U.S. to sell GM stake in 15 months

The Treasury plans to sell its remaining stake in General Motors over the next 15 months, allowing the automaker to shed the stigma of being partly owned by the U.S. government.

GM said Wednesday it will spend $5.5 billion to buy back 200 million shares of its stock from the Treasury by the end of this year. The government, in turn, plans to sell its remaining stake of 300 million shares on the open market over the next 12 to 15 months.

GM will pay $27.50 for each share, about an 8 percent premium over Tuesday's closing price of $25.49. The shares shot up more than 8 percent in premarket trading to $27.57.

The deal almost certainly means that the government will lose billions on a $49.5 billion bailout that saved GM from being auctioned off in pieces during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. GM's buyback will cut the Treasury's stake to 19 percent from 26.5 percent. For it to break even, Treasury would have to sell the remaining 300 million shares for average of about $70.

For GM, getting the government out of its business removes a major business obstacle. GM Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann told reporters that GM has market research showing that government ownership has held down sales of the company's cars and trucks.

"This is fundamentally good for the business," he said at a hastily called news conference Wednesday morning.

The government got its stake as part of the bailout of GM that began nearly four years ago.

The Treasury Department said in a statement that it would sell the remaining 19 percent stake "in an orderly fashion" within the next 12 to 15 months, subject to market conditions.

Treasury said it will have recovered more than $28.7 billion of its investment through repayments of loans, sales of stock, dividends, interest and other income after GM buys back the 200 million shares. But that leaves Treasury about $21 billion short of recouping its investment.

In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. Treasury bailed out GM to help stabilize and restructure the company at the trough of the financial crisis. The bailouts of GM and Chrysler were part of the $700 billion Trouble Asset Relief Program created by Congress during the financial crisis in the fall of 2008.

"The auto industry rescue helped save more than a million jobs during a severe economic crisis," said Timothy Massad, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial stability. "The government should not be in the business of owning stakes in private companies for an indefinite period of time."

Massad said that exiting the GM investment "is consistent with our dual goals of winding down TARP as soon as practicable and protecting taxpayer interests."

Although GM is paying a premium for the government shares, Ammann said it's still a good deal for GM shareholders. The number of shares on the market will reduced about 11 percent, which should increase the value of the remaining shares.

The move was approved by the GM board on Tuesday evening after the company got opinions from its management and financial advisers, GM said.

Government-ordered pay restrictions will remain in effect. But a ban on corporate jet ownership and requirements on manufacturing a certain percentage of GM cars and trucks in the U.S. will be lifted. GM says it already has exceeded the manufacturing requirements and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The company said it has no immediate plans to buy or lease corporate jets.

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Storm watch for Thursday as snow, high winds forecast

Chicago's morning weather forecast.

Staff report

8:36 a.m. CST, December 18, 2012

As a winter storm continues to work its way toward the Midwest, forecasters are warning that snow and high winds could snarl Thursday's evening commute.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for Winnebago, Boone, McHenry, Ogle, Lee and De Kalb counties. Snow is expected to begin falling Thursday morning in those counties and could accumulate up to six inches -- or even more, according to the watch.

The storm watch takes effect Thursday morning and will remain in effect until that evening.

Chicago's snowfall will arrive Thursday afternoon and is not expected to accumulate as much as it will in the north and western suburbs, said Amy Seeley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville.

The storm could bring winds as high as 55 mph, Seeley said.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Judge rejects Apple injunction bid vs. Samsung

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday denied Apple Inc's request for a permanent injunction against Samsung Electronics' smartphones, depriving the iPhone maker of key leverage in the mobile patent wars.

Apple had been awarded $1.05 billion in damages in August after a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad. The Samsung products run on the Android operating system, developed by Google.

Apple and Samsung are going toe-to-toe in a patents dispute that mirrors the struggle for industry supremacy between the two companies, which control more than half of worldwide smartphone sales.

For most of the year, Apple had been successful in its U.S. litigation campaign against Samsung. Apple convinced U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California to impose two pretrial sales bans against Samsung -- one against the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the other against the Galaxy Nexus phone.

