EU’s Almunia sets deadline for Google antitrust plan

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union set Google an ultimatum on Tuesday, giving it a month to come up with detailed proposals to resolve a two-year investigation into complaints that it used its power to block rivals, including Microsoft.

The EU’s antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia, delivered the deadline in a meeting with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt in Brussels.

If it fails to address the complaints, the world’s most popular search engine could face a lengthy battle with what is arguably the world’s most powerful antitrust authority. If found guilty, it could mean a fine of up to 10 percent of its revenue, or $ 4 billion.

“Since our preliminary talks with Google started in July, we have substantially reduced our differences regarding possible ways to address each of the four competition concerns expressed by the Commission,” Almunia said in a statement.

“On the basis of the progress made, I now expect Google to come forward with a detailed commitment text in January 2013.”

Almunia said he would seek feedback from rivals and users once he has received Google’s proposal.

Google said it continues to work co-operatively with the Commission.

The European Commission has been examining informal settlement proposals from Google since July but has not sought feedback from the complainants, suggesting it is not convinced by what Google has put on the table so far.

The EU watchdog’s two-year investigation has centered on complaints that Google unfairly favored its services over its rivals in search results, and that it may have copied material from travel and restaurant websites without permission.

The Commission is also looking into whether Google restricted advertisers from transferring their data to rivals.

The Commission’s decision to press Google to offer more far-reaching concessions comes in sharp contrast to the case U.S. regulators have against the company.

Sources told Reuters the U.S. Federal Trade Commission could drop their investigation into Google without requiring any major change in how the company does business.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Robin Emmott, Louise Heavens and Nick Zieminski)

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A&M's Johnny Football is AP's Player of the Year

Johnny Manziel ran for almost 1,700 yards and 30 touchdowns as a dual-threat quarterback his senior year of high school at Kerrville Tivy.

Who would have thought he'd be even more impressive at Texas A&M when pitted against the defenses of the Southeastern Conference?

On Tuesday, Manziel picked up another major award for his spectacular debut season. He was voted The Associated Press Player of the Year. As with the Heisman Trophy and Davey O'Brien Award that Manziel already won, the QB nicknamed Johnny Football is the first freshman to collect the AP award.

Manziel's 31 votes were more than twice that of second place finisher Manti Te'o, Notre Dame's start linebacker. He is the third straight Heisman-winning quarterback to receive the honor, following Robert Griffin III and Cam Newton.

Manziel erased initial doubts about his ability when he ran for 60 yards and a score in his first game against Florida.

"I knew I could run the ball, I did it a lot in high school," Manziel said in an interview with the AP. "It is just something that you don't get a chance to see in the spring. Quarterbacks aren't live in the spring. You don't get to tackle. You don't get to evade some of the sacks that you would in normal game situations. So I feel like when I was able to avoid getting tackled, it opened some people's eyes a little bit more."

The 6-foot-1 Manziel threw for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns and ran for 1,181 yards and 19 more scores to help the Aggies win 10 games for the first time since 1998 — and in their inaugural SEC year, too.

Ryan Tannehill, Manziel's predecessor now with the Dolphins after being drafted eighth overall this season, saw promise from the young quarterback last year when he was redshirted. But even he is surprised at how quickly things came together for Manziel.

"It's pretty wild. I always thought he had that playmaking ability, that something special where if somebody came free, he can make something exciting happen," Tannehill said. "I wasn't really sure if, I don't think anyone was sure if he was going to be able to carry that throughout an SEC season, and he's shocked the world and he did it."

After Manziel sat out as a redshirt in 2011, Texas A&M's scheduled season-opener against Louisiana Tech this year was postponed because of Hurricane Isaac. That left him to get his first taste of live defense in almost two years against Florida.

He responded well, helping the Aggies race to a 17-7 lead early using both his arm and his feet. The Gators shut down Manziel and A&M's offense in the second half and Texas A&M lost 20-17.

But Manziel's performance was enough for Texas A&M's coaching staff to realize that his scrambling ability was going to be a big part of what the Aggies could do this season.

"The first half really showed that I was a little bit more mobile than we had seen throughout the spring," Manziel said. "Me and (then-offensive coordinator) Kliff Kingsbury sat down and really said: 'Hey we can do some things with my feet as well as throwing the ball.' And it added a little bit of a new dimension."

