JPMorgan’s trading loss disclosed last week could be higher than the $2 billion initially thought—50 percent higher. Last Thursday, when CEO Jamie Dimon announced the loss he mentioned it could mushroom in the coming months because of the market. The Federal Reserve is looking into the trade and growing losses to determine whether the FDIC-insured bank took inappropriate risks. But experts said Wednesday that an additional $1 billion was expected to be added on to the $2 billion announced last week. The bank is expected to earn $4 billion in the second quarter even with a $2 billion loss. Analysts are reportedly optimistic about the bank’s future.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is talking confidently after a May 7 poll that he says proves the Syrian people back his regime. Assad sat down with a Russian TV station in an interview that aired Wednesday, saying rebels were issuing “threats of terrorists” across the country. Al-Assad said his people are “supporting the policy of reform” and “support the institutions of the state” after the poll saw voter turnout of 51 percent. Only limited results from the poll have been released so far. Al-Assad said that the Western media has only talked of the government’s violence, and not that which has been waged by rebels. He is scheduled to meet with special envoy Kofi Annan later this month and will “ask him what this is about” in reference to the media’s coverage.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s estranged wife, Mary Kennedy, was found dead in her home on Wednesday in an apparent suicide. RFK Jr., the son of former Senator Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, filed for divorce in 2010 after 16 years of marriage, though the divorce was never finalized. Mary was arrested for drunk driving three days after her husband filed for divorce. Sources close to Kennedy said she was depressed about the split and it is rumored that she had hanged herself. Medical examiners began an autopsy on Kennedy on Thursday.

The autopsy released Wednesday showed that Florida teen Trayvon Martin died of a single gunshot wound to the chest fired from “intermediate range.” The only other injury on Martin’s body was a quarter-inch abrasion on his left ring finger below his knuckle, the report said, according to NBC News. A medical report revealed yesterday showed that George Zimmerman, Martin’s killer, had a fractured nose, two black eyes, and cuts on the back of his head. The medical report and autopsy are just two documents among 300 pages of evidence that are expected to be made public soon in the second-degree murder case against Zimmerman.

First he endorsed “the American people.” Then he threw his support behind Newt Gingrich. But now, as the GOP primary winds down, Herman Cain says he is backing Mitt Romney, the presumptive nominee. Cain admitted he has some major differences with Romney, but would campaign for the former Massachusetts governor moving forward. The one-time GOP frontrunner also said he would consider running for vice president if Romney asked him to join the ticket, but he denied rumors he would be running for governor in Georgia.

For the family of a Vietnam War veteran, too late isn’t too little. The late Spec. Leslie H. Sabo Jr. was awarded the Medal of Honor Wednesday by President Obama, his widow Rose Mary Sabo-Brown accepting the medal in his place. Sabo was killed in combat in 1970 in Cambodia during the Vietnam war, the president saying that the award speaks for “the service of an entire generation” during a White House ceremony. Sabo was said to have saved the lives of his fellow soldiers after being seriously injured, grabbing a nearby enemy grenade and shielding a wounded comrade with his body, saving his life. President Obama noted that this month begins the marking of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War.

Election reporters are used to the Romney campaign's unwillingness to engage, but even they were surprised at the presidential candidate's increased restrictiveness Wednesday. Following a speech in Florida, reporters were blocked from joining the audience or the voter reception line. Members of the media found themselves clashing with campaign aides when they ignored instructions and approached the crowd anyway. The Secret Service insisited they had nothing to do with the restrictions, it was all the campaign. Romney's spokeswoman later insisted—after many an angry tweet from reporters—that "this was an error on the part of the campaign staff and volunteers. We have reminded them that press is allowed on the rope line to record the governor's interactions with voters." 

