The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is in Englewood, Colorado, US, and its international marketing and the commercial services headquarters are in Montvale, New Jersey. Until it discontinued the service, Western Union was the best known US company in the business of exchanging telegrams.

Western Union has a number of divisions, with products such as person-to-person money transfer, money orders, and commercial services. As of May 27, 2010, the company has more than 410,000 Western Union agent locations in over 240 countries and territories. Reported revenues top US$5 billion annually.

Specific services

Online

Western Union's website, westernunion.com, allows users to send and receive funds to others, pay bills, or purchase gift cards.

The domain westernunion.com attracted at least 8.7 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study.

BidPay

As the Internet became an arena for commerce at the turn of the millennium, Western Union started its online services. BidPay was renamed "Western Union Auction Payments" in 2004 before being renamed back to BidPay. BidPay ceased operations on December 31, 2005, and was purchased for US$1.8 million in March 2006 by CyberSource Corp. who announced their intention to re-launch BidPay. BidPay was later discontinued by CyberSource effective December 31, 2007.

Western Union Mobile

In October 2007, Western Union announced plans to introduce a mobile money transfer service with the GSM Association, a global trade association representing more than 700 mobile operators in 218 countries and covering 2.5 billion mobile subscribers.

The proliferation of mobile phones in developed and developing economies provides a widely accessible consumer device capable of delivering mobile financial services ranging from text notifications associated with Western Union cash delivery services to phone-based remittance options. Western Union's mobile money transfer service offering will connect its core money transfer platform to m-bank or m-wallet platforms provided by mobile operators and / or locally regulated financial institutions.

Sending and receiving funds

In order to send funds, a sender goes to a Western Union office and presents funds (plus fees) for "Next Day" or "Money in Minutes" service. A sender provides his or her name and address, the recipient's name, and a designated payment destination. Western Union then provides the sender a 10-digit Money Transfer Control Number (MTCN) that must be transmitted separately by the sender to the recipient. The recipient then proceeds to a Western Union agent office in the designated payment location, presents the 10-digit MTCN, and a photo ID. Money is then paid out to the recipient. If a recipient lacks identification documents, the sender and receiver can chose to set up a pre-arranged password. Funds are paid out in cash, although if payment exceeds a local maximum or cash on hand, a check is issued. Alternatively, a sender may forward funds online to a recipient by using Western Union's online site, westernunion.com.

Transfer fees

Fees differ based on originating and receiver countries and type of transfer. Generally, fees are less if using the website rather than using a partner agent location.

Should the sender choose to fund the Western Union transfer with a credit card, Western Union charges this as a Cash Advance rather than a regular charge. This will cause the sender to be assessed the cash advance fees by the credit card issuer, as well as cash advance interest that accrues from the day of the transaction as defined by the policy of the credit card issuer.

Should the sender attempt to avoid the Cash Advance fees by choosing the "debit card" payment method online at Western Union's website, after accepting the pertinent input, the website will change the transaction type to "Credit" without an alerting message and display this as the payment type. As such, the debit card transaction will be treated as a Cash Advance and sender will still be responsible for all associated fees charged the card issuer.

Oprah Winfrey born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954 is an American tv host, actress, producer, and philanthropist, best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was once the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, claiming to be raped at age nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication, she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue, which a Yale study claims broke 20th century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream. By the mid 1990s, she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture and promoting controversial self-help aids, she is often praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. From 2006 to 2008, her support of Barack Obama, by one estimate, delivered over a million votes in the close 2008 Democratic primary race.

In 1983, Winfrey relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk show, AM Chicago. The first episode aired on January 2, 1984. Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking Donahue as the highest rated talk show in Chicago. The movie critic Roger Ebert persuaded her to sign a syndication deal with King World. Ebert predicted that she would generate 40 times as much revenue as his tv show, At the Movies. It was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, expanded to a full hour, and broadcast nationally beginning September 8, 1986. Winfrey's syndicated show brought in double Donahue's national audience, displacing Donahue as the number one day-time talk show in America. Their much publicized contest was the subject of enormous scrutiny. Time magazine wrote:

Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue [...] What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session.

