Just in time for the holidays, Apple’s fifth Manhattan store opens for business at New York’s world-famous Grand Central Terminal at 10 a.m. on Friday, December 9. The store overlooks the historic Main Concourse and features two Genius Bars, entire rooms dedicated to Personal Setup and Personal Training, and an expert team of 315 employees. Holiday shoppers can test-drive Apple products, attend 15-minute Express workshops, get free technical support, and more.

An appeals court ruled on Monday that Alberto Contador, a three-time winner of the Tour de France, used a performance-enhancing drug when he won the race in 2010.

A 48-year-old West Palm Beach millionaire and polo club founder has adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend in an apparent bid to avoid paying out a wrongful death lawsuit.

In their second Super Bowl matchup in five seasons, the Giants and Eli Manning scored another victory over Tom Brady and the Patriots, earning the franchise its fourth Super Bowl title.

New York Times columnist David Pogue reports on AssistiveTouch, an “amazingly thoughtful” iOS 5 feature that makes it possible to complete Multi-Touch gestures using one finger or a stylus. Writes Pogue: “I doubt that people with severe motor control challenges represent a financially significant number of the iPhone’s millions of customers. But somebody at Apple took them seriously enough to write a complete, elegant and thoughtful feature that takes down most of the barriers to using an app phone.”

Potential support from California and New York would come in exchange for tightening provisions in order to preserve the right to investigate past misdeeds by the banks, and stepping up oversight.

In an interview at National Geographic’s Adventure blog, director Tim Kemple of Camp 4 Collective — an outdoor video and film production company — describes using iPhone 4S to shoot a hi-def music video at the Great Salt Lake as an experiment in remote location capture. Kemple reports getting excellent video from iPhone 4S, noting that “because it’s always with you means you end up using it when you’d least expect.” The interview includes tips for stabilizing shots, optimizing for iOS 5 features, using helpful apps in extreme environments, and shooting in low light.

The actions include freezing all property of the Central Bank of Iran, other Iranian financial institutions and the Iranian government in this country.

The Benetton Group, headquartered in Venice, Italy, is internationally known for its lively fashions and memorable ad campaigns. Recently, they created a fast, color-accurate iPad catalog app that replaces bulky, production-intensive hardcopy catalogs. As a result, the company saves 60 days per year in preparing its sales materials for its staff and is able to adapt instantly to changes.

After weeks of protests, Emil Boc, Romania’s prime minister, resigned Monday, the latest European leader to fall victim to a mood of public outrage over austerity measures and stagnant growth.

On Mike Tyson Being Inducted Into WWE Hall Of Fame

Check out the news from the launch and be among the first to download Internet Explorer 9.

Apple today announced iBooks 2 for iPad, featuring iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging, and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks offer iPad users gorgeous, full-screen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, and unrivaled navigation. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore, with most priced at $14.99 or less. And with the new iBooks Author, anyone with a Mac can create iBooks textbooks and publish them to Apple’s iBookstore. Starting today, iBooks 2 is available free from the App Store and iBooks Author is available free from the Mac App Store

News is breaking all over Indy as the Giants reveal their plans to tackle Tom Brady, Belichick rallies the troops with genital mutilation, and Peyton Manning gets over the Colts with some casual football.

Apple announced that GarageBand, its breakthrough music creation app, is now available for iPhone and iPod touch. Introduced earlier this year on iPad, GarageBand uses Apple’s Multi-Touch interface to make it easy for anyone to create and record their own songs, even if they’ve never played an instrument before. GarageBand 1.1 for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch is available on the App Store for $4.99 (US) to new users, or as a free update for existing GarageBand for iPad customers.

The United States Constitution was once a model for charters around the world, but its influence is waning, according to a new study.

The FDA urges Americans to check out a really weird-looking potato, a suitcase looks forward all year to the carousel ride, and Syria is running dangerously low on citizens to oppress.

Obama campaign aides are spending their time, they say, looking for Mitt Romney missteps, and they have been rewarded.

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. ”

Apple today released Final Cut Pro X version 10.0.3, a significant update to its revolutionary professional video editing application. Version 10.0.3 introduces Multicam Editing, which automatically syncs up to 64 angles of video and photos; advanced chroma keying for handling complex adjustments right in the app; and enhanced XML for a richer interchange with third-party apps and plug-ins that support the fast growing Final Cut Pro X ecosystem. It also includes a beta version of Broadcast Monitoring that supports Thunderbolt devices as well as PCIe cards. Final Cut Pro X version 10.0.3 is available from the Mac App Store for $299.99 (US) to new users, or as a free update for existing Final Cut Pro X customers.

NBC 10 a.m. EST/9 a.m. CST David Gregory finally remembers to bring in a framed photograph of his wife and kids to put on the table.