FBI probe of Petraeus began with 'suspicious emails'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI investigation that led to the discovery of CIA Director David Petraeus' affair with author Paula Broadwell was sparked by "suspicious emails" that initially did not contain any connection to Petraeus, U.S. law enforcement and security officials told Reuters on Saturday.

But the CIA director's name unexpectedly turned up in the course of the investigation, two officials and two other sources briefed on the matter said.

It was "an issue with two women and they stumbled across the affair with Petraeus," a U.S. government security source said.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the FBI probe was triggered when Broadwell sent threatening emails to an unidentified woman close to the CIA director.

The woman went to the FBI, which traced the threats to Broadwell and then uncovered explicit emails between Petraeus and Broadwell, the Post said.

Attempts by Reuters and other news media to reach Broadwell, an Army reserve offer and author of a biography of Petraeus, have not been successful.

The FBI and CIA declined comment on Saturday.

Many questions in the case remain unanswered publicly, including the identity of the second woman; the precise nature of the emails that launched the FBI investigation; and whether U.S. security was compromised in any way.

Nor is it clear why the FBI waited until Election Day to tell U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who oversees the CIA and other intelligence agencies, about its investigation involving Petraeus.

The CIA director announced his resignation suddenly on Friday, acknowledging an extramarital affair and saying he showed "extremely poor judgment.

The developments likely ended the public career of one of the United States' most highly regarded generals, who was credited with helping pull Iraq out of civil war and led U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, new details emerged on Saturday about developments in the final days leading to Petraeus' departure from atop the CIA.

Clapper was notified by the FBI on Tuesday evening about 5 p.m. - just as returns in the U.S. presidential election were about to come in - about "the situation involving Director Petraeus," a senior intelligence official said. Clapper and Petraeus then spoke that evening and the following morning.

WHITE HOUSE NOTIFIED WEDNESDAY

"Director Clapper, as a friend and a colleague and a fellow general officer, advised Director Petraeus that he should do the right thing and he should step down," the official said.

Clapper is a retired Air Force lieutenant general; Petraeus served nearly four decades in the U.S. Army.

On Wednesday, Clapper notified the National Security Council at the White House that Petraeus was considering resigning and President Barack Obama should be informed, the official said.

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials agreed to discuss the Petraeus matter only on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity and because it is the subject of a law enforcement investigation.

Once Petraeus' name turned up in the investigation, the importance of the FBI inquiry was immediately escalated, as investigators became concerned the CIA chief somehow might have been compromised, the law enforcement official said.

However, the official and two sources briefed on the matter said no evidence has turned up suggesting Petraeus had become vulnerable to espionage or blackmail. At this point, it appears unlikely that anyone will be charged with a crime as a result of the investigation, the official said.

The FBI investigation began fairly recently - months ago rather than years ago, when Petraeus would still have been in uniform as one of the U.S. Army's top field commanders, the official said.

Representative Peter King, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview on MSNBC the FBI was "investigating or monitoring ... the director of the CIA for four or five months."

Several officials briefed on the matter said senior officials at the Pentagon, CIA and Congress knew nothing of the FBI's investigation of Petraeus until Thursday afternoon at the earliest, and some key officials were not briefed on the details until Friday.

There is no evidence at this time that anyone at the White House had knowledge of the situation involving Petraeus prior to the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, which saw Obama elected to a second four-year term.

Another U.S. government security source said it was not until Friday afternoon that some members of the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees were notified about Petraeus' resignation by Clapper's office.

The congressional committees were told that it was a personal issue that Petraeus had to discuss with his wife. When pressed, a representative of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it involved another woman.

(Writing by Warren Strobel; Additional reporting by Doug Palmer and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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China congress highlights contrast with Taiwan

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — While ties between China and Taiwan may be closer than at any time since they split in a civil war, the staid, formal Communist Party congress being held in Beijing highlights how far apart the two sides are politically.

"Taiwan's democracy has learned from the United States," said Wang Yingying, who moved from eastern China to Taiwan in 2005 with her Taiwanese spouse. "We in China cannot vote for our national leaders. Mainland politics are backward, Taiwan's democracy is much better."