TV columnist Howard Rosenberg said, "She's a roundhouse, a full course meal, big, brassy, loud, aggressive, hyper, laughable, lovable, soulful, tender, low-down, earthy and hungry. And she may know the way to Phil Donahue's jugular." Newsday's Les Payne observed, "Oprah Winfrey is sharper than Donahue, wittier, more genuine, and far better attuned to her audience, if not the world" and Martha Bayles of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "It's a relief to see a gab-monger with a fond but realistic assessment of her own cultural and religious roots."

In the early years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the program was classified as a tabloid talk show. In the mid 1990s Winfrey then adopted a less tabloid-oriented format, hosting shows on broader topics such as heart disease, geopolitics, spirituality and meditation, interviewing celebrities on social issues they were directly involved with, such as cancer, charity work, or substance abuse and hosting televised giveaways.

Her final show is scheduled to air in September 2011. In addition to her talk show, Winfrey also produced and co-starred in the 1989 drama miniseries The Women of Brewster Place, as well as a short-lived spin-off, Brewster Place. As well as hosting and appearing on tv shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable tv network Oxygen. She is also the president of Harpo Productions. On January 15, 2008, Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced plans to change Discovery Health Channel into a new channel called OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. It was scheduled to launch in 2009, but was delayed, and actually launched on January 1, 2011.

In 1993, Winfrey hosted a rare prime-time interview with Michael Jackson, which became the fourth most watched event in American tv history as well as the most watched interview ever, with an audience of 36.5 million. On December 1, 2005, Winfrey appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote the new Broadway musical The Color Purple,dead link of which she was a producer, joining the host for the first time in 16 years. 

The episode was hailed by some as the "tv event of the decade" and helped Letterman attract his largest audience in more than 11 years: 13.45 million viewers. Although a much-rumored feud was said to have been the cause of the rift, both Winfrey and Letterman balked at such talk. "I want you to know, it's really over, whatever you thought was happening", said Winfrey. On September 10, 2007, David Letterman made his first appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", as its season premiere was filmed in New York City.

CSI: NY Crime Scene Investigation: New York is an American police procedural tv series that premiered on Sep 22, 2004, on CBS. The series was the 2nd indirect spin-off from the veteran series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and directly from CSI: Miami during an episode in which several of the CSI: NY characters made their first appearance. In season 7 the show airs on Fridays at 9/8PM ET/PT on CBS or in the UK on Channel 5 on Saturdays at 10:00pm. Repeats are usually shown on 5 USA.

The show follows the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths as well as other crimes. CSI: NY was produced in partnership with the Canadian media company Alliance Atlantis. The company dissolved after the 3rd season in 2007 and all production is now done under the purview of CBS Paramount Television.

On May 19, 2010, CBS renewed the show for a 7th season of 22 episodes, that premiered on Friday September 24, 2010.

A spin-off from CSI: Miami, the 3rd edition to the CSI franchise follows a NY City forensics team/police officers headed by tough former Marine Major, Det. Mac Taylor, and his newest partner, Det. Jo Danville, an experienced investigator from Washington, D.C., whose work is driven by her empathy for the victim. Against a backdrop of simmering ethnic and cultural tensions, Taylor probes cases similar to their Las Vegas and Miami counterparts, along with his team of Detectives, consisting of Det. Danny Messer, Det. Lindsay Monroe, and Dr. Sheldon Hawkes. The CSIs work alongside Medical Examiner Sid Hammerback, lab technician Adam Ross, and hardcore homicide Det. Don Flack. Former team members include the late Det. Aiden Burn; Mac's former second-in-command, Det. Stella Bonasera; and 2nd homicide detective Jessica Angell, who was Flack's girlfriend.

