.)My brother is very upset. He wants to settle this argument before she is married. He hasn't dated anyone, but feels she shouldn't be trying to control his life. Please help, Abby. ...

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China opens power transfer by keeping it off-stage

BEIJING (AP) — China's ruling communists opened a pivotal congress to initiate a power handover to new leaders Thursday with a nod to their revolutionary past and a broad promise of cleaner government while keeping off-stage the main event — the bargaining over seats in the new leadership.

All the main players were arrayed on the stage in the Great Hall of the People: President Hu Jintao, his successor Xi Jinping and a collection of retired party insiders. A golden hammer and sickle, the Communist Party's symbol, hung on the back wall. Yet in a nearly two-hour opening ceremony, scant mention was made of the transition or that in a week Hu will step down as party chief in favor of Xi in what would be only the second orderly transfer of power in 63 years of communist rule.

The congress is writ small the state of Chinese politics today. It's a largely ceremonial gathering of 2,200-plus delegates who meet while the real deal-making is done behind-the-scenes by the true power-holders.

The centerpiece event of the opening of the weeklong congress — a 90-minute speech by Hu — served politics, allowing him to define his legacy after a decade in office, while marshaling his clout to install his allies in the collective leadership that Xi will head.

"An important thing for him is to make sure that there's no critical, no negative summary judgment of the past 10 years," said Ding Xueliang, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Still, Ding said, "90 percent of the effort is on putting your people in place."

The party's public silence on a leadership transition that everyone knows is taking place and that politically minded Chinese have been talking about has deepened a palpable sense of public unease. Many Chinese feel the country is at a turning point, in need of new ideas to deal with a slowing economy, growing piles of debt and rising public demands for more accountable, transparent government, if not democracy.

In signs of the public disquiet, at least four ethnic Tibetans in western China set themselves on fire on the eve of the congress in protests against Chinese rule of Tibetan areas, according to overseas Tibet support groups and the Tibetan government-in-exile in India.

At dawn in Tiananmen Square, next to the congress venue, a woman in her 30s threw pieces of torn paper into the air and shouted "bandits and robbers!" — a curse often leveled at corrupt local officials. She was taken away by the security forces, which have smothered all of Beijing for the congress.

In his speech, Hu cited many of the challenges China faces — a rich-poor gap, environmentally ruinous growth and imbalanced development between prosperous cities and a struggling countryside. Yet he offered little fresh thinking to address them and said restoring a relatively high growth would be the best way to deal with public expectations.

Only on tackling rampant corruption did Hu sound the alarm. He called on party members to be ethical and rein in their family members whose often showy displays of wealth have stoked public anger.

"Nobody is above the law," Hu said to the applause of the 2,309 delegates and invited guests, with Xi and other party notables on the dais behind him. He later said, "If we fail to handle this issue well, it could prove fatal to the party, and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state."

Always an occasion for divisive bargaining, the leadership transition has been made more fraught by scandals that have fueled already high public cynicism that Chinese leaders are more concerned with power and wealth than government.

In recent months, one top leader, Bo Xilai, has been purged after his wife murdered a British businessman; a top aide to Hu was sidelined after his son crashed a Ferrari he shouldn't have been able to afford and foreign media reported that relatives of Xi and outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao had traded on their proximity to power to amass vast fortunes.

Public image aside, the scandals have especially weakened Hu, on whose watch they occurred, in the power-broking over the next leadership. In recent decades, the leadership line-ups have sought to balance different factions within the party. Who has prevailed won't be apparent until next Thursday, a day after the congress, when the members of the Politburo Standing Committee appear before the media.

On stage with Hu appeared one of his nemeses, his predecessor Jiang Zemin, who has supported Xi and is angling to fill many of the seats in the leadership with his allies. Nearby, dressed in a Mao jacket, sat 95-year-old Song Ping, a veteran of the revolution and party insider who was Hu's earliest political mentor.

Hu drew the line on political reform, a catchphrase for everything from greater transparency to democracy, even though retired party members, media commentators and government think tanks have in recent months called it an urgent need.