Apple then sought to keep up the pressure after its sweeping jury win. It asked Koh to impose a permanent sales ban against 26 mostly older Samsung phones, though any injunction could potentially have been extended to Samsung's newer Galaxy products.

Yet the jury exonerated Samsung on the patent used to ban Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales, and Koh rescinded that injunction. Then, in October, a federal appeals court reversed Koh's ban against the Nexus phone.

In her order late on Monday, Koh cited that appellate ruling as binding legal precedent, ruling that Apple had not presented enough evidence that its patented features drove consumer demand for the entire iPhone.

"The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple's patents," Koh wrote.

"Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple," she continued, "it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions."

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on Koh's ruling, and a Samsung representative could not immediately be reached.

In a separate order on Monday, Koh rejected a bid by Samsung for a new trial based on an allegation that the jury foreman was improperly biased in favor of Apple.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Apple Inc. vs. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 11-1846.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in Oakland, California; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Boeheim wins 900th, appeals for action on firearms

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — With his wife, Juli, looking on at the postgame press conference and his young children close by, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim's final remarks were not about his milestone 900th career victory.

Instead, he was thinking about two 6-year-old boys who were buried Monday, victims along with 18 other children and six adults in a shooting massacre last week at an elementary school in Connecticut.

"If we cannot get the people who represent us to do something about firearms, we are a sad, sad society," Boeheim said Monday night. "If one person in this world, the NRA president, anybody, can tell me why we need assault weapons with 30 shots — this is our fault if we don't go out there and do something about this. If we can't get this thing done, I don't know what kind of country we have."

It was a sobering end to what was a memorable evening for Syracuse basketball. The third-ranked Orange's 72-68 victory over Detroit in the Gotham Classic made Boeheim just the third Division I men's coach to reach 900 wins.

Boeheim, 68 and in his 37th year at his alma mater, is 900-304 and joined an elite fraternity. Mike Krzyzewski (936) and Bob Knight (902) are the only other men's Division I coaches to win that many games.

"To me, it's just a number," said Boeheim, whose first victory was against Harvard in 1976. "If I get 900, have I got to get more? That's why maybe it's just not that important to me because to me it's just a number, and the only number that matters is how this team does."

So far, it's done OK.

James Southerland had 22 points for Syracuse (10-0), which increased its home winning streak to 30 games, longest in the nation. Detroit (6-5), which lost 77-74 at St. John's in the second game of the season and 74-61 at Pitt earlier this month, had its four-game winning streak snapped.

Dave Bing, Boeheim's college roommate, teammate and fellow Hall of Famer, and Roosevelt Bouie, a star on Boeheim's first team in 1976-77, were in the Carrier Dome crowd of 17,902.

Bing was standing tall in the locker room after the game.

"Nobody would have thought when we came here 50 years ago that either one of us would have had the kind of success we've had," said Bing, today the mayor of Detroit. "I'm so pleased and proud of him because he stuck with it. He's proven that he's one of the best coaches ever in college basketball, and he'll be No. 2 shortly."

After a victory that nearly was short-circuited, Boeheim was presented a jersey encased in glass with 900 emblazoned on it.

"I'm happy. I've stayed around long enough. I was a little nervous," Boeheim said at center court. "I'm proud to be here. To win this game is more pressure than I've felt in a long time. I wasn't thinking about losing until the end. That wouldn't have been a good thing to happen, but it very well could have."

Indeed.

Midway through the second half with Syracuse dominating, fans were given placards featuring cardboard cutouts of Boeheim's face with 900 wins printed on the back to wave in celebration. But when the public address announcer in the Carrier Dome invited fans to stick around for the postgame ceremony, the Titans roared back.

Juwan Howard Jr., who finished with 18 points, scored 14 over the last 6 minutes to key a 16-0 run, his two free throws pulling Detroit within 67-63 with 55.1 seconds left after the Titans had trailed by 20 with 6:09 to play.

"You know what, I didn't hear it, but the players probably heard because they sure came alive," Detroit coach Ray McCallum said. "This is a big stage. Guys sitting around the hotel watching television getting ready to play the No. 3 team in the country and they're talking about going for 900 wins, coach Boeheim. That's a lot for a young man to digest."

Michael Carter-Williams hit three of four free throws in the final seconds to secure the win.