*   CSI Detective First Grade: Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise): is leader of the CSI team. He was born in Chicago and considered working for the Chicago Police Department before he moved to New York City. The death of his wife, Claire Conrad Taylor, in the 9/11 attacks troubles him to this day, causing chronic insomnia. It was also noted in the first season that he kept a beach ball in his closet that once belonged to his wife; he stated he was unable to throw it away because it contained some of her breath. He served as a Major in the US Marine Corps, once saying that he had wanted to serve the country more than anything else in the world.                      

*   CSI Detective First Grade: Josephine (Jo) Danville (Sela Ward): comes from Virginia, where she worked for the FBI. Her field of expertise is DNA evidence, and her philosophical point of view is that everyone is innocent until the science proves otherwise. She also has background in criminal psychology. She has one adopted daughter, and upon her arrival at the crime lab, she stumbles onto a dead body.
*   CSI Detective First Grade: Danny Messer (Carmine Giovinazzo): grew up in a family under surveillance. Danny formulated his own set of hybrid ethics, blending the world of lawbreakers with the world of lawmakers. Danny had a short-lived career in the music business, and was at one time an excellent baseball player.
*   CSI Detective 3rd Grade: Lindsay Monroe (Anna Belknap): worked as a CSI in Montana and finally realized her dream of moving to a big city like New York. Her Northwestern work ethic and willingness to roll up her sleeves and tackle any job is a welcome addition to the team where she is quickly put through rookie training by Mac on their first case.
*   Medical Examiner: Doctor Sid Hammerback (Robert Joy) is described as an "off-the-charts genius" who only recently traded in a career as a chef to become medical examiner. He has a habit of over-talking and over-sharing, which former ME Hawkes refers to as "going to that creepy place." Despite any eccentricities on his part, Sid is extremely perceptive and sincerely cares for the well-being of his coworkers.
*   Laboratory Technician: Adam Ross (A.J. Buckley): is a lab tech originally from Phoenix, Arizona. His specialty is trace evidence. He sometimes accompanies the CSIs to crime scenes to aid in reconstruction or evidence collection.
*   CSI Detective Third Grade: Doctor Sheldon Hawkes (Hill Harper): formerly a Medical Examiner with the NYC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME). He was a child prodigy who graduated from college at age 18 and was a board-licensed surgeon by the age of 24 and had several years experience in the emergency room.
*   NYPD Homicide Detective First Grade: Don Flack (Eddie Cahill): comes from a long line of law enforcement officials. He bridges the gap between old-school NYPD and the new generation of CSI. He is a witty detective who has very little patience for the "bad guy," and his techniques are sometimes considered borderline, though effective. He is good friends with Danny Messer, and is always willing to lend an ear to Danny's problems.
*   CSI Detective First Grade: Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes): is devoted to her job due to her strong personality, determination, and intelligence. She is a half-Greek, half-Italian orphan, who grew up moving from foster home to foster home due to the death of her mother in a traffic accident when Stella was just 2 years old (episode "Grounds for Deception"). Due to actress Melina Kanakaredes not renewing her contract for the seventh season, the character, Stella, moves to New Orleans.
*   CSI Detective Third Grade: Aiden Burn (Vanessa Ferlito): is a Brooklyn native who has the ability to adapt to new situations very quickly. She is dismissed from the team in season two, episode two ("Grand Murder At Central Station") after becoming obsessed with a rape case concerning her friend and considering planting evidence to implicate a suspect, D.J. Pratt, who had allegedly raped the same victim previously. She was later murdered and burned by Pratt, though she left the CSIs with implicating evidence she knew would result in a conviction.

 Onika Tanya Maraj born December 8, 1984, better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj, is a rapper and singer-songwriter from New York City. Born in Trinidad, Minaj moved to the Queens borough of NY City as a child and graduated from LaGuardia High School in 2003. She released her first mixtape Playtime Is Over in 2007, which was followed by Sucka Free and the Beam Me Up Scotty in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Minaj was discovered by fellow American rapper Lil Wayne and signed a deal to Young Money Entertainment with distribution from Universal Motown in August 2009.

