A night of upsets and Irish, Tide rise in football

Coming into Saturday, Oregon and Kansas State had the inside track to college football's national championship and the Southeastern Conference's run of six straight BCS titles was in jeopardy.

Then No. 2 K-State got thumped 52-24 by unranked Baylor and top-ranked Oregon fell in overtime to No. 14 Stanford, 17-14.

Now the SEC is alive and well.

And how's this for a possible national title game: Alabama vs. Notre Dame.

A week after Alabama lost to Texas A&M, more upsets re-opened door for the fourth-ranked Crimson Tide, which shut out lower-division Western Carolina 49-0 on Saturday.

Georgia has a title shot, too. And so does Florida.

But the happiest of all about the Ducks and Wildcats going down had to be Notre Dame and its fans.

The Fighting Irish were third in the BCS standings and the AP Top 25, behind K-State and Oregon entering the weekend. Notre Dame was staring at what must have felt unthinkable for the storied program: Finishing unbeaten and not even getting a chance to play for the BCS championship.

The Irish took care of running their record to 11-0 with a 38-0 shutout at home against Wake Forest.

Then everything fell into place.

Oregon (10-1), the highest scoring team in the country at 55 points per games, couldn't shake free of Stanford's tough defense. The Cardinal tied it late on a juggling TD catch that was called incomplete on the field and overturned to a catch by replay.

In OT, Oregon missed a field goal and Stanford made one. The Ducks were done.

"It hurts and as I told them, you'd like to have some words that would take the pain out of it, but there aren't," Ducks coach Chip Kelly said. "We'll feel bad for a little bit of time and we'll bounce back from it."

Kansas State's first loss of the season was far more decisive. Collin Klein and the Wildcats (10-1) lost 52-24 at Baylor, and there went Kansas State's BCS title hopes and Klein's status as Heisman Trophy front-runner. He was picked off three times.

It was the first time since Dec. 1, 2007, that the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the AP Top 25 lost on the same day. That year, Missouri and West Virginia were the upset victims, giving Ohio State and LSU a chance to play for the national title. The Tigers won the second of the SEC's six straight.

When the latest BCS standings and AP rankings come out Sunday Notre Dame almost certainly will be No. 1.

Alabama, fourth in the BCS last week, will most likely be in second place this week, followed by SEC rivals Georgia and Florida.

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly won't need to go on television with Oprah Winfrey, as he said he would earlier this week, to plead his team's case for playing in the BCS title game. Just beat rival Southern California next week at the Los Angeles Coliseum and book the plane tickets to Miami, where the BCS national title game will be played Jan. 7.

USC, the preseason No. 1 team, lost again on Saturday, 38-28 to UCLA, to fall to 7-4. And Trojans star quarterback Matt Barkley was knocked out of Saturday's game by a hard hit. No word yet on whether he'll play next week, but if he doesn't Notre Dame's path gets even smoother.

As for the SEC, it's pretty simple.

Alabama (10-1) and Georgia (10-1) have already sealed up spots in the conference title game on Dec. 1, but both have games still to play.

The Tide plays hapless rival Auburn next week. The Bulldogs face Georgia Tech. If they both win, the SEC title game again becomes a de facto national semifinal, with the winner likely advancing to Miami, trying to extend win the league's seventh straight national crown.

Sprinkle in a Georgia Tech win and the Bulldogs beating Alabama in the SEC title game, and No. 7 Florida (10-1) could be the SEC's representative, though the Gators have to play at No. 10 Florida State (10-1).

The Seminoles aren't out of the race yet either, especially if USC shocks Notre Dame. Though if that happens, just about any team with only one loss will be making claim to be in the big game, even Oregon and Kansas State if they can win their conferences.

Or consider this.

USC beats Notre Dame, Florida beats Florida State, and either Georgia or Alabama finishes 12-1. Add it up and it could be an all-SEC championship game for the second straight year.

Or there could be split national championship. Undefeated Ohio State is No. 6 in the AP Top 25 but ineligible to win the BCS title because it is NCAA-banned from playing in a bowl game.

If all the other contenders falter, Ohio State could be the lone unbeaten left standing and lay claim to the AP title.

Sounds crazy, but after Saturday night, nothing seems far-fetched.

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AP Sports Writer Anne M. Peterson in Eugene, Ore., contributed.

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Follow AP Sports Writer Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphdrussoap

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The Neediest Cases: Emerging From a Bleak Life to Become Fabulous Phil

For years, Phillip Johnson was caught in what seemed like an endless trench of bad luck. He was fired from a job, experienced intensifying psychological problems, lost his apartment and spent time in homeless shelters. At one point, he was hospitalized after overdosing on an antipsychotic drug.

“I had a rough road,” he said.

Since his hospital stay two years ago, and despite setbacks, Mr. Johnson, 27, has been getting his life on track. At Brooklyn Community Services, where he goes for daily counseling and therapy, everybody knows him as Fabulous Phil.

“Phillip is a light, the way he evokes happiness in other people,” his former caseworker, Teresa O’Brien, said. “Phillip’s character led directly to his nickname.”

About six months ago, with Ms. O’Brien’s help, Mr. Johnson started an event: Fabulous Phil Friday Dance Party Fridays.

One recent afternoon at the agency, 30 clients and a few counselors were eating cake, drinking soft drinks and juice, and grooving for 45 minutes to Jay-Z and Drake pulsating from a boom box.