Manziel knew that the biggest adjustment from playing in high school to college would be the speed of the game. Exactly how quick players in the SEC were was still a jolt to the quarterback.

"The whole first drive I was just seeing how fast they really flew to the ball and I felt like they just moved a whole lot faster," he said of the Florida game. "It was different than what I was used to, different than what I was used to in high school. So it was just having to learn quick and adjust on the fly."

He did just that and started piling up highlight reel material by deftly avoiding would-be tacklers to help the Aggies run off five consecutive wins after that.

His storybook ride hit a roadblock when he threw a season-high three interceptions in a 24-19 loss to LSU. But Manziel used it as a learning experience, taking to heart some advice he received from Kingsbury.

"He just told me to have a plan every time, before every snap," Manziel said. "Make sure you have a plan on what you want to do and where you want to go with the ball."

"I feel like as the year went on, I just learned the offense more and knew exactly where I wanted to go, instead of maybe evading the blitz and just taking off running for the first down instead of hitting a hot route or throwing it underneath to an open guy and doing things a lot simpler and cleaner."

The Aggies and Manziel rebounded from the loss to LSU by winning their last five games, highlighted by their stunning 29-24 upset of top-ranked Alabama on Nov. 10.

By the time Manziel wrapped up a 253-yard passing and 92-yard rushing performance to lead Texas A&M to the victory in Tuscaloosa, you could hardly call him a freshman anymore.

"You keep growing and growing every week," he said. "By the time I played Alabama I had a much better grasp of the game than I did in the first one."

The 4,600 yards of total offense Manziel gained in 12 games broke the SEC record for total yards in a season. The record was previously held by 2010 Heisman winner Newton, who needed 14 games to pile up 4,327 yards. The output also made him the first freshman, first player in the SEC and fifth player overall to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 in a season.

Manziel, who turned 20 two days before taking home the Heisman, has been so busy he hasn't had a second to step back and digest the historical significance of his accomplishments this season.

He's far more concerned with helping the Aggies extend their winning streak to six games with a win over Oklahoma on Jan. 4 in the Cotton Bowl.

"I think it will happen after the bowl game and after the season is completely over," he said. "I'm just ready for it to die down a little bit and get back into a practice routine where we get better and hopefully do what we want to do in the bowl game."

He'll have to do it without his mentor Kingsbury, who left A&M last week to become coach at Texas Tech, where he starred at quarterback not that long ago. Manziel said is happy Kingsbury got to return to his alma matter, but is still adjusting to the idea of playing without him.

"I'm the happiest guy on the face of the earth for him," Manziel said, speaking from California where he appeared on the "Tonight Show" Monday evening. "I think he deserves it with how hard he's worked this year to get us where we were. It's bittersweet though, because I'd like him to be here for the entire time that I'm here."

Manziel is eager to get back on the field for the Cotton Bowl and is focused on helping the offense pick up where it left off in the regular-season finale.

"Even though Kliff Kingsbury's not here anymore, we just need to continue to get better and do what we do," Manziel said. "Push tempo, go fast and be the high-flying offense that we have been all year."

_____

AP Sports Writer Steven Wine contributed to this story from Miami.

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Ancient Bones That Tell a Story of Compassion

Lorna Tilley

DISABLED Almost all the other skeletons at the Man Bac site, south of Hanoi, are straight. But the man now called Burial 9 was laid to rest curled in a fetal position that suggests lifelong paralysis.

While it is a painful truism that brutality and violence are at least as old as humanity, so, it seems, is caring for the sick and disabled.

And some archaeologists are suggesting a closer, more systematic look at how prehistoric people — who may have left only their bones — treated illness, injury and incapacitation. Call it the archaeology of health care.

The case that led Lorna Tilley and Marc Oxenham of Australian National University in Canberra to this idea is that of a profoundly ill young man who lived 4,000 years ago in what is now northern Vietnam and was buried, as were others in his culture, at a site known as Man Bac.

