Boehner's 'Plan B' immediately encounters opposition

House Speaker John Boehner says he is readying a backup bill aimed at averting the "fiscal cliff."

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner’s "Plan B" on the budget talks, bringing to a vote his proposal to extend expiring tax breaks for all but those Americans who earn more than $1 million a year, ran almost immediately into stiff resistance Tuesday.

Conservative Republicans pushed back against it, the White House swiftly rejected the approach and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) called it "dead on arrival."

Boehner's decision, shared behind closed doors during a morning meeting of rank-and-file GOP lawmakers, was an abrupt shift after the Ohio Republican and President Obama had substantially narrowed their differences in talks that both sides described as optimistic. The proposed vote could come as soon as Thursday.

By calling up the legislation for a vote, the speaker is trying to build momentum toward a resolution as talks over a broader deficit deal continue. He wants to avoid having his party be seen as causing a tax hike on most Americans in the new year, which would happen if no agreement is reached.

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"We have to stop whatever tax-rate increases we can," the speaker told his troops, according to prepared remarks supplied by a source familiar with the talk but not authorized to disclose it. "In the absence of an alternative, as of this morning, a modified Plan B is the plan. At the same time we're moving on Plan B, we're leaving the door wide open for something better."

The speaker made it clear that he is not cutting off talks with Obama as they continue to pursue a deficit-reduction package to avert the "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts in the new year. He and the president spoke by phone late Monday after a morning meeting at the White House.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissed the speaker’s Plan B in a statement, saying it "can't pass the Senate and therefore will not protect middle-class families." He added that Obama "is not willing to accept a deal that doesn't ask enough of the very wealthiest in taxes and instead shifts the burden to the middle class and seniors."

Obama campaigned on extending tax breaks for household income of less than $250,000 a year, although he has sought compromise in talks this week with Boehner, indicating a willingness to raise that threshold to $400,000.

Boehner seeks to launch a legislative ping-pong game between the House and Senate over the Plan B bill. If he is able to pass the measure in the House -- which remains uncertain -- Republicans expect that the Senate, controlled by Democrats, would likely amend it to reflect Obama’s priorities on taxes and stimulus spending on long-term unemployment insurance, and send it back to the lower chamber.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the Boehner bill could not pass either chamber.

As Boehner outlined his strategy Tuesday, conservative Republicans bristled at being asked to raise the highest tax rates, now at 35%, to 39.6% for those earning more than $1 million a year. Tax rates on capital gains and dividends would also rise on those wealthy households.

"I hate it. I hate it," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), an outspoken leader of House conservatives. But he did not say he would oppose it. "I'm trying to be reasonable. I understand no one person is going to get everything they want."

Conservatives want more federal spending cuts in exchange for any new tax revenue -- but not the massive automatic spending cuts in place for early next year. Plan B would keep those cuts in place.

Freshman Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) said reaction was mixed as Boehner spoke. "There will be some of us that will say no; some of us will say yes," he said. "This is a reality check, people are trying to grapple with the situation in which we sit right now."

Democrats, though, were more certain of the outcome, especially because the Boehner proposal would reduce the cost-of-living adjustment for those who receive government benefits, likely including Social Security, which would be a major concession for the Democratic Party. Obama has offered making that cut, but only in exchange for higher tax rates on households making at least $400,000 a year.

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"I don’t know what the purpose of this Plan B is," Pelosi said as she emerged from a closed-door meeting of House Democrats. "To find out if Democrats will support that? They won't."

"Speaker Boehner seems to be walking away," added Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the House Democrats' point person for discussions of the fiscal cliff. "I know he says he wants to engage in conversation, but now he's doing this unilateral course."

Boehner faces an enormous test in trying to get his Plan B out of the House with his conservative majority. He plans to offer the rank-and-file a chance to make changes to the bill.

"He's got a difficult hand to play: On the one hand, he’s got difficult negotiations, and on the other hand, he’s got a contentious conference to deal with," said freshman Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) "He understands what reality is. He understands he’s got a difficult sell ahead of him."

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Almost Everything You've Heard About the North Korean Space Launch Is Wrong

Last week, North Korea finally managed to put an object into orbit around the Earth after 14 years of trying. The event was greeted with hysterical headlines, about how the whole thing was a likely a missile test and most certainly a failure of Western intelligence. Most of those headlines were dead wrong.

