Unexpected issue in internet explorer 9, Assuming that it is caused by html/css

Question

I've started customizing my website recently and it looks alright in all browsers except internet explorer 9. For some reason I get extra header (which is blank) from nowhere. I'm really struggling to find the issue, I tried looking for errors in fire bug, but everything seems to be ok. Also I used compatibility view in internet explorer 9 which shows how website looks in earlier versions of internet explorer and the issue did not accrue there, I suspect it only appears in ie9 maybe ie8.

http://inelmo.com

if you visit my website from ie9 and other browser eg chrome you can see the issue clearly. I have no idea about what is causing it, I assume it is something to do with html/css , but it could be something in php I use to get articles.

PHP

$sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM stories WHERE showing = 1 ORDER BY st_date DESC LIMIT 10") or die (mysql_error("There was an error in connection"));

$storyDisplay = "";
        while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($sql)){
            $story_id = $row["id"];
            $story_author_name = $row["st_auth"];
            $date = $row["st_date"];
            $convertedTime = ($myObject -> convert_datetime($date));
            $whenStory = ($myObject -> makeAgo($convertedTime));
            $story_title = $row["st_title"];
            $story_category = $row["st_category"];
            $the_story = $row["st_body"];
            $verified = $row["showing"];

            if ($verified = 1) {
                $verified_class = 'class="verified" title="Good Post!"';
            } else {
                $verified_class = '';
            }

        //Create random Style
        $style_class = array("st_style1","st_style2","st_style3","st_style4");
        $random_class = array_rand($style_class, 1);
        $div_class = $style_class[$random_class];

        //Create random image
        $topic_img = array("s1","s2","s3","s4","s5","s6","s7","s8","s9","s10","s11","s12","s13","s14","s15");
        $random_img = array_rand($topic_img, 1);
        $the_img = $topic_img[$random_img];

        $storyDisplay .= '

        <div class="'.$div_class.'">
            <div class="st_header">
                <div class="st_info">
                    <a href="#"><img class="st_image" src="images/smile/'.$the_img.'.png" alt="image of '.$story_author_name.'"/></a>

                        <div class="st_title"><a href="http://inelmo.com/view_story.php?id='.$story_id.'">'.$story_title.'</a></div>
                        <div class="st_auth"><a href="#">by: '.$story_author_name.'</a></div>
                </div>
                <div class="st_vote">'.$pulse->buttons($story_id).'</div>    
            </div>
            <div class="st_body">
                <div class="st_container">
                    <article>'.$the_story.'</article> 
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="st_footer">
                <ul>
                    <li><time '.$verified_class.' datetime="'.$date.'">'.$verified_img.''.$whenStory.'</time></li>
                    <li class="st_category"><a class="st_categorya" href="#">'.$story_category.'</a></li>
                    <li class="st_id"><a class="st_ida" href="#">'.$story_id.'</a></li>
    <li class="st_comments"><a class="st_commentsa" href="http://inelmo.com/view_story.php?id='.$story_id.'">Comments</a></li>
                </ul>
                <div class="st_social">
                    <div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style"
                                addthis:url="http://inelmo.com/view_story.php?id='.$story_id.'"
                                addthis:title="'.$story_title.'"
                                addthis:description="'.$the_story.'">
                                <a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
                                <a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
                                <a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
                                <a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
                                <a class="addthis_button_preferred_5"></a>
                                <a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
                                <a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <br />
                </div>
        </div><br />
        '; // End $storyDisplay
        }// Close main while loop

Answer 1

w3c validator gives 12 errors, mostly unallowed child relations and, therefore, wrongly opened/closed tags. You might start working on that:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Finelmo.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0