title: Stacy Keibler

text: After a long tenure on Monday nights, Keibler and Christy Hemme, were moved to "SmackDown!" on August 25, as part of a trade that brought Torrie Wilson and Candice Michelle to "Raw". On "SmackDown!" Keibler participated in lingerie matches and bikini contests. After a short absence, Keibler began a short feud with Jillian Hall, which led to the two having a match on "Velocity", which Keibler lost. This would be Keibler's final match with WWE. Keibler then asked for time off to appear on "Dancing with the Stars". During this time, Keibler's WWE.com profile was moved from "SmackDown!" to "RAW", though she never made an appearance on the brand before leaving the company. Keibler's final mention on WWE programming occurred on the March 6, 2006 episode of "RAW", where she was insulted by Candice Michelle for placing third on "Dancing with the Stars" during Michelle's unveiling of her "Playboy" magazine cover. After completing her stint on "Dancing with the Stars", Keibler officially parted ways with WWE in July 2006 to move on to other endeavors.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: After leaving WWE in July 2006, Keibler made a special guest appearance for WWE's reality show, "Tough Enough" in 2011. Being a former NFL Cheerleader, she helped prepare the contestants to perform publicly in Universal Studios.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: On April 6, 2019, Keibler made a surprise return to induct Torrie Wilson into the WWE Hall of Fame. In 2021, WWE Network listed Keibler as one of the women who made an impact in WWE outside the ring.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: As the Fitness Editor at "Stuff" magazine during 2005 and 2006, Keibler wrote and modeled for her own occasional column, Getting Fit with Stacy Keibler. She has appeared on the cover of that magazine twice -June 2005 and March 2006. "Maxim" named Keibler No. 5 in its 2006 Hot 100 issue, and No. 70 in its 2007 Hot 100. In 2008, she was named No. 89 in "Maxim"'s annual Hot 100 list.; the following year she was No. 77. In 2010, she was No. 82 and in 2011 she was No. 72. And in 2012 she was ranked 51. Keibler has declined two invitations from "Playboy" to pose in the nude for its magazine.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: Keibler starred in a commercial for AT&T Corporation alongside Carrot Top. She also auditioned and earned a role in "Big Momma's House 2", but she did not appear.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: She competed in the second season of "Dancing with the Stars", alongside her dance partner, Tony Dovolani. Keibler received a perfect score of 30 from the three judges for her samba dance routine in week five. This prompted judge, Bruno Tonioli, to nickname her a "weapon of mass seduction." Overall, Keibler and Dovolani received four perfect scores. Keibler was eliminated in the final episode, coming in third to Jerry Rice, who placed second in the final round of the competition, and Drew Lachey, the winner of the season. Two of the judges, Bruno Tonioli and Len Goodman, felt she should have at least placed second. Oddsmakers had considered her the favorite to win the competition.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: Keibler has appeared on MTV's "Punk'd" twice. In season five Keibler took part in helping prank Triple H, which also included Stephanie McMahon. In season seven, however, Keibler was seen as a victim of a prank by her then-boyfriend, Geoff Stults.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: In February 2007, Keibler began a recurring role in ABC's "What About Brian". She played the role of Brian's new neighbor and love interest. This was Keibler's first major acting role, following her previous minor roles in both "Bubble Boy" and "Pecker". Keibler guest starred on "George Lopez" on ABC. In the fall of 2007 Keibler appeared both in "The Comebacks" and on ABC's drama "October Road".


title: Stacy Keibler

text: In April 2008, she was named No. 64 in FHM's annual "100 Sexiest Women" list. Keibler was featured in an advertisement in the 2008 "Sports Illustrated" Swimsuit issue. In September 2008, Keibler appeared on ABC Family's mini television series, "Samurai Girl" as the heel character Karen. On November 23, 2008, Keibler was named the "World's Hottest Athlete" by a sixty-four contestant bracket on InGameNow.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: Keibler hosted the E! Special Maxim's Celebrity Beach Watch: 15 Hottest Bodies on September 16, 2009, and The Ultimate Spike Girl 2009 Finale on Spike TV on October 1, 2009. On January 11, 2010, Keibler appeared as "the hot bartender", a new conquest for Barney, in the How I Met Your Mother 100th episode, "Girls Versus Suits". On February 3, 2010, Keibler appeared on an episode of the USA Network show "Psych". On Oct. 4, 2010, Keibler made a guest appearance in the spy comedy "Chuck" season 4, episode 3 titled "Chuck versus the Cubic Z" alongside guests Nicole Richie and fellow WWE alum "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Keibler played the role of CIA agent "Greta".


title: Stacy Keibler

text: In 2011, Keibler hosted Call of Duty Elite's Friday Night Fights. In 2013, Keibler hosted a Lifetime show called "Supermarket Superstar", where home chefs fought for their product to be sold in supermarkets. In 2014, she reprised her role as Karina in the episode "" of How I Met Your Mother.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: Keibler made her video game debut in "WCW Backstage Assault" as her Miss Hancock character. She would later appear in twelve WWE video games, which includes "WWE WrestleMania X8", "WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth", "WWE Crush Hour", "WWE WrestleMania XIX", "WWE Raw 2", "WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain", "WWE Day of Reckoning", "WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw", "WWE WrestleMania 21", "WWE Day of Reckoning 2", "WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006" and "WWE 2K22" as downloadable content. Keibler also appears in "Dancing with the Stars", a game based on the ABC series of the same name.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: Keibler's boyfriend of seven years from 1992 to 1999, Kris Cumberland, was a wrestling fan who first got her interested in wrestling, and they would sometimes go to WCW and WWF events within two hours’ drive of Baltimore. In 2000, after winning $10,000 in the contest to become a part of the Nitro Girls, Keibler used the money to buy season tickets for the Baltimore Ravens, the team for which she cheers and was a former cheerleader. In 2000, Keibler dated David Flair during their time together in WCW.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: From 2001 to 2005, Keibler dated Andrew "Test" Martin while they both worked together in the WWF/WWE. Keibler moved to Los Angeles in 2004, where she was roommates with Torrie Wilson. In June 2005, Keibler was reported to be in a relationship with actor Geoff Stults. The pair appeared together on MTV's "Punk'd", with Keibler as the recipient of the prank. Keibler and Stults were part-owners of the now defunct Hollywood Fame, a 2006 expansion franchise of the American Basketball Association. Stults and Keibler split in 2010.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: Keibler started dating George Clooney in July 2011. Clooney and Keibler ended their relationship in July 2013.


title: Stacy Keibler

text: Keibler began dating Future Ads CEO Jared Pobre in fall 2013, though they had been friends for several years previously. They were married on March 8, 2014, in Mexico. They have two daughters and a son.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The natural logarithm of a number is its logarithm to the base of the mathematical constant , which is an irrational and transcendental number approximately equal to . The natural logarithm of is generally written as , , or sometimes, if the base is implicit, simply . Parentheses are sometimes added for clarity, giving , , or . This is done particularly when the argument to the logarithm is not a single symbol, so as to prevent ambiguity.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The natural logarithm of is the power to which would have to be raised to equal . For example, is , because . The natural logarithm of itself, , is , because , while the natural logarithm of is , since .


title: Natural logarithm

text: The natural logarithm can be defined for any positive real number as the area under the curve from to (with the area being negative when ). The simplicity of this definition, which is matched in many other formulas involving the natural logarithm, leads to the term "natural". The definition of the natural logarithm can then be extended to give logarithm values for negative numbers and for all non-zero complex numbers, although this leads to a multi-valued function: see Complex logarithm for more.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The natural logarithm function, if considered as a real-valued function of a positive real variable, is the inverse function of the exponential function, leading to the identities:


title: Natural logarithm

text: Logarithms can be defined for any positive base other than 1, not only . However, logarithms in other bases differ only by a constant multiplier from the natural logarithm, and can be defined in terms of the latter, formula_3.


title: Natural logarithm

text: Logarithms are useful for solving equations in which the unknown appears as the exponent of some other quantity. For example, logarithms are used to solve for the half-life, decay constant, or unknown time in exponential decay problems. They are important in many branches of mathematics and scientific disciplines, and are used to solve problems involving compound interest.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The concept of the natural logarithm was worked out by Gregoire de Saint-Vincent and Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa before 1649. Their work involved quadrature of the hyperbola with equation , by determination of the area of hyperbolic sectors. Their solution generated the requisite "hyperbolic logarithm" function, which had the properties now associated with the natural logarithm.


title: Natural logarithm

text: An early mention of the natural logarithm was by Nicholas Mercator in his work "Logarithmotechnia", published in 1668, although the mathematics teacher John Speidell had already compiled a table of what in fact were effectively natural logarithms in 1619. It has been said that Speidell's logarithms were to the base , but this is not entirely true due to complications with the values being expressed as integers.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The notations and both refer unambiguously to the natural logarithm of , and without an explicit base may also refer to the natural logarithm. This usage is common in mathematics, along with some scientific contexts as well as in many programming languages. In some other contexts such as chemistry, however, can be used to denote the common (base 10) logarithm. It may also refer to the binary (base 2) logarithm in the context of computer science, particularly in the context of time complexity.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The most general definition is as the inverse function of formula_4, so that formula_5. Because formula_4 is positive and invertible for any real input formula_7, this definition of formula_8 is well defined for any positive "x". For the complex numbers, formula_9 is not invertible, so formula_10 is a multivalued function. In order to make formula_10 a proper, single-output function, we therefore need to restrict it to a particular principal branch, often denoted by formula_12. As the inverse function of formula_9, formula_10 can be defined by inverting the usual definition of formula_9:


title: Natural logarithm

text: The natural logarithm of a positive, real number may be defined as the area under the graph of the hyperbola with equation between and . This is the integral


title: Natural logarithm

text: This function is a logarithm because it satisfies the fundamental multiplicative property of a logarithm:


title: Natural logarithm

text: This can be demonstrated by splitting the integral that defines into two parts, and then making the variable substitution (so ) in the second part, as follows:


title: Natural logarithm

text: In elementary terms, this is simply scaling by in the horizontal direction and by in the vertical direction. Area does not change under this transformation, but the region between and is reconfigured. Because the function is equal to the function , the resulting area is precisely .