Chuck Brown, the “Godfather of Go-Go” music, passed away Wednesday at the age of 75. Brown, a legend within the D.C. nightclub scene, was the creative genius behind the new kind of funk music with nonstop percussion that competed with disco for much of the 1970s. Brown’s early years were marked by poverty and brushes with crime. While in prison for murder, he taught himself to play guitar. The singer performed well into his later years, saying “I’m not retired because I’m not tired. I’m still getting hired and I’m still inspired.”

Another day, another study linking coffee and health. The editors at NPR pointed out that studies correlating the two are about as common as a Starbucks in Seattle, but a new study released Wednesday is the biggest to date of its kind. The National Cancer Institute found that people who drink coffee regularly had a “modestly lower risk of death than non-drinkers.” The study included 400,000 Americans ages 50 to 71. Those who drank two to three cups a day were 10 to 15 percent less likely to die during the 13-year study, the coffee potentially lowering the risk of dying from heart disease, lung disease, strokes, injuries, accidents, diabetes and infections. So, another double shot, please!

Nick Stahl’s life has turned into a Hollywood movie of sorts—and not in a good way. The 32-year-old actor best known for his roles in Terminator 3 and Sin City went missing on May 9 and has not been heard from since. Stahl’s wife, Rose, filed a petition in February calling for child support, supervised visits, and drug tests for her husband, who is known in the movie industry to be a hard worker. She reported him missing Monday, four days after he had been last seen in downtown Los Angeles. No foul play is suspected in the case—though the papers filed by Rose say that Stahl had been behaving erratically and getting high around their 2-year-old daughter.

Call it the new mile-high club. Virgin Atlantic announced Monday that it will soon allow passengers to make in-flight calls, send and receive text messages, and surf the Internet on its A330 Airbus flights between New York and London. The airline says it expects the service will be available on 20 planes by the end of 2012, but the privilege of playing Words With Friends in-flight comes at a high price. The airline will charge roughly $1.20 per minute for the service, and only six passengers will be allowed to make calls at once. Cellphone use will still be prohibited during takeoffs and landings. The service is currently available on British Airways and several other Middle Eastern airlines.

At least there are some things Chris Christie and Cory Booker agree on. The Republican governor of New Jersey and the Democratic mayor of Newark teamed up for a Web video released on Tuesday. In the video created for the New Jersey Press Association Legislative Correspondents Club, Booker pretends to field a call from Romney where he is asked to consider a spot on Romney’s ticket. Booker says, “Yes, yes that was me running into the fire” and admits to shoveling snow. But then says he’s not a “back-up singer” and “you need a big …,” and then Christie jumps in and says, “Excuse me, Mayor, I got this.” Christie also released a video Tuesday lamenting the amount of times he’s been asked to join Romney’s ticket.

And with this victory, Jennifer Lopez drifted further and further away from “the block” from which she once came. The actress, singer, and host of American Idol dazzled her way to the top of the Forbes Celebrity 100 list—based on both money and fame—bumping Lady Gaga, last year’s winner, from the top.  Banking a cool $42 million last year, J-Lo’s successful comeback was fueled by her $20 million Idol gig, a much-publicized split from Marc Anthony, L’Oreal and Gillette endorsements, a snazzy Kohl’s clothing line, her very own fragrance, 6.6 million Twitter followers, and 12 million fans on Facebook. It’s unclear whether 2001’s The Wedding Planner factored into the ranking.

And the winner is … Mitt Romney! The former Massachusetts governor had no problem running to victory in both Nebraska and Oregon on Tuesday night, winning nearly 70 percent of the vote in the Cornhusker State with three quarters of precincts reporting. The Associated Press called the race for Romney in Oregon, projecting him the winner of a distant second-placer Ron Paul. Rick Santorum placed second in Nebraska, though neither he nor Paul could get within 60 percentage points of Romney. Romney is set to gain 57 total delegates from Tuesday’s wins, 32 from Nebraska which will be added during the state’s convention in July, and 25 from Oregon to come when the win is made official. Former senator Bob Kerrey won the Democratic primary in Nebraska, setting up what promises to be a tight race with Republican state Sen. Deb Fischer, who won a three-way primary over Attorney General Jon Bruning.