Mr. Johnson’s voice rose with excitement when he talked about the party. Clients and counselors, he said, “enjoy themselves.”

“They connect more; they communicate more,” he continued. “Everybody is celebrating and laughing.”

The leadership Mr. Johnson now displays seems to be a far cry from the excruciatingly introverted person he was.

As an only child living with his single mother in public housing in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, he said, he tended to isolate himself. “A lot of kids my age would say, ‘Come outside,’ but I would always stay in my room,” he said. He occupied himself by writing comic books or reading them, his favorites being Batman and Spiderman because, he said, “they were heroes who saved the day.”

After graduating from high school in 2003, he worked odd jobs until 2006, when he took a full-time position at a food court at La Guardia Airport, where he helped to clean up. The steady paycheck allowed him to leave his mother’s apartment and rent a room in Queens.

But the depression and bleak moods that had shadowed him throughout middle and high school asserted themselves.

“My thinking got confused,” he said. “Racing thoughts through my mind. Disorganized thoughts. I had a hard time focusing on one thing.”

In 2008, after two years on the job, Mr. Johnson was fired for loud and inappropriate behavior, and for being “unpredictable,” he said. The boss said he needed counseling. He moved back in with his mother, and in 2009 entered a program at an outpatient addiction treatment service, Bridge Back to Life. It was there, he said, that he received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and help with his depression and marijuana use.

But one evening in May 2010, he had a bout with insomnia.

He realized the antipsychotic medication he had been prescribed, Risperdal, made him feel tired, he said, so he took 12 of the pills, rather than his usual dosage of two pills twice a day. When 12 did not work, he took 6 more.

“The next morning when I woke up, it was hard for me to breathe,” he said.

He called an ambulance, which took to Woodhull Hospital. He was released after about a month.

Not long after, he returned to his mother’s apartment, but by February 2011, they both decided he should leave, and he relocated to a homeless shelter in East New York, where, he said, eight other people were crammed into his cubicle and there were “bedbugs, people lying in your bed, breaking into your locker to steal your stuff.”

In late spring 2011, he found a room for rent in Manhattan, but by Thanksgiving he was hospitalized again. Another stint in a shelter followed in April, when his building was sold.

Finally, in July, Mr. Johnson moved to supported housing on Staten Island, where he lives with a roommate. His monthly $900 Social Security disability check is sent to the residence, which deducts $600 for rent and gives him $175 in spending money; he has breakfast and lunch at the Brooklyn agency. To assist Mr. Johnson with unexpected expenses, a grant of $550 through The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund went to buy him a bed and pay a Medicare prescription plan fee for three months.

“I was so happy I have a bed to sleep on,” he said about the replacement for an air mattress. “When I have a long day, I have a bed to lay in, and I feel good about that.”

Mr. Johnson’s goals include getting his driver’s license — “I already have a learner’s permit,” he said, proudly — finishing his program at the agency, and then entering an apprenticeship program to become a plumber, carpenter or mechanic.

But seeing how his peers have benefited from Fabulous Phil Fridays has made him vow to remain involved with people dealing with mental illnesses or substance abuse.

He was asked at the party: Might he be like the comic-book heroes he loves? A smile spread across his face. He seemed to think so.

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Egypt Sends Prime Minister to Gaza in Show of Solidarity

Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images

Smoke rose over Gaza on Friday. Israel denied launching airstrikes. More Photos »

GAZA CITY — After a night of ferocious airstrikes in Gaza and rocket fire toward Israel, Egypt on Friday launched a remarkable diplomatic initiative, sending its prime minister to show support for Palestinians in the beleaguered enclave, a move that prompted his Israeli counterpart to agree to a temporary, though flawed, cease-fire even as Israeli commanders sent armored vehicles toward the overcrowded coastal strip and called up reservists for a possible invasion.

The frail truce barely took root. Even as Prime Minister Hesham Kandil of Egypt arrived in Gaza, Israel Radio said Palestinian militants fired 25 rockets into southern Israel, with one rocket striking a house. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The thump of airstrikes by Israeli F-16s was also audible in Gaza City. The Israeli military said no such strikes had taken place, but the Hamas health ministry reported that two people, including a child, were killed in the north of Gaza City while the Egyptian delegation was on the ground, pushing the Palestinian death toll in three days of aerial bombardment to 21.

Three Israelis were killed in a rocket attack on Thursday in Kiryat Malachi, a small town in southern Israel, when a rocket fired from Gaza struck their apartment house.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made the temporary cease-fire by Israel’s airplanes conditional on a corresponding halt to rocket fire from Gaza.

Mr. Kandil’s visit produced dramatic imagery to underpin Cairo’s support for Hamas, which Israel, the United States and much of the West consider to be a terrorist organization.

Mr. Kandil and Ismail Haniya, his Hamas equivalent, visited the Al Shifa hospital amid a huge scrum of bodyguards and journalists, saying they had carried the body of Mohammed Yasser, one of eight children who Palestinian health officials say have been killed in the surge of violence since a top Hamas commander was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday.

“This is the blood of our children on our clothes,” Mr. Haniyeh said as he showed spatters on his clothing, “These are the Egyptian and the Palestinian blood united together.”

Like President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt on Thursday, Mr. Kandil walked a delicate line between support for Hamas, condemnation of Israel and a quest for calm in a region increasingly threatened by the spillovers from Syria’s civil war into neighboring countries as well as by the long-festering impasse between Israelis and Palestinians.