title: Natural logarithm

text: The natural logarithm also has an improper integral representation, which can be derived with Fubini's theorem as follows:


title: Natural logarithm

text: The statement is true for formula_32, and we now show that formula_33 for all formula_7, which completes the proof by the fundamental theorem of calculus. Hence, we want to show that


title: Natural logarithm

text: How to establish this derivative of the natural logarithm depends on how it is defined firsthand. If the natural logarithm is defined as the integral


title: Natural logarithm

text: On the other hand, if the natural logarithm is defined as the inverse of the (natural) exponential function, then the derivative (for "x" > 0) can be found by using the properties of the logarithm and a definition of the exponential function. From the definition of the number formula_49 the exponential function can be defined as formula_50, where formula_51 The derivative can then be found from first principles.


title: Natural logarithm

text: so, unlike its inverse function formula_54, a constant in the function doesn't alter the differential.


title: Natural logarithm

text: Since the natural logarithm is undefined at 0, formula_8 itself does not have a Maclaurin series, unlike many other elementary functions. Instead, one looks for Taylor expansions around other points. For example, if formula_56 then


title: Natural logarithm

text: Leonhard Euler, disregarding formula_59, nevertheless applied this series to "x" = −1, in order to show that the harmonic series equals the (natural) logarithm of 1/(1 − 1), that is, the logarithm of infinity. Nowadays, more formally, one can prove that the harmonic series truncated at "N" is close to the logarithm of "N", when "N" is large, with the difference converging to the Euler–Mascheroni constant.


title: Natural logarithm

text: At right is a picture of ln(1 + "x") and some of its Taylor polynomials around 0. These approximations converge to the function only in the region −1 < "x" ≤ 1; outside of this region the higher-degree Taylor polynomials evolve to "worse" approximations for the function.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The natural logarithm allows simple integration of functions of the form "g"("x") = "f" '("x")/"f"("x"): an antiderivative of "g"("x") is given by ln(|"f"("x")|). This is the case because of the chain rule and the following fact:


title: Natural logarithm

text: For ln("x") where "x" > 1, the closer the value of "x" is to 1, the faster the rate of convergence of its Taylor series centered at 1. The identities associated with the logarithm can be leveraged to exploit this:


title: Natural logarithm

text: Such techniques were used before calculators, by referring to numerical tables and performing manipulations such as those above.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The natural logarithm of 10, which has the decimal expansion 2.30258509..., plays a role for example in the computation of natural logarithms of numbers represented in scientific notation, as a mantissa multiplied by a power of 10:


title: Natural logarithm

text: This means that one can effectively calculate the logarithms of numbers with very large or very small magnitude using the logarithms of a relatively small set of decimals in the range .


title: Natural logarithm

text: To compute the natural logarithm with many digits of precision, the Taylor series approach is not efficient since the convergence is slow. Especially if is near 1, a good alternative is to use Halley's method or Newton's method to invert the exponential function, because the series of the exponential function converges more quickly. For finding the value of to give using Halley's method, or equivalently to give using Newton's method, the iteration simplifies to


title: Natural logarithm

text: with chosen so that bits of precision is attained. (For most purposes, the value of 8 for m is sufficient.) In fact, if this method is used, Newton inversion of the natural logarithm may conversely be used to calculate the exponential function efficiently. (The constants ln 2 and π can be pre-computed to the desired precision using any of several known quickly converging series.) Or, the following formula can be used:


title: Natural logarithm

text: Based on a proposal by William Kahan and first implemented in the Hewlett-Packard HP-41C calculator in 1979 (referred to under "LN1" in the display, only), some calculators, operating systems (for example Berkeley UNIX 4.3BSD), computer algebra systems and programming languages (for example C99) provide a special natural logarithm plus 1 function, alternatively named LNP1, or log1p to give more accurate results for logarithms close to zero by passing arguments "x", also close to zero, to a function log1p("x"), which returns the value ln(1+"x"), instead of passing a value "y" close to 1 to a function returning ln("y"). The function log1p avoids in the floating point arithmetic a near cancelling of the absolute term 1 with the second term from the Taylor expansion of the ln. This keeps the argument, the result, and intermediate steps all close to zero where they can be most accurately represented as floating-point numbers.


title: Natural logarithm

text: In addition to base the IEEE 754-2008 standard defines similar logarithmic functions near 1 for binary and decimal logarithms: and .


title: Natural logarithm

text: The computational complexity of computing the natural logarithm using the arithmetic-geometric mean (for both of the above methods) is O("M"("n") ln "n"). Here "n" is the number of digits of precision at which the natural logarithm is to be evaluated and "M"("n") is the computational complexity of multiplying two "n"-digit numbers.


title: Natural logarithm

text: While no simple continued fractions are available, several generalized continued fractions are, including:


title: Natural logarithm

text: These continued fractions—particularly the last—converge rapidly for values close to 1. However, the natural logarithms of much larger numbers can easily be computed, by repeatedly adding those of smaller numbers, with similarly rapid convergence.


title: Natural logarithm

text: The exponential function can be extended to a function which gives a complex number as for any arbitrary complex number ; simply use the infinite series with =z complex. This exponential function can be inverted to form a complex logarithm that exhibits most of the properties of the ordinary logarithm. There are two difficulties involved: no has ; and it turns out that . Since the multiplicative property still works for the complex exponential function, , for all complex and integers .


title: Natural logarithm

text: So the logarithm cannot be defined for the whole complex plane, and even then it is multi-valued—any complex logarithm can be changed into an "equivalent" logarithm by adding any integer multiple of at will. The complex logarithm can only be single-valued on the cut plane. For example, or or , etc.; and although can be defined as , or or , and so on.


title: Macy's

text: Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated with the Bloomingdale's department store chain; the holding company was renamed Macy's, Inc. in 2007. As of 2015, Macy's was the largest U.S. department store company by retail sales.


title: Macy's

text: Macy's as of October 29, 2022, has 510 stores (569 boxes), inclusive of 445 department stores (499 boxes; includes 51 stores or 55 boxes that are neighborhood stores), 46 furniture galleries (51 boxes), 1 furniture clearance center, 9 freestanding Backstage stores, 7 Market by Macy's and 2 stores converted to fulfillment centers (there are a total of 506 full line stores and a total of 551 stores) with the Macy's nameplate in operation throughout the United States. Its flagship store is located at Herald Square in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The company had 130,000 employees and earned annual revenue of $24.8 billion as of 2017.


title: Macy's

text: Macy's has conducted the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City since 1924 and has sponsored the city's annual Fourth of July fireworks display since 1976. Macy's Herald Square is one of the largest department stores in the world. The flagship store covers almost an entire New York City block, features about 1.1 million square feet of retail space, includes additional space for offices and storage, and serves as the endpoint for the Thanksgiving Day parade. The value of Herald Square alone is estimated at around $3 billion.


title: Macy's

text: In August 2021, WHP Global announced that Toys "R" Us is opening 400+ stores within Macy's starting in 2022.


title: Macy's

text: Rowland Hussey Macy opened four retail dry goods stores between 1843 and 1855. One of them was the original Macy's store in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts; it opened in 1851 to serve the mill industry employees of the area. They all failed, but he learned from his mistakes. Macy moved to New York City in 1858, to establish a new store named "R. H. Macy & Co." on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets. The location was far north of where other dry goods stores were at the time. On the company's first day of business on October 28, 1858, sales totaled $11.08, equal to $ today. The branding emblem at the onset of the 1858 store was a rooster. The red star did not appear to replace it until 1862.


title: Macy's

text: As the business grew, Macy's expanded into neighboring buildings, opening more and more departments. The store used publicity devices such as a store Santa Claus, themed exhibits, and illuminated window displays to draw in customers. It also offered a money-back guarantee, although it accepted only cash into the 1950s. The store also produced its in-house made-to-measure clothing for both men and women, assembled in an on-site factory.


title: Macy's

text: In 1875, Macy took on two partners, Robert M. Valentine (1850–1879), a nephew; and Abiel T. La Forge (1842–1878) of Wisconsin, who was the husband of a cousin. Macy died in 1877 from inflammatory kidney disease (then known as Bright's disease). La Forge died the following year, and Valentine died in 1879. Ownership of the company remained in the Macy family until 1895, when the Straus brothers, Isidor and Nathan, acquired the company (now called "R. H. Macy & Co."). Isidor Straus and his brother Nathan Straus had previously held a license to sell china and other goods in the Macy's store.


title: Macy's

text: In 1902, the flagship store moved uptown to Herald Square at 34th Street and Broadway, so far north of the other main dry goods emporia that it had to offer a steam wagonette to transport customers from 14th Street to 34th Street. Although the Herald Square store initially consisted of just one building, it expanded through new construction, eventually occupying almost the entire block bounded by Seventh Avenue on the west, Broadway on the east, 34th Street on the south and 35th Street on the north, with the exception of a small pre-existing building on the corner of 35th Street and Seventh Avenue and another on the corner of 34th Street and Broadway. This latter 5-story building was purchased by Robert H. Smith in 1900 for $375,000 (equivalent to $ in 2022) with the idea of getting in the way of Macy's becoming the largest store in the world: it is largely supposed that Smith, who was a neighbor of the Macy's store on 14th Street, was acting on behalf of Siegel-Cooper, which had built what they thought was the world's largest store on Sixth Avenue in 1896. Macy's ignored the tactic, and simply built around the building, which now carries Macy's "shopping bag" sign by lease arrangement. In 1912, Isidor Straus died in the sinking of the "Titanic" at the age of 67 with his wife, Ida.


title: Macy's

text: The original Broadway store was designed by architects De Lemos & Cordes, was built in 1901–02 by the Fuller Company and has a Palladian facade, but has been updated in many details. There were further additions to the west in 1924 and 1928, and the Seventh Avenue building in 1931, all designed by architect Robert D. Kohn, the newer buildings were increasingly Art Deco in style. In 2012, Macy's began the first full renovation of the iconic Herald Square flagship store at a reported cost of $400 million. Studio V Architecture, a New York-based firm, was the overall Master Plan architect of the project. Studio V's design raised controversy over the nature of contemporary design and authentic restoration.