With a population 50 times bigger and an economy 15 times greater, China overshadows Taiwan in almost every respect. But one area where Taiwan is envied by many in China is its freewheeling political system.

Split since Mao Zedong's Communist forces drove Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist government from the mainland, China and Taiwan used to engage in a propaganda and ideological war against each other. Since Taiwan jettisoned one-party rule in the 1980s and moved toward democracy, the competition for hearts and minds continues but is more low-key.

"There is now no excuse for the Chinese government to tell its people that Chinese culture is somehow at odds with democracy," said Emile Sheng, who served as culture minister during Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's just-completed first term. "Taiwan's experience proves this wrong."

Stepped-up trade and travel between China and Taiwan as well as a revival in longstanding cultural and social ties are all carrying Taiwan's success with democracy to mainlanders. Wang, the mainlander bride, is one of 300,000 Chinese spouses living in Taiwan. More than 2 million Chinese tourists travel to Taiwan every year, often holing up in their hotels to watch Taiwan's many politically relentless all-news television stations.

China's ruling Communists continue to hail their model as superior, noting its state-directed economy has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in recent decades and government policies have warded off the recession and weak growth that have wracked the West during the past four years. In his opening speech to the congress Thursday, President Hu Jintao said China would never adopt a Western-style political system.

"There is a contest of ideology between China and Taiwan," said political scientist George Tsai of Taipei's Chinese Culture University. "It is dictatorship versus democracy. Many people are wondering if Taiwan's model of democracy is appropriate for China's future."

Sheng, the former culture minister, said a high watermark for Taiwan's influence came earlier this year when millions of politically literate mainlanders closely followed Taiwan's hard-fought presidential election between Ma and challenger Tsai Ing-wen.

He said the thousands of favorable comments that appeared on Chinese blogs — which mainlanders use to skirt government restrictions on officially sanctioned media — left little doubt that some in China had been won over by the vibrancy of the Taiwanese system.

"They were really taken with the openness of the electoral process, the way the candidates conducted themselves, the graciousness of Tsai's concession speech after she lost," he said.

Despite Sheng's optimism, even some Chinese impressed by Taiwan's democratic transition believe it is naive to assume that a robust democratic system can take root on the mainland anytime soon. Decades of repressive policies mean there is no ready opposition party, and many Chinese fear the chaos that might result from a collapse of the Communist Party. Then there's the leadership's resistance to losing power.

"They realize what kind of purge they could expect if democracy ever came," mainlander Eric Zhang wrote in a recent post on Sina Corp.'s popular Weibo service, a Chinese version of Twitter. "They would no doubt fight democracy as if their lives depended on it."

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Can a Fit Video Game Avatar Make You Healthier?

Time to reconsider the stereotype of doughy, fast food-guzzling online role players in dark basements. Strongly identifying with your avatar in virtual video game worlds like “Second Life” could actually help make you healthier in the real world, research from the University of Missouri shows.

Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz surveyed 249 “Second Life” users to study how avatars — their customized virtual characters in games — affect real-world existence. She found that the amount of self presence, or identifying with a virtual representation, predicted the amount of influence an avatar had on a person’s life in the physical world. A strong sense of self-presence improved how they felt about themselves and promoted better health and well-being.  

In the study, published in the journal ”Computers in Human Behavior,” Behm-Morawitz wrote, “The avatar links the virtual to the physical body, and, through this interplay of one’s online and offline identities, the virtual may become meaningful to the physical body and self.”

For example, for people looking to lose weight, creating a fitter avatar helped them visualize being in better shape.   

Curiously, the participants weren’t specifically using “Second Life” as a fitness tool, as they might with, say, a Wii Fit game. “‘Second Life’ is a social virtual world, where play is open-ended and not specifically designed to be used as a motivational health tool,” Behm-Morawitz told TechNewsDaily in an email. “However, the findings … suggest that a person who is motivated to participate in a virtual world for social reasons is more likely to experience effects of the avatar.”

In other words, if you are into the game enough to care about how you come across online, that will motivate you to make a better impression offline, too.