Almost all the other skeletons at the site, south of Hanoi and about 15 miles from the coast, lie straight. Burial 9, as both the remains and the once living person are known, was laid to rest curled in the fetal position. When Ms. Tilley, a graduate student in archaeology, and Dr. Oxenham, a professor, excavated and examined the skeleton in 2007 it became clear why. His fused vertebrae, weak bones and other evidence suggested that he lies in death as he did in life, bent and crippled by disease.

They gathered that he became paralyzed from the waist down before adolescence, the result of a congenital disease known as Klippel-Feil syndrome. He had little, if any, use of his arms and could not have fed himself or kept himself clean. But he lived another 10 years or so.

They concluded that the people around him who had no metal and lived by fishing, hunting and raising barely domesticated pigs, took the time and care to tend to his every need.

“There’s an emotional experience in excavating any human being, a feeling of awe,” Ms. Tilley said, and a responsibility “to tell the story with as much accuracy and humanity as we can.”

This case, and other similar, if less extreme examples of illness and disability, have prompted Ms. Tilley and Dr. Oxenham to ask what the dimensions of such a story are, what care for the sick and injured says about the culture that provided it.

The archaeologists described the extent of Burial 9’s disability in a paper in Anthropological Science in 2009. Two years later, they returned to the case to address the issue of health care head on. “The provision and receipt of health care may therefore reflect some of the most fundamental aspects of a culture,” the two archaeologists wrote in The International Journal of Paleopathology.

And earlier this year, in proposing what she calls a “bioarchaeology of care,” Ms. Tilley wrote that this field of study “has the potential to provide important — and possibly unique — insights into the lives of those under study.” In the case of Burial 9, she says, not only does his care indicate tolerance and cooperation in his culture, but suggests that he himself had a sense of his own worth and a strong will to live. Without that, she says, he could not have stayed alive.

“I’m obviously not the first archaeologist” to notice evidence of people who needed help to survive in stone age or other early cultures, she said. Nor does her method “come out of the blue.” It is based on and extends previous work.

Among archaeological finds, she said, she knows “about 30 cases in which the disease or pathology was so severe, they must have had care in order to survive.” And she said there are certainly more such cases to be described. “I am totally confident that there are almost any number of case studies where direct support or accommodation was necessary.”

Such cases include at least one Neanderthal, Shanidar 1, from a site in Iraq, dating to 45,000 years ago, who died around age 50 with one arm amputated, loss of vision in one eye and other injuries. Another is Windover boy from about 7,500 years ago, found in Florida, who had a severe congenital spinal malformation known as spina bifida, and lived to around age 15. D. N. Dickel and G. H. Doran, from Florida State University wrote the original paper on the case in 1989, and they concluded that contrary to popular stereotypes of prehistoric people, “under some conditions life 7,500 years ago included an ability and willingness to help and sustain the chronically ill and handicapped.”

In another well-known case, the skeleton of a teenage boy, Romito 2, found at a site in Italy in the 1980s, and dating to 10,000 years ago, showed a form of severe dwarfism that left the boy with very short arms. His people were nomadic and they lived by hunting and gathering. He didn’t need nursing care, but the group would have had to accept that he couldn’t run at the same pace or participate in hunting in the same way others did.

Ms. Tilley gained her undergraduate degree in psychology in 1982 and worked in the health care industry studying treatment outcomes before coming to the study of archaeology. She said her experience influenced her interest in ancient health care.

What she proposes, in papers with Dr. Oxenham and in a dissertation in progress, is a standard four-stage method for studying ancient remains of disabled or ill individuals with an eye to understanding their societies. She sets up several stages of investigation: first, establishing what was wrong with a person; second, describing the impact of the illness or disability given the way of life followed in that culture; and third, concluding what level of care would have needed.

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Hospitals Fear They’ll Bear Brunt of Medicare Cuts

Ángel Franco/The New York Times

A hospital technician tends to a patient in the emergency room at Montefiore Medical Center, a large nonprofit hospital system in the Bronx.

WASHINGTON — As President Obama and Congress try to thrash out a budget deal, the question is not whether they will squeeze money out of Medicare, but how much and who will bear the brunt of the cuts.

Angel Franco/The New York Times

Dr. Steven M. Safyer, the chief executive of Montefiore Medical Center, said his hospital has made changes that would result in lower spending in the long run.