“The aim of this visit is not only to show political support but to support the Palestinian people on the ground,” Mr. Kandil said, noting that he had brought with him a delegation from the Egyptian Health Ministry. He said a cease-fire between Gaza and Israel was “the only way to achieve stability in the region” and also called on the Palestinians to repair the rift between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah group that dominates the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. “We call on the Palestinian people to unite because their power and strength is in their unity,” Mr. Kandil said. “That’s the only way to liberate Palestine.”

The visit was the first of such a high-ranking Egyptian official to this coastal enclave since the militant Hamas faction gained control in 2007 and offered a potent sign of how Egypt’s revolution and new Islamist leadership since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubakrak last year has shifted the geopolitics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Egypt, Mr. Kandil said, would “save nothing to stop the aggression and achieve a continuous cease-fire on the way to having a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

The display of support — improbable throughout the Mubarak era — emboldened the Hamas leadership.

“The time in which the Israeli occupation does whatever it wants in Gaza is gone,” Mr. Haniyeh said. “Egypt cannot accept the aggression as before,” Mr. Haniyeh said. “I welcome Egypt for this historical visit that comes in harmony with the will of the free Egypt.” Before the visit, residents in Gaza said the night was filled with the boom and crash of airstrikes, with loud explosions at dawn on Friday, a day after Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza brushed aside international calls for restraint and escalated their lethal conflict. In Gaza, Palestinian militants launched hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory, targeting Tel Aviv for the first time, and Israel intensified its aerial assaults.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, expressing outrage over a pair of long-range Palestinian rockets that whizzed toward Tel Aviv and set off the first air-raid warning in the Israeli metropolis since it was threatened by Iraqi Scud missiles in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, said, “There will be a price for that escalation that the other side will have to pay.”

Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City, Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Rick Gladstone from New York, Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi, Israel, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Bangkok.

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Miguel Cabrera, Buster Posey win MVP awards

NEW YORK (AP) — Miguel Cabrera has a Most Valuable Player award to go with his Triple Crown. And Buster Posey has an MVP prize to put alongside his second World Series ring.

The pair of batting champions won baseball's top individual honors Thursday by large margins.

Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, won the AL MVP by receiving 22 of 28 first-place votes and 362 points from a panel of Baseball Writers' Association of America.

The Detroit third baseman easily beat Los Angeles Angels rookie center fielder Mike Trout, who had six firsts and 281 points.

Cabrera hit .330 with 44 homers and 139 RBIs to become the first Triple Crown winner since Boston's Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. Cabrera also led the league with a .606 slugging percentage for the AL champion Tigers.

Some of the more sabermetric-focused fans supported Trout, who hit .326 with 30 homers and 83 RBIs, and he led the majors with 129 runs and 49 steals and topped all players in WAR — Wins Above Replacement. Trout won AL Rookie of the Year earlier in the week.

"I was a little concerned. I thought the new thing about computer stuff, I thought Trout's going to win because they put his numbers over me," Cabrera said. "I was like relax. ... if he wins, it's going to be fair because he had a great season."

His victory is a win for the traditional statistics.

"At the end of the game, it's going to be the same baseball played back in the day," Cabrera said.

Posey, at a charity event at his mother's school in Leesburg, Va., followed the AL debate and Googled to find out the winner.

"I think it intrigued everybody," he said. "As a fan of the game, it was a fun race to watch."

With three fewer hits or two less homers, Cabrera would have fallen short of the Triple Crown. The last four Triple Crown winners have been voted MVP, including Mickey Mantle in 1956 and Frank Robinson in 1966.

"I think winning the Triple Crown had a lot to do with me winning this honor," he said.

Cabrera became the second straight Detroit player voted MVP, following pitcher Justin Verlander in 2011, and was the first Venezuelan to earn the honor. Countryman Pablo Sandoval took home World Series MVP honors last month.

Before the season, Cabrera switched from first base to third to make way for Prince Fielder, who signed with Detroit as a free agent.

"I focused too much in spring training about defense, defense, defense," Cabrera said. "I forgot a little bit about hitting, about getting in the cage like I normally do."

In spring training, Posey's focus was just to get back on the field. His 2011 season was cut short by a collision with the Marlins' Scott Cousins on May 25 that resulted in a fractured bone in Posey's lower left leg and three torn ankle ligaments.

Posey not only returned, he became the first catcher in 70 years to win the NL batting title and helped San Francisco win its second World Series championship in three seasons.

"I definitely have a deeper appreciation for being able to play baseball," he said. "I've seen that it can be taken away quick."

The first catcher in four decades to win the NL award, Posey got 27 of 32 firsts and 422 points to outdistance 2011 winner Ryan Braun of Milwaukee, who was second with 285 points.

Pittsburgh outfielder Andrew McCutchen (245) was third, followed by St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina (241).

Posey, a boyish-looking 25, was the 2010 NL Rookie of the Year as the Giants won their first World Series since 1954. This year he set career highs with a .336 average, 24 homers and 103 RBIs as San Francisco won again.

Posey took the NL batting title after teammate Melky Cabrera requested a rules change that disqualified him. Cabrera, who hit .346, missed the final 45 games of the regular-season while serving a suspension for a positive testosterone test and would have won the batting crown if the rule hadn't been changed.

Ernie Lombardi had been the previous catcher to capture the NL batting championship, in 1942.

