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Scores of Democrats rebuffed the White House and their own leadership on Friday, voting for a bill to permanently extend a tax cut encouraging companies to invest in research and development. The vote passed 274-131, with 62 Democrats breaking with their party to vote with all but one Republican to pass the bill.

The Social Security Administration announced the most popular baby names Friday. Noah was followed by Liam, Jacob, Mason and William. Sophia was followed by Emma, Olivia, Isabella and Ava.

TEANECK — A brief student rally held on the front lawn of Teaneck High School Wednesday afternoon aimed to show that the high school wasn't defined by a senior prank that resulted in the arrest of 63 students last week.

EXCLUSIVE: Gilberto Valle, who was convicted of conspiring to kidnap, torture and eat women, is mastering the culinary arts behind bars as he builds up a case to get out of prison, his mom Elizabeth tells the Daily News.

The House on Wednesday passed a resolution calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special counsel for the Internal Revenue Service investigation. The resolution, passed 250-168, came minutes after the House voted to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress. Twenty-six Democrats voted in favor of it.

After a big promotional push by ABC and NBC, Democratic House candidate Clay Aiken leads his primary opponent by 372 votes out of 28,000 cast on Tuesday. According to Good Morning America on Wednesday, the "American Idol congressional candidate" may pull out a razor thin victory. Co-host Lara Spencer enthused, "Clay Aiken in the public eye for almost a decade, making headlines for his songs, his personal life and now a run at the United States Congress."

The ‘Cross This Way’ hip-hop song got the video treatment and showcases visuals of the best ways to cross the dangerous city streets. The video will be aired in public schools as part of Mayor de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative and is also available on YouTube.

Republicans are strong favorites to retake the Senate majority this fall, according to The Post's new Election Lab model.

When Joel McHale heard he’d be the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner headliner this year, he sought advice for cracking jokes at the “Holy Grail” gig from his predecessors. “There’s just no precedent for it and there’s not many gigs where you sit and eat dinner for two hours with the first lady before you get up on stage and perform and the leader of the free world goes on before you,” said McHale, the comedian and actor perhaps best known for his job hosting E! Network’s “The Soup”. “There’s nothing normal about it. You know that what you’re getting...

Jersey City veered outside of its authority when it devised gun permit applications that required “substantially more” information than state law allows, an appeals court has ruled. The information sought by the city includes license plate numbers, prior employers and waivers authorizing the release of “any and all information” to police, information that is not required by state statute or by New Jersey State Police’s own application, the court ruled.

Former Saratoga Springs Mayor Mia Love earned ample support from Utah Republicans on Saturday to win her party’s nod for the House — and most likely become the GOP’s first black congresswoman.

The movement to change how presidents are elected is gaining steam and proponents of the long-stalled popular vote initiative are predicting victory by 2020. Eleven states/jurisdictions have enacted the National Popular Vote (NPV) bill, giving the proposal 165 electoral votes — 61 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to trigger the new voting system. Legislatures that passed the law include California, Illinois, New Jersey. Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a popular vote bill into law last week. All of these states, as well as the nation’s capital...

Jersey City received a lesson on the impermanence of life a bit earlier than planned today, when a toddler mistook a Buddhist sand mandala for a playground this morning, smudging the center and sides and almost destroying days of painstaking work.

As the top judicial body in the land, the United States Supreme Court has asked some pretty tough questions in its day. But yesterday the justices had a question for Coca-Cola that doesn’t seem like it should be so tricky: Shouldn’t a juice labeled as “pomegranate and blueberry” actually include a fair amount of, um, pomegranates? And blueberries? To make the whole thing a bit weird(er), the issue of a Minute Maid Juice product sold as a “Pomegranate Blueberry Flavored Blend of 5 Juices” came up after POM Wonderful sued Coca-Cola, claiming that label is misleading and could hurt sales...

Pujols became the first major leaguer to get his 499th and 500th homers in the same game, connecting twice Tuesday night and driving in five runs in the Los Angeles Angels' 7-2 victory over the Washington Nationals. He's the 26th player in big league history to reach 500.

Johnny Depp’s “Transcendence” bombed last night as expected, taking in just $11.5 million. That’s a disaster for a $150 million movie. This is Depp’s second major flop at the box office, following the catastrophic “Lone Ranger.” And now this poses an important question: can Depp open a movie that isn’t “Pirates of the Caribbean”? The answer is No. He’s made zillions from the Disney adventure movies.

Every child would love to have a television in their bedroom, but new research suggests it is bad for their health. For every hour of television a child watches each day, they get seven fewer minutes sleep. U.S. researchers found boys are particularly likely to miss out on sleep because of the presence of a television in their bedroom

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the boxer who infamously served 19 years in jail after he was wrongly convicted for a triple murder, passed away Sunday in Toronto at the age of 76. Immortalized in a Bob Dylan song and a 1999 feature film, Carter was jailed in 1966 for a fatal shooting at a bar in New Jersey. Although he and his acquaintance John Artis passed a lie detector test and professed their innocence, the all-white jury convicted them. After multiple legal efforts, in 1985 a federal judge ruled that the convictions of Carter and Artis were based "upon an appeal...

MAURICE RIVER TWP. — A Cumberland County woman argues that the state Motor Vehicle Commission’s alleged denial of issuing an “8theist” license plate violated her First Amendment rights, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

You see, Thorpe managed to steal a 21-year-old car by mistake, CNN affiliate WABC reported