Republicans say that some of the savings should come from beneficiaries, and they are pushing proposals like raising the eligibility age or increasing premiums for people with high incomes, who already pay more than the standard premium. Even President Obama has proposed higher premiums, increasing the likelihood that the idea could be adopted. But any significant tinkering with the benefits for older Americans comes with significant political risks, and most Democrats in Congress strenuously oppose raising the age when Medicare coverage begins.

With growing pressure to reach an agreement on deficit reduction by the end of the year, some consensus is building around the idea that the largest Medicare savings should come from hospitals and other institutional providers of care.

“Hospitals will be in the cross hairs for more cuts,” said Lisa Goldstein, an analyst with Moody’s Investors Service, which follows nonprofit hospitals that issue bonds. While hospital executives fiercely defend the payments their own institutions receive, many acknowledge that Medicare is spending too much and growing too fast.

Those executives point out, however, that they have already agreed to $155 billion in cuts over a decade as part of the Affordable Care Act and they face billions more in additional cuts as part of the current negotiations. They argue that such large cuts to hospitals will ultimately affect beneficiaries.

“There is no such thing as a cut to a provider that isn’t a cut to a beneficiary,” said Dr. Steven M. Safyer, the chief executive of Montefiore Medical Center, a large nonprofit hospital system in the Bronx.

Mr. Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner continued trying on Tuesday to reach an overall budget agreement, which would call for significant savings in Medicare and would avert a deep cut in Medicare payments to doctors, scheduled to occur next month.

Mr. Boehner said that an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare, favored by many Republicans, could wait until next year.

“I don’t believe it’s an issue that has to be dealt with between now and the end of the year,” Mr. Boehner said Tuesday when asked about a possible change in the Medicare eligibility age. “It is an issue, I think, if Congress were to do entitlement reform next year and tax reform, as we envision, if there is an agreement, that issue will certainly be open to debate in that context.”

The starting point for the current negotiations is President Obama’s most recent budget request, which proposed legislation that would save $300 billion, or 4 percent of projected Medicare spending, over 10 years.

By contrast, Republicans in Congress are seeking savings of $400 billion to $600 billion, at least some of which should come from beneficiaries, they say.

Members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an influential panel that advises Congress, see many opportunities to rein in costs, and they say that financial pressure on providers could make them more efficient without harming the quality of care. At a meeting of the panel earlier this month, one commission member, Scott Armstrong, president of Group Health Cooperative, a nonprofit health system in Seattle, said Medicare spent “too much” on inpatient hospital care — $117 billion last year. “In an efficient system,” he said, “we wouldn’t be spending that kind of money on hospital services.”

Although Congress may leave the details of Medicare savings to be worked out next year, there is already discussion of cutting special payments to teaching hospitals and small rural hospitals. Lawmakers are also considering reducing payments to hospitals for certain outpatient services that can be performed at lower cost in doctors’ offices. Medicare pays substantially higher rates for the same services when they are provided in a hospital outpatient department rather than a doctor’s office. The differential added $1.5 billion to Medicare costs last year, and as hospitals buy physician practices around the country, the costs are likely to grow, the Medicare commission says.

The savings contemplated by Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner are substantially larger than the Medicare savings that would be produced by automatic across-the-board cutbacks scheduled to start next month if Congress does not intervene. Those Medicare savings have been estimated at $123 billion from 2013 to 2021. Some hospital executives favor the automatic cuts as more equitable — and less painful — than some of the specific reductions being contemplated.

Hospital administrators and others warn of potential hospital closings, shutting down of unprofitable services like hospitalization for psychiatric care and less access to medical care for the most vulnerable if the cuts are too deep. Nancy M. Schlichting, the chief executive of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, says severe cuts might make it harder for hospitals like hers to treat patients without insurance. “It’s a big question whether we can continue to do that,” she said. “We would have to make tough decisions.”

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Syria Warns Palestinians Not to Aid Rebels as Camp Residents Flee

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syria warned its Palestinian refugee population on Monday not to aid the insurgency that is fighting President Bashar al-Assad, as hundreds of Palestinians fled the Yarmouk neighborhood of Damascus, with many heading for relative safety in Lebanon, a day after Syrian forces attacked that neighborhood for the first time in the civil war.