"Michael made big-time free throws you've got to make. If he misses a couple, it's a new game. That was the difference," Boeheim said. "We have not been in that situation. Hopefully, we'll learn from that."

Carter-Williams finished with 10 assists and 12 points, his sixth straight double-double.

"It was great to be part of this," Carter-Williams said. "It's a part of history."

Doug Anderson scored 18 points and Nick Minnerath had 13 for Detroit. Ray McCallum Jr., the coach's son and Detroit's leading scorer at 19.4 points per game, finished with nine, while Jason Calliste had seven.

Southerland scored a career-high 35 points, matching a school record with nine 3-pointers, in a win at Arkansas in late November and, after an 0-for-10 slump over three games, found his range again Saturday night with three 3s in a win over Canisius. He finished 5 of 8 from behind the arc against the Titans.

One of the keys to breaking Syracuse's 2-3 zone is hitting the long ball, and Detroit struck out in the first half. The Titans were 0 for 10 and the lone 3 they did make — by McCallum with just over 6 minutes left — was negated by a shot-clock violation.

Detroit could only lament what might have been if a couple had gone in.

"We never gave up. That's a tribute to our team," Howard said. "We had the right attitude. We played a tough opponent. You usually don't want a moral victory, but we can take some positives from this game."

Syracuse plays again Saturday against Temple in Madison Square Garden, and the Orange faithful are likely to be out in numbers as they usually are when the team plays there.

Boeheim was effusive in praise of the support the team has received during his long tenure. Syracuse has had 71 crowds of over 30,000 since the Carrier Dome opened in 1980 and holds the NCAA on-campus record of 34,616, set nearly three years ago against Villanova.

"The support of fans cannot be overestimated," he said. "You have to have that kind of support in your building to bring recruits in, to help you play better. We've had a tremendous loyal fan base. That's why I always felt this was a great place to coach and why I never really thought about going anywhere else. The support from the fans is the No. 1 thing you have to have."

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

__

AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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NBC correspondent escapes Syria kidnapping

BEIRUT (AP) — More than a dozen heavily armed pro-regime gunmen kidnapped NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel and several colleagues for five days inside Syria, threatening them with mock executions and keeping them bound and blindfolded until they escaped unharmed during a firefight between their captors and rebels, Engel said Tuesday.

Speaking to NBC's "Today" show one day after the escape, an unshaven Engel said the kidnappers executed at least one of his rebel escorts on the spot at the time he was captured. He also said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which is fighting a deadly civil war against rebels.

"They kept us blindfolded, bound," said 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. "We weren't physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings," he added.

"They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government," Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group.

"They captured us in order to carry out this exchange," he said.

Both Iran and Hezbollah are close allies of the embattled Syrian regime, which has become a global pariah since it unleashed its forces in March 2011 to crush mostly peaceful protests against the regime. The bloody crackdown on protests led many in Syria to take up arms against the government, and the conflict has morphed into a civil war.

Engel said he was told the kidnappers wanted to exchange him and his crew for four Iranian and two Lebanese prisoners being held by the rebels.

Around 11 p.m. Monday, Engel said he and the others were being moved to another location in northern Idlib province.

"And as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn't expected. We were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan," he said. "The kidnappers saw this checkpoint and started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed. We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them."

The team crossed back into neighboring Turkey earlier Tuesday.

NBC did not identify the others who were kidnapped along with Engel. The network said there was no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.

The Syrian government has barred most foreign media coverage of the civil war in Syria, which has killed more than 40,000 people since the uprising began in March 2011. Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Many foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers.

Several journalists have been killed covering the conflict. Among them are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain's Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.

Engel joined NBC in 2003 and was named chief foreign correspondent in April 2008. He previously worked as a freelance journalist for ABC News, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East since he graduated from Stanford University in 1996, according to his biography from NBC.

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McDonald's urging franchisees to open on Christmas

McDonald's Corp. is urging U.S. restaurant owners to take the unusual step of opening on Christmas Day to deliver the world's biggest hamburger chain with the gift of higher December sales, AdvertisingAge reported Monday.

The request -- which comes as McDonald's tangles with resurgent rivals such as Wendy's, Burger King and Yum Brands' Taco Bell chain -- would be a break from company tradition of closing on major holidays.

