Chen Guangcheng, the blind lawyer whose escape from house arrest jolted relations between the United States and China, followed a hastily arranged flight with an open-air news conference in New York. Trans-Atlantic tension in JPMorgan Chase’s chief investment office contributed to the unit’s giant losing trades, current and former bankers said. The transportation secretary flips out on a pothole in Baltimore, a man wearing red glasses and pink pants is probably Dutch or something, and an Ohio Film Festival graphic designer decides to go with film reels for the O's. It's the week of May 14th, 2012. Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 second quarter ended March 31, 2012. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $39.2 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $24.7 billion and net profit of $6.0 billion, or $6.40 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. “We’re thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver.” Democrats charge that Republican members of Congress are preventing the passage of the bills by moving very slowly. Apple today introduced iPhoto for iPad and iPhone and major updates to iMovie and GarageBand, completing its suite of iLife apps for iOS. iPhoto includes breakthrough Multi-Touch features so you can use simple gestures to sort through hundreds of photos and find your best shots, enhance and retouch your images using fingertip brushes, and share stunning photo journals with iCloud. iMovie now gives you the ability to create Hollywood-style trailers as you record HD video on your iPad or iPhone. GarageBand introduces Jam Session, an innovative and fun feature that allows a group of friends to wirelessly connect their iOS devices to play instruments and record live music together. iPhoto, iMovie 1.3, and GarageBand 1.2 are available today for $4.99 (US) each from the App Store. Updates are available for free to existing customers. Research shows that more than half of office workers are dissatisfied with the level of “speech privacy” in their offices, and managers are hearing their complaints. National Geographic magazine reports that ski-mountaineer Hilaree O’Neill — a member of its 2012 Everest expedition — will follow the same route Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay did in 1953, but with an iPad and iPhone in her backpack. iPad gives O’Neill a journaling device with a solid-state data storage drive usable at altitudes where spinning hard disk drives have been known to fail. And with cell service available even on Everest’s summit, she’ll use an iPhone 4S to stay in touch instead of a cumbersome walkie-talkie. Blog post and video from Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit about company efforts to stop the Rustock spambot. An earthquake struck the northern Italian region of Emilia Romagna on Sunday, killing five people, wounding dozens and damaging historic buildings as well as warehouses and factories. For the fifth year in a row, Apple has been named the World’s Most Admired Company by Fortune Magazine. Apple also ranks first again in the Innovation category. Noting the “runaway success” of iPhone 4S and iPad 2 and increased sales across the board, the magazine writes: “To say it was another big year for Apple would be a gross understatement.” USA Today reviewer Edward C. Baig describes his experience using the first Multi-Touch digital textbooks published for the iBooks 2 for iPad app, noting that they are “engaging in ways that were simply not possible with the textbooks I grew up with.” Baig likes the portability, updatability, and low pricing of iBooks 2 digital textbooks and touts specific features like instant search, highlighting, bookmarking, and interactive graphics. Writes Baig, “It’s better to see an animated tour of the genome in E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth than just to read about it. ” Local Man Shot With Girly Pistol The New York Times reports that a MacBook Air one-to-one program is helping raise student attendance, engagement, and performance at North Carolina’s Mooresville Graded School District, which “has quietly emerged as the de facto national model of the digital school.” The article notes, “Mooresville ranks 100th out of 115 districts in North Carolina in terms of dollars spent per student — $7,415.89 a year — but it is now third in test scores and second in graduation rates.” NEW YORK—In response to evidence an increasing number of former players are showing what doctors say can only be described as "Jose Canseco–like symptoms," the MLB announced Friday it was launching an investigation into whether ... Jubilant Rangers Throw Skates Into Stands Mr. World Peace changed his name last year in order to show he'd rejected the hooliganism that got him in trouble as Ron Artest, but he's also coming off a seven-game suspension for a blind elbow. MINNEAPOLIS—According to customers, a fiberglass sculpture of a fat mustachioed Italian stereotype recently placed in front of Gunther's Pizza has provided irrefutable proof of the restaurant's high standard of excellence. With the mayor, the governor, friends and family members looking on, Christine C. Quinn was married in one of the most prominent same-sex weddings of a public official. In his review of the new iPad, AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg describes viewing the Retina display as “like getting a new eyeglasses prescription — you suddenly realize what you thought looked sharp before wasn’t nearly as sharp as it could be.” He praises the performance of the iPad as “buttery smooth,” and he writes that he “loves” the photos he took with the new 5-megapixel camera. Mossberg concludes, “Since it launched in 2010, the iPad has been the best tablet on the planet. With the new, third-generation model, it still holds that crown.” A study published in The Journal of Physiology demonstrated that rats given substantial amounts of high fructose corn syrup learned and remembered less than a control group.