"I think anybody that has caught before understands the grind of catching, not only the physical, the nicks, the wear and tear of squatting for nine innings night in, day out, but just the mental grind of working a pitching staff," Posey said. "It's demanding."

NOTES: In his first season with the Angels, Albert Pujols didn't finish among the top 10 for the first time in his career. While with St. Louis, he won three times, was second four times and also finished third, fourth, fifth and ninth. ... Catchers have won the NL MVP just eight times, with Posey joining Gabby Hartnett (1935), Lombardi (1938), Roy Campanella (1951, 1953, 1955) and Johnny Bench (1970, 1972). Posey became the first Giants player to win since Barry Bonds was voted his record seventh MVP award in 2004. ... Cabrera earned a $500,000 bonus, Adrian Beltre $150,000 for finishing third in the AL and Josh Hamilton $50,000 for fifth place. Braun gets a $75,000 bonus, and McCutchen and Molina $50,000 each. The Yankees' Derek Jeter finished seventh in the AL, one place below the level where his 2014 player option would have increased by $2 million to $10 million.

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For Alzheimer’s, Detection Advances Outpace Treatment Options

Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Awilda Jimenez got a scan for Alzheimer’s after she started forgetting things. It was positive.

When Awilda Jimenez started forgetting things last year, her husband, Edwin, felt a shiver of dread. Her mother had developed Alzheimer’s in her 50s. Could his wife, 61, have it, too?

He learned there was a new brain scan to diagnose the disease and nervously agreed to get her one, secretly hoping it would lay his fears to rest. In June, his wife became what her doctor says is the first private patient in Arizona to have the test.

“The scan was floridly positive,” said her doctor, Adam S. Fleisher, director of brain imaging at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix.

The Jimenezes have struggled ever since to deal with this devastating news. They are confronting a problem of the new era of Alzheimer’s research: The ability to detect the disease has leapt far ahead of treatments. There are none that can stop or even significantly slow the inexorable progression to dementia and death.

Families like the Jimenezes, with no good options, can only ask: Should they live their lives differently, get their affairs in order, join a clinical trial of an experimental drug?

“I was hoping the scan would be negative,” Mr. Jimenez said. “When I found out it was positive, my heart sank.”

The new brain scan technology, which went on the market in June, is spreading fast. There are already more than 300 hospitals and imaging centers, located in most major metropolitan areas, that are ready to perform the scans, according to Eli Lilly, which sells the tracer used to mark plaque for the scan.

The scans show plaques in the brain — barnaclelike clumps of protein, beta amyloid — that, together with dementia, are the defining feature of Alzheimer’s disease. Those who have dementia but do not have excessive plaques do not have Alzheimer’s. It is no longer necessary to wait until the person dies and has an autopsy to learn if the brain was studded with plaques.

Many insurers, including Medicare, will not yet pay for the new scans, which cost several thousand dollars. And getting one comes with serious risks. While federal law prevents insurers and employers from discriminating based on genetic tests, it does not apply to scans. People with brain plaques can be denied long-term care insurance.

The Food and Drug Administration, worried about interpretations of the scans, has required something new: Doctors must take a test showing they can read them accurately before they begin doing them. So far, 700 doctors have qualified, according to Eli Lilly. Other kinds of diagnostic scans have no such requirement.

In another unusual feature, the F.D.A. requires that radiologists not be told anything about the patient. They are generally trained to incorporate clinical information into their interpretation of other types of scans, said Dr. R. Dwaine Rieves, director of the drug agency’s Division of Medical Imaging Products.

But in this case, clinical information may lead radiologists to inadvertently shade their reports to coincide with what doctors suspect is the underlying disease. With Alzheimer’s, Dr. Rieves said, “clinical impressions have been misleading.”

“This is a big change in the world of image interpretation,” he said.

Like some other Alzheimer’s experts, Dr. Fleisher used the amyloid scan for several years as part of a research study that led to its F.D.A. approval. Subjects were not told what the scans showed. Now, with the scan on the market, the rules have changed.

Dr. Fleisher’s first patient was Mrs. Jimenez. Her husband, the family breadwinner, had lost his job as a computer consultant when the couple moved from New York to Arizona to take care of Mrs. Jimenez’s mother. Paying several thousand dollars for a scan was out of the question. But Dr. Fleisher found a radiologist, Dr. Mantej Singh Sra of Sun Radiology, who was so eager to get into the business that he agreed to do Mrs. Jimenez’s scan free. His plan was to be the first in Arizona to do a scan, and advertise it.

After Dr. Sra did the scan, the Jimenezes returned to Dr. Fleisher to learn the result.

Dr. Fleisher, sad to see so much plaque in Mrs. Jimenez’s brain, referred her to a psychiatrist to help with anxiety and suggested she enter clinical trials of experimental drugs.

But Mr. Jimenez did not like that idea. He worried about unexpected side effects.

“Tempting as it is, where do you draw the line?” he asks. “At what point do you take a risk with a loved one?”

At Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, Dr. Samuel E. Gandy found that his patients — mostly affluent — were unfazed by the medical center’s $3,750 price for the scan. He has been ordering at least one a week for people with symptoms ambiguous enough to suggest the possibility of brain plaques.

Most of his patients want their names kept confidential, fearing an inability to get long-term care insurance, or just wanting privacy.