title: Macy's

text: The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 1978.


title: Macy's

text: In the 1960s, Macy's built a store on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst, in the New York City borough of Queens. This resulted in a round department store on 90 percent of the lot, with a small privately owned house on the corner. Macy's no longer fully occupies this building, which now contains the Queens Place Mall, with Macy's Furniture Gallery as a tenant; instead it moved its full outlet to the nearby Queens Center.


title: Macy's

text: More distant acquisitions included Lasalle & Koch (Toledo, 1924), Davison-Paxon-Stokes (Atlanta, 1929), L. Bamberger & Co. (Newark, 1929), O'Connor Moffat & Company (San Francisco, 1945) and John Taylor Dry Goods Co. (Kansas City, 1947). O'Connor Moffat was renamed Macy's San Francisco in 1947, later becoming Macy's California, and John Taylor was renamed Macy's Missouri-Kansas in 1949. Stores in Toledo retained the Lasalle's name until 1981, joining the Missouri-Kansas stores to become Macy's Midwest. The Toledo stores were sold to Elder-Beerman in 1986.


title: Macy's

text: Macy's New York began opening stores outside of its historic New York City–Long Island trade area in 1983 with a location at Aventura Mall in Aventura, Florida (a suburb of Miami), followed by several locations in Plantation, Florida (now relocated from the Fashion Mall to the Broward Mall since the Burdines acquisition), Houston, New Orleans, and Dallas. Davison's in Atlanta was renamed Macy's Atlanta in early 1985 with the consolidation of an early incarnation of Macy's Midwest (former Taylor and Lasalle's stores in Kansas City and Toledo, respectively), but late in 1985, Macy's sold the former Midwest locations. Bamberger's, which had aggressively expanded throughout New Jersey, into the Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area in the 1960s and 1970s as well as into Nanuet, New York (southern Rockland County), and into the Baltimore metropolitan area in the early 1980s, was renamed Macy's New Jersey in 1986.


title: Macy's

text: In 1986 Edward Finkelstein, Chairman & CEO of R. H. Macy & Co., Inc., led a leveraged buy-out of the company and subsequently engaged in a takeover battle for Federated Department Stores, Inc., in 1988 that he lost to Canada's Campeau Corporation. As part of its settlement with Campeau, Macy's purchased Federated's California-based, fashion-oriented Bullock's and its high-end Bullocks Wilshire and I. Magnin divisions. It followed with a reorganization of its divisions into Macy's Northeast (former Macy's New York and Macy's New Jersey), Macy's South/Bullock's (Macy's Atlanta stores plus Macy's New York's operations in Texas, Florida and Louisiana), and Macy's California, the latter including a semi-autonomous I. Magnin/Bullocks Wilshire organization. The Bullocks Wilshire stores were renamed I. Magnin in 1989. Subsequently, R. H. Macy & Co., Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 27, 1992, after which point its banks brought in a new management team, which shut several underperforming stores, jettisoned two-thirds of the luxury I. Magnin chain, and reduced Macy's to two divisions, Macy's East and Macy's West.


title: Macy's

text: Macy's East, New York City was a division of Macy's, Inc. It is the operating successor to the original R.H. Macy & Co., Inc. and operates the Macy's department stores in the northeast U.S. and Puerto Rico. Over the years it has been known as Macy's New York and Macy's Northeast. On February 1, 2006, Macy's East assumed operating control over the Filene's, Strawbridge's, many of the Kaufmann's stores in upstate New York and the Hecht's stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, D.C. and northern Virginia. These locations assumed the Macy's moniker officially on September 9, 2006. In 2008 Macy's East took over the small Macy's North division.


title: Macy's

text: In May 1993, Macy's announced the planned fall 1994 launch of TV Macy's, the retailer's own home shopping channel, in conjunction with Don Hewitt, Thomas Leahy and Cablevision.


title: Macy's

text: R. H. Macy & Co. merged with Federated Department Stores on December 19, 1994. Following the merger, the reorganized Macy's moved its headquarters to Cincinnati, Ohio. Federated promptly shut down the remainder of the I. Magnin chain, converting several to Macy's or Bullock's and selling four in Carmel, Beverly Hills, San Diego and Phoenix to Saks Fifth Avenue. Federated also merged its Abraham & Straus/Jordan Marsh division with the new "Macy's East" organization based in New York, renaming the Abraham & Straus stores in metropolitan New York with the Macy's nameplate in 1995, and then erasing the Jordan Marsh moniker in New England in early 1996.


title: Macy's

text: Federated followed that by leading a bid in mid-1995 to acquire the bankrupt Woodward & Lothrop/John Wanamaker organization in the mid-Atlantic region, a bid it lost to a rival group led by long-time rival and future acquisition target The May Department Stores Company. Instead Federated soon agreed to purchase Broadway Stores, Inc. (owner of The Broadway, Emporium and Weinstock's stores in California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico), from its majority shareholder, Sam Zell, thereby gaining a leading position in Southern California and a dominant one in the Northern California marketplace. In early 1996 Federated dissolved Broadway Stores, incorporating the majority of its locations into Macy's West, rebadging them as Macy's and using the opportunity to retire the Bullock's name. Several of the redundant Broadway locations were used to establish Bloomingdale's on the West Coast, while many others were sold to Sears.


title: Macy's

text: In 2001 Federated dissolved its Stern's division in the New York metropolitan area, with the bulk of the stores being absorbed into Macy's East. Additionally, in July 2001 it acquired the Liberty House chain with department and specialty stores in Hawaii and Guam, consolidating it with Macy's West.


title: Macy's

text: In early 2003 Federated closed the majority of its historic Davison's franchise in Atlanta (operating as Macy's since 1985), rebranding its other Atlanta division Rich's with the unwieldy name, Rich's–Macy's. The downtown location – formerly the Davison's flagship store at 180 Peachtree Street – was shuttered at this time as well. The original Macy's Lenox Square and Perimeter Mall locations were extensively remodeled and opened in October 2003 as the first Bloomingdale's stores in Atlanta. The company rapidly followed suit in May 2003 with similar rebranding announcements for its other nameplates, Burdines in Florida, Goldsmith's in Memphis, Lazarus in the lower Midwest, and The Bon Marché in the Pacific Northwest.


title: Macy's

text: On March 6, 2005, the Bon-Macy's, Burdines-Macy's, Goldsmith's-Macy's, Lazarus-Macy's, and Rich's–Macy's stores were renamed as simply "Macy's", the first two as the new Macy's West and Macy's Florida divisions respectively and the later three as part of the Macy's Central division. As of July 2005, Macy's had 424 stores throughout the U.S.


title: Macy's

text: On February 28, 2005, Federated agreed to terms of a deal to acquire The May Department Stores Company for $11 billion (equivalent to $ in 2022) in stock, creating the nation's second largest department store chain with $30 billion (equivalent to $ in 2022) in annual sales and more than 1,000 stores.


title: Macy's

text: On July 28, 2005, Federated announced, based on the success of converting its own regional brands to the Macy's name, its plans to similarly convert 330 regional department stores owned by the May Company (as May Department Stores was generally referred to) to the Macy's nameplate. This included May's Marshall Field's (which had just been purchased by the May Company from Target in 2004), Kaufmann's, Famous-Barr, Filene's, Foley's, Hecht's, The Jones Store, L. S. Ayres, Meier & Frank, Robinsons-May, and Strawbridge & Clothier chains, pending approval of the merger by federal regulators.


title: Macy's

text: The rebranding of the May stores was disliked in Chicago and elsewhere because the stores were regarded as beloved local institutions. The renaming of Filene's, Marshall Field's, and Kaufmann's, which were well known for their downtown flagship stores and local traditions provoked the most outrage. For example, Kaufmann's operated the Kaufmann's Celebrate the Season Parade which was traditionally broadcast live throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on television. Many customers publicly vowed to never again shop at the renamed May stores and to switch to competitors. Prominent film critic Roger Ebert voiced the grief of many Chicagoans at the loss of Field's when he wrote in his column on September 21, 2005:


title: Macy's

text: On January 12, 2006, Federated announced its plans to divest May Company's Lord & Taylor division by the end of 2006 before converting and closing seven stores. On June 22, 2006, Macy's announced that NDRC Equity Partners, LLC would purchase Lord & Taylor for US$1.2 billion (equivalent to $ in 2022), and completed the sale in October 2006.


title: Macy's

text: By September 9, 2006, after renaming the former May Company stores, Macy's operated approximately 850 stores in the United States. To promote its largest and most recent expansion, Macy's used a version of the Martha and the Vandellas hit song, "Dancing in the Street", in its advertising. Also, the company took props from its annual Thanksgiving Day parade to various re-labeled stores throughout the nation, in what the company marketed as its "Parade on Parade".


title: Macy's

text: In October 2006, Federated Department Stores entered into an agreement with Zoom Systems to test more than 100 stores within retail giant Macy's. Terry Lundgren, CEO of Federated, raved about the ability to provide consumers with a convenient means to purchase iPods and other consumer electronics, saying "This is exciting because it brings most-wanted merchandise into stores in a unique new way... How cool is that?" Today, Macy's has converted its entire Electronics section in every store to (over 400) eSpot ZoomShops.


title: Macy's

text: Macy's significantly increased its use of television advertising and product placement in 2006 and 2007, using branding spots that featured the new Macy's star logo. Macy's television commercials are produced primarily by New York Production Services, a New York-based commercial and independent film production company. During two episodes of the popular ABC television series "Desperate Housewives "("I Remember That" and "Now You Know"), a Macy's location in the fictional city of Fairview was featured, rare instances of product placement promoting a department store chain in a scripted series. Nearly two years prior to the first episode, one of the first national commercials for Macy's had aired during "Desperate Housewives", shortly after the conversions of Rich's, Lazarus, Goldsmith's, The Bon Marché and Burdines.