[See Also: Rats Control Human Avatars]

Behm-Morawitz says the results should not be limited to “Second Life” — other virtual worlds could show the same kinds of benefits. However, virtual worlds that offer the most control over avatar design and interaction will best foster self-presence and prompt healthy behavior change.

Avatars are useful for trying on a new appearance, Behm-Morawitz said, since they pose little risk to the creator.  

Though it may seem like a throwback to the early 2000s, “Second Life” remains one of the most popular online games. In July 2012, Nielsen rated it among the top 10 PC games.  

Other studies support the new research. In an Indiana University study published in September, more people adopted healthy habits when they went through weight-loss programs delivered in a 3D virtual world than those who pursued a program in a traditional health club.  

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Madonna fan guilty in NYC resisting arrest trial

NEW YORK (AP) — A former firefighter with a crush on Madonna has been convicted of resisting arrest outside her former New York City apartment building as he spray-painted poster boards with love notes.

A jury delivered its verdict Friday in Robert Linhart's trial. He could face up to a year in jail.

Defense lawyer Lawrence LaBrew tells the New York Post (http://bit.ly/ZgI4jl) that Linhart will appeal.

Linhart was arrested in September 2010. Police say he parked his SUV outside the singer's Manhattan apartment, laid out a tarp and wrote out such messages as "Madonna, I need you."

Jurors told the Post they felt it was fine for Linhart to express himself to the Material Girl. But they said they believed police testimony that he resisted arrest by flailing his arms.

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Malaria vaccine a letdown for infants

LONDON (AP) — An experimental malaria vaccine once thought promising is turning out to be a disappointment, with a new study showing it is only about 30 percent effective at protecting infants from the killer disease.

That is a significant drop from a study last year done in slightly older children, which suggested the vaccine cut the malaria risk by about half — though that is still far below the protection provided from most vaccines. According to details released on Friday, the three-shot regimen reduced malaria cases by about 30 percent in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks, the target age for immunization.

Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, described the vaccine's protection levels as "unacceptably low." She was not linked to the study.

Scientists have been working for decades to develop a malaria vaccine, a complicated endeavor since the disease is caused by five different species of parasites. There has never been an effective vaccine against a parasite. Worldwide, there are several dozen malaria vaccine candidates being researched.

In 2006, a group of experts led by the World Health Organization said a malaria vaccine should cut the risk of severe disease and death by at least half and should last longer than one year. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and kills more than 650,000 people every year, mostly young children and pregnant women in Africa. Without a vaccine, officials have focused on distributing insecticide-treated bed nets, spraying homes with pesticides and ensuring access to good medicines.

In the new study, scientists found babies who got three doses of the vaccine had about 30 percent fewer cases of malaria than those who didn't get immunized. The research included more than 6,500 infants in Africa. Experts also found the vaccine reduced the amount of severe malaria by about 26 percent, up to 14 months after the babies were immunized.

Scientists said they needed to analyze the data further to understand why the vaccine may be working differently in different regions. For example, babies born in areas with high levels of malaria might inherit some antibodies from their mothers which could interfere with any vaccination.

"Maybe we should be thinking of a first-generation vaccine that is targeted only for certain children," said Dr. Salim Abdulla of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, one of the study investigators.

Results were presented at a conference in South Africa on Friday and released online by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study is scheduled to continue until 2014 and is being paid for by GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.

"The results look bad now, but they will probably be worse later," said Adrian Hill of Oxford University, who is developing a competing malaria vaccine. He noted the study showed the Glaxo vaccine lost its potency after several months. Hill said the vaccine might be a hard sell, compared to other vaccines like those for meningitis and pneumococcal disease — which are both effective and cheap.

"If it turns out to have a clear 30 percent efficacy, it is probably not worth it to implement this in Africa on a large scale," said Genton Blaise, a malaria expert at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, who also sits on a WHO advisory board.

Eleanor Riley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine might be useful if used together with other strategies, like bed nets. She was involved in an earlier study of the vaccine and had hoped for better results. "We're all a bit frustrated that it has proven so hard to make a malaria vaccine," she said. "The question is how much money are the funders willing to keep throwing at it."