"Starting with Thanksgiving, ensure your restaurants are open throughout the holidays," Jim Johannesen, chief operations officer for McDonald's USA, wrote in a Nov. 8 memo to franchisees -- one of two obtained by AdvertisingAge.

"Our largest holiday opportunity as a system is Christmas Day. Last year, (company-operated) restaurants that opened on Christmas averaged $5,500 in sales," Johannesen said.

"The decision to open our restaurants on Christmas is in the hands of our owner/operators," McDonald's spokeswoman Heather Oldani told Reuters.

Don Thompson took over as chief executive at McDonald's in July and has the difficult task of growing sales from last year's strong results in a significantly more competitive environment.

McDonald's monthly global sales at established restaurants fell for the first time in nine years in October, but unexpectedly rebounded in November.

The November surprise was partly due to a 2.5 percent rise in sales at U.S. restaurants open at least 13 months.

"Our November results were driven, in part, by our Thanksgiving Day performance," Johannesen wrote in a Dec. 12 memo to franchisees.

Oldani said 1,200 more McDonald's restaurants were open on Thanksgiving this year versus last year -- not 6,000 more as AdvertisingAge reported.

Still, the company has a high hurdle when it comes to posting an increase in restaurant sales this month because its U.S. same-restaurant sales jumped 9.8 percent in December 2011.

"It's an act of desperation. The franchisees are not happy," said Richard Adams, a former McDonald's franchisee who now advises the chain's owner/operators.

The push to open on the holidays goes against McDonald's cultural history, said Adams. In his first published operations manual, McDonald's Corp. founder Ray Kroc said the company would close on Thanksgiving and Christmas to give employees time with their families, Adams said.

"We opened for breakfast on Thanksgiving the last couple years I was a franchisee. It was easy to get kids to work on Thanksgiving because they want to get away from their family, but not on Christmas," Adams said.

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Bears' Smith: 'We have to get to the playoffs a different way'

Chicago Tribune sports columnists Dan Pompei and David Haugh discuss how the Bears lost on Sunday to the Packers. (Posted on: Dec. 17, 2012)

Minutes after Brandon Marshall said everyone involved with the Bears offense should be held accountable, he darted out of the Soldier Field locker room, leaving behind his sad-looking Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

There will be no NFC North crown underneath the tree this season for the Bears. As far as the playoffs, they no longer control their own destiny, not after the Packers thumped them 21-13 Sunday to win the division, secure a playoff berth and extend recent dominance in the series.

The 8-6 Bears have lost five of their last six games overall and six straight in the rivalry. Suddenly, they trail the Vikings in the division and must calculate wild-card tiebreakers against everyone in the NFC East except the Eagles.

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Maybe what Marshall is seeking under his tree now is sweeping changes at Halas Hall.

"It's the same every single game," said Marshall, who stirred things up during the week with his passionate anti-Packers news conference. "We need to be held accountable. What I have to do is try my best to keep it together and not let this affect me because it's starting to affect me more than it should."

There is no guarantee general manager Phil Emery, who gambled in trading for Marshall, will shake things up at the end of the season and fire coach Lovie Smith, who is signed through 2013. The Bears close out the season at Arizona and at Detroit, and with 10 victories, they would have a reasonable chance at reaching the postseason.

Things are slipping for Smith when it comes to battling Green Bay, the opponent he made such a big deal of in his introductory news conference. This game was made closer by two missed field goals from Mason Crosby, whose job status is now tenuous, at best. Smith is 2-9 against quarterback Aaron Rodgers after ending Brett Favre's mastery of the Bears.

On his third offensive coordinator in four seasons and fourth overall, it's fair to wonder if the team will ever get that side of the ball right under Smith. It's also worth wondering if chairman of the board George McCaskey will play a central role in end-of-season decisions. It may come down to candid discussions about whether Smith and his staff or a flawed roster are more to blame for a painful free fall.

"We have to get to the playoffs a different way," Smith said. "That's the only thing we can think about right now."

To get to 10-6 the Bears must end the rough stretch that has dismantled the momentum of a 7-1 start. They have what appear to be two winnable games ahead but are averaging just 14.2 points in the last six games.