Hu's signature policy — a grab-bag of ideas meant to promote more balanced growth and stronger party rule that goes under the clunky phrase "the Scientific Outlook on Development" — has already been adopted in the party constitution. Hu's report to the congress called it "a powerful theoretical weapon" to guide the party.

"Even though this congress is about rejuvenation, passing the power to the young, what we see is the opposite," said Willy Lam of Chinese University of Hong Kong.

___

Associated Press writers Gillian Wong, Christopher Bodeen, Didi Tang and Louise Watt contributed to this report.

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Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

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Adam Lambert to host 'VH1 Divas' show

NEW YORK (AP) — "VH1 Divas" will be getting some testosterone this year: Adam Lambert is joining in.

Lambert will host and perform at the Dec. 16 event. Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Kelly Rowland, Jordin Sparks and Ciara will also hit the stage at the special honoring dance music and its current and classic divas.

Tributes to Whitney Houston and Donna Summer are also planned.

Lambert said in a statement Thursday the show will be "the most fabulous concert of the year."

"VH1 Divas" will benefit VH1's Save the Music Foundation. The venue for the event hasn't been announced. The show will air live at 9 p.m. Eastern.

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Online:

http://divas.vh1.com

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Experts raise concerns over superhuman workplace

LONDON (AP) — Performance-boosting drugs, powered prostheses and wearable computers are coming to an office near you — but experts warned in a new report Wednesday that too little thought has been given to the implications of a superhuman workplace.

Academics from Britain's leading institutions say attention needs to be focused on the consequences of technology which may one day allow — or compel — humans to work better, longer and harder. Here's their list of upgrades that might make their way to campuses and cubicles in the next decade:

BRAIN BOOSTERS

Barbara Sahakian, a Cambridge neuropsychology professor, cited research suggesting that 16 percent of U.S. students already use "cognitive enhancers" such as Ritalin to help them handle their course loads. Pilots have long used amphetamines to stay alert. And at least one study has suggested that the drug modafinil could help reduce the number of accidents experienced by shift workers.

But bioethicist Jackie Leach Scully of northern England's Newcastle University worries that the use of such drugs might focus on worker productivity over personal well-being.

"Being more alert for longer doesn't mean that you'll be less stressed by the job," she said. "It means that you'll be exposed to that stress for longer and be more awake while doing it."

WEARABLE COMPUTERS

The researchers also noted so-called "life-logging" devices like Nike Inc.'s distance-tracking shoes or wearable computers such as the eyeglasses being developed by Google Inc. The shoes can record your every step; the eyeglasses everything you see. Nigel Shadbolt, an expert in artificial Intelligence at southern England's University of Southampton, said such devices were as little as 15 years away from being able to record every sight, noise and movement over an entire human life.

So do you accept if your boss gives you one?

"What does that mean for employee accountability?" Shadbolt asked.

BIONIC LIMBS — AND BEYOND

The report also noted bionic limbs like the one used this week by amputee Zac Vawter to climb Chicago's Willis Tower or exoskeletons like the one used earlier this year by partially paralyzed London Marathon participant Claire Lomas. It also touched on the development of therapies aimed at sharpening eyesight or cochlear implants meant to enhance hearing.

Scully said any technology that could help disabled people re-enter the workforce should be welcomed but society needs to keep an eye out for unintended consequences.

"One of the things that we know about technology hitting society is that most of the consequences were not predicted ahead of time and a lot of things that we worry about ahead of time turn out not to be problems at all," she said. "We have very little idea of how these technologies will pan out."

THE PRESSURIZED WORKPLACE

The report was drawn up by scientists from The Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society.

"We're not talking science fiction here," said Genevra Richardson, the King's College law professor who oversaw the report. "These technologies could influence our ability to learn or perform tasks, they could influence our motivation, they could enable us to work in more extreme conditions or in old age, or they could facilitate our return to work after illness or disability .... Their use at work also raises serious ethical, political and economic questions."

Scully said workers may come under pressure to try a new memory-boosting drug or buy the latest wearable computer.

"In the context of a highly pressurized work environment, how free is the choice not to adopt such technologies?" she said.

Union representatives appeared taken aback by some of the experts' predictions. One expressed particular disquiet at the possibility raised by the report that long-distance truck drivers might be asked to take alertness drugs for safety reasons.