Her debut studio album Pink Friday 2010 became a commercial success, peaking atop of the U.S. Billboard 200 and being certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) a month after its release. She became the first artist ever to have 7 songs within the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time. Her second single, "Your Love", reached number-one on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart, making Minaj the first female artist to top the chart unaccompanied since 2002. She also became the first female artist to be included on MTV's Annual Hottest MC List.

Minaj was born in 1984 in Saint James, (a suburb of Trinidad and Tobago's capital city Port of Spain). Her parents were of Indian and Afro-Trinidadian ancestry and she lived in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago with her grandmother until age 5, because her parents were looking for a place to live in the Queens borough of NY City at the time. Her mother would occasionally visit, and one day, when Minaj was 5, her mother picked her up to move to Queens. According to Minaj, her father drank alcohol, took drugs, and once tried to kill her mother by setting the house on fire.

She attended Elizabeth Blackwell Middle School 210, where she played the clarinet. She graduated from LaGuardia High School. At LaGuardia, a school specializing in music and the visual and performing arts, Minaj participated in the drama program. She had initially planned to sing at LaGuardia, but lost her voice on the day of the audition.

While some songs and interviews have implied that Minaj is bisexual, she has said that she does not date nor have sex with women, but added in an interview with Out magazine, "I don’t date men either." In an interview with Vibe she commented, "I just embrace all people of all lifestyles and I don’t tell them they are bad people. And I say girls are beautiful and girls are sexy and they need to be told that, and if they don’t have anyone to tell them that and mean it, I’m gonna tell them that. But I feel like people always wanna define me and I don’t wanna be defined." She reiterated her dislike of being labeled in an interview with out, saying: "The point is, everyone is not black and white. There are so many shades in the middle, and you’ve got to let people feel comfortable with saying what they want to say when they want to say it."

During an interview in the May 2010 issue of Details, Minaj was asked if she felt hip-hop was becoming more gay-friendly. She responded, "I think the world is getting more gay-friendly, so hip-hop is too. But it's harder to imagine an openly gay male rapper being embraced, people view gay men as having no street credibility. But I think we'll see one in my lifetime."

The National Day of Prayer (36 U.S.C. § 119) is an annual day of the observance held on the first Thursday of May, designated by the US Congress, when people are asked "to turn to God in prayer and meditation". The law formalizing its annual observance was enacted in 1952, and its constitutionality is being challenged in court again by the Freedom From Religion Foundation after their challenge was unanimously dismissed by a federal appellate court in April 2011.

There had been at least 2 individual (i.e. single-day) national days of prayer in U.S. history before the day was made an official annual day of observance in 1952. Prior to the nation's founding, the Continental Congress issued a proclamation recommending "a day of publick humiliation, fasting, and prayer" be observed on July 20, 1775":

The Honorable the Congress having recommended it to the United States to set apart Thursday the 6th of May next to be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, to acknowledge the gracious interpositions of Providence; to deprecate to pray or intreat that a present evil may be removed deserved punishment for our Sins and Ingratitiude, to unitedly implore the Protection of Heaven; Success to our Arms and the Arms of our Ally: The Commander in Chief enjoins a religious observance of said day and directs the Chaplains to prepare discourses proper for the occasion; strictly forbidding all recreations and unnecessary labor.” —George Washington, First President of the United States.

During the Quasi-War with France, President John Adams declared May 9, 1798 as "a day of solemn humility, fasting, and prayer," during which citizens of all faiths were asked to pray "that our country may be protected from all the dangers which threaten it". On March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation expressing the idea "that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins", and designated the day of April 30, 1863 as a day of "national humiliation, fasting and prayer" in the hope that God would respond by restoring "our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace". 

He went on to say, "...it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."

More recently, the idea of an annual National Day of Prayer was introduced by the Rev. Billy Graham, who suggested it in the midst of a several-weeks crusade in the nation’s capitol. Members of the House and Senate introduced a joint resolution for an annual National Day of Prayer, "on which the people of the US may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals."