The New York Times

For many Yarmouk residents — refugees from conflict with Israel and their descendants — the attacks shattered what was left of the Syrian government’s claim to be a champion and protector of Palestinians.

The Syrian warning appeared to reflect the sensitivity Mr. Assad attaches to the loyalty of the country’s Palestinians, an important element of what remains of his political legitimacy. It came as new clashes were reported in and around the Yarmouk neighborhood between government forces and rebel fighters.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in Syria, displaced by the Arab-Israeli struggle. Historically, they have considered Mr. Assad a benefactor and ally. Yarmouk was originally a refugee camp, and has developed into a mixed Damascus neighborhood where many Palestinians live — but increasing numbers of them have been siding with the insurgents.

The warning aimed at these Palestinians was conveyed in a news dispatch by the official Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, about a telephone conversation between the country’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon concerning the general situation in Syria and specifically the Yarmouk neighborhood.

Mr. Moallem was quoted as telling Mr. Ban that mayhem had been convulsing Yarmouk for days, caused by infiltrations from terrorist groups, the government’s blanket description for insurgents.

“The minister also stressed that Palestinians should not shelter or help terrorist groups who are outsiders to the camp, and should work on kicking them out,” Mr. Moallem was quoted as saying.

The SANA account said Syrian ground forces had refrained from entering Yarmouk, but said nothing about the Syrian air and artillery strikes that first hit Yarmouk on Sunday, which were reported by witnesses, rebels and Palestinian defectors to the rebel side. By some accounts, as many as 20 people were killed and dozens hurt, and families could be seen hastily fleeing the area with packed bags.

Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for Mr. Ban at the United Nations, confirmed that the secretary general had spoken with the Syrian foreign minister to express concern “about the escalation of violence in recent days, and very specifically the incident yesterday in which a Palestinian refugee camp, Yarmouk, right near Damascus, came under attack.”

The United States also expressed concern. Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, said the aerial bombardment of Yarmouk constituted “a significant and alarming escalation of the conflict in Syria.”

In the aftermath of the bombardment, Syrian government tanks and dozens of troops could be seen taking positions at the northern entrance to Yarmouk on Monday as hundreds of people fled on foot, searching for taxis or buses to take them to safety in Lebanon and elsewhere. Some residents headed to schools where classes were abruptly stopped so that they could accommodate fleeing families. Luckier refugees went to relatives living outside the neighborhood.

During a predawn announcement, Yarmouk mosques told residents to take advantage of a brief window of time, from 6 to 8 a.m., to flee the area, according to Yussef, a 40-year old Palestinian refugee who hurried out of the camp with his family, carrying a large black bag in one hand and his six-month-old-baby in the other. “I couldn’t sleep the whole night,” he said. “I heard a lot of shooting, but I don’t know from where.”

He said he was shocked on Sunday at the speed of the government assault, in which fighter planes and artillery were used to attack the area just hours after rebel fighters entered Yarmouk. One fighter said that the rebel’s goal was not to control the neighborhood but to use it as a valuable staging ground for an eventual attack on central Damascus.

On Monday, groups of rebel fighters patrolled Yarmouk’s main street as the government forces shelled parts of the neighborhood. Yussef said he was moving his family to his brother’s house outside the camp.

“I want to save my family’s life,” he said. “I will never, ever return.”

Hania Mourtada reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Hwaida Saad from Beirut and Ellen Barry from Moscow.

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Massachusetts fines Morgan Stanley over Facebook research

BOSTON (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter for Facebook Inc’s initial public offering, will pay a $ 5 million fine to Massachusetts to settle charges that its bankers improperly influenced its research analysts when the Internet company went public.

Massachusetts’ top securities regulator, William Galvin, charged that Morgan Stanley improperly helped Facebook disclose sensitive financial information selectively, perpetuating what he calls “an unlevel playing field” between Wall Street and Main Street.

Morgan Stanley has been under criticism since the social media company went public in May for having revealed revised earnings and revenue forecasts to select clients on conference calls before the media company’s $ 16 billion initial public offering. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Galvin, who has been aggressive in policing how research is distributed on Wall Street ever since investment banks reached a global settlement in 2003, said the bank violated that settlement. He fined Citigroup $ 2 million over similar charges in late October.