Once again Rodgers outdueled Cutler, now 1-7 against Green Bay. Rodgers fired three touchdown passes to James Jones, completing 23 of 36 passes for 291 yards.

The game swung late in the first half when Cutler and Devin Hester were mixed up and the ball was thrown directly to cornerback Casey Hayward. Rodgers quickly hooked up with James for their second score and Green Bay (10-4) led 14-7 at halftime.

The Packers then used a 13-play drive to open the third quarter, getting a pass interference call against free safety Chris Conte on tight end Jermichael Finley in the end zone on third-and-13 from the 17-yard line. The next play was another touchdown pass to Jones.

There were five pass interference calls in the game and four went against the Bears — three on wide receiver Alshon Jeffery, including one that negated a 1-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-1 after Matt Forte failed to run it in on two tries from the 1.

"That's not what lost us this game," said Cutler, who completed 12 of 21 passes for 135 yards and a 15-yard touchdown pass to Marshall that staked the Bears to a 7-0 lead in the second quarter.

Marshall was limited to six receptions for 56 yards, and Forte caught five passes for 64 yards. The only other reception was made by running back Armando Allen on a screen. Forte carried six times for 37 yards on the game-opening drive that was sabotaged by center Roberto Garza's false start. But the back ran 14 times for only 32 yards the rest of the way.

Rookie left guard James Brown started and was pulled, and right tackle Jonathan Scott left the game with a hamstring injury. The offense used two right tackles, two right guards and two left guards in a messy rotation.

It encapsulates the second half of the season, where Marshall is the only bright spot and with him and his teammates left to wish for something.

"It's like you're in quicksand and you keep fighting and fighting, waiting for something to happen," defensive lineman Israel Idonije said. "It's tough."

bmbiggs@tribune.com

Twitter @BradBiggs

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Clearwire agrees to $2.2 billion sweetened bid from Sprint

(Reuters) - Clearwire Corp agreed to sell the rest of the company to Sprint Nextel Corp for a slightly sweeter $2.2 billion offer, days after minority shareholders criticized the previous bid as too low.

The deal is one of the few options Clearwire has to survive in the long term, as it needs to raise more financing to upgrade its network and to keep the business afloat.

Sprint, the number three U.S. wireless carrier and already the majority owner of Clearwire, raised its offer by 7 cents per share to $2.97 per share.

Clearwire's shares slid 8.3 percent in premarket trade on Monday to $3.09. They had jumped nearly a quarter to close at $3.37 on Friday, on hopes of a higher offer.

Comcast Corp, Intel Corp and Bright House Networks LLC, three minority shareholders that among them hold about 13 percent of Clearwire's voting shares, had agreed to vote for the deal, Sprint and Clearwire said in a joint statement.

The deal has the unanimous backing of the Clearwire board but it was not immediately clear if Sprint could win the backing of enough of Clearwire's minority shareholders to complete the purchase.

Some shareholders have said Sprint should offer as much as $5 per share. Holders of at least 24.8 percent of Clearwire's outstanding stock, other than Sprint, need to approve the deal.

Sprint wants Clearwire's substantial spectrum to better arm itself against larger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.

Reuters reported earlier that Japan's Softbank Corp, which recently agreed to buy 70 percent of Sprint, would not consent to a bid of more than $2.97 per share.

(Editing by Rodney Joyce and Sriraj Kalluvila)

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49ers withstand comeback, top Patriots 41-34

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — LaMichael James awaited the kickoff, determined to regain the momentum for the 49ers after they quickly lost all of a 28-point lead.

"We need a boost," he said. "That's what I was thinking. I was thinking I got to take it to the house."

He didn't get all the way there, but close enough to set up the decisive touchdown — going 62 yards before Colin Kaepernick's 38-yard pass to Michael Crabtree with 6:25 left — that helped San Francisco reach the playoffs with a 41-34 win over the New England Patriots on Sunday night.

"We faced adversity," James said. "Nobody flinched."

Now the 49ers have at least a wild-card berth with a 10-3-1 record, knowing a win against division rival Seattle (9-5) next Sunday clinches the AFC West title.