A Senate report incorrectly claims as part of the rationale for the law that prayers were conducted at the Constitutional Convention, which adopted the U.S. Constitution: “When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention encountered difficulties in the writing and formation of a Constitution for this Nation, prayer was suggested and became an established practice at succeeding sessions,” according to the report by the Committee on the Judiciary. However, Benjamin Franklin suggested prayer, but in his own notes recorded that the convention, “except for three or 4 persons, thought prayers unnecessary.”

On April 17, 1952, President Harry S. Truman signed a bill proclaiming a National Day of Prayer must be declared by each following president at an appropriate date of his choice. In 1982 a conservative evangelical Christian organization called the "National Prayer Committee" was formed to coordinate and implement a fixed annual day of prayer for the purpose of organizing evangelical Christian prayer events with local, state, and federal government entities. In his 1983 declaration, Ronald Reagan said, "From General Washington's struggle at Valley Forge to the present, this Nation has fervently sought and received divine guidance as it pursued the course of history. 

This occasion provides our Nation with an opportunity to further recognize the source of our blessings, and to seek His help for the challenges we face today and in the future." In 1988, the law was amended so that the National Day of Prayer would be held on the first Thursday of May. Two stated intentions of the National Day of Prayer were that it would be a day when adherents of all great religions could unite in prayer and that it may one day bring renewed respect for God to all the peoples of the world.

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated is the world's leading provider of diagnostic testing, information and services. A United States based corporation that provides clinical laboratory services, the company has operations in the United States, UK, Mexico and through its wholly owned subsidiary Quest Diagnostics India Pvt. Ltd, a laboratory in India in addition to service locations located in Brazil. Quest Diagnostics also has collaborative agreements internationally with various hospitals and clinics. 

Quest Diagnostics also has operations in the US Territory of Puerto Rico. Quest Diagnostics is a member of the Fortune 500 and the S&P 500. The corporate headquarters is located in Madison, New Jersey. The company has approximately 43,000 employees, including some 900 M.D.s and Ph.D.s.

History

    1967: Founded by Paul A. Brown, MD as Metropolitan Pathology Laboratory, Inc., in New York.
    1969: Name Changed to MetPath, Inc., in Teaneck, New Jersey.
    1982: MetPath was acquired by what was then known as Corning Glass Works, and subsequently renamed Corning Clinical Laboratories.
    1997: Quest Diagnostics becomes an independent company as a spin-off from Corning.
    1997: Acquires clinical laboratory division of Branford, CT-based Diagnostic Medical Laboratory, Inc. (DML)[4].
    1999: Acquires SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories; GlaxoSmithKline still holds a large portion of Quest Diagnostics stock. The SmithKline Beecham acquisition includes a joint venture ownership with CompuNet Clinical Laboratory
    2000: Launch of Six Sigma program leading the charge to raise the quality of healthcare delivery in the United States.[5]
    2001: Completes acquisition of Ohio-based MedPlus, Inc. (NASDAQ: MEDP), a healthcare technology company.
    2002: Completes acquisition of Virginia-based American Medical Laboratories, Inc. (AML) and an affiliated company of AML, LabPortal, Inc., for approximately $500 million in cash.
    2003: Completes acquisition of California-based Unilab Corporation (NASDAQ: ULAB) in a transaction valued at approximately $800 million .
    2005: Completes acquisition of Kansas-based LabOne, Inc. (NASDAQ: LABS) for approximately $934 million.
    2006: Completes acquisition of Virginia-based Focus Diagnostics, Inc., an infectious and immunologic disease laboratory, for approximately $185 million in cash.
    2007: Quest Diagnostics celebrates its 10th year after being spun off from Corning.
    2007: Completes acquisition of Sweden-based Hemocue, a point-of-care diagnostic testing company.
    2007: Acquires AmeriPath (and subsidiary Specialty Laboratories) from Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, becoming the leading provider of cancer diagnostic testing services.