Massachusetts says that a senior Morgan Stanley banker helped a Facebook executive release new information and then guided the executive on how to speak with Wall Street analysts about it. The banker, Galvin’s office said, rehearsed with Facebook’s Treasurer and wrote the bulk of the script Facebook’s Treasurer used when calling the research analysts.

The banker “was not allowed to call research analysts himself, so he did everything he could to ensure research analysts received new revenue numbers which they then provided to institutional investors,” Galvin said in a statement.

Retail investors were not given any similar information, Galvin said, saying this case illustrates how institutional investors often have an edge over retail investors.

(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss with additional reporting by Suzanne Barlyn in New York; Editing by Theodore d’Afflisio)

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AP source: Blue Jays, Dickey agree, trade close

NEW YORK (AP) — A person familiar with the deal tells The Associated Press that R.A. Dickey and the Blue Jays have agreed on a new contract, clearing the way for the New York Mets to trade the Cy Young winner to Toronto.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity Monday because the trade was not yet complete. The 38-year-old knuckleballer must pass a physical before he joins the Blue Jays.

The Mets would get prized catching prospect Travis d'Arnaud as the centerpiece of the multiplayer swap.

Multiple reports say the reworked contract adds two years and $25 million to his existing deal.

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Well: A Running Bias Against Really Dedicated Runners

From the moment it appeared online last month, an editorial in the journal Heart became a Rorschach test for opinions about runners.

Do you roll your eyes when they start talking about their races and times? Do you snigger when you see bumper stickers that simply say “26.2,” the number of miles in a marathon, or “13.1,” the half-marathon distance? Do you lose patience with family members who have to go for a run — even if it means waking up at 4 a.m. before leaving on a vacation?

Then perhaps the editorial will appeal to you. It was titled “Run for your life… at a comfortable speed and not too far.” The authors, Dr. James H. O’Keefe Jr. of Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., and Dr. Carl J. Lavie of the Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, wrote that those who run slowly and keep their mileage down gain health benefits. But those who run for more than about 40 minutes a day and those who run faster than eight minutes a mile actually increase their risk of death.

Too much or too intense running, the two cardiologists said, “appears to cause excessive ‘wear and tear’ on the heart.”

The editorial got extensive news attention, often tinged with schadenfreude. “What do you get if you finish a marathon? A finisher’s medal and a risk of death! ” said MSN-Now. The Wall Street Journal’s article was headlined “One Running Shoe in the Grave.”

On the other side, of course, were aggrieved runners. Runner’s World instantly published a rejoinder titled “The Too-Much-Running Myth Rises Again.” The Heart editorial, it said, was “twisting the data.”

Meanwhile, some runners panicked. “I got 650 e-mails in four hours,” said Dr. Aaron Baggish, associate director of the cardiovascular performance program at the Massachusetts General Hospital. (Dr. Baggish cycles, he runs — more than 30 marathons so far — and he competes in triathlons. “I certainly exceed any dose of exercise that has been said to be bad for you,” he noted.)

By now the evidence has been thoroughly dissected. Suffice it to say that leading exercise researchers agree with Runner’s World and have stacks of journal articles to bolster their arguments.

Dr. Benjamin Levine, a competitive tennis player and director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Resources and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, said: “You can always find one or two papers and studies that, if you spin the right way, can seem to reflect your argument.”

But, he added, while health benefits rise most sharply as people go from sedentary to moderately active, there is no good evidence that they decline, or even level off, for distance runners. “Our data and other data are quite convincing,” Dr. Levine said.

Dr. O’Keefe is not swayed. In an as yet unpublished editorial, he recommends running just two or three miles at a relaxed pace a few times a week, interspersed with days of swimming, a couple of sessions of weight lifting and some yoga. In an interview, he said that was his own exercise regimen.

The real question, though, is why does running arouse such passions? You don’t hear gleeful chortling about the health hazards to master swimmers or cross-country skiers or cyclists who do 100-mile “century” rides.

Dr. Paul Thompson, a cardiologist and exercise researcher at Hartford Hospital who is also an endurance athlete, cites two factors. First, he said, among runners “a lot of people use their athleticism in an attempt to show they are a superior human being.”