There are many questions yet to be answered about this launch and what it means. Some of them will take weeks or months to determine, others may never be answered satisfactorily. But there’s enough information already in the public domain to answer basic questions about the launch. News flash: Most of the initial reports about it were total misfires.

Some of the same technologies are needed for long-range missiles and for space launches — most notably rocket motors, high strength-to-weight fuselages, and guidance software. But they’re not the same thing. All evidence points to a satellite launch, despite headlines like these.

The goal of a space launch vehicle is to insert payloads into orbit and to do so they must perform two functions. They must first lift a payload to a desired altitude above the Earth and then give that payload enough forward speed to remain in orbit at that altitude. The final speed required for this is determined by the altitude and pull of the Earth’s gravity. With enough speed, the payload moves forward equal to the distance it is pulled towards the Earth by gravity. It moves in an ellipse around the Earth, continually falling towards the Earth but missing (“free fall”).

Ballistic missiles, on the other hand, have a different goal. Their objective is to deliver a payload to another spot on the Earth. To do so, they need to accelerate the payload to a very high speed, although significantly slower than the space launch vehicle, and after separation from the rocket, the ballistic missile’s payload follows an elliptical path through space similar to a satellite. However, the ballistic payload is not in orbit — part of its elliptical path is inside the Earth’s atmosphere. The payload coasts along its elliptical path and instead of “free-falling” around the planet, it re-enters the atmosphere and impacts a spot on the surface of the Earth.

From a practical perspective, these different goals result in significant differences in the flight profile of a space launch versus a ballistic missile launch. Look at the illustration of the North Korean launch compiled by Dr. David Wright. The green trajectory in this illustration is for a ballistic missile trajectory while the red and yellow trajectory is for a space launch trajectory. The most striking difference is in the altitude — a long-range ballistic missile actually goes much higher into space than a typical space launch into low-Earth orbit (LEO), sometimes as high as 1,500 kilometers (930 miles).

Within these parameters, the North Korean rocket launch was most certainly a space launch and not a ballistic missile test. This can be verified by multiple sources before, during and after the launch. Prior to the launch, North Korea notified international agencies of the splashdown zones for the first two stages and the payload shroud, as is standard practice. These splashdown zones corresponded to a space launch trajectory, indicating beforehand that the North Koreans planned to try and place a satellite into orbit. During the launch, heat from the rocket was picked up by constellations of U.S. military infrared satellites in orbit. Tracking of the burn phase of the launch by those satellites allows the U.S. to verify that it was on a space launch trajectory. After the launch, remnants of the first stage were recovered in the pre-announced splash zone by the South Korean Navy.

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Ben Stiller’s Red Hour sells two more comedies to ABC Studios

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Ben Stiller‘s Red Hour Television is continuing to pump out comedies for ABC Studios.

Following the sale of “Complikated” in October, the production company has sold network’s production division two new series – “You’re Not Doing It Right” and “Between Two Kings” – a rep for Red Hour told TheWrap on Monday.

Comedian Michael Ian Black writes, stars and produces in the former, a half-hour single-camera comedy based on his book of the same name that explores his childhood, marriage, children and career. Set “in the wilds of Connecticut,” the show takes a hard look at what happens when you wake up, look around and don’t recognize the life you’re living as your own, Red Hour said.

“Between Two Kings” is written and executive-produced by Jeff Kahn, who has written for series like “Drawn Together” and “The Ben Stiller Show.” It follows the hardships of a divorced father raising an 11-year-old son while living in his elderly father’s home.

Both are being executive-produced by Stiller, along with Red Hour’s Debbie Liebling and Stuart Cornfeld.

Since signing an overall deal with ABC Studios at the end of 2011, Red Hour also has sold “Please Knock,” written by Kevin Napier, and “The Notorious Mollie Flowers,” written by Adam Resnick.

The sale of “You’re Not Doing It Right” and “Between Two Kings” were first reported by Deadline.

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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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Pasadena police shooting of Kendrec McDade was justified, D.A. says

Pasadena police officers acted lawfully when they fatally shot an unarmed college student, prosecutors said Monday.

The officers reasonably believed Kendrec McDade, 19, was armed with a gun based on false information from a 911 caller, according to a report on the March shooting released Monday by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

The controversial shooting sparked protests and outrage in Pasadena, with some drawing comparisons to the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

McDade, 19, was killed March 24 when Officers Jeffrey Newlen and Mathew Griffin responded to a report of an armed theft of a man near a taco truck in northwest Pasadena.

