Monica Lewinsky Breaks Her Silence On Her Affair With Bill Clinton

Monica Lewinsky is opening up about her affair with former President Bill Clinton for the first time in years, sharing how the Internet has driven her and others to "global humiliation."
Lewinsky, who penned an essay for Vanity Fair that will be available digitally on May 8 and on newsstands May 13, said she finally came forward about her experience because of Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old who committed suicide after video of him kissing another man was broadcast online.
“[T]hanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet," Lewinsky said.
Lewinsky said she and her mother were both disturbed by the circumstances surrounding Clementi's death.
“She was reliving 1998, when she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal," Lewinsky said of her mother. "The shame, the scorn, and the fear that had been thrown at her daughter left her afraid that I would take my own life—a fear that I would be literally humiliated to death.”
She hoped by telling her story, she "might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation."
Lewinsky also put to rest some rumors that have followed her since news broke of her affair with Clinton, saying she was not offered a $12 million "for a salacious tell-all book" but noting she did turn down "offers that would have earned me more than $10 million, because they didn’t feel like the right thing to do."
“It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress," Lewinsky said.
“I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened," she added.

Chinese company Alibaba could have a record-setting U.S. IPO

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba filed paperwork Tuesday for what's expected to be one of the largest initial public offerings in history.

But before you start looking at ways to tie the name of the company to the main character of a Middle Eastern folk tale - as I have - let's start with the basics.

"Alibaba is an online marketplace where mostly Chinese companies and some Western companies sell their products to customers and other businesses," according to The New York Times.

Bloomberg says: "The Chinese company that's quite a combination, if you would, between Amazon, eBay and Google."

The man at the center of Alibaba is Jack Ma, a billionaire entrepreneur who's previously worked as an English teacher, according to ABC. So how did he become the Zuckerberg of China?

As Ma has probably told reporters hundreds of times by now, he went online for the first time in 1995 during a trip to Seattle. The Washington Post reports Ma "saw how little information existed about Chinese companies," so decided to build one of his own - although he says he doesn't know much about technology.

In 1999, he founded Alibaba. He and 17 other people started working out of his apartment and what do they have to show for it now? Ridiculous numbers.

Let's talk revenue and profit: Forbes says "Alibaba stated revenues of more than $6.5 billion on profits of about $2.8 billion" nine months into its 2014 fiscal year. The company also reported as many as 231 million active buyers in December of 2013.

The company that began in an apartment is now valued at upwards of $200 billion - Facebook's IPO valuation was $104 billion - and, according to Bloomberg, Alibaba is expected to raise more than $20 billion in its offering. That'll beat out Visa's $19.65 billion and Facebook, which had the largest tech IPO at $16.01 billion.

But why is a Chinese company doing a public offering in the U.S.? A senior analyst at Morningstar, an investment research firm, told Mashable, "By listing in the U.S. you open up the doors to a lot more potential investors. ... The U.S. listing will add a layer of creditability."

But Alibaba isn't the only company benefitting from the U.S. IPO. USA Today reports Yahoo acquired a 40 percent stake in Alibaba for $1 billion in 2005. Yahoo sold almost half of that for $7 billion in 2012. The company now owns almost a fourth of Alibaba, a share which could be worth billions of dollars following a very favorable IPO, according to USA Today.

Alibaba put down $1 billion as a placeholder for its paperwork filed with the Securities Exchange Commission. We won't know the exact amount Alibaba will raise until its IPO, which is expected later this year.