OPINION

Christine O'Donnell may think a lawn gnome can beat Barack Obama next year, but a new Reuters/Ipsos poll says otherwise. If the general election were held today, the poll found, Obama would beat Newt Gingrich by 13 percentage points and Mitt Romney by 8 points.

Celebrities generally don’t like being noticed or bothered.

A retired police officer shot and killed his wife over a financial argument. How and why do such tragedies happen?

The Higgs boson news caused cheers from me, too. Because I have been searching high and low for the Higgs right here in New York. That is, I have been searching tirelessly for that thing that gives substance to the insubstantial. And I would like to report that I have found it, too, all over the place.

Since the 1960s, the United States has spent $16 trillion on the welfare state. This unfathomable price tag is more than our entire national debt, which just recently reached $15 trillion. With social welfare expenditure at about 35 percent of GDP, the obvious question is: Are the benefits outweighing the astronomical costs we pay?

Newt Gingrich has said a lot of outrageous things in his time, and he is proud of it: early in his congressional career, he vowed to define his political opponents out of existence. Here are 10 of his most memorable -- and offensive -- quotes.

Here we go again: Donald Trump is ridiculously inflating his influence on the Republican presidential campaign. Trump, whose Dec. 27 debate was snubbed by five out of seven candidates last week, is now claiming that he has changed the entire direction of the race.

There’s nothing quite like home ownership. However, given a glut of housing in the U.S. stemming from market speculation and other factors, prospective home buyers need to carefully evaluate their decision to purchase.

Self-expression is the crux of individuality, and in this city, in this day and age, when everyone's looking for a way to set themselves apart, individuality is often the root of success. Perched on the 4th floor of an East Village office building, sitting in a glass-cased conference room, looking out onto Cooper Square, I begin to understand what Justin Stefano, 32, and Philippe von Borries, 33, best friends and co-founders of Refinery 29, had discerned long before anyone else: It was early ...

Former New York FBI agent was taken in Iran nearly four years ago without any leads or suspects. How do kidnapping victims cope with such as these traumatic events?

The International Trade Commission this week is expected to determine if Taiwan's HTC infringed upon Apple's smartphone patents. Isn't there a more sensible way to manage the IP wars?

A conversation with Rick Bell, executive director of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

The Playboy cover featuring Lohan, who starred at the age of 11 in Disney's remake of The Parent Trap, was apparently leaked days ago. But now the entire spread has been leaked, according to TMZ and people can see it online. Playboy, of course, has a major vested interest since it reportedly paid Lohan $1 million for the shoot and right to publish.

Donald Trump may have to cancel his much-maligned GOP debate now that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are the only ones attending -- but he wants you to know it's not his fault.

Whenever economists discuss the “big picture”— where we’ve come from, where we’re going— someone is bound to bring up Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter (1883-1950) was, in fact, a master of thinking about the “big picture,” most famously in his writings on economic development, entrepreneurship, and the past and future of capitalist societies.

The only rule at Loosecubes' office in DUMBO is you have to play nice with others. Words to that effect have been etched in Old English on a wooden placard that hangs near the doorway. Pass that lone condition and you're free to use the company's massive studio, a cavernous room with a makeshift meeting area made from a large canvas tent standing on artificial turf, pinned smack dab in the middle of all the desks.

The details of the killing on Dec. 8, 1980 are sadly familiar to almost everyone who remembers that awful event.

Analysis of the Cheshire Home Invasion

Strawberry Fields Forever: John Lennon was shot and killed 31 years ago, today, outside the Dakota home he shared with Yoko Ono.

President Barack Obama needs several factors to break his way to improve his chance for re-election in 2012 -- the most important of which is U.S. job growth.

While commuters queue at their local Starbucks for their first cardboard growler of coffee, addicts often don't have to leave the city's choicest neighborhoods to get their daily paper mouthwash cup of hot-pink methadone.

After the death of a female high-school basketball star, it appears that there is an upward trend for women to join street gangs in the city.

With Mitt Romney's announcement on Tuesday that he will not attend a debate moderated by Donald Trump, the endeavor seems to be collapsing before it has begun -- and rightly so.

Forgotten in all the fuss about the alleged nude photographs of Pakistani actress and model, Veena Malik, on the cover of FHM India’s December issue, is one rather important mark - the tattoo on her body - the one that reads ISI; ISI is the acronym for Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's intelligence agency.

The 70th Anniversary of the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor calls for reflection on the significance of the Pearl Harbor memorials.

The long shadow of Occupy Wall Street fell across the New York Legislature Tuesday, when its leaders and Gov. Andrew Cuomo agreed to changes to New York State's income tax, which will cut rates for many in the middle class, while adding a new bracket for those making over $2 million a year. And we, the middle class, owe that rag-tag group of small-d democrats our gratitude.

Every New Yorker trapped in a tiny, cramped apartment--since Mr. Blandings--has dreamed of a new world...a new life--and driven by enough extreme urban chaos--even a new planet. Now NASA has found one.

At both the individual and collective level, Americans have created and embraced a culture of debt. Spurred by our gluttony, we have developed an untenable habit of spending beyond our means, and it must be stopped or else generations to come will be saddled with debt, left unable to harness the American dream and prosper because it simply will no longer exist.

Over the past few days, Lehman Brothers has announced several actions one might not expect from what is arguably the most notorious bankrupt company of the last decade. It is looking to name a new board of directors and is engaging in a bidding war for another company.