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BBC Failures Show Limits of Guidelines

LONDON — It was 2004, and the British Broadcasting Corporation was gripped by a crisis over journalistic standards that had led to Parliamentary hearings, public recrimination and the resignations of its two top officials. Vowing change, the corporation established elaborate bureaucratic procedures that placed more formal responsibility for delicate decisions in the hands not of individual managers, but of rigid hierarchies.

The corporation also appointed a deputy director general in charge of news operations; established a “journalism board” to monitor editorial policy; issued numerous new guidelines on journalistic procedures; and put an increasing emphasis on “compliance” — a system in which managers are required to file cumbersome forms flagging dozens of potential trouble spots, from bad language to “disturbing content” like exorcism or beheadings, in every program taped for broadcast.

More crises would follow — the history of the BBC can be measured out in crises — and with each new one, the management team under Mark Thompson, director general from 2004 through mid-September 2012, added more guidelines and put more emphasis on form-filling and safety checks in news and entertainment programs. An organization already known for its bureaucracy became even more unwieldy (the editorial guidelines are now 215 pages long).

But it is these very structures that seem to have failed the BBC in the most recent scandal, in which its news division first canceled a child abuse segment it should have broadcast, and later broadcast one it should have canceled. In the first instance, it appears that people overseeing the program were too cautious, so that top managers were left unaware of its existence; in the second, managers may have relied too much on rigid procedures at the expense of basic journalistic principles.

“They burned their fingers,” said Tim Luckhurst, a journalism professor at the University of Kent who worked at the BBC for 10 years. “They wanted systems that could take responsibility instead of people.”

The recent scandal has had a number of immediate results. Mr. Thompson’s successor as director general, George Entwistle, resigned after just 54 days on the job. (Mr. Thompson is now president and chief executive of The New York Times Company.) Outside investigators were appointed to interrogate BBC employees in at least three different inquiries. A number of lower- and midlevel managers had to withdraw temporarily from their jobs and, facing possible disciplinary action, hired lawyers. And, once again, the BBC is talking about reorganizing structures.

Through a spokesman, Mr. Entwistle declined to comment on the scandal or the BBC’s management practices, saying he was “not doing any media interviews at present.” Mr. Thompson also declined to comment.

But Mr. Entwistle’s temporary successor, Tim Davie, who had previously been director of BBC Audio & Music, acknowledged that changes had to be made. “If the public are going to get journalism they trust from the BBC I have to be, as director general, very clear on who’s running the news operation and ensuring that journalism that we put out passes muster,” Mr. Davie said in his first week on the job. The first thing to do, he said, was to “take action and build trust by putting a clear line of command in.”

This is a complicated scandal in two parts. The first part was over the BBC’s decision last December not to broadcast a report saying that Jimmy Savile, a longtime BBC television host, had been a serial child molester, and instead to broadcast several glowing tributes to his career. The second part was its decision on Nov. 2 to accuse a member of Margaret Thatcher’s government of being a pedophile, an accusation that turned out to be patently false.

But both exposed the problems in a system that seems to insulate the BBC’s director general — who is also the editor in chief — from knowledge of basic issues like what potentially contentious programs are scheduled for broadcast. And both decisions were the result, it seems, of a system that failed in practice, even as it was correctly followed in theory.

Ben Bradshaw, a former BBC correspondent and now a Labour member of Parliament, said the 2004 scandal, touched off by reporting about British intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, had created a system based on “fear and anxiety.” The BBC, he added, became “even more bureaucratic and had even more layers, which exacerbated the problem of buck passing and no one being able to take a decision.”

Speaking of the Nov. 2 broadcast, the chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, said in a television interview that the piece went through “every damned layer of BBC management bureaucracy, legal checks” without anyone raising any serious objections.

Matthew Purdy contributed reporting from New York, and Lark Turner from London.

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R.A. Dickey, David Price win Cy Young awards

NEW YORK (AP) — R.A. Dickey languished in the minors for 14 years, bouncing from one team to another before finally perfecting that perplexing knuckleball that made him a major league star.

David Price was the top pick in the draft and an ace by age 25, throwing 98 mph heat with a left arm live enough to make the most hardened scout sing.

Raised only 34 miles apart in central Tennessee, Dickey and Price won baseball's Cy Young awards on Wednesday — one by a wide margin, the other in a tight vote.

Two paths to the pantheon of pitching have rarely been more different.

"Isn't that awesome?" said Dickey, the first knuckleballer to win a Cy Young. "It just shows you there's not just one way to do it, and it gives hope to a lot of people."

Dickey said he jumped up and yelled in excitement, scaring one of his kids, when he saw on television that Price edged Justin Verlander for the American League prize. Both winners are represented by Bo McKinnis, who watched the announcements with Dickey at his home in Nashville, Tenn.

"I guess we can call him Cy agent now," Price quipped on a conference call.

The hard-throwing lefty barely beat out Verlander in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, preventing the Detroit Tigers' ace from winning consecutive Cy Youngs.

Runner-up two years ago, Price was the pick this time. He received 14 of 28 first-place votes and finished with 153 points to 149 for Verlander, chosen first on 13 ballots.

"It means a lot," Price said. "It's something that I'll always have. It's something that they can't take away from me."

Other than a 1969 tie between Mike Cuellar and Denny McLain, it was the closest race in the history of the AL award.

Rays closer Fernando Rodney got the other first-place vote and came in fifth.

The 38-year-old Dickey was listed first on 27 of 32 National League ballots and totaled 209 points, 113 more than 2011 winner Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Washington lefty Gio Gonzalez finished third.

