Your State

Tina Dupuy, the editor-in-chief of TheContributor.com, fills in for Sam Seder and discussed the death of 16-year-old Kimani Gray, who was shot 11 times by undercover NYPD officers after allegedly pulling a gun on them.

Asked to say in their own words what they think is the Catholic Church’s most important problem, 34 percent of U.S. Catholics mention sex abuse, pedophilia or some other reference to the scandal. No other problem garners more than 10 percent of responses.

The bill, if passed by the Senate and signed off by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, would close the state's doors to the oil and gas industry's desire to begin operating in New York's portion of the Marcellus Shale basin until May 2015. New York has had a moratorium on the books since 2008.

Cartoonists are in mourning over the passing of the caricature-friendly Hugo Chavez. Here are a handful of obituary cartoons about the influential Venezuelan president.

The last time the Dow was this high, Apple had just sold its first iPhone and George W. Bush had another year as president. The U.S. housing market had yet to implode, and the financial crisis that brought down Lehman Brothers was still a year away.

Despite the stunning gains in the stock market since then, the U.S. economy has not fared nearly as well. Unemployment was just 4.7 percent when the Dow last reached a record, versus 7.9 percent today.

Stocks have rallied powerfully this year, impressing even market's most ardent skeptics, on optimism that the housing market is recovering and companies are slowly starting to hire again. Strong corporate earnings have also helped increase demand. The Dow is already up 9 percent so far this year, which many would consider a respectable gain for a full year.

As part of his push to stop gun reforms, NRA president Wayne LaPierre wrote last week that looters “ran wild in South Brooklyn” after Hurricane Sandy and that people needed guns to defend themselves.

Under the audit designed by Westchester Residential Opportunities, first a black or Latino tester would inquire about an apartment or home. Then a white tester with slightly lower financial qualifications would ask about the same place. The audit found that black and Latino testers were discriminated against in 40 percent of the 90 tests conducted.

The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy has long been an opponent to LGBT equality. Even before Pope Benedict came on the scene, the Vatican was employing the phrase "intrinsically disordered" to refer to LGBT people.

When President George W. Bush ran for re-election in 2004, Democrat Koch crossed party lines to support him and spoke at the GOP convention. He also endorsed Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-election efforts at a time when Bloomberg was a Republican. Koch described himself as "a liberal with sanity."

As of Saturday, January 26, 2013, it is illegal to unlock your cell phone in the United States of America. Seriously.

Editor-in-Chief Tina Dupuy (The Contributor) joined the The Stephanie Miller Show to talk about something Lance and the GOP know a little something about: the art of telling big, fat lies...

On Tuesday night's Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert interviewed Minnesota Vikings "professional surrenderer" (also known as punter) Chris Kluwe, who has been an outspoken supporter of marriage equality.