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.

Read More..

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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27 inmates killed in Sri Lanka prison shootout

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A shootout between rioting prisoners and security forces at a prison in Sri Lanka's capital killed at least 27 inmates, while police said Saturday that they arrested five prisoners who had managed to escape and were searching for others.

Another 42 people were wounded in the clashes Friday between inmates and army and police commandos that broke out after the rioting prisoners broke into the armory and briefly took control of at least part of the Welikada prison in Colombo. The situation at the prison had returned to normal by Saturday morning.

"The prison is now totally under our control," said Sri Lanka's Commissioner General of Prisons P.W. Kodippili.

Dr. Anil Jasinghe, director of the Colombo National Hospital, said the bodies of 16 inmates were at his hospital.

Kodippili said that security forces had found the bodies of 11 other inmates inside the prison premises and that the total number of deaths stood at 27.

Twenty-three inmates who were injured in the clash were receiving treatment at the hospital, Jasinghe said. Thirteen police officers, four soldiers, a prison guard and a passer-by also were being treated there, most of them with gunshot wounds.

Police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody said authorities recaptured five inmates who had escaped from the prison, which was the site of another riot earlier this year.

Kodippili declined to say how many inmates may have escaped, but he said search operations were under way to find others who may have fled.

Jayakody said the fighting began when police commandos went to the prison to conduct a search and were attacked by inmates hurling stones. He declined to provide more information. Officials often conduct raids for narcotics and communication devices.

An Associated Press photographer saw prisoners waving rifles atop the prison's roof Friday night.

Other prisoners piled into a three-wheeled vehicle and began driving toward a main city road before security forces outside the prison opened fire. The vehicle stopped, and three unmoving bodies could be seen.

Dozens of security officers then entered the prison, and volleys of gunfire rang out. Prisoners could be heard screaming, "Stop shooting!"

Army troops were called in later to help control the situation.

Kodippili said the inmates had broken into the prison's two armories during the riot and taken weapons stored there. The inmates opened fire at police commandos, who shot back.

He said that security forces had so far recovered 76 weapons taken by the prisoners and that six more weapons were still missing.

A clash between inmates and guards at the same prison last January wounded 28 people. Those prisoners were protesting the authorities' move to curtail drug smuggling into the facility.

___

Associated Press photographer Gemunu Amarasinghe contributed to this report.

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China derides U.S. “Cold War mentality” towards telecoms firm Huawei

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States is exhibiting a “Cold War mentality” with its fears that Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer Huawei poses a security risk because of its ties to the Communist Party, China‘s commerce minister said on Saturday.

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee warned last month that Beijing could use equipment made by Huawei, the world’s second-largest maker of routers and other telecom gear, as well as rival Chinese manufacturer ZTE, the fifth largest, for spying.

The report cited the presence of a Communist Party cell in the companies’ management structure as part of the reason for concern.

The state role in business prompted a U.S. congressional advisory panel to complain this week that Chinese investment in the United States had created a “potential Trojan horse”.

“Can you imagine if China started asking U.S. companies coming to China what their relationship was with the Democratic or Republican parties? It would be a mess,” Commerce Minister Chen Deming, himself a Communist Party member, told reporters on the sidelines of the 18th Party Congress, which will usher in a new generation of leaders.

“If you see me as a Trojan horse, how should I view you? By this logic, if the Americans turned it around, they would see that it’s not in their interest to think this way.”

All Chinese state-owned enterprises and a growing number of private Chinese firms have a Communist Party secretary at the top of their management structure. In most cases, the top management are themselves party members.

Neither Huawei nor ZTE is state-owned. Huawei is owned by its employees and ZTE by different institutions.

Suspicions of Huawei are partly tied to its founder, Ren Zhengfei, a former People’s Liberation Army officer. Huawei denies any links with the Chinese military and says it is a purely commercial enterprise.

The Commerce Ministry China last month dismissed the U.S. suspicions as groundless.

