Gay Marriage Approved by N.Y. Senate  —  ALBANY — Lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed, and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born.

Top Dems Provide Fresh Detail On High-Income Tax Proposal That Led GOP To Abandon Debt Talks  —  Two of the top Democrats in Congress are calling out their Republican counterparts for abandoning high-stakes debt talks, and have provided new details about the tax proposals that sent the GOP packing.

Here's What Happened at That Big Dinner With Obama and the Hedge Funders  —  Last night Obama headed to the Upper East Side to wine and dine Wall Street.  —  The DNC fundraiser at tony restaurant Daniel cost attendees $35,800 each, and a source told Ben White at Morning Money that the event netted $2.4 million.

Photo: Stonewall.  Right now. 42 years later.  —  From G-A-Y pal Scott Wooledge:  —  [@Clarknt67]  —  Chills.  —  Another view, courtesy of Mel England:  —  [@melengland]

President ‘becoming an absolute monarch’ on war powers, Dem says  —  A House Democrat warned Friday that the U.S. president is becoming an “absolute monarch” on matters related to the authority to start a war.  —  Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Congress must act to limit funding …

Scott Walker To Sign Budget Bill At Business Of Convicted Tax Felon  —  This Sunday, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) will be signing into law his budget bill at an event at a local Wisconsin business.  The budget radically reshapes Wisconsin's priorities, slashing investments in Main Street Wisconsin …

‘Columbo’ star Peter Falk dies at 83  —  Veteran actor own five Emmys, four for popular detective role  —  Peter Falk, the Emmy- and Tony-winning stage, screen and TV actor, best known to world audiences as the always-underestimated police detective in the long-running telepic series …

Exclusive: Top U.S. admiral admits we are trying to kill Qaddafi  —  The top U.S. admiral involved in the Libya war admitted to a U.S. congressman that NATO forces are trying to kill Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi.  The same admiral also said he anticipated the need for ground troops …

Reaping what they've sown  —  Georgia Republicans recently passed a very harsh anti-immigrant measure into law, successfully driving a lot of undocumented workers out of the state.  Republicans who championed the measure said the new law would improve Georgia's economy.

The Debt Ceiling: Why Obama Should Just Ignore It  —  With a Republican-controlled House demanding large cuts in present and future spending in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling, the possibility that the federal government will have trouble financing and issuing new debt is becoming more frighteningly likely each day.

An update on Google Health and Google PowerMeter  —  In the coming months, we're going to retire two products that didn't catch on the way we would have hoped, but did serve as influential models: Google Health (retiring January 1, 2012; data available for download through January 1, 2013) …

The Busts Keep Getting Bigger: Why?  —  Paul Krugman and Robin Wells  —  Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present  —  Knopf, 464 pp., $30.00  —  Suppose we describe the following situation: major US financial institutions have badly overreached.