Cincinnati right-hander Johnny Cueto and Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel each received a first-place vote, as did Gonzalez. Kershaw had two.

Dickey joined Dwight Gooden (1985) and three-time winner Tom Seaver as the only Mets to win the award. The right-hander went 20-6 with a 2.73 ERA, making him the club's first 20-game winner since Frank Viola in 1990, and became the first major leaguer in 24 years to throw consecutive one-hitters.

Perhaps most impressive, Dickey did it all during a season when the fourth-place Mets finished 74-88.

"It just feels good all over," he said on MLB Network.

Dickey switched from conventional pitcher to full-time knuckleballer in a last-ditch effort to save his career. It took him years to finally master the floating, darting pitch, which he often throws harder (around 80 mph) and with more precision than almost anyone who used it before him.

"I knew what I was going to be up against in some regard when I embraced this pitch," Dickey said.

He was the first cut at Mets spring training in 2010 but earned a spot in the big league rotation later that season and blossomed into a dominant All-Star this year. He led the NL in strikeouts (230), innings (233 2-3), complete games (five) and shutouts (three) — pitching through an abdominal injury most of the way.

"I am not a self-made man by any stretch of the imagination," Dickey said. "The height of this story, it's mind-blowing to me, it really is."

A member of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team and a first-round draft pick out of Tennessee, Dickey was devastated when the Texas Rangers reduced their signing-bonus offer from more than $800,000 to $75,000 after they discovered during a physical that he was missing a major ligament in his pitching elbow.

Undeterred, perseverance got him to the big leagues anyway. When he failed, the knuckleball brought him back.

Among those he thanked ceaselessly for helping him on that long and winding road to success were all his proud knuckleball mentors, including Charlie Hough, Tim Wakefield and Hall of Famer Phil Niekro.

"It brings a real degree of legitimacy I think to the knuckleball fraternity and I'm glad to represent them and I'm certainly grateful to all those guys," Dickey said. "This was a victory for all of us."

Dickey said he received 127 text messages and 35-40 phone calls in the moments immediately following the Cy Young announcement.

The only call he took was from Niekro, a 318-game winner from 1964-87. The first texts Dickey responded to were from Wakefield and Hough.

"Most well-deserved," Niekro said in a comment provided by the Hall of Fame. "I'm super proud of him, as a pitcher and as an individual."

Dickey has one year left on his contract at $5.25 million and New York general manager Sandy Alderson has said signing the pitcher to a multiyear deal is one of his top offseason priorities. Alderson, however, would not rule out trading his unlikely ace.

"I believe the Mets are going to be a lot better and I want to be part of the solution," Dickey said, adding that he hopes the sides can strike a deal and he'd be happy to end his career in New York.

"I want to be loyal to an organization that's given me an opportunity," he said. "At the same time, you don't want to be taken advantage of. I've been on that side of it, too, as a player."

Price went 20-5 to tie Jered Weaver for the American League lead in victories and winning percentage. The 27-year-old lefty had the lowest ERA at 2.56 and finished sixth in strikeouts with 205.

Verlander, also the league MVP a year ago, followed that up by going 17-8 with a 2.64 ERA and pitching the Detroit Tigers to the World Series. He led the majors in strikeouts (239), innings (238 1-3) and complete games (six).

Price tossed 211 innings in 31 starts, while Verlander made 33. One factor that could have swung some votes, however, was this: Price faced stiffer competition in the rugged AL East than Verlander did in the AL Central.

"I guess it's a blessing and a curse at the same time," Price said. "There's not an easy out in the lineups every game. It feels like a postseason game."

The No. 1 pick in the 2007 amateur draft out of Vanderbilt, Price reached the majors the following year and has made three straight All-Star teams.

Despite going 19-6 with a 2.72 ERA in 2010, he finished a distant second in Cy Young voting to Felix Hernandez, who won only 13 games for last-place Seattle but dominated most other statistical categories that year.

The two MVP awards will be announced Thursday. Verlander's teammate, Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera, is a leading contender in the American League.

NOTES: The last AL pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Youngs was Boston's Pedro Martinez in 1999 and 2000. San Francisco RHP Tim Lincecum did it in the National League in 2008-09. ... Price and Dickey became the fourth pair of Cy Young winners born in the same state, according to STATS. The others were Jim Lonborg and Mike McCormick in 1967 (California), Viola and Orel Hershiser in 1988 (New York) and Pat Hentgen and John Smoltz in 1996 (Michigan). ... Niekro and his brother, Joe, both finished second in Cy Young voting, as did fellow knuckleballer Wilbur Wood.

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Alzheimer’s Tied to Mutation Harming Immune Response

Alzheimer’s researchers and drug companies have for years concentrated on one hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease: the production of toxic shards of a protein that accumulate in plaques on the brain.

But now, in a surprising coincidence, two groups of researchers working from entirely different starting points have converged on a mutated gene involved in another aspect of Alzheimer’s disease: the immune system’s role in protecting against the disease. The mutation is suspected of interfering with the brain’s ability to prevent the buildup of plaque.

The discovery, researchers say, provides clues to how and why the disease progresses. The gene, known as TREM2, is only the second found to increase Alzheimer’s risk substantially in older people.