“This report by the relevant committee of the U.S. Congress, based on subjective suspicions, no solid foundation and on the grounds of national security, has made groundless accusations against China,” spokesman Shen Danyang said.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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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.

Read More..

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.

Read More..

Gas rationing expands as Sandy, Nor'easter effects linger

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Sri Lankan move to fire top judge stirs fears

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — When Shirani Bandaranayake was appointed Sri Lanka's chief justice, rights campaigners assailed her as a puppet of a government that was steamrolling opponents and consolidating power. A year later, she is on the verge of becoming its latest victim.

In the wake of court challenges to government authority, the ruling party submitted an impeachment complaint in Parliament accusing her of unexplained wealth and misuse of power. Opposition parties and independent analysts allege it is a naked attempt by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to cow the judiciary.

Rajapaksa's ruling coalition, which controls more than the two-thirds of votes needed to impeach, is expected to pass the motion easily. After impeachment it would be up to the president to remove Bandaranayake.

The impeachment "is totally politically motivated," said human rights lawyer and activist J.C. Weliamuna. "The present regime has concentrated all legal powers and they are not prepared to even accept that the courts can give judgments controlling their power."

The U.S. government has urged Sri Lanka to refrain from impinging on the judiciary's independence. Sri Lankan lawyers have called for U.N. observers to monitor the impeachment proceedings. Even the country's conservative Buddhist monks have asked Rajapaksa to reconsider.

The impeachment complaint alleges Bandaranayake did not disclose how she obtained 19 million rupees ($146,000) to pay for a house purchased in an opaque real estate deal, and that she took over cases filed against a company involved in the deal after removing the judges who originally heard them.

It accuses her of not declaring the contents of 20 bank accounts, and of misusing her position to harass other judges. It says her actions "plunged the Supreme Court and the office of chief justice into disrepute."

In a statement to Colombo's Daily Mirror newspaper, the chief justice insisted she is innocent and will continue to work.

Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella appeared to signal that the impeachment proceedings were about far more than corruption allegations. Bandaranayake, he said, had overstepped her role and worked to undermine Parliament's authority. He said the impeachment was brought because the dispute "had gone beyond the stage of settlement."

Rajapaksa, at an event where he handed out free laptops and interest-free car loans to journalists, said the government did not intend to interfere with the judiciary but insisted Parliament is duty-bound to check into complaints against the justice, according to a government news website.

The president has been accused of manipulating the judiciary to get convictions against his opponents. Sri Lanka's former army commander Sarath Fonseka was convicted in a few cases since he challenged Rajapaksa in the 2010 presidential election.

Bandaranayake is an unlikely government foe.

Her elevation to chief justice came months after she supported a ruling that said Rajapaksa needed only a parliamentary vote — not a national referendum — to amend the constitution to expand his powers and let him serve more than two terms.

But the government and judiciary have repeatedly clashed during her short term in office.

In July, a mob reportedly instigated by a government minister attacked a courthouse with stones in the northern Mannar district because they disagreed with a judge's ruling. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka said the minister threatened the judge in a phone call. Bandaranayake demanded action against the attackers.

In September, the Judicial Services Commission, a disciplinary body for judges that Bandaranayake heads, accused unnamed "powerful persons" of trying to interfere in its work. It said judges and their families were under threat and living in fear.

Commission secretary Manjula Tillakaratne was later beaten in broad daylight last month as he sat in his parked car. Opposition parties blamed the government, which denied responsibility. Police have made no arrests.

Judges and lawyers boycotted courts in protest.

The impeachment complaint against Bandaranayake — submitted last week to Parliament's speaker, the president's older brother — followed a Supreme Court ruling that declared Rajapaksa's effort to take back some powers from the provinces to be unconstitutional.

The ruling angered the government by showing how it had reneged on its promise to strengthen provincial councils as part of a plan to empower minority Tamils and defuse the nation's ethnic conflict, said Jehan Perera, an analyst with the National Peace Council activist group.

The majority Sinhalese-dominated government had told the United States and India it would embark on a reconciliation program after winning a bloody war against Tamil rebels in 2009.