title: Macy's

text: On February 27, 2007, Federated Department Stores announced plans to change its corporate name to Macy's Group, Inc. By March 28, the company further announced plans to convert its stock ticker symbol from "FD" to "M", and revised its name change to Macy's, Inc. The change in corporate names was approved by shareholders on May 18, 2007, and took effect on June 1, 2007. The company continues to operate stores under the Macy's and Bloomingdale's nameplates.


title: Macy's

text: In March 2009, Macy's opened a one-level, concept store in Gilbert, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb, that was designed to better fit open air lifestyle malls. Additional stores with the new format have opened in Fairview, Texas; Lee's Summit, Missouri; and Nampa, Idaho. The stores are designed to be compact and meet current demands for more convenient shopping similar to Kohl's and newer J. C. Penney stores. Lifestyle stores feature Starbucks Coffee Cafés with wireless web and fitting rooms designed to feel like lounges with sofas and Plasma TVs. Ceilings in the center areas are higher to be reminiscent of older department stores. The format was the culmination of 18 months of research to create stores for the "My Macy's" initiative that allows stores to be merchandised differently in markets across the country to meet local demands.


title: Macy's

text: On October 28, 2014 Macy's, Inc. announced an extension of the lease-operation agreement with Al Tayer Group LLC that would bring the first Macy's store overseas to Abu Dhabi, anchoring a new mall with its corporate-sister Bloomingdale's, which will open its second overseas store (the first was located at The Dubai Mall); both are slated to open in 2018. Macy's was the 15th-largest retailer in the United States for 2014 by revenue.


title: Macy's

text: In January 2015, it was announced that Macy's would close 14 stores nationwide and shift 830 workers from Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores. Unrelated to the store closings, on July 13, 2015 Macy's announced it had sold the former flagship store of Kaufmann's in Downtown Pittsburgh for redevelopment, closing the location after 128 years.


title: Macy's

text: In May 2015, Macy's joined the new American Express-backed Plenti rewards card, which it shares with AT&T Mobility, Direct Energy, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, ExxonMobil, Hulu, Nationwide Insurance, and Rite Aid.


title: Macy's

text: On September 9, 2015, Macy's announced it would close 35 to 40 under-performing stores by early 2016. The retailer's struggles continued into the holiday season in 2015. The company announced that it experienced same store sales declines of 5.2% in November and December 2015 – typically busy months. In January 2016, Macy's announced that it will layoff up to 4,800 employees. The company said that these closings would experience cost savings of $400 million. As of January 2016, Macy's had 770 stores in total.


title: Macy's

text: On August 11, 2016, Macy's announced that it would close 100 stores in early 2017, expecting to save $550 million a year and cut more than 10,000 jobs. Macy's claimed it would instead invest $250 million in digital business and growth strategies for the remaining stores. By January 2018, Macy's had revealed the locations of 81 of the 100 store closures.


title: Macy's

text: In September 2016, Macy's announced that it would be opening an Apple Store in its flagship location, making it the first department store to host an Apple store. The announcement came after six straight quarters of sales drops and significant store closings. In early January 2017, the value of Macy's shares fell 14%, its biggest drop in seven months.


title: Macy's

text: In February 2017, the Hudson's Bay Company made an overture to Macy's for a potential takeover of the struggling department store.


title: Macy's

text: Macy's acquired experiential concept Story in May 2018 and made a minority investment in b8ta, a retail as a service concept, in June 2018.


title: Macy's

text: By February 2019, Macy's Inc. was operating 867 stores, including Macy's, Backstage, Bloomingdale's, Bloomingdale's Outlets, Bluemercury, and STORY; 641 of the 867 stores were Macy's, including 584 that are full line and 57 that are home, furniture, clearance and specialty stores.


title: Macy's

text: In November 2018, Macy's announced they would test smaller "neighborhood" stores to reduce costs and promote innovation within the customer experience realm.


title: Macy's

text: As of 2018, Macy's ranked 120 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue. Gennette has also launched an overhaul of Macy's stores called the Growth150 strategic plan.


title: Macy's

text: In the second quarter of 2019, Macy's shares fell more than 13 percent. On August 14, shares hit $15.82, which was their lowest since February 2010.


title: Macy's

text: After conducting two years of research, Macy's announced in 2019 that it intended to ban the sale of fur products at its stores by the end of the 2020 fiscal year. The news follows the state of California's ban on the manufacturing and sale of such items.


title: Macy's

text: In 2020, Macy's closed its Cincinnati headquarters, consolidating headquarters operations in New York City. JANA Partners, an activist investment firm, disclosed a large stake in Macy's in 2021, and sent a letter to the board recommending spinning off the company's online business. In response, Macy's hired AlixPartners to review their business structure. By the end of 2021, JANA had reduced their holding in Macy's by 84%, or about 1.5% of the company.


title: Macy's

text: In August 2021, Macy's announced they were partnering with Toys "R" Us to open toy shops in Macy's stores, starting in 2022. In November 2021, Macy's announced they were starting a free education program and boosting its corporation base salary to $15 per hour.


title: Macy's

text: The nameplates of regional department stores were usually replaced entirely by the Macy's brand upon acquisition, with the exception of some chains that were co-branded before eventually being replaced by Macy's completely:


title: Macy's

text: In July 2003, then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer launched an investigation of the private policing system Macy's has used to deal with suspected shoplifters. The investigation was prompted by a civil rights lawsuit and an article in "The New York Times", which reported on many of Macy's tactics, including private jails and interrogations. Spitzer's investigation found many of Macy's actions, from ethnic profiling to handcuffing detainees, to be unlawful. In 2005, Macy's settled the civil rights complaint for $600,000 (equivalent to $ in 2022), claiming to have put the illegal tactics to an end while maintaining the security system itself.


title: Macy's

text: On June 6, 2006, Macy's downtown Boston store (formerly the Jordan Marsh flagship) removed two mannequins and the Web address of the AIDS Action Committee from a window display promoting Boston's annual gay pride celebration. The removal was apparently in response to pressure from MassResistance, a local group opposed to same-sex marriage, whose members complained the mannequins were "homosexual". The removal of the mannequins was controversial and Boston mayor Thomas Menino was quoted as saying:


title: Macy's

text: Macy's responded by publishing an apology by the Macy's East chairman, Ron Klein, in "In Newsweekly", a Boston-area weekly with a large gay readership. Klein's description of the incident as "an internal breakdown in communication", further stated it was regrettable some would doubt Macy's commitment to diversity as a result. The Web address was later restored – the mannequins, however, never made a reappearance.


title: Avatar

text: Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes used to refer to any guru or revered human being.


title: Avatar

text: The word "avatar" does not appear in the Vedic literature; however, it appears in developed forms in post-Vedic literature, and as a noun particularly in the Puranic literature after the 6th century CE. Despite that, the concept of an avatar is compatible with the content of the Vedic literature like the Upanishads as it is symbolic imagery of the Saguna Brahman concept in the philosophy of Hinduism. The "Rigveda" describes Indra as endowed with a mysterious power of assuming any form at will. The "Bhagavad Gita" expounds the doctrine of Avatara but with terms other than "avatar".


title: Avatar

text: Theologically, the term is most often associated with the Hindu god Vishnu, though the idea has been applied to other deities. Varying lists of avatars of Vishnu appear in Hindu scriptures, including the ten Dashavatara of the "Garuda Purana" and the twenty-two avatars in the "Bhagavata Purana", though the latter adds that the incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable. The avatars of Vishnu are important in Vaishnavism theology. In the goddess-based Shaktism tradition of Hinduism, avatars of the Devi in different appearances such as Tripura Sundari, Durga and Kali are commonly found. While avatars of other deities such as Ganesha and Shiva are also mentioned in medieval Hindu texts, this is minor and occasional. The incarnation doctrine is one of the important differences between Vaishnavism and Shaivism traditions of Hinduism.


title: Avatar

text: Incarnation concepts that are in some aspects similar to "avatar" are also found in Buddhism, Christianity, and other religions.


title: Avatar

text: The scriptures of Sikhism include the names of numerous Hindu gods and goddesses, but it rejected the doctrine of savior incarnation and endorsed the view of Hindu Bhakti movement saints such as Namdev, that formless eternal god is within the human heart, and man is his own savior.


title: Avatar

text: The Sanskrit noun ("" ; ) is derived from the Sanskrit prefix "ava-" (down) and the root (to cross over). These roots trace back, states Monier-Williams, to "-taritum", "-tarati", "-rītum". It's cognate to "away" in English, which is root from PIE "*au-" means "off, away".


title: Avatar

text: "Avatar" means "descent, alight, to make one's appearance", and refers to the embodiment of the essence of a superhuman being or a deity in another form. The word also implies "to overcome, to remove, to bring down, to cross something". In Hindu traditions, the "crossing or coming down" is symbolism, states Daniel Bassuk, of the divine descent from "eternity into the temporal realm, from unconditioned to the conditioned, from infinitude to finitude". An avatar, states Justin Edwards Abbott, is a "saguna" (with form, attributes) embodiment of the "nirguna" Brahman or Atman (soul). Avatar, according to


title: Avatar

text: Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati actually means 'Divine Descent' in his commentaries of The Shrimad Bhagavatam and The Bramha Samhita (mentioned in Brahmavaivarta Purana).


title: Avatar

text: Neither the Vedas nor the Principal Upanishads ever mention the word "avatar" as a noun. The verb roots and form, such as , appear in ancient post-Vedic Hindu texts, but as "action of descending", but not as an incarnated person (avatara). The related verb is, states Paul Hacker, used with double meaning, one as action of the divine descending, another as "laying down the burden of man" suffering from the forces of evil.