Paula Broadwell said she ran in the mountains of Afghanistan with Gen. David H. Petraeus, maintaining a pace of six or seven minutes a mile while interviewing him. The Wall Street Journal published her available race times, in an article that gushed over her speed.

But it was clear to runners that she could not possibly have run that fast, even at sea level. Her best time in a race was 7:21 minutes a mile, and most people race faster than they normally run. Even that pace barely put her in the 70th percentile for her age.

When runners use their prowess, real or exaggerated, to suggest superiority, they generate resentment, Dr. Thompson noted. As a result, he said, “people love to find studies that support the bias that too much exercise is bad.”

Why is this not an issue in other sports? Runners, Dr. Thompson and others say, are just so much more plentiful than other athletes; if you find yourself resenting an athlete who fancies himself superior, odds are that athlete will be a runner. And running appears so easy — anyone can run, it seems. Anyone can finish a marathon, even Oprah Winfrey did it. So those who do not run can feel a little defensive.

Added to that is all the running talk by devotees who may not realize how annoying and boring their monologues can be. Dr. Baggish said his patients often bring in huge folders full of decades worth of data — heart rates on various runs, finishing times in races.

“They can talk about it until the cows come home,” he said.

So it might behoove runners to keep their running talk and braggadocio to their running friends. There may be something more than health concerns behind those cracks from friends and family about failing knees and backs and heart attacks among runners.

“When I see runners in my office, I always encourage them to bring their spouses,” Dr. Baggish said. Often a wife, for example, will start to complain: her husband “can’t enjoy Christmas Day with the family because he has to run.” A husband might say he just can’t understand why his wife has to be out there all the time running.

“That sort of inconvenience translates into concerns about health,” Dr. Baggish said.

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E.U. and Google to Discuss Antitrust Issues

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top antitrust regulator is expected to meet with Google executives early this week as settlement talks between the search giant and the U.S. authorities gain momentum.

The Europeans have been seeking a settlement with Google since May, and Joaquín Almunia, the Union’s competition commissioner, and Eric E. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, have met on previous occasions trying to reach an accord.

But the Europeans have been pressing Google harder than their U.S counterparts to address accusations that the company biases its search results to favor its own services like mapping and online shopping. That makes the expected talks between Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Almunia particularly delicate.

The two men could meet as soon as Tuesday, according to a person with knowledge of the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity as the meeting was to be private.

While Google is the dominant search engine in the United States, it holds even greater sway in Europe, accounting for more than 90 percent of searches in a number of major markets. That could leave rivals like Microsoft scope to try to set some rules — at least in the European Union, where regulators often rely more on complaints by competitors than in the United States — for how Google ranks competing services.

After a two-year inquiry, Mr. Almunia said in May that Google might have abused its dominance in Internet search and advertising, giving its own products an advantage over those of rivals.

“Google displays links to its own vertical search services differently than it does for links to competitors,” Mr. Almunia said in a statement then. “We are concerned that this may result in preferential treatment compared to those of competing services, which may be hurt as a consequence.”

The accusation that Google biases its search results to favor its own services, which originally was a main issue in the U.S. talks, has been taken off the table there, two people who have been briefed on those discussions said Sunday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations were continuing.

Google has consistently maintained that it offers a neutral, best-for-the-customer result.

Mr. Almunia said in May that Google would need to propose a plan within weeks for changes to various practices, including how it links to competitors’ services. Google made its first formal settlement proposal in July, but the talks have dragged on since.

In September, Mr. Almunia signaled that there were limits to how much longer his office would try to negotiate. But early this month, Mr. Almunia appeared to take a softer tone, saying that time was needed to conclude “conversations” with Google that were going on “quite intensively.”

If Mr. Almunia ultimately accepts a settlement offer, Google would avoid a possible fine of as much as 10 percent of its annual global revenue, about $37.9 billion last year. It would also avoid a guilty finding that could restrict its business activities in Europe.

A settlement would offer advantages for Mr. Almunia, too. He has sought to speed up resolution of antitrust cases to prevent them from dragging out, particularly in the fast-changing technology marketplace, where proposed remedies often rapidly lose their relevance.

As negotiations stand in the U.S. case, Google would make a set of voluntary commitments, the two people briefed on those discussions said.

