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• "It's a wild week in IPO land," said Scott Sweet, who runs IPOBoutique, which researches IPOs.
• A more active IPO market signals investor confidence in the economy. And the cash that companies raise in an IPO can help them invest and hire more, potentially supporting economic growth.
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• NEW YORK (AP) -- In Maine, a congressman running for governor came out as gay. In Hawaii, lawmakers girded for a vote to legalize same-sex marriage. And in the U.S. Senate, seven Republicans joined the Democrats in a landmark vote to ban workplace discrimination against gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
• From one end of the country to the other, the overlapping developments on a single day underscored what a historic year 2013 has been for the U.S. gay-rights movement -- "the gayest year in gay history," according to Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, the movement's largest advocacy group.
• Yet each of Monday's developments, while heralded by activists, revealed ways in which the gay-rights debate remains complex and challenging for many Americans.
• Republicans, for example, are increasingly split on how to address gay-rights issues -- some want to expand their party's following, while others want to satisfy the religious conservatives who make up a key part of the GOP base. More than 40 percent of Americans remain opposed to legalizing same-sex marriage. And even some prominent gays remain uncertain whether they should make their sexual orientation known to the world at large.
• Mike Michaud, the Democratic congressman from Maine, said he came out to dispel "whisper campaigns" about his sexuality as the three-way race for governor began to take shape. Through his six terms, he'd never before spoken publicly about his sexual orientation, and he broke the news to his mother only hours before releasing his statement.
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