Glaxo first developed the vaccine in 1987 and has invested $300 million in it so far.

WHO said it couldn't comment on the incomplete results and would wait until the trial was finished before drawing any conclusions.

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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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Contrasting politics of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan

China, Hong Kong and Taiwan — all societies rooted in Chinese culture — have developed very different ways of selecting their leaders and taking part in public affairs. The distinctions are highlighted as China undergoes its once-a-decade transition to a new slate of Communist Party leaders in Beijing this month. Despite China's dramatic transformation into an economic superpower, the authoritarian legacy of communist founder Mao Zedong continues to weigh heavily on the country's politics, leaving the vast majority of the population with little voice or knowledge of how their leaders are chosen. The process remains steeped in secrecy and backroom dealings. China's territory of Hong Kong has a high degree of autonomy, freedom of the press and limited democracy, but its politics remains highly constrained by Beijing's wariness over threats to its authority. The former British colony now directly elects half of its 60 legislators, but the head of the regional government is still elected by a special body limited to just 1,200 members. Taiwan, in stark contrast to China, shrugged off authoritarian rule and underwent a transition over the past two decades to complete democracy, with sometimes-rowdy elections and a thriving civil society.

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Mark Wahlberg to star in next 'Transformers' movie

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mark Wahlberg, roll out.

"Transformers" director Michael Bay says the 41-year-old actor will star in the franchise's fourth film.

Bay called Wahlberg the "perfect guy to re-invigorate the franchise and carry on the Transformers' legacy" in a post on his blog Thursday. He previously squashed rumors that Wahlberg was joining the film franchise about warring robots.

Bay worked with Wahlberg on his upcoming film, "Pain and Gain."

"Transformers 4" is scheduled to be released by Paramount Pictures on June 27, 2014.

Bay has said the next film will take a new direction in the series. The first three movies starred Shia LaBeouf and featured Peter Cullen as the voice of Autobot general Optimus Prime.

The third "Transformers" film, "Dark of the Moon," was the second highest-grossing film of 2011.

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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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Obama breaks down while speaking to staff, volunteers

The morning after he won re-election, an emotional President Barack Obama credited his youthful staff of several hundred with running a campaign that will "go on in the annals of history."

"What you guys have accomplished will go on in the annals of history and they will read about it and they'll marvel about it," said Obama told his team Wednesday morning inside the Chicago campaign headquarters, tears streaming down his face.

"The most important thing you need to know is that your journey's just beginning. You're just starting. And whatever good we do over the next four years will pale in comparison to whatever you guys end up accomplishing in the years and years to come," he said.

The moment, captured by the Obama campaign's cameras and posted online, offers a rare glimpse at the president unplugged and emotional. During the first four years of his presidency, Obama has never been seen publicly crying.

He first came to Chicago, he told the campaign staff, "knowing that somehow I wanted to make sure that my life attached itself to helping kids get a great education or helping people living in poverty to get decent jobs and be able to work and have dignity. And to make sure that people didn't have to go to the emergency room to get health care."

"The work that I did in those communities changed me much more than I changed those communities because it taught me the hopes and aspirations and the grit and resilience of ordinary people," he said, as senior strategist David Axelrod and campaign manager Jim Messina looked on. "And it taught me the fact that under the surface differences, we all have common hopes and we all have common dreams. And it taught me something about how I handle disappointment and what it meant to work hard on a common endeavor, and I grew up."

"So when I come here and I look at all of you, what comes to mind is, it's not that you guys remind me of myself, it's the fact that you are so much better than I was in so many ways. You're smarter, you're so better organized, you're more effective," he said.

Obama said he expected many of those who helped to re-elect him will assume new roles in progressive politics, calling that prospect a "source of my strength and inspiration."

Senior campaign officials said Thursday that the Obama campaign infrastructure - the field offices and network of hundreds of thousands of volunteers - would undergo a period of transition in the coming weeks to determine how to remain sustainable and influential.

"We have remarkable staff, and the campaign that Jim [Messina] put together, you know, is the best in history," said senior Obama adviser David Plouffe. "But the reason those people got involved was because they believed in Barack Obama. It was the relationship between them and our candidate."

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