title: Battle of France

text: War games held by (Major-General) Kurt von Tippelskirch, the chief of army intelligence and Oberst Ulrich Liss of (FHW, Foreign Armies West), tested the concept of an offensive through the Ardennes. Liss thought that swift reactions could not be expected from the "systematic French or the ponderous English" and used French and British methods, which made no provision for surprise and reacted slowly when one was sprung. The results of the war games persuaded Halder that the Ardennes scheme could work, even though he and many other commanders still expected it to fail. May wrote that without the reassurance of intelligence analysis and the results of the war games, the possibility of Germany adopting the ultimate version of would have been remote. The French Dyle-Breda variant of the Allied deployment plan was based on an accurate prediction of German intentions, until the delays caused by the winter weather and shock of the Mechelen Incident, led to the radical revision of . The French sought to assure the British that they would act to prevent the using bases in the Netherlands and the Meuse valley and to encourage the Belgian and Dutch governments. The politico-strategic aspects of the plan ossified French thinking, the Phoney War led to demands for Allied offensives in Scandinavia or the Balkans and the plan to start a war with the USSR. French generals thought that changes to the Dyle-Breda variant might lead to forces being taken from the Western Front.


title: Battle of France

text: French and British intelligence sources were better than the German equivalents, which suffered from too many competing agencies but Allied intelligence analysis was not as well integrated into planning or decision-making. Information was delivered to operations officers but there was no mechanism like the German system of allowing intelligence officers to comment on planning assumptions about opponents and allies. The insularity of the French and British intelligence agencies meant that had they been asked if Germany would continue with a plan to attack across the Belgian plain after the Mechelen Incident, they would not have been able to point out how risky the Dyle-Breda variant was. May wrote that the wartime performance of the Allied intelligence services was abysmal. Daily and weekly evaluations had no analysis of fanciful predictions about German intentions. A May 1940 report from Switzerland that the Germans would attack through the Ardennes was marked as a German spoof. More items were obtained about invasions of Switzerland or the Balkans, while German behaviour consistent with an Ardennes attack, such as the dumping of supplies and communications equipment on the Luxembourg border or the concentration of "Luftwaffe" air reconnaissance around Sedan and Charleville-Mézières, was overlooked.


title: Battle of France

text: According to May, French and British rulers were at fault for tolerating poor performance by the intelligence agencies; that the Germans could achieve surprise in May 1940, showed that even with Hitler, the process of executive judgement in Germany had worked better than in France and Britain. May referred to "Strange Defeat" (Marc Bloch, 1940), that the German victory was a "triumph of intellect", which depended on Hitler's "methodical opportunism". May further asserted that, despite Allied mistakes, the Germans could not have succeeded but for outrageous good luck. German commanders wrote during the campaign and after, that often only a small difference had separated success from failure. Prioux thought that a counter-offensive could still have worked up to 19 May but by then, roads were crowded with Belgian refugees when they were needed for redeployment and the French transport units, which performed well in the advance into Belgium, failed for lack of plans to move them back. Gamelin had said "It is all a question of hours." but the decision to sack Gamelin and appoint Weygand, caused a two-day delay.


title: Battle of France

text: France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north and west and a (free zone) in the south. Both zones were nominally under the sovereignty of the French rump state headed by Pétain that replaced the Third Republic; this rump state is often referred to as Vichy France. De Gaulle, who had been made an Undersecretary of National Defence by Reynaud in London at the time of the armistice, refused to recognise Pétain's Vichy government as legitimate. He delivered the Appeal of 18 June, the beginning of Free France.


title: Battle of France

text: The British doubted Admiral François Darlan's promise not to allow the French fleet at Toulon to fall into German hands by the wording of the armistice conditions. They feared the Germans would seize the fleet, docked at ports in Vichy France and North Africa and use them in an invasion of Britain (Operation Sea Lion). Within a month, the Royal Navy conducted the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir against French ships at Oran. The British Chiefs of Staff Committee had concluded in May 1940 that if France collapsed, "we do not think we could continue the war with any chance of success" without "full economic and financial support" from the United States. Churchill's desire for American aid led in September to the Destroyers for Bases agreement that began the Atlantic Charter the wartime Anglo-American partnership.


title: Battle of France

text: The occupation of the various French zones continued until November 1942, when the Allies began Operation Torch, the invasion of Western North Africa. To safeguard southern France, the Germans enacted "Case Anton" and occupied Vichy France. In June 1944, the Western Allies launched Operation Overlord, followed by the Operation Dragoon on the French Mediterranean coast on 15 August. This threatened to cut off German troops in western and central France and most began to retire toward Germany. (The fortified French Atlantic U-boat bases remained as pockets until the German capitulation.) On 24 August 1944, Paris was liberated and by September 1944 most of the country was in Allied hands.


title: Battle of France

text: The Free French provisional government declared the re-establishment of a provisional French Republic to ensure continuity with the defunct Third Republic. It set about raising new troops to participate in the advance to the Rhine and the Western Allied invasion of Germany by using the French Forces of the