The Syrian rebels have become better armed in the past few weeks, apparently receiving weapons that have been paid for by its Gulf neighbors and coordinated in part by the U.S., say opposition activists as well as U.S. and foreign officials. The Obama administration has insisted the U.S. is not providing any lethal material, and a senior State Department official said the U.S. is increasing its “nonlethal assistance” to the Syrian opposition. Material is reportedly being stockpiled in Damascus and in the border towns of Idlib and Zabadani. Opposition activists said two months ago that the rebels were running out of ammunition, but they said this week that the flow of weapons has significantly increased since Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states agreed to provide millions of dollars in funding to the rebels.

An arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday for a Chicago man charged in the murder of his new wife, who was found slain in her wedding dress a day after the two were married. Arnoldo Jimenez, 30, and Estrella Carrera, 26, were married Friday in Chicago’s City Hall, and the couple then had dinner with friends and family and boarded a rented limousine before partying at a nightclub on Chicago’s North Side. On Sunday, Carrera was found stabbed to death in her bathtub. Jimenez is the father of Carrera’s youngest child, a 2-year-old boy.

Lady Gaga’s Indonesian promoters said Wednesday that they will fight to save her upcoming concert, which was canceled after police denied it a permit and Islamic hardliners threatened “chaos” if she comes to the country. Production company Big Daddy reached out to Lady Gaga’s famous “little monsters” on Twitter, saying they still hoped the June 3 concert would take place—especially since 50,000 tickets had already been sold. But the Islamic Defenders Front has promised to wreak chaos on the country if Gaga performs, calling her the “devil’s messenger” who wears only a “bra and panties” on the stage.

Laurie Fine, the wife of former Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, has announced plans to sue ESPN for libel, claiming false reporting of child-sex-abuse allegations against her husband ruined her reputation. The suit alleges ESPN falsely portrayed Laurie Fine as consciously turning a blind eye while her husband sexually molested children in her own home. "I have never engaged in or condone despicable conduct falsely reported by ESPN," she said in a press conference Wednesday. "They should apologize and retract these horrible lies.” She did not say anything to indicate whether her husband was innocent or guilty. Bernie Fine, who was fired in November after several boys claimed he molested them, has not been charged.

Facebook will increase the size of its initial public offering by 25 percent, a source told Reuters on Wednesday—meaning the company could raise as much as $16 billion before its shares go public on Friday. If the IPO is increased, it will be the third-largest initial share sale in history, after Visa and General Motors. According to the source, Facebook will add about 85 million shares, for a total of 422 million expected to be floated in the public offering. The news about the shares came just one day after GM announced it would be pulling its ads from Facebook, saying the ads are ineffective.

Russian police ousted political protesters from a campsite in Moscow early Wednesday morning, a day after a judge ordered the site be cleared because of complaints from neighborhood residents. Police had initially said they wouldn’t move in until noon against “OccupyAbai,” named after the statue of a 19th-century Kazakh writer in Chistye Prudy park, but instead swooped at 5:30 a.m. Protesters offered no resistance; police said 23 people were detained, mainly for public intoxication. Protesters then moved to a small park near the Barrikadnaya metro station, so-called for the barricades in the 1905 revolution, after word spread on Twitter that the gathering had moved.

Will President Obama win the award for best nomination? The MTV Music Video Awards and Obama’s acceptance speech are both scheduled for Sept. 6. A source told CNN that MTV will air the awards show an hour earlier than planned—from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. EST—to “avoid conflict with the Democratic National Convention that evening.”

Doctors for Aimee Copeland, the Georgia woman who fell victim to a rare flesh-eating bacterial disease after a ziplining accident, say she has been improving, although she will suffer from a “roller-coaster ride of ups and lows” in the coming weeks and months. Copeland’s father, Aaron Copeland, who has been blogging about his daughter’s disease, wrote on Tuesday that “every day we claim a small victory” and “we don’t have to see physical progress, we seem to take comfort in simple words, silly actions and quiet moments.” As a result of the infection, doctors have removed Copeland’s abdomen and amputated a leg and expect to remove her fingers, her father said.