“It points very specifically to a potential metabolic pathway that you could intervene in to change the course of Alzheimer’s disease,” said William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Much work remains to be done before scientists understand precisely how the newly discovered gene mutation leads to Alzheimer’s, but already there are some indications from studies in mice. When the gene is not mutated, white blood cells in the brain spring into action, gobbling up and eliminating the plaque-forming toxic protein, beta amyloid. As a result, Alzheimer’s can be staved off or averted.

But when the gene is mutated, the brain’s white blood cells are hobbled, making them less effective in their attack on beta amyloid.

People with the mutated gene have a threefold to fivefold increase in the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease in old age.

The intact gene, says John Hardy of University College London, “is a safety net.” And those with the mutation, he adds, “are living life without a safety net.” Dr. Hardy is lead author of one of the papers.

The discovery also suggests that a new type of drug could be developed to enhance the gene’s activity, perhaps allowing the brain’s white blood cells to do their work.

“The field is in desperate need of new therapeutic agents,” said Alison Goate, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Washington University in St. Louis who contributed data to Dr. Hardy’s study. “This will give us an alternative approach.”

The fact that two research groups converged on the same gene gives experts confidence in the findings. Both studies were published online Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Together they make a good case that this really is an Alzheimer’s gene,” said Gerard Schellenberg, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the work.

The other gene found to raise the odds that a person will get Alzheimer’s, ApoE4, is much more common and confers about the same risk as the mutated version of TREM2. But it is still not clear why ApoE4, discovered in 1993, makes Alzheimer’s more likely.

Because the mutations in the newly discovered gene are rare, occurring in no more than 2 percent of Alzheimer’s patients, it makes no sense to start screening people for them, Dr. Thies said. Instead, the discovery provides new clues to the workings of Alzheimer’s disease.

To find the gene, a research group led by Dr. Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics of Iceland started with a simple question.

“We asked, ‘Can we find anything in the genome that separates those who are admitted to nursing homes before the age of 75 and those who are still living at home at 85?’ ” he said.

Scientists searched the genomes of 2,261 Icelanders and zeroed in on TREM2. Mutations in that gene were more common among people with Alzheimer’s, as well as those who did not have an Alzheimer’s diagnosis but who had memory problems and might be on their way to developing Alzheimer’s.

The researchers confirmed their results by looking for the gene in people with and without Alzheimer’s in populations studied at Emory University, as well as in Norway, the Netherlands and Germany.

The TREM2 connection surprised Dr. Stefansson. Although researchers have long noticed that the brain is inflamed in Alzheimer’s patients, he had dismissed inflammation as a major factor in the disease.

“I was of the opinion that the immune system would play a fairly small role, if any, in Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Stefansson said. “This discovery cured me of that bias.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Hardy and Rita Guerreiro at University College London, along with Andrew Singleton at the National Institute on Aging, were intrigued by a strange, rare disease. Only a few patients had been identified, but their symptoms were striking. They had crumbling bones and an unusual dementia, sclerosing leukoencephalopathy.

“It’s a weird disease,” Dr. Hardy said.

He saw one patient in her 30s whose brain disease manifested in sexually inappropriate behavior. Also, her bones kept breaking. The disease was caused by mutations that disabled both the copy of TREM2 that she had inherited from her mother and the one from her father.

Eventually the researchers searched for people who had a mutation in just one copy of TREM2. To their surprise, it turned out that these people were likely to have Alzheimer’s disease.

They then asked researchers around the world who had genetic data from people with and without Alzheimer’s to look for TREM2 mutations.

“Sure enough, they had good evidence,” Dr. Hardy said. The mutations occurred in one-half of 1 percent of the general population but in 1 to 2 percent of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

“That is a big effect,” Dr. Hardy said.

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France Grants Full Recognition to Syria Rebels While U.S. Waits

Javier Manzano/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Smoke billowed from burning tires as a Syria rebel fired towards regime forces during clashes in the Al-Amariya district of Aleppo in Syria on Tuesday.

PARIS — France announced Tuesday that it was recognizing the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition and would consider arming the group, seeking to inject momentum into a broad Western and Arab effort to build a viable and effective opposition to hasten the end of a stalemated civil war that has destabilized the Middle East.

But, for its part on Wednesday, the United States signaled a reluctance to go beyond its characterization of the rebel alliance as what officials have termed a legitimate representative of the Syrian people, rather than as their sole representative. Speaking in Perth, Australia, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington first wanted to see the coalition influencing events on the ground.

“As the Syrian opposition takes these steps and demonstrates its effectiveness in advancing the cause of a unified, democratic, pluralistic Syria, we will be prepared to work with them to deliver assistance to the Syrian people,” news reports quoted her saying.

At the same time, she announced $30 million in American humanitarian aid to feed people affected by the civil war, bringing the total American assistance to almost $200 million. A day earlier, the announcement by President François Hollande made France the first Western country to fully embrace the new coalition, which came together this past weekend under Western pressure after days of difficult negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

The goal was to make an opposition leadership — both inside and outside the country — representative of the array of Syrian groups pressing for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad. Although Mr. Assad is increasingly isolated as his country descends further into mayhem and despair after 20 months of conflict, he has survived partly because of the disagreements and lack of unity among his opponents.

Throughout the conflict, the West has taken half measures and been reluctant to back an aggressive effort to oust Mr. Assad. This appears to be the first time that Western nations, with Arab allies, are determined to build a viable opposition leadership that can ultimately function as a government. Whether it can succeed remains unclear.

