After an investigation into a woman’s claim that she was raped by Greg Kelly, a son of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said the facts “do not fit the definition of sexual assault crimes.”

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.”

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.

Vogue’s “Need It Now” column features the new Cards from Apple, which lets users create and mail beautifully crafted cards personalized with their own text and photos from their iPhone or iPod touch. Each card is just $2.99 when sent within the U.S. and $4.99 when sent to or from anywhere else — postage included. Vogue calls the Cards app “nothing short of genius” for reviving the almost forgotten pleasure of receiving a “real, honest-to-goodness paper greeting card in the mail” and concludes: “This is the kind of vintage innovation we would all do well to download.”

The transfer of U.S. Marines to Guam will not require the prior closure of a base on the southern Japan island of Okinawa, the United States and Japan announced Wednesday.

Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper subsidiary was reported to have reached a new batch of settlements on Wednesday in the hacking scandal.

Facing criticism from religious-affiliated institutions, the Obama administration promised on Tuesday to explore ways to make a new health insurance requirement more flexible.

Nine whooping cranes that had been following an ultralight aircraft as it guided them on their migratory route stopped when they reached Alabama, 500 miles short of the intended destination.

Indianapolis Colts Somehow Wind Up With Exact Same Coaching Staff

Wired Magazine reports that Newsstand, a new feature of iOS 5, is “hitting it big with traditional media publishers thanks to its windfall delivery of new digital subscriptions.” Newsstand keeps all app subscriptions for newspapers, magazines, and journals in one convenient place on the iOS 5 home screen and makes it easy to shop for new reading material. Wired cites Conde Nast and The New York Times among publishers seeing large spikes in app subscriptions since Newsstand launched.

WASHINGTON—According to a report from the U.S. Department of Education released Thursday, watching a single episode of the British TV series Downton Abbey is the cultural and educational equivalent of reading an entire book.

With no family or friends in attendance, Matt and Shandra Fink were quietly married in a low-key Las Vegas ceremony, but the couple went right from there to pulling off an exciting casino robbery.

Wired reviewer Brian X. Chen writes that a superb new camera and speedy dual-core processor are great additions to iPhone 4S and that Siri alone is reason enough to buy the phone: “To give you an idea of how convenient Siri is, it takes about three seconds to create a reminder with a voice command, as opposed to the 10 seconds it takes me to manually type an event into a to-do list or calendar entry.” Chen concludes: “…both inside and out, this is a magnificent smartphone.”

Man Wants To Give To Local PBS Affiliate But Can't Stand Thought Of Free Doo-Wop Album

Students at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, are using Mac notebooks to research class assignments and show results in ways they never could before. These include songs and podcasts recorded and edited in GarageBand, digital presentations and portfolios created in Keynote, campus news videos edited in iMovie and Final Cut Pro, and even iOS apps built using Xcode. Says sixth grade teacher Sandy Chang, “The Macs in my classroom are completely indispensable.”

Apple today announced iPhone 4S, the most amazing iPhone yet, packed with new features like Apple’s dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an 8MP camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. iPhone 4S also ships with iOS 5 — the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, with over 200 new features — and iCloud.

Apple today announced that iPhone 4S will be available in China and 21 additional countries on Friday, January 13. iPhone 4S features Apple’s dual-core A5 chip for fast performance and stunning graphics; an all-new 8-megapixel camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD-resolution video recording; and Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. “Customer response to our products in China has been off the charts,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With the launch in China next week, iPhone 4S will be available in over 90 countries, making this our fastest iPhone rollout ever.”

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.

The biggest New York City hotel operators have agreed to a contract that will give workers, among other things, security devices that would summon help if hotel staff encounter danger in a guest’s room.

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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.