Analyst Kusal Perera said the impeachment was more likely the result of a personal falling-out between a government and a chief justice who once worked hand-in-glove, rather than a dispute over judicial power.

"I don't see the chief justice as a principled person. Her appointment itself was very political," said Perera.

Weliamuna, the human rights lawyer, warned that if the government continues to assert authority over the justice system, it could start appointing party hacks as judges and destroy what remains of judicial independence.

"See the message given to the international community. The chief justice is not protected in Sri Lanka. How can we protect our own citizens?" he said.

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Exclusive: SEC left computers vulnerable to cyber attacks – sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Staffers at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission failed to encrypt some of their computers containing highly sensitive information from stock exchanges, leaving the data vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the computers were unprotected, there was no evidence that hacking or spying on the SEC‘s computers took place, these people said.

The computers and other electronic devices in question belonged to a handful of employees in an office within the SEC’s Trading and Markets Division. That office is responsible for making sure exchanges follow certain guidelines to protect the markets from potential cyber threats and systems problems, one of those people said.

Some of the staffers even brought the unprotected devices to a Black Hat convention, a conference where computer hacking experts gather to discuss the latest trends. It is not clear why the staffers brought the devices to the event.

The security lapses in the Trading and Markets Division are laid out in a yet-to-be-released report that by the SEC’s Interim Inspector General Jon Rymer.

NO DATA BREACHED

The revelation comes as the SEC is encouraging companies to get more serious about cyber attacks. Last year, the agency issued guidance that public companies should follow in determining when to report breaches to investors.

Cyber security has become an even more pressing issue after high-profile companies from Lockheed Martin Corp to Bank of America Corp have fallen victim to hacking in recent years.

Nasdaq OMX Group, which runs the No. 2 U.S. equities exchange, in 2010 suffered a cyber attack on its collaboration software for corporate boards, but its trading systems were not breached.

One of the people familiar with the SEC’s security lapse said the agency was forced to spend at least $ 200,000 and hire a third-party firm to conduct a thorough analysis to make sure none of the data was compromised.

The watchdog’s report has already been circulated to the SEC’s five commissioners, as well as to key lawmakers on Capitol Hill, and is expected to be made public soon.

SEC spokesman John Nester declined to comment on the report’s findings.

SEC NOTIFIED EXCHANGES

Rich Adamonis, a spokesman for the New York Stock Exchange, said the exchange operator is “disappointed” with the SEC’s lapse.

“From the moment we were informed, we have been actively seeking clarity from the SEC to understand the full extent of the use of improperly secured devices and the information involved, as well as the actions taken by the SEC to ensure that there is proper remediation and a complete audit trail for the information,” he said.

A spokesman for Nasdaq OMX declined to comment on the security lapse at the SEC.

Since the internal investigation was concluded, the SEC initiated disciplinary actions against the people involved, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

The SEC also notified all of the exchanges about the incident.

The SEC’s Trading and Markets Division, which has several hundred staffers, is primarily responsible for overseeing the U.S. equity markets, ensuring compliance with rules and writing regulations for exchanges and brokerages.

Among the division’s tasks is to ensure exchanges are following a series of voluntary guidelines known as “Automation Review Policies,” or ARPs. These policies call for exchanges to establish programs concerning computer audits, security and capacity. They are, in essence, a road map of the capital markets’ infrastructure.

Although they are only voluntary guidelines, exchanges take them seriously.

Under the ARP, exchanges must provide highly secure information to the SEC such as architectural maps, systems recovery and business continuity planning details in the event of a disaster or other major event.

That is the same kind of data used by exchanges last week after Hurricane Sandy forced U.S. equities markets to shut down for two days.

Prior to re-opening, all of the U.S. stock market operators took part in coordinated testing for trading on NYSE’s backup system.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro recently said the SEC is working to convert the voluntary ARP guidelines into enforceable rules after a software error at Knight Capital Group nearly bankrupt the brokerage and led to a $ 440 million trading loss.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Karey Wutkowski and Lisa Shumaker)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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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.

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

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