The cover of the January 28 issue of The New Yorker features work by Jorge Colombo, an artist who creates his pieces exclusively on the iPad. He started out in 2009 working on the iPhone, but now enjoys the larger format of the iPad. “I became more proficient on the tablet and started using more lines and more detail,” he says. His illustration for The New Yorker, titled “Newsstand,” is the first piece Colombo created on the iPad. The trains crashed after a derailment near Fairfield on Friday evening, injuring 60 people, five of them critically, and snarling transit corridors in the Northeast.     HARTFORD, CT—Unable to secure the services of any of the young women who normally watch her 4-year-old son when she goes out for the evening, desperate local mother Rebecca Lowenstein confirmed Wednesday night that she had resorted to hiring a male ... A new video profiles Essa Academy, a once struggling school in one of the most disadvantaged areas of England. New principal Showkat Badat has reinvented the school as a hub of technology-assisted learning, and helped incorporate an ecosystem of Apple products, including iPad, Mac, and iTunes U, into the classrooms. The students’ excitement about the technology and direct access to information is reflected in dramatically improved test scores. Since adopting the technology, Essa went from a 28 percent pass rate to 100 percent. “I don’t see technology as an add-on, a nice option to have,” says Badat. “It’s what enables learning and creates an environment that sparks creativity.” President Obama’s second term is off to a rocky start, with the acting IRS chief stepping down, the Justice Department seizing journalists’ phone records, and Republicans continuing to allege a high-level cover-up of the Benghazi attack last S... This week, President Barack Obama and his administration have come under fire from political opponents seeking an explanation for the White House’s alleged complicity in a series of widely publicized scandals. Officials called the explosions in the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province the first major terrorist attack since the general election.     With both sweet and exotic elements, a bowl of spiced cashews is the right match for a cocktail.     Bloomberg West profiles Ed Summers, who, as head of accessibility at international software company SAS, “has made it his mission to help other visually impaired people unlock the power of the iPad.” Summers is traveling around the United States to teach educators how to maximize the device’s built-in accessibility features in their classrooms. Bloomberg notes that tablets are growing in popularity among educators, and Summers says iPad is “opening up a whole world” for visually impaired students. “We’re working to make sure that students and professionals of all abilities can succeed in the classroom and the 21st-century knowledge economy,” Summers says. A man who broke into a house in Uniondale, N.Y., and engaged in a gun battle with the police was also killed, the authorities said.     Across the United States, teachers are using iPad and other tablets to reinvent the presentation and management of educational material. According to a report in Wired magazine, “tablets’ simplicity, ease of use and the massive range of academically minded applications available are drawing teachers and educational technologists to the platform in droves.” iPad is leading this charge, as “the most popular tablet among educators,” and “Apple’s iTunes U is one tool making iPad-based course integration easier by helping teachers create and curate a wholly digital curriculum.” Apple is making the MacBook Pro with Retina display faster and more affordable with updated processors and lower starting prices. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now starts at $1,499 for 128GB of flash, and $1,699 for a new 2.6GHz processor and 256GB of flash. The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now features a faster 2.4GHz quad-core processor, and the top-of-the-line 15-inch notebook comes with a new 2.7GHz quad-core processor and 16GB of memory. Apple also announced that the 13-inch MacBook Air with 256GB of flash has a new lower price of $1,399. The new models are available starting today through the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores, and Apple Authorized Resellers. In its annual rankings, Fortune magazine has named Apple the world’s most admired company for the sixth year in a row. Fortune calls Apple “a financial juggernaut,” citing Apple’s $13 billion in net income last quarter — earnings that made it the most profitable company in the world during that period. The magazine also applauds Apple’s “fanatical customer base” and the unprecedented success of the iPhone and iPad product lines. The best tool to improve and keep track of your health may be in your pocket, says Dr. Eric Topol, a pioneering figure in “wireless medicine” — the practice of using apps and devices in health care. An article from NBC News describes how new apps for iPhone and other devices can measure vital signs and even detect whether someone is having a heart attack. “These days, I’m prescribing a lot more apps than I am medications,” says Dr. Topol. “The smartphone will be the hub of the future of medicine.” CLEVELAND—Claiming they want to impose their will against the competition, Cleveland Browns head coach Rob Chudzinski announced Friday that the team is gearing up to aggressively punt the ball down opponents’ throats this season. BOSTON—Law enforcement officials confirmed today that before the police captured Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old left a really nice thank-you note for the owner of the boat in which he had been hiding out that day. Refining Canada’s petroleum-soaked oil sands produces petroleum coke, and the question of what to do with it has found at least one answer in Detroit, where a large coke pile covers an entire city block.     According to the latest Consumer Reports reader survey, Apple tops the list of brand-name computer manufacturers for the quality of its tech support, far surpassing other large companies. The report points to “ease of contacting staff, clarity of advice, technical knowledge, patience, and time for follow-up” in the phone and online support areas. Service at the Genius Bar rates equally highly. In addition, Apple improved on its own scores from last year’s survey. Military officials said attacks were launched against the Boko Haram Islamist group in border areas in a forest south of the city of Maiduguri.     In this video report from CNN, documentary film director Malik Bendjelloul talks about how he used a $1.99 iPhone app to finish shooting his Oscar-nominated film, “Searching for Sugar Man.” The film tracks the rise to fame of the Detroit musician Rodriguez, who never made it big in the United States but became a legend in South Africa. Bendjelloul started shooting the movie on film, but with just a few shots remaining, he found his budget depleted. That’s when he turned to an iPhone app called 8mm by Nexvio, which gave his video a retro feel. “It looks like real film,” says Bendjelloul. “You can’t tell the difference.” “Searching for Sugar Man” has garnered praise at the Tribeca film festival, SXSW Film, and the Los Angeles Film Festival. Some conservatives allege that the I.R.S. also targeted individual taxpayers, but a handful of anecdotal data points are not worth much in a country of 300 million.