"We would be very, very against anything like that," said James Bower, a spokesman for Britain's United Road Transport Union. "We can't have a situation where a driver is told by his boss that he needs to put something in his body."

___

Online:

The report: http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/human-enhancement

Raphael Satter can be reached on: http://raphae.li/twitter

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Hurtling towards the fiscal cliff?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Taking little time to celebrate, President Barack Obama is setting out to leverage his re-election into legislative success in an upcoming showdown with congressional Republicans over taxes, deficits and the impending "fiscal cliff." House Speaker John Boehner says Republicans are willing to consider some form of higher tax revenue as part of the solution — but only "under the right conditions."

All sides are setting out opening arguments for the negotiations to come.

Even before returning to Washington from his hometown of Chicago, Obama was on the phone Wednesday with the four top leaders of the House and Senate — Boehner included — to talk about the lame-duck Congress that convenes just one week after Election Day.

Without a budget deal to head off the fiscal showdown, the nation faces a combination of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and steep across-the-board spending cuts that could total $800 billion next year. Economists have warned that could tip the nation back into recession.

Vice President Joe Biden, flying to his home in Delaware from Chicago, told reporters aboard Air Force Two that the White House was "really anxious" to get moving on the problem. He said he'd been making a lot of calls and "people know we've got to get down to work and I think they're ready to move." He didn't identify whom he'd been speaking with but predicted the "fever will break" on past legislative gridlock after some soul-searching by Republicans.

The White House held out this week's election results as a mandate from voters for greater cooperation between the White House and Congress. At the same time, it reiterated Obama's top priorities: cutting taxes for middle-class families and small businesses, creating jobs and cutting the deficit "in a balanced way" — through a combination of tax increases on wealthier Americans and spending cuts.

Obama told the congressional leaders he believed "the American people sent a message in yesterday's election that leaders in both parties need to put aside their partisan interests and work with common purpose to put the interests of the American people and the American economy first," the White House said in a statement.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., channeled Obama in calling for a quick solution to the fiscal showdown and saying that asking "the richest of the rich" to pay more should be part of the equation. He added that he'd "do everything within my power to be as conciliatory as possible" but added, "I want everyone to also understand you can't push us around."

"Waiting for a month, six weeks, six months, that's not going to solve the problem," Reid said on Capitol Hill. "We know what needs to be done. And so I think that we should just roll up our sleeves and get it done."

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said the postelection congressional session offers a good chance to reset the dynamics between the White House and congressional Republicans in search of compromise.

"I think there's the urgency of the matter that probably goes beyond anything we've seen to date," he said. "The urgency of the repercussions of driving off the cliff are so grave that I can't imagine that failure is an option."

Both Biden and Reid pointed to election exit poll results showing that most Americans support higher taxes on the wealthy.

Biden said there was "a clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy," adding that "there's all kinds of potential to be able to reach a rational, principled compromise."

Boehner, for his part, said that for Obama to get support for new revenues, "the president must be willing to reduce spending and shore up the entitlement programs that are the primary drivers of our debt."

"We aren't seeking to impose our will on the president; we're asking him to make good on his 'balanced' approach," the Ohio Republican said on Capitol Hill.

The reference to a balanced approach to deficit reduction reflected Obama's campaign-long call for higher taxes on incomes above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. That was something Boehner made plain he opposes.

The House speaker said conditions on higher taxes would include a revamped tax code to make it cleaner and fairer, fewer loopholes and lower rates for all, adding that "we're closer than we think to the critical mass needed legislatively to get tax reform done."

Boehner did not specify what loopholes House Republicans might consider trimming.

Obama spent a rare morning off Wednesday at his home on Chicago's South Side, then stopped off at campaign headquarters to meet privately with staff and thank them for their work in the long, grueling campaign. Workers climbed on top of desks to get a good look at the president.

Then Obama and his family flew back to Washington together on Air Force One. The president appeared to be in a good mood, racing younger daughter Sasha up the steps, then calling out "Come on slowpokes" to wife Michelle and older daughter Malia.

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Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Ken Thomas and Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac

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