Arlene Getz

Gays have always been more likely to vote Democrat. But as the 2004 White House race shifts into gear--and the issue of same-sex marriage becomes a national talking point--a few Republicans are stepping up their efforts to attract homosexuals into the big tent.

Aristotle called it "phronesis," or practical wisdom. Lou Marinoff calls it therapy for the sane. A philosophy professor at the City College of New York, Marinoff believes that those struggling to cope with modern living should delve into the accumulated wisdom of the world's great thinkers and writers."You can't always change your circumstances," Marinoff writes in his newly released book, "The Big Questions: How Philosophy Can Change Your Life." (Bloomsbury 2003.) "[B]ut you can always change...

The images were remarkable. Iraqi men trying to pull down a giant statue of Saddam Hussein with a rope, then beating at it with mallets. When the effigy finally toppled, they pelted it with rocks.

Blinding sandstorms are slowing the U.S.-led advance through Iraq. Soldiers are afraid to stray from their vehicles for fear of getting lost; reduced visibility forces convoys to spend hours traveling just a few kilometers.

Harlan Ullman coined the doctrine of "shock and awe" in his 1996 book of the same name. The term has now become the catchphrase for the war in Iraq, entering the public vocabulary as a synonym for the massive air and firepower the United States has unleashed on Saddam Hussein.

Last year, the world's rich, famous and powerful waited willingly in long New York lines for the ultimate party favor--a nifty hand-held computer dubbed the Davos Companion.

A century ago, tuberculosis sufferers used to go to the Schatzalp to recuperate in its therapeutic gardens and healing alpine air. Today, it was business and political leaders who rode the funicular up to the former sanatorium--now a luxury mountain hotel--for a lunch formally ending the much-hyped six-day annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

The anthrax attacks of 2001 propelled Tommy Thompson into the frontlines of the war against terror. In the 15 months since the deadly bacteria infiltrated America's postal system, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has been ramping up his department in preparation for another biological or chemical assault against the nation.Thompson was in Switzerland this week to meet with some of his counterparts from other countries for talks on bioterror and other health issues.

Call it the almost-alternative Davos. In an effort to reach out to a broad spectrum of participants--while staving off the antiglobalization demonstrations that have marred meetings in the past--this year's World Economic Forum meeting includes some participants who might otherwise have protested against it.

Do ordinary people trust the world's political and business leaders? Not much, according to a survey released by the World Economic Forum as a prelude to its annual meeting in Switzerland this month.A global public opinion poll of 15,000 people in 15 countries found that the only leaders trusted by a majority-56 percent-were those heading nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like environmental or social advocacy groups.

The question was about the long-term consequences of an Iraq war. But the Briton making the query at a panel discussion on global security drew appreciative laughter when he confessed what he really wanted to ask: Is America's foreign policy "sane?"The six-day World Economic Forum Annual Meeting formally opened today in Davos with a promise from WEF president Klaus Schwab that the business and political leaders gathered here could "bond, bind and build" at "this very crucial moment of...

The participants' list is star studded, to put it mildly. The more than 2,000 delegates attending the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, will again represent some of the world's most powerful names in business and politics.Under an unprecedented blanket of Swiss security, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell plans to discuss trust, governance and leadership.

Elections. Bombs. Corporate corruption. Drought. And, perhaps most of all, Iraq. The last 12 months brought headlines ranging from the frightening to the fatuous.

Does improved security have to come at the expense of civil liberties? Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a Homeland Security Act that will give federal agencies significant new powers to track what Americans are reading, writing and buying online.The bill still has to be approved by the Senate, but if passed in its current form it will enable law-enforcement groups to compel Internet service providers to hand over client records revealing everything from their...

Independence Party candidate Tom Golisano is setting campaign-spending records in his latest bid to become governor of New York.The Rochester billionaire--founder of the payroll-processing company Paychex--has spent more than $40 million on feisty ads attacking his rivals, GOP incumbent Gov.

Coalitions. Inspections. Invasion. The diplomatic furor over Iraq shifted to a new level this week as Saddam Hussein promised to re-admit arms inspectors, the United Nations grappled for an appropriate response and President George W.

Somber. The word was repeated over and over in midtown Manhattan this morning as New Yorkers struggled to define their feelings exactly one year after black smoke enshrouded their city."The mood is more sad, more somber than usual," said Craig Newman, a bookstore owner at Penn Station. "It seems very somber," echoed Richard Mendelson, a Labor Department official waiting for a train to take him to a federal-government memorial service in Washington.But there was determination, too.

Is America really going to invade Iraq? As war talks mounts in the nation's capital, anonymous bureaucrats have been leaking to major U.S. newspapers the administration's possible military plans to oust Saddam Hussein.

Mark Schweiker's official Web site notes that he is the nation's only governor to hold office as a direct result of the September 11 terror attacks. He is now also a household name, known throughout the nation for his buoyant confidence during the tense, 77-hour operation to rescue nine miners trapped in Pennsylvania's flooded Quecreek mine.Schweiker, sworn into office last October after Gov.

How best to cope with fears of a smallpox terror attack? Proposals to carry out mass public inoculations, a policy dropped 30 years ago, are controversial because of the potential side effects from the live vaccine.The disease, however, is dangerous: one in three sufferers died before it was declared eradicated in 1980.

In spite of medical advances, the AIDS epidemic is worsening. A United Nations study released this week predicts that the illness could kill 68 million people worldwide over the next 20 years if prevention and treatment programs are not "drastically expanded."Ane while anti-retroviral drugs are prolonging the lives of HIV sufferers in industrialized nations, some 96 percent of the infected in the developing world have no access to the medication they need so desperately.The UNAIDS report was...

Michael Moore has always been an iconoclast. But even the irreverent filmmaker is taken aback by the runaway success of his latest book, "Stupid White Men ...

She was always the most beloved member of Britain's Royal Family. The Queen Mother, who died today at 101, will likely be remembered best as the aristocrat with the commoner's touch.

After a president gives a big speech, the analysis comes in waves. First, he's judged on delivery and performance. Then, consensus develops on what the "big news" in the speech was.

In 1968, Nelson DeMille fought in Vietnam as a lieutenant with the U.S. Army's First Cavalry Division. Thirty-nine years later, he went back--this time on assignment for a travel magazine.

In the United States, it was a talking point for the nation. But in the Muslim world, Thursday's release of the Osama bin Laden videotape had considerably less impact--and did little to convince skeptics that America's most wanted man had indeed masterminded the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington."I think there is an Osama bin Laden look-alike," Gen.

Shabtai Shavit has spent almost 40 years studying terrorists and their tactics. After joining Israel's Mossad in 1964 and serving in various posts both at home and abroad, he became director of the intelligence agency between 1989 and 1996.

Down on the corner of 26th Street and Lexington Avenue, the pictures may be the most poignant reminders of all. "Have you seen this man," asks a flier taped to a curbside mailbox. "His name is Jason DeFazio and he worked at World Trade Center 1.

The black tower of smoke came billowing out as our Long Island Rail Road train approached the tunnel linking Queens to Manhattan. "The World Trade Center's on fire," announced a ticket-collector in a scratchy PA announcement.

The United Nations' World Conference Against Racism was supposed to be a landmark event in the global struggle against discrimination. Mary Robinson, the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights, hoped it would provide an "historic breakthrough" and a document that would be "a sort of Magna Carta in the fight against racism."Instead, the eight-day conference-which began today in the South African port city of Durban-is mired in controversy over Arab charges of Israeli racism against...