title: Avatar

text: The term is most commonly found in the context of the Hindu god Vishnu. The earliest mention of Vishnu manifested in a human form to establish Dharma on Earth, uses other terms such as the word "sambhavāmi" in verse 4.6 and the word "tanu" in verse 9.11 of the Bhagavad Gita, as well as other words such as "akriti" and "rupa" elsewhere. It is in medieval era texts, those composed after the sixth century CE, that the noun version of avatar appears, where it means embodiment of a deity. The idea proliferates thereafter, in the Puranic stories for many deities, and with ideas such as "ansha-avatar" or partial embodiments.


title: Avatar

text: The term "avatar", in colloquial use, is also an epithet or a word of reverence for any extraordinary human being who is revered for his or her ideas. In some contexts, the term "avatara" just means a "landing place, site of sacred pilgrimage", or just "achieve one's goals after effort", or retranslation of a text in another language. The term "avatar" is not unique to Hinduism even though the term originated with Hinduism. It is found in the "Trikaya" doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism, in descriptions for the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhism, and many ancient cultures.


title: Avatar

text: The manifest embodiment is sometimes referred to as an incarnation. The translation of avatar as "incarnation" has been questioned by Christian theologians, who state that an incarnation is in flesh and imperfect, while avatar is mythical and perfect. The theological concept of Christ as an incarnation, as found in Christology, presents the Christian concept of incarnation. The term avatar in Hinduism refers to act of various gods taking form to perform a particular task which in most of the times is bringing dharma back. The concept of avatar is widely accepted all over the India. Sheth disagrees and states that this claim is an incorrect understanding of the Hindu concept of avatar. Avatars are embodiments of spiritual perfection, driven by noble goals, in Hindu traditions such as Vaishnavism. The concept of the avatar in Hinduism is not incompatible with natural conception through a sexual act, which is again different from the Christian concept of the Virgin Birth.


title: Avatar

text: The concept of avatar within Hinduism is most often associated with Vishnu, the preserver or sustainer aspect of God within the Hindu Trinity or Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Vishnu's avatars descend to empower the good and fight evil, thereby restoring Dharma. Traditional Hindus see themselves not as "Hindu", but as Vaishnava (Worshippers of Vishnu), Shaiva (Worshippers of Shiva), or Shakta (Worshipper of the Shakti). Each of the deities has its own iconography and mythology, but common to all is the fact that the divine reality has an explicit form, a form that the worshipper can behold. An oft-quoted passage from the Bhagavad Gita describes the typical role of an avatar of Vishnu:


title: Avatar

text: The Vishnu avatars appear in Hindu mythology whenever the cosmos is in crisis, typically because evil has grown stronger and has thrown the cosmos out of its balance. The avatar then appears in a material form, to destroy evil and its sources, and restore the cosmic balance between the ever-present forces of good and evil.


title: Avatar

text: The most known and celebrated avatars of Vishnu, within the Vaishnavism traditions of Hinduism, are Krishna, Rama, Narayana and Vasudeva. These names have extensive literature associated with them, each has its own characteristics, legends and associated arts. The Mahabharata, for example, includes Krishna, while the Ramayana includes Rama.


title: Avatar

text: The Bhagavata Purana describes Vishnu's avatars as innumerable, though ten of his incarnations, the Dashavatara, are celebrated therein as his major appearances. The ten major Vishnu avatars are mentioned in the Agni Purana, the Garuda Purana and the Bhagavata Purana.


title: Avatar

text: The ten best known avatars of Vishnu are collectively known as the "Dashavatara" (a Sanskrit compound meaning "ten avatars"). Five different lists are included in the Bhagavata Purana, where the difference is in the sequence of the names. Freda Matchett states that this re-sequencing by the composers may be intentional, so as to avoid implying priority or placing something definitive and limited to the abstract.


title: Avatar

text: The Bhagavata Purana also goes on to give an alternate list, wherein it numerically lists out 23 Vishnu avatars in chapter 1.3.


title: Avatar

text: Avatars like Hayagriva, Hamsa and Garuda are also mentioned in the Pancharatra making a total of forty-six avatars. However, despite these lists, the commonly accepted number of ten avatars for Vishnu was fixed well before the 10th century CE. Madhvacharya also regards Gautama Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu.


title: Avatar

text: The "avatar" concept was further developed and refined in later Hindu texts. One approach was to identify full avatars and partial avatars. Krishna, Rama, and Narasimha were full avatars ("purna avatars"), while others were partial avatars ("ansha avatars"). Some declared, states Noel Sheth, that every living creature is an "avatar" of Vishnu. The Pancharatra text of Vaishnavism declares that Vishnu's avatars include those that are direct and complete (), indirect and endowed (), cosmic and salvific (), inner and inspirational (), consecrated and in the form of image ().


title: Avatar

text: Yet another classification, developed in Krishna schools, centers around "Guna-avatars", "Purusha-avatars" and "Lila-avatars", with their subtypes. The "Guna-avatar" classification of "avatars" is based on the Guṇas concept of the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy, that is Rajas (Brahma), Sattva (Vishnu), and Tamas (Shiva). These personalities of the Trimurti are referred to as "Guna avatars". The "Purushavatara" are three. The first evolves all matter (Prakriti), the second is the soul present in each individual creature, the third is the interconnected oneness or Brahman that connects all souls. The "Lilavataras" are partial or full manifestations of Vishnu, where either some powers (Shakti) or material parts of him exist.


title: Avatar

text: Vishnu is Purushavatara. The Matsya, Kurma, and Vamana avatars of Vishnu are Lilavataras. A "Purnarupa" in this classification, is when Vishnu manifests completely along with his qualities and powers. In Bengal Vaishnavism, Krishna is the "Purnarupa". In Shaivism, Bhairava is the purnarupa of Shiva.


title: Avatar

text: 24 avatars of Vishnu are mentioned in Bachitar Natak's composition in Dasam Granth, the second scripture of Sikhism written by Guru Gobind Singh:


title: Avatar

text: The Guru Granth Sahib reverentially includes the names of numerous Hindu deities, including Vishnu avatars such as Krishna, Hari, and Rama, as well those of Devi as Durga.


title: Avatar

text: Dasam Granth has three major compositions, one each dedicated to avatars of Vishnu (Chaubis avatar) and Brahma. However, Sikhism rejects the doctrine of savior incarnation, and only accepts the abstract "nirguna" formless god. The Sikh Gurus endorsed the view of Hindu Bhakti movement saints such as Namdev (≈1270 – 1350 CE) that formless eternal god is within the human heart and man is his own savior.


title: Avatar

text: The Gupti Ismailis, who observe pious circumspection as Hindus, uphold that the first Shi‘i Imam, ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, as well as his descendants though the line of Isma‘il, are collectively Kalki, the tenth and final "avatāra" of Vishnu. According to this interpretation, these figures represent the continuity of divine guidance to humankind. In the view of some Guptis, this is corroborated by the Quranic verse 14:4 which mentions the idea that God had sent a messenger to every land. They understand the "avatāras" to be these messengers sent by God to their people in the Indian subcontinent.


title: Avatar

text: Although Puranic scriptures contain occasional references to avatars of Shiva, the avatar doctrine is neither universally accepted nor commonly adopted in Shaivism. The views on the doctrine of incarnation has been one of the significant doctrinal differences between Vaishnavism and Shaivism, in addition to their differences on the role of householder life versus monastic life for spiritual release. Shaivism is a transcendental theology, where man, with the help of his Guru, is his own savior.


title: Avatar

text: The Linga Purana lists twenty-eight avatars of Shiva. In the Shiva Purana there is a distinctly Saivite version of a traditional avatar myth: Shiva brings forth Virabhadra, one of his terrifying forms, in order to calm Narasimha, an avatar of Vishnu. When that fails, Shiva manifests as the human-lion-bird Sharabha which calms down lion-man Narasimha avatar of Vishnu, and Shiva then gives Vishnu a chakra (not to be confused with Sudarshan Chakra) as gift. A similar story is told in the late medieval era Sharabha Upanishad. However, Vaishnava Dvaita school refutes this Shaivite view of Narasimha. According to the Shiva Purana, Lord Shiva has 19 avatars. According to the Kurma Purana, he has 28.


title: Avatar

text: The vanara god Hanuman who helped Rama (the Vishnu avatar) is considered by some to be the eleventh avatar of Rudra (Shiva). Some regional deities like Khandoba are also believed by some to be avatars of Shiva.


title: Avatar

text: Shesha and his avatars (Balarama and Lakshmana) are occasionally linked to Shiva. Adi Shankara, the formulator of Advaita Vedanta, is also occasionally regarded as an avatar of Shiva.


title: Avatar

text: In Dasam Granth, Guru Gobind Singh mentioned two avatars of Rudra: Dattatreya Avatar and Parasnath Avatar.


title: Avatar

text: Avatars are also observed in Shaktism, the sect dedicated to the worship of the Goddess (Devi), but they do not have universal acceptance in the sect. The Devi Bhagavata Purana describes the descent of Devi avatars to punish the wicked and defend the righteous as – much as the Bhagavata Purana does with the avatars of Vishnu.


title: Avatar

text: Nilakantha, an 18th-century commentator on the Devi Bhagavata Purana – which includes the Devi Gita – says that various avatars of the Goddess includes Shakambhari and even the masculine Krishna and Rama – generally thought to be Vishnu's avatars. Parvati, Lakshmi and Saraswati are main goddesses worshipped as Devi avatars.


title: Avatar

text: Devi is popular in her form as Parvati. In Devi Mahatmya she is seen as the Goddess Mahakali, and in Uma Samhita, she is seen as Devi herself. Regarding her incarnations, it varies per sect in Hinduism. She could be all Goddesses as said in Shaivism and some main Shatism interpretations like the Sri kula and Kali Kula families, or just a form of Devi in some other Shaktism interpretations and many Vaishnava interpretations. With this in mind, Parvati's forms include:


title: Avatar

text: All of these incarnations helped provide security to the world and even brought Shiva into the participation of worldly affairs.