Google, according to the people, has agreed to refrain from copying summaries of product and restaurant reviews from other Web sites and including them in Google search results, a practice known as screen scraping.

The company would also agree to make it easier for advertisers to transfer data on products, pricing and bidding to Google’s competitors, including Bing from Microsoft, the two people said. Google, they said, would also refrain from striking exclusive deals with Web sites to use Google’s search service.

In addition, Google would sign a consent decree, agreeing to license patents deemed essential for wireless communications on reasonable terms, the two people said. The patent issue is a late entrant to the case. Subpoenas that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission started sending to Internet companies last year laid out a wide-ranging investigation focusing on Google’s conduct in the search business. The Web site Politico reported Saturday that the talks had moved away from search, adding details to reports that Google was resisting a consent decree in that area.

Steve Lohr reported from New York.

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Syrian Airstrike Kills Palestinian Refugees

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian government forces for the first time hit the country’s largest Palestinian refugee neighborhood with airstrikes on Sunday, killing at least eight people in the Yarmouk district of Damascus and reportedly driving dozens of formerly pro-government Palestinian fighters to defect to the rebels.

New signs emerged on Sunday of political pressure on President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Assad’s vice president was quoted as saying neither side could win the war and calling for “new partners” in a unity government, a possible sign that at least some in the government were exploring new ways out of the crisis. The comments came as two close allies, the government of Iran and the leader of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, appeared to slightly temper their support.

In Yarmouk, flesh stuck to the walls and burned body parts littered the ground at the Sheik Abdul Qader mosque, which had offered shelter to Palestinians and others displaced by fighting in other areas. Minutes before, a reporter saw a Syrian fighter jet fire rockets at the camp. Women, crying children and white-bearded men thronged the streets with hurriedly packed bags, not sure where to look for safety.

For many Yarmouk residents — refugees from conflict with Israel and their descendants — the attacks shattered what was left of the Syrian government’s claim to be a champion and protector of Palestinians, a position that the Assad family relied upon as a source of domestic and international legitimacy during more than 40 years of iron-fisted rule.

“For decades the Assad regime was talking about the Palestinians’ rights,” said a Palestinian refugee who gave his name as Abu Ammar as he debated whether to flee with his wife and five children from the camp, on the southern edge of Damascus. “But Bashar al-Assad has killed more of us today than Israel did in its latest war on Gaza.”

He added: “What does Bashar expect from us after today? All of us will be Free Syrian Army fighters.”

The Palestinian militant group and political party Hamas has broken with Mr. Assad over his crackdown on what began as a peaceful protest movement, and while most Palestinian parties still profess neutrality, a growing number of Palestinians support — and have even joined — the rebels.

The Syrian government long held the loyalty of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, giving them health care, education, and access to professional careers, among other rights denied by other Arab host countries. But those policies also gave Palestinians a stake and sense of belonging in Syria that has led many to join the uprising.

Several of Mr. Assad’s allies signaled a new push for a peaceful solution. Iran’s Foreign Ministry called for an end to military action, the release of political prisoners and a broad-based dialogue to form a transitional government that would hold free elections, Iran’s state news agency reported.

Mr. Assad’s vice president, Farouk al-Shara, said that neither the government nor the rebels could end the conflict militarily, the pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported. And he called for a solution involving a cease-fire and brokered by international leaders that would establish a “national unity government with wide powers.”

He added that the battle was for the country’s very existence, not “the survival of an individual or a regime,” and that Syria’s leaders “cannot achieve change without new partners.”

The impact of the statements was unclear. Mr. Shara, a Sunni Muslim like most of the rebels, has been floated by the Arab League as a possible successor, but many of Mr. Assad’s opponents reject any dealings with leaders of the current government.

In neighboring Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, appeared to acknowledge for the first time that the Syrian uprising is at least in part driven by popular sentiment.

“Today, in Syria,” he said in a videotaped address at a graduation ceremony, “there is a big part of the population with the Syrian regime and a part against it, and the latter armed themselves to fight the regime.”

An employee of The New York Times reported from Damascus, and Anne Barnard from Beirut. Hani Mourtada contributed reporting from Beirut, and Hala Droubi from Dubai.

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