The Patriots (10-4) already had locked up first place in the AFC East with a chance to improve their chances for a first-round bye. They began the day in second place in the race for the two byes but fell behind the Denver Broncos (11-3). The Houston Texans (12-2) hold the top spot.

"We haven't thought about that yet," Tom Brady said. "What's in our control is winning football games."

Doing that on Sunday night seemed almost impossible after the 49ers rolled to a 31-3 lead on Kaepernick's 27-yard touchdown pass to Crabtree five minutes into the third quarter. Only one team in NFL history had won a regular-season game after trailing by 28 — a 38-35 win by the 49ers over the New Orleans Saints on Dec. 7, 1980.

But with 25 minutes left and Brady at quarterback, the 49ers weren't comfortable.

"Tom is a good quarterback and we knew some adversity was going to come and they were going to make plays sooner or later," linebacker NaVorro Bowman said.

They did — time after time — until they had tied the score at 31 on Danny Woodhead's second touchdown, a 1-yard run with 6:43 remaining.

Woodhead began the comeback with a 6-yard touchdown run, Brady scored on a 1-yard sneak on the first play of the fourth quarter and then threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Aaron Hernandez less than three minutes later. And when Woodhead scored again, the Patriots had their fourth touchdown in 14 minutes, 16 seconds.

But two plays later — James' kickoff return and Crabtree's catch — the 49ers were back on top. And this time they stayed there.

David Akers made it 41-31 with a 28-yard field goal with 1:56 to go, Stephen Gostkowski kicked a 41-yarder for New England with 38 seconds remaining and San Francisco sealed the win when Delanie Walker caught the onside kick.

"We just spotted them 28 points," Brady said. "We fought hard, but you can't play poorly against a good team and expect to win. We can't miss plays that we have opportunities with."

For Kaepernick, a second-year pro starting just his fifth game, it was a chance to remain calm even as the big lead disappeared. He finished with 14 completions in 25 attempts for 216 yards and a career-high four touchdowns.

"This is my 17th year of football," he said. "I've been playing since I was eight years old. So, to me, I am going to go out there and I'm going to throw to the guy who is open and you try to keep football simple so your mind can be clear when you're on the field."

It was clear enough for him to throw a short pass to Crabtree then watch him race by cornerback Kyle Arrington for the go-ahead touchdown. That gave the team that had allowed the fewest points this season enough to beat the team that had scored the most.

"We can win a shootout," said Crabtree, who had 107 yards receiving. "Whatever it takes, that's our motto. ... We feel like we can do anything, sky's the limit."

New England, which had won seven straight games, lost for the first time at home in December in 21 games. The Patriots also had won 21 in a row in the second half of the schedule before San Francisco somehow regrouped late in a game it seemingly had clinched long before.

The 49ers forced four turnovers, matching the number of giveaways the Patriots had at home all season.

"I don't think they faced a physical defense like us all season," said San Francisco cornerback Carlos Rogers, who intercepted Brady midway through the first quarter and ran 53 yards to the Patriots 5.

The 49ers were leading 7-0 at the time on Kaepernick's 24-yard touchdown pass to former Patriot Randy Moss. Gostkowski's 32-yard field goal made it 7-3, but San Francisco scored on Kaepernick's 34-yard pass to Walker and David Akers' 20-yard field goal for a 17-3 lead at intermission.

"Everything" went wrong in the first half, Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker said. "A lot of bad football."

Frank Gore then recovered Kaepernick's fumble and ran 9 yards for a touchdown. Two plays later, Aldon Smith intercepted Brady's pass and Kaepernick struck on the next play with his 27-yard pass to Crabtree for a 31-3 lead with 10:21 remaining in the third quarter.

Still plenty of time for Brady.

"I had a feeling we'd be able to come back," he said.

But when the Patriots tied it, a poor job by the kickoff team proved costly.

"I did as much as I could to help the team win," James said.

It was just enough.

NOTES: The 49ers allowed 520 yards after entering the game second in the NFL in fewest yards allowed, 275.5 per game. ... Welker had five catches, giving him 100 and making him the first player in NFL history with that many in five seasons. ... Gore led all rushers with 83 yards on 21 carries. ... Brady was 36 for a career-high 65 for 443 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.

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