title: Avatar

text: Like Vishnu, his consort Lakshmi incarnates as in many forms to help provide order and to enlighten the world with her consort. She has many forms, and just like Parvati, some of her forms are not consistent throughout all sects and interpretations of Hinduism. In Vaishnavism and some interpretations of Shaktism, Lakshmi is seen as Devi herself. She could be every Goddess as said in Vaishnavism and some interpretations of Shaktism, or just another form of Devi as seen in other interpretations of Shaktism and in Shaivism. With this in mind, Lakshmi's forms include:


title: Avatar

text: In Dasam Granth, second scriptures of Sikhs written by Guru Gobind Singh, mentioned seven Brahma Avatars.


title: Avatar

text: According to the Skanda Purana, Brahma incarnated himself as Yajnavalkya in response to a curse from Shiva.


title: Avatar

text: The Linga Purana declares that Ganesha incarnates to destroy demons and to help the gods and pious people. The two Upapuranas – Ganesha Purana and Mudgala Purana – detail the avatars of Ganesha. Both these upapuranas are core scriptures of the Ganapatya sect – exclusively dedicated to Ganesha worship.


title: Avatar

text: Four avatars of Ganesha are listed in the Ganesha Purana: Mohotkata, Mayūreśvara, Gajanana and Dhumraketu. Each avatar corresponds to a different yuga, has a different mount and different skin complexion, but all the avatars have a common purpose – to slay demons.


title: Avatar

text: Jhulelal, the Iṣṭa-devatā (most-revered deity) of Sindhi Hindus, is considered the incarnation of Varuna.


title: UKG

text: Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG) is an American multinational technology company with dual headquarters in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Weston, Florida. It provides workforce management and human resource management services.


title: UKG

text: The company was founded in April 2020 as a result of the merger of Ultimate Software and Kronos Incorporated. Former Kronos CEO Aron Ain was the CEO and chairperson of the combined company until July 1, 2022, when he stepped down as CEO to become Executive Chairperson.


title: UKG

text: On February 20, 2020, Ultimate Software and Kronos Incorporated announced they agreed to form a new cloud computing venture specializing in workforce management and human capital management. The combined company, valued at $22 billion, would be one of the largest cloud computing companies. Kronos CEO Aron Ain became CEO and chairman of the new company, with more than 12,000 employees and dual headquarters in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Weston, Florida. The merger was officially completed on April 1, 2020, and in August, the company's name was announced as Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG), which became effective on October 1. When discussing the name, Ain said it was chosen as a "reflection to honor our past as we also thought about what we wanted to be in the future [...] We didn't want to lose who we were and what we've achieved." Ain also said the company planned to primarily call itself UKG.


title: UKG

text: Fortune reports that due to the impact of COVID-19, the majority of UKG's workers switched to remote work from home.


title: UKG

text: In May 2021, the company appointed tech industry veteran Brian Reaves as the company's Chief Belonging, Diversity, and Equity Officer.


title: UKG

text: In December 2021, UKG launched its "Close the Gap Initiative", a $3 million campaign funded by the company to address salary inequity for U.S. workers' wages, in particular for women and people of color.


title: UKG

text: In June 2022, UKG announced the promotion of Christopher Todd from President to chief executive officer, with Aron Ain becoming Executive Chairperson effective July 1, 2022.


title: UKG

text: Following the merger of Ultimate Software and Kronos Incorporated, the Ultimate Kronos Group was established in April 2020. According to Society for Human Resource Management, the new company became one of the largest HR technology vendors in the highly competitive economy section that include ADP, Ceridian, Microsoft, Oracle Taleo, SAP Successfactors, and Workday.


title: UKG

text: In June 2021, the company acquired EverythingBenefits, a developer of cloud-based business software that connects employers to the insurance, retirement and other information. The acquisition allowed UKG to incorporate EverythingBenefits’ procedural knowledge including its suite of payroll, HR service delivery, and workforce management, among other tools.


title: UKG

text: On September 1, 2021, UKG bought "Great Place to Work", the company behind Fortune’s annual list of "100 Best Companies to Work For".


title: UKG

text: In November 2022, it was announced UKG had acquired the Oxford-headquartered strategic workforce planning software company, Quorbit.


title: UKG

text: Established in 2007, Workforce Institute is the company's think tank and research platform for organizations providing information on the Human Capital Management issues that includes working environment optimization, analytical and educational tools, accommodation of people with disabilities and more. The organization also conducts surveys and issues annual reports on global workforce trends and developments.


title: UKG

text: In December 2021, UKG disclosed that it was targeted by a ransomware attack that was first detected on December 11, 2021. The malware attack affected the Kronos Private Cloud feature used by many large businesses including Boots, Gap Inc., Marriott International, MGM Resorts International, PepsiCo, Sainsbury's, Samsung, Staples Inc., Tesla, Inc., Whole Foods Market, Yamaha Corporation, YMCA, and others while some governmental entities such as the cities of Cleveland, Springfield, Massachusetts as well as the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority were also affected.


title: UKG

text: A number of sources reported that the attack possibly occurred as a result of the Log4Shell zero-day, but UKG claimed it did not have evidence of Log4Shell being responsible for the ransomware incident.


title: UKG

text: Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, who was the controlling shareholder of both Ultimate and Kronos, is the controlling shareholder of UKG. The Blackstone Group, which also owned stakes in both previous companies, is the largest minority investor with a 20–25 percent stake. Other minority investors include GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and JMI Equity.


title: Lynn Collins

text: Viola Lynn Collins (born May 16, 1977) is an American actress. She has made television appearances in "True Blood" (2008), "" (2017) and "The Walking Dead" (2021–2022), and is recognized for her roles in films such as "" (2009) and "John Carter" (2012).


title: Lynn Collins

text: Viola Lynn Collins was born in College Station, Texas, reported variously in May or June 1977. Collins is said to have come from Houston, Texas. She has English, Scottish and Irish ancestry but has also made unsubstantiated claims of Cherokee ancestry. She spent her formative years in Singapore, with "summers in Japan where my parents were getting their fourth and fifth and sixth Dan ("sic") in Shitaru ... Okinawa style karate". During a childhood Christmas pageant in which she played Mrs. Claus, Collins discovered her love for acting.


title: Lynn Collins

text: She attended Singapore American School and Klein High School in Texas. She graduated from the Juilliard School's Drama Division ("Group 28": 1995–1999) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.


title: Lynn Collins

text: Collins made her television debut in 1999, in an episode of "", and went on to star onstage as Ophelia opposite Liev Schreiber in "Hamlet", followed by a turn as Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet". After bit parts that included a stint on the show "Haunted" and roles in the movies "Down with Love", "50 First Dates" and "13 Going on 30", she gained notice in the film "The Merchant of Venice" as the female lead Portia, alongside Al Pacino, Joseph Fiennes and Jeremy Irons, Collins' audition tape for the supporting role of Jessica having so impressed director Michael Radford that—upon Cate Blanchett's opting out as Portia (due to pregnancy)—Radford had championed Collins becoming Blanchett's replacement.


title: Lynn Collins

text: She furthered her profile in 2008 when she was cast as Jason Stackhouse's girlfriend Dawn Green in the first season of the HBO vampire series "True Blood", and through a featured role as the hero's love interest Kayla Silverfox in the 2009 "" opposite Hugh Jackman. Her first leading film role came in 2012 when she was cast as the headstrong Martian princess Dejah Thoris in "John Carter".


title: Lynn Collins

text: Collins married then 21-year-old actor Steven Strait on December 23, 2007, after a four-year relationship. Collins and Strait separated in 2013.


title: Lynn Collins

text: Collins was raised in a "very, very religious" family of Southern Baptists, and has since explored several religious faiths, describing herself as a "pretty spiritual person."


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and supports many different programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Azure, announced at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in October 2008, went by the internal project codename "Project Red Dog", and was formally released in February 2010 as Windows Azure, before being renamed Microsoft Azure on March 25, 2014.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Microsoft Azure uses large-scale virtualization at Microsoft data centers worldwide and it offers more than 600 services.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: The Microsoft Azure Service Bus allows applications running on Azure premises or off-premises devices to communicate with Azure. This helps to build scalable and reliable applications in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The Azure service bus supports four different types of communication mechanisms:


title: Microsoft Azure

text: A global content delivery network (CDN) for audio, video, applications, images, and other static files. It can be used to cache static assets of websites geographically closer to users to increase performance. The network can be managed by a REST-based HTTP API.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Through Azure Blockchain Workbench, Microsoft is providing the required infrastructure to set up a consortium network in multiple topologies using a variety of consensus mechanisms. Microsoft provides integration from these blockchain platforms to other Microsoft services to streamline the development of distributed applications. Microsoft supports many general-purpose blockchains including Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric and purpose-built blockchains like Corda.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Azure functions are used in serverless computing architectures where subscribers can execute code as an event driven Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) without managing the underlying server resources. Customers using Azure functions are billed based on per-second resource consumption and executions.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Launched in September 2020, Azure Orbital is a ground station service to help customers move satellite data to the cloud and to provide global cloud connectivity. Private industries and government agencies that use data collected by satellites can directly connect satellites to the cloud computing networks to process and analyse the data. Mobile cloud computing ground stations for customers that operate where there is no existing ground infrastructure (such as energy, agricultural and military) will provide point-to-point cloud connectivity to remote locations using third party satellite systems – SpaceX’s Starlink constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) and SES’ O3b medium Earth orbit (MEO) constellation.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: SES will be deploying satellite control and uplink ground stations for its next-generation O3b mPOWER MEO satellites alongside Microsoft's data centers to provide single-hop connectivity to the cloud from remote sites. The O3b mPOWER satellites are scheduled to launch 2022-2024 and the initial service start in Q3 2023.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Microsoft suggests that satellite routing to the cloud can offer a speed advantage. For example, a connection from the home to a cloud data center for online media, entertainment or gaming, currently may use complex fibre routes that are longer than one hop up to a satellite and down again. Microsoft’s experiments using Xbox cloud have found there are parts of the world (including parts of the USA) where it is faster via satellite than over terrestrial networks.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: In 2018, Azure was available in 54 regions, with 12 new regions being developed. Microsoft became the first large cloud provider that built facilities in Africa, with two regions in South Africa. An Azure geography contains multiple Azure Regions, such as for example "North Europe" (Dublin, Ireland), "West Europe" (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Where a location represents the city or area of the Azure Region. Each Azure Region is paired with another region within the same geography; this makes them a regional pair. In this example, Amsterdam and Dublin are the locations which form the regional pair.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: On June 19th 2019, Microsoft announced the launch of two new cloud regions in the United Arab Emirates – Microsoft’s first in the Middle East. Microsoft's management stated that these new datacenters will empower customers and partners to embrace the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and achieve more using cloud technologies.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Microsoft has partners that sell its products. In August 2018, Toyota Tsusho began a partnership with Microsoft to create fish farming tools using the Microsoft Azure application suite for IoT technologies related to water management. Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University, the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt, analyze the number of fish, and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide. The specific computer programs used in the process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and the Azure IoT Hub platforms.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Microsoft Azure uses a specialized operating system, also called Microsoft Azure, to run its "fabric layer": a cluster hosted at Microsoft's data centers that manage computing and storage resources of the computers and provisions the resources (or a subset of them) to applications running on top of Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure has been described as a "cloud layer" on top of a number of Windows Server systems, which use Windows Server 2008 and a customized version of Hyper-V, known as the Microsoft Azure Hypervisor to provide virtualization of services.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Scaling and reliability are controlled by the Microsoft Azure Fabric Controller, which ensures the services and environment do not fail if one or more of the servers fails within the Microsoft data center, and which also provides the management of the user's Web application such as memory allocation and load balancing.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Azure provides an API built on REST, HTTP, and XML that allows a developer to interact with the services provided by Microsoft Azure. Microsoft also provides a client-side managed class library that encapsulates the functions of interacting with the services. It also integrates with Microsoft Visual Studio, Git, and Eclipse.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: In addition to interacting with services via API, users can manage Azure services using the Web-based Azure Portal, which reached General Availability in December 2015. The portal allows users to browse active resources, modify settings, launch new resources, and view basic monitoring data from active virtual machines and services.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Microsoft Azure offers two deployment models for cloud resources: the "classic" deployment model and the Azure Resource Manager. In the classic model, each Azure resource (virtual machine, SQL database, etc.) was managed individually. The Azure Resource Manager, introduced in 2014, enables users to create groups of related services so that closely coupled resources can be deployed, managed, and monitored together. The classic model is slated to be phased out in future.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: In 2005, Microsoft took over Groove Networks, and Bill Gates made Groove's founder Ray Ozzie one of his 5 direct reports as one of 3 chief technology officers. Ozzie met with Amitabh Srivastava, which let Srivastava change course. They convinced Dave Cutler to postpone his retirement and their teams developed a cloud operating system.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: Microsoft has stated that, per the USA Patriot Act, the US government could have access to the data even if the hosted company is not American and the data resides outside the USA. To manage privacy and security-related concerns, Microsoft has created a Microsoft Azure Trust Center, and Microsoft Azure has several of its services compliant with several compliance programs including and HIPAA. A full and current listing can be found on the Microsoft Azure Trust Center Compliance page. Of special note, Microsoft Azure has been granted JAB Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) from the U.S. government in accordance with guidelines spelled out under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), a U.S. government program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud services used by the federal government.


title: Microsoft Azure

text: A large variety of Azure certifications can be attained, each requiring one or multiple successfully completed examinations.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Men who have sex with men (MSM) are male persons who engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex. The term was created in the 1990s by epidemiologists to study the spread of disease among all men who have sex with men, regardless of sexual identity, to include, for example, male prostitutes. The term is often used in medical literature and social research to describe such men as a group for research studies. It does not describe any specific sexual activity, and which activities are covered by the term depends on context.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: The term "men who have sex with men" had been in use in public health discussions, especially in the context of HIV/AIDS, since 1990 or earlier, but the coining of the initialism by Glick "et al." in 1994 "signaled the crystallization of a new concept." This behavioral concept comes from two distinct academic perspectives. First, it was pursued by epidemiologists seeking behavioral categories that would offer better analytical concepts for the study of disease-risk than identity-based categories (such as "gay", "bisexual", or "straight"), because a man who self-identifies as gay or bisexual is not necessarily sexually active with men, and someone who identifies as straight might be sexually active with men. Second, its usage is tied to criticism of sexual identity terms prevalent in social construction literature which typically rejected the use of identity-based concepts across cultural and historical contexts. "The Huffington Post" postulates that the term "MSM" was created by Cleo Manago, the man who is also credited for coining the term "same gender loving" (SGL).


title: Men who have sex with men

text: MSM are not limited to small, self-identified, and visible sub-populations. "MSM" and "gay" refer to different things: behaviors and social identities. "MSM" refers to sexual activities between men, regardless of how they identify, whereas "gay" can include those activities but is more broadly seen as a cultural identity. "Homosexuality" refers to sexual/romantic attraction between members of the same sex and may or may not include romantic relationships. "Gay" is a social identity and is generally the preferred social term, whereas "homosexual" is used in formal contexts, though the terms are not entirely interchangeable. Men who are non-heterosexual or questioning may identify with all, none, a combination of these, or one of the newer terms indicating a similar sexual, romantic, and cultural identity like "bi-curious".


title: Men who have sex with men

text: In their assessment of the knowledge about the sexual networks and behaviors of MSM in Asia, Dowsett, Grierson and McNally concluded that the category of MSM does not correspond to a single social identity in any of the countries they studied. There were no similar traits in all of the MSM population studied, other than them being males and engaging in sex with other men.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: The term's precise use and definition has varied with regard to trans women, people born either biologically male or with ambiguous genitalia who self-identify as female.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Determining the number of men who have ever had sex with another man is difficult. Worldwide, at least 3% of men have had sex at least once with a man.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: In the U.S., among men aged 15 to 44, an estimated 6% have engaged in oral or anal sex with another man at some point in their lives, and about 2.9% have had at least one male sexual partner in the previous 12 months.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Historically, anal sex has been popularly associated with male homosexuality and MSM. However, many MSM do not engage in anal sex, and may engage in oral sex, frotting or mutual masturbation instead. Among men who have anal sex with other men, the insertive partner may be referred to as the "top", the one being penetrated may be referred to as the "bottom", and those who enjoy either role may be referred to as "versatile"—with those who do not prefer/practice anal sex being referred to as side.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: A 2007 study reported that two large population surveys found "the majority of gay men had similar numbers of unprotected sexual partners annually as straight men and women." According to the 2013 NATSAL (a representative population study in the UK) MSM typically had 17 lifetime sexual partners (median), which included all forms of sexual contact including oral and anal sex. An epidemiological article in "The BMJ" reported that national probability surveys like the NATSAL have been found to better reflect the population of MSM but are limited by their smaller samples of MSM. Convenience sample surveys recruit larger samples of MSM but tend to over-represent MSM identifying as gay and reporting more sexual risk behaviors.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Among men who have anal sex with other men, anal sex without use of a condom is considered to be high-risk for STI transmission. A person who inserts their penis into an infected partner is at risk because sexually transmitted diseases (STDS/STIs) can enter through the urethra or through small cuts, abrasions, or open sores on the penis. Also, condoms are more likely to break during anal sex than during vaginal sex. Thus, even with a condom, anal sex can be risky.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV can infect anybody, regardless of sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Worldwide, an estimated 5–10% of HIV infections are the result of men having sex with men. However, in many developed countries, more HIV infections are transmitted by men having sex with men than by any other transmission route. In the United States, "men who have had sex with men since 1977 have an HIV prevalence (the total number of cases of a disease that are present in a population at a specific point in time) 60 times higher than the general population".


title: Men who have sex with men

text: In 2007, the largest estimated proportion of HIV/AIDS diagnoses among adults and adolescents in the U.S. were men who have sex with men (MSM). While this category is only 2% of the U.S. population they accounted for 53% of the overall diagnoses and 71% among men. According to a 2010 federal study, one in five men who have sex with men are HIV positive and nearly half do not realize it.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: According to a CDC study, HIV prevalence in the MSM population of the U.S. varies widely by ethnicity. "As many as 46% of black MSM have HIV" while "the HIV rate is estimated at 21% for white MSM and 17% for Hispanic MSM." In the United States from 2001 to 2005, the highest transmission risk behaviors were sex between men (40–49% of new cases) and high risk heterosexual sex (32–35% of new cases). HIV infection is increasing at a rate of 12% annually among 13–24-year-old American men who have sex with men. Experts attribute this to "AIDS fatigue" among younger people who have no memory of the worst phase of the epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as "condom fatigue" among those who have grown tired of and disillusioned with the unrelenting safer sex message. The increase may also be because of new treatments. In developing countries, HIV infection rates have been characterized as skyrocketing among MSM. Studies have found that less than 5% of MSM in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have access to HIV-related health care.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is the use of medication to prevent HIV transmission in people who have not yet been exposed to the virus. When used as directed, PrEP has been shown to be highly effective, reducing the risk of contracting HIV up to 99%. , numerous countries have approved the use of PrEP for HIV/AIDS prevention, including the United States, South Korea, France, Norway, Australia, Israel, Canada, Kenya, South Africa, Peru, Thailand, the European Union and Taiwan. New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world to publicly fund PrEP for the prevention of HIV in March 2018.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Men who have sex with men are at a higher risk of acquiring hepatitis B and hepatitis A through unprotected sexual contact. The U.S. CDC and ACIP recommend hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccination for men who have sex with men. About a third of the world's population, more than 2 billion people, have been infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Hepatitis B is a disease caused by HBV which infects the liver and causes an inflammation called hepatitis.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Syphilis (caused by infection with "Treponema pallidum") is passed from person to person through direct contact with a syphilis sore; these occur mainly on the external genitals, or in the vagina, anus, or rectum. Sores also can occur on the lips and in the mouth. Transmission of the organism occurs during vaginal, anal, or oral sex. In 2006, 64% of the reported cases in the United States were among men who have sex with men. This is consistent with a rise in the incidence of syphilis among MSM in other developed nations, attributed by Australian and UK authors to increased rates of unprotected sex among MSM.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Genital human papillomavirus (HPV) is a common virus that most sexually active people in the U.S. will have at some time in their lives. It is passed on through genital contact and is also found on areas that condoms do not cover. Most men who get HPV of any type never develop any symptoms or health problems. Some types of HPV can cause genital warts, penile cancer, or anal cancer. MSM and men with compromised immune systems are more likely than other men to develop anal cancer. The incidence of anal cancer among HIV‐positive MSM is nine times higher than among HIV‐negative MSM, even in antiretroviral therapy. HIV-negative MSM has a higher incidence than the general population. Men with HIV are also more likely to get severe cases of genital warts that are hard to treat.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Though not commonly classified as an STI, giardiasis can be transmitted between gay men, and it can be responsible for severe weight loss and death for individuals who have compromised immune systems, especially HIV.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the majority of gay and bisexual men have and maintain good mental health, though research has shown that they are at greater risk for mental health problems. Stigma and homophobia can have negative consequences on health. Compared to other men, gay and bisexual men have a higher chance of having depression and anxiety disorders.