"The actions of McDade during the pursuit in conjunction with the information known to the officers at the time of the shooting reasonably created a fear of imminent death or serious bodily injury," Deputy Dist. Atty. Deborah A. Delport wrote in the report. "Once the officers perceived that McDade posed an apparent lethal threat their response with deadly force was justified."

In a detailed account, prosecutors revealed that after one officer shot and wounded McDade, the second officer -- believing McDade had opened fire -- shot him after he was probably already wounded.

According to prosecutors, McDade fled on foot up Sunset Street with his right hand at his waist. As he ran, Officer Griffin sped past him in a patrol cruiser and blocked the street as Officer Newlen chased him on foot. McDade was about to run past the cruiser when he turned and ran directly toward the cruiser where Griffin was seated. "He left the sidewalk and he's running at me," Griffin told investigators. "This -- this scares the crap out of me. I don't know why he is running at me. He's still clutching his waistband. I think he's got a gun. I'm stuck in the car. I got no where to go."

Fearing for his life, Griffin said he fired four times through the open driver's side window. McDade was two or three feet away. Griffin said he then ducked down to his right to avoid being hit by shots he expected from McDade. He heard two shots and believed McDade had fired at him.

Newlen told investigators he heard the gunshots and believed McDade "was firing at Griffin."

He described seeing McDade walk toward the rear of the car and crouch down. Newlen said he heard a second gunshot at that point and saw muzzle flash. Believing McDade was firing at him, Newlen fired four or five shots at McDade, who fell to the ground after being hit.

McDade was later found to be unarmed. He was carrying a cellphone in his pocket.

In addition to confusion over who was firing shots, the two officers were operating on a false premise that McDade had committed an armed robbery. Oscar Carrillo, who reported that his computer had been stolen, had falsely told police that he had been robbed at gunpoint and later claimed he saw what he thought was the barrel of a gun.

A security video shows another young man taking a computer from Carrillo's car. McDade is seen only at the rear of the car.

According to an autopsy, McDade suffered three fatal wounds and five other non-lethal rounds.

The shooting has prompted four separate inquiries and a lawsuit by the family.

In a federal lawsuit, McDade's parents, Anya Slaughter and Kenneth McDade, allege their son was shot multiple times in the chest but did not die immediately. According to the lawsuit, McDade tried to speak with the officer, but was handcuffed and started to "twitch" and was left on the street for a prolonged period of time without receiving first aid.

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How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

Today Instagram unleashed brand-new terms of service that has rubbed many of its loyal users the wrong way. Instagram can sell your photos to third parties for ads without telling you.

While the chances are slim that your photo of your cat will end up on the side of a bus selling Meow Mix, the change to the photo-sharing company’s terms of service is broad in its assertion of rights to use its user’s photos. Here is the offending passage from the new TOS:

Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

If the new terms are tough for you to swallow, there is a way to quickly remove yourself from the many-filtered ways of Instagram.

First you’ll want to download all of your photos. Instaport will download your entire Instagram photo library in just a few minutes. Currently the service only offers a zip file download of your photos, although direct export to Flickr and Facebook are in the works.

Once the photos are downloaded, you can upload them to another photo service. Some of the Gadget Lab staff is fond of the new Flickr app and service.

After you’ve removed your photos from Instagram, you can quickly delete your account and pretend you’ve never even heard of Lo-Fi filter.

But once you delete your account, that’s it. Instagram cannot reactivate deactivated accounts and you will not be able to sign up for Instagram later with the same account name.

That’s it. Of course you’ll need to find another photo service to see photos of meals and your friend’s feet.

Roberto is a Wired Staff Writer for Gadget Lab covering augmented reality, home technology, and all the gadgets that fit in your backpack. Got a tip? Send him an email at: roberto_baldwin [at] wired.com.

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TV network aimed at millennials set for summer

NEW YORK (AP) — Participant Media plans to launch a cable network aimed at viewers 18 to 34 years old with programming it describes as inspiring and thought-provoking.

The as-yet-unnamed network is set to start next summer with an initial reach of 40 million subscribers, the company announced Monday.

Targeting so-called millennials, Participant is developing a program slate with such producers as Brian Graden, Morgan Spurlock and Brian Henson of The Jim Henson Company.

Evan Shapiro, who joined Participant in May after serving as President of IFC and Sundance Channel, will head the new network.

Parent company Participant Media has produced a number of fiction and nonfiction films including “Charlie Wilson’s War,” ”An Inconvenient Truth” and Steven Spielberg’s current biopic “Lincoln.”

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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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