They got me, too! Tom Cruise has claimed that he may be one of a handful of celebrities whose cell phones have been hacked by News of the World journalists. When asked during an interview with Playboy magazine if he had ever been hacked, the Mission Impossible star replied, “Maybe.” Cruise, 49, implied he wouldn’t hesitate to take action if his privacy was invaded by Rupert Murdoch’s media company. “There’s one thing you know with a bully. I don’t care how big or mean they are … but sometimes just confronting them works.” If Cruise was indeed hacked, he would be the highest profile celebrity victim yet—a case that would be a PR disaster for Murdoch’s News Corp.

The Obama campaign is out with a new video in which manager Jim Messina touts the president’s recent fundraising accomplishments, like taking in $43.6 million in the month of April, as outside groups pour millions into Romney’s campaign. While April’s large loot was less than Obama raised in March, he’s still been able to fundraise more successfully than Romney, and that’s not including big fundraisers like the one at George Clooney’s house last week or the recent uptick in gay donors since his endorsement of same-sex marriage. 

The trial of Ratko Mladic, the man accused of being responsible for the bloodiest genocide in Europe since World War II, began on Wednesday at The Hague, 17 years after the Bosnian conflict ended. Mladic is charged with 11 counts, including two counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity during the Bosnian conflict, including the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica. Family members of his victims and survivors packed the courtroom to see Mladic, who reportedly gave them a sarcastic hand clap and wave. Mladic gestured he needed a bathroom break by sliding his finger across his throat, causing consternation from his victims. Mladic, 70, had eluded authorities for 16 years until his capture in May 2011.

Defense attorneys for John Edwards wrapped up their case Wednesday without calling their client to the stand, and his mistress, Rielle Hunter, will not testify in the trial. Some watchers expected Hunter to testify since she could back up that Edwards had no direct knowledge of a secret effort to take care of her and keep her out of the public eye. However, an appearance from her would have posed a problem since she also serves as a reminder of his lies in their affair. Edwards faces six counts of campaign-finance violations, and he is accused of using campaign donations from two wealthy donors to hide his affair with Hunter and their daughter.

Google is rolling out its new Knowledge Graph, which provides fact boxes with extra data and information alongside its query results. The new information comes from Google’s new database of 500 million people, places, and things. Knowledge Graph also gives users the ability to narrow the search to the most relevant topics. Product Management Director of Search Jack Menzel said, “We would like to be able to model everything. Anything to get you to the information that solves your task as fast as we can. We want to guide you through your query a bit like a map.”

Greek political leaders set June 17 as the date of the next election, although no official announcement has been made. Earlier Wednesday, Greek officials expressed concern that citizens are withdrawing euros from banks over fear of the country exiting the single currency and the rapid devaluation they would suffer as a result. In a meeting between Greek President Karolos Papoulias and political leaders, Papoulias spoke of the “fear that could develop into panic” at the country’s banks as the political parties failed to form a coalition government and a new election was announced. Central bank head George Provopoulos said Greeks had withdrawn at least €700 million ($894 million) on Monday. Meanwhile, the London stock exchange, the FTSE, was down Wednesday on the news from Greece.

After just two years as a judge on American Idol, Jennifer Lopez has reportedly gotten the itch to get back onstage herself. Sources are saying Lopez will be launching a huge concert tour with Enrique Iglesias in Latin America this summer and last at least through the end of this year, causing her to leave the popular competition reality show. The singer, who was listed at the top of Forbes' Celebrity 100 list Wednesday, also wants to have time next year to spend with her kids. Fox isn’t commenting, but the network may try to keep her on with a bigger paycheck.