title: Men who have sex with men

text: Many countries impose restrictions on donating blood for men who have or have had sex with men, as well as their female sexual partners. Similar restrictions in many countries also prohibit donation of tissues such as corneas by men who have sex with men, often with far longer deferral periods than for MSM blood donors. Most national standards require direct questioning regarding a donor's sexual history, but the length of deferral varies.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Richard Alva Cavett (; born November 19, 1936) is an American television personality and former talk show host. He appeared regularly on nationally broadcast television in the United States for five decades, from the 1960s through the 2000s.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In later years, Cavett has written an online column for "The New York Times", promoted DVDs of his former shows as well as a book of his "Times" columns, and hosted replays of his TV interviews with Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, Salvador Dalí, Lee Marvin, Groucho Marx, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Garland, Marlon Brando, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Mitchum, John Lennon, George Harrison, Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Kirk Douglas and others on Turner Classic Movies.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett was born in Buffalo County, Nebraska, but sources differ as to the specific town, locating his birthplace in either Gibbon, where his family lived, or nearby Kearney, the location of the nearest hospital. Cavett himself has stated that Gibbon was his birthplace.


title: Dick Cavett

text: His mother, Erabel "Era" (née Richards), and his father, Alva B. Cavett, both worked as teachers. When asked by Lucille Ball on his own show about his heritage, he said he was "Scottish, Irish, English, and possibly partly French, and ... a dose of German." He also mentioned that one grandfather "came over" from England, and the other from Wales. Cavett's grandparents all lived in Grand Island, Nebraska. His paternal grandparents were Alva A. Cavett and Gertrude Pinsch. His paternal grandfather was from Diller, Nebraska, and his paternal grandmother was an immigrant from Aachen, Germany, which is why he also speaks fluent German. His maternal grandparents were the Rev. R. R. and Etta Mae Richards. The Rev. Mr. Richards was from Carmarthen, Wales, and was a Baptist minister who served parishes across central Nebraska. Cavett himself is a self-described agnostic.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett's parents taught in Comstock, Gibbon, and Grand Island, where Cavett started kindergarten at Wasmer Elementary School. Three years later, both of his parents landed teaching positions in Lincoln, Nebraska, where Cavett completed his education at Capitol, Prescott, and Irving schools and Lincoln High School. When Cavett was ten, his mother died of cancer at age 36. His father subsequently married Dorcas Deland, also a teacher, originally from Alliance, Nebraska. On September 24, 1995, Lincoln Public Schools dedicated the new Dorcas C. and Alva B. Cavett Elementary School in their honor.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In eighth grade, Cavett directed a live Saturday-morning radio show sponsored by the Junior League and played the title role in "The Winslow Boy". One of his high-school classmates was actress Sandy Dennis. Cavett was elected president of the student council in high school, and was a gold medalist at the state gymnastics championship.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Before leaving for college, he worked as a caddie at the Lincoln Country Club. He also began performing magic shows for $35 a night under the tutelage of Gene Gloye. In 1952, Cavett attended the convention of the International Brotherhood of Magicians in St. Louis, Missouri, and won the Best New Performer trophy. Around the same time, he met fellow magician Johnny Carson, 11 years his senior, who was doing a magic act at a church in Lincoln.


title: Dick Cavett

text: While attending Yale University, Cavett played in and directed dramas on the campus radio station, WYBC, and appeared in Yale drama productions. In his senior year, he changed his major from English to drama (graduating in 1958). He also took advantage of any opportunity to meet stars, routinely going to shows in New York to hang around stage doors or venture backstage. He would go so far as to carry a copy of "Variety" or an appropriate piece of company stationery in order to look inconspicuous while sneaking backstage or into a TV studio. Cavett took many odd jobs ranging from store detective to label typist for a Wall Street firm, and as a copyboy at "Time" magazine .


title: Dick Cavett

text: in 1956, Cavett joined the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is based in Ashland, Oregon, for its 16th season. Cavett appeared as the Bishop of Ely and the second murderer in "Tragedy of Richard the Third"; a page to the king in "Love's Labor's Lost"; servant Gregory in "The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet"; a lord in "The Tragedy of Cymbeline"; and Quintus, son of Titus, in "The Lamentable Tragedy".


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 1960, aged 23, Cavett was living in a three-room, fifth-floor apartment on West 89th Street in Manhattan for $51 a month, equal to $ today.


title: Dick Cavett

text: He was cast in a film by the Signal Corps, but further jobs were not forthcoming. He was an extra on "The Phil Silvers Show" in 1959, a TV remake of the film "Body and Soul" for the "DuPont Show of the Month" the same year, and "Playhouse 90" ("The Hiding Place") in 1960. He briefly revived his magic act while working as a typist and as a mystery shopper in department stores. Meanwhile, his girlfriend and future wife Carrie Nye landed several Broadway roles.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett was a copyboy (gofer) at "Time" magazine when he read a newspaper item about Jack Paar, then host of "The Tonight Show". The article described Paar's concerns about his opening monologue and constant search for material. Cavett wrote some jokes, put them into a "Time" envelope, and went to the RCA Building. He ran into Paar in a hallway and handed him the envelope. He then went to sit in the studio audience. During the show, Paar worked in some of the lines that Cavett had fed him.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Afterward, Cavett got into an elevator with Paar, who invited him to contribute more jokes. Within weeks, Cavett was hired, originally as talent coordinator. Cavett wrote for Paar the famous line "Here they are, Jayne Mansfield" as an introduction for the buxom actress.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett appeared on the show in 1961, acting as interpreter for Miss Universe of 1961, Marlene Schmidt of Germany.


title: Dick Cavett

text: While at "Time", Cavett wrote a letter to film comedian Arthur Jefferson, better known as Stan Laurel of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. The two soon met at Laurel's Hollywood apartment. On the evening of that first visit, Cavett wrote a tribute to him that Paar read on his show. Laurel saw the broadcast which he deeply appreciated. Cavett visited the legendary comedian several times. Their final time together came three weeks prior to Laurel's death in 1965.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In his capacity as talent coordinator for "The Tonight Show", Cavett was sent to the Blue Angel nightclub to see Woody Allen's act, and immediately afterward struck up a friendship. The very next day, the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman was held at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home. Allen could not attend, but Cavett did, where he met Groucho Marx in an anteroom. From the funeral, Cavett followed Marx (who later told Cavett that Kaufman was "his personal god") three blocks up Fifth Avenue to the Plaza Hotel, where Marx invited him to lunch.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Years later, Cavett gave the introduction to Marx's one-man show "An Evening with Groucho Marx" at Carnegie Hall and began by saying, "I can't believe that I know Groucho Marx."


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett continued with "The Tonight Show" as a writer after Johnny Carson assumed hosting duties. For Carson he wrote the quip "Having your taste criticized by Dorothy Kilgallen is like having your clothes criticized by Emmett Kelly." Cavett appeared on the show once, to do a gymnastics routine on the pommel horse. After departing "The Tonight Show", Cavett wrote for Jerry Lewis's ill-fated talk show, for three times the money.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett began a brief career as a stand-up comic in 1964 at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village. His manager was Jack Rollins, who later became the producer of nearly all of Woody Allen's films. One of his jokes from this period was:


title: Dick Cavett

text: He also played Mr. Kelly's in Chicago and Enrico Banducci's hungry i in San Francisco. In San Francisco, he met Lenny Bruce, about whom he said, "I liked him and wish I had known him better ... but most of what has been written about him is a waste of good ink, and his most zealous adherents and hardest-core devotees are to be avoided, even if it means working your way around the world in the hold of a goat transport."


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 1965, Cavett did some commercial voiceovers, including a series of mock interviews with Mel Brooks for Ballantine beer. In the next couple of years he appeared on game shows, including "What's My Line". He wrote for Merv Griffin and appeared on Griffin's talk show several times, and then on "The Ed Sullivan Show". In the late 1960s or early 1970s, he narrated a National Association of Broadcasters PSA featuring A Boy Wandering Around a Forest.


title: Dick Cavett

text: After doing "The Star and the Story", a rejected television pilot with Van Johnson, Cavett hosted a special, "Where It's At", for Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 1968, Cavett was hired by ABC to host "This Morning". According to a "New Yorker" article, the show was too sophisticated for a morning audience, and ABC first moved the show to prime time, and subsequently to a late-night slot opposite Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show".


title: Dick Cavett

text: Intermittently since 1968, Cavett has been host of his own talk show, in various formats and on various television and radio networks:


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett has been nominated for at least 10 Emmy Awards and has won three. In 1970, he co-hosted the Emmy Awards Show (from Carnegie Hall in New York) with Bill Cosby (from Century Plaza in Los Angeles). His most popular talk show was his ABC program, which ran from 1969 to 1974. From 1962 to 1992, "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" was arguably the most popular late-night variety and talk show. Unlike many contemporary shows that attempted to compete with Carson in the same timeslot but were quickly cancelled, Cavett managed to remain on the air for five years despite ABC being a smaller network with fewer affiliates than NBC at the time.