Mr. Hollande went beyond other Western pledges of support for the new Syrian umbrella rebel group, which calls itself the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. But Mr. Hollande’s announcement clearly signaled expectations that if the group can establish political legitimacy and an operational structure inside Syria, creating an alternative to the Assad family’s four decades in power, it will be rewarded with further recognition, money and possibly weapons.

“I announce that France recognizes the Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria and to bring an end to Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Mr. Hollande, who has been one of the Syrian president’s harshest critics.

As for weapons, Mr. Hollande said, France had not supported arming the rebels up to now, but “with the coalition, as soon as it is a legitimate government of Syria, this question will be looked at by France, but also by all countries that recognize this government.”

The six Arab countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including key opposition supporters Qatar and Saudi Arabia, recognized the rebel coalition on Monday as the legitimate Syrian government. Political analysts called Mr. Hollande’s announcement an important moment in the Syrian conflict, which began as a peaceful Arab Spring uprising in March 2011. It was harshly suppressed by Mr. Assad, turned into a civil war and has left nearly 40,000 Syrians dead, displaced about 2.5 million and forced more than 400,000 to flee to neighboring countries, according to international relief agencies.

“It’s certainly another page of the story,” Augustus Richard Norton, a professor of international relations at Boston University and an expert on Middle East political history, said of the French announcement. “I think it’s important. But it will be much more important if other countries follow suit. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

Some drew an analogy to France’s leading role in the early days of the Libyan uprising when it helped funnel aid, and later military support, to the rebels who had firmly established themselves in eastern Libya and would later topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But in Syria, rebels have not been as organized and have no hold on significant amounts of territory — at least not enough to create a provisional government that could resist Mr. Assad’s military assaults. The West has also refused, so far, to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, which was critical to the success of the Libyan uprising.

Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the new coalition would have to create a secure zone in Syria to be successful, and that that step would require support from the United States, which was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the group’s creation but has not yet committed to giving it full recognition.

Steven Erlanger reported from Paris, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Neil MacFarquhar and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva; and Alan Cowell from Paris.

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AP source: Marlins trade 3 stars to Blue Jays

MIAMI (AP) — Reacting to the Miami Marlins' latest payroll purge on Twitter, slugger Giancarlo Stanton gave it three exclamation marks.

He wasn't exaggerating. The Marlins' spending spree a year ago didn't work, so they went the salary-dumping route again Tuesday, shedding some of their biggest stars and multimillion-dollar salaries in one blockbuster deal.

The Marlins swapped high-priced talent for top prospects, trading All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes, left-hander Mark Buehrle and ace right-hander Josh Johnson to the Toronto Blue Jays, a person familiar with the agreement said.

The person confirmed the trade to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the teams weren't officially commenting. The person said the trade sent several of the Blue Jays' best young players to Miami.

The stunning agreement came less than a year after the Marlins added Reyes, Buehrle and closer Heath Bell in an uncharacteristic $191 million spending binge as they rebranded and moved into a new ballpark. The acquisitions raised high hopes, but the Marlins instead finished last in the NL East.

Salary-paring actually began in July, when the Marlins parted with former NL batting champion Hanley Ramirez, second baseman Omar Infante and right-hander Anibal Sanchez, among others. Bell, the team's high-profile bust, was traded to Arizona last month.

Under owner Jeffrey Loria, long the target of fan acrimony, the Marlins have usually been among baseball's thriftiest teams. Management pledged that would change with the new ballpark, but team officials were disappointed with attendance in 2012, and revenue fell far short of their projections.

Even so, the blockbuster deal came as a shock. The players involved must undergo physicals before the trade becomes final.

Stanton, the Marlins' precocious slugger, wasn't involved in the deal but wasn't happy about it.

"Alright, I'm (mad)!!! Plain & Simple," he tweeted shortly after the news broke.

The housecleaning was also the subject of much mirth on Twitter.

"Good trade, I think we won it," tweeted FakeSamson, a site that mocks team president David Samson.

Toronto star Jose Bautista had a different interpretation.

"Its a good day to be a bluejay!" he tweeted.

The swap was easier for the Marlins to swing because of their longstanding policy of refusing to include no-trade clauses in contracts.

The deal gave an immediate boost to the Blue Jays, who have not reached the playoffs since winning their second consecutive World Series in 1993. Toronto went 73-89 this season and finished fourth in the AL East for the fourth straight year, again falling short in a division that includes big spenders.

The Marlins changed their name a year ago but failed to change their losing ways, and instead of contending for a playoff berth, they finished 69-93, their worst record since 1999.

The Marlins drew more than 2.2 million fans but had projected attendance of nearly 3 million. Team officials blamed the difference in part on manager Ozzie Guillen's laudatory comments early in the year about former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, which antagonized a large segment of an already-small fan base.

Guillen was fired after only one season with the team and replaced this month by the Marlins' former backup catcher, Mike Redmond.

President of baseball operations Larry Beinfest hinted at a big change in direction less than two weeks ago.

"We've kind of lost our Marlins way," he said. "The real Marlins way was we always outperformed our challenges. Whatever our challenges were, whether it was playing in a football stadium or weather or a lack of fans, or lack of revenue for that matter, we always found a way to outperform our challenges."

It now appears management will field a team with the expectation players will outperform their contracts, which was the franchise model for most of the past decade. The roster shake-up during the season reduced the payroll to $90.3 million from $112 million on opening day, and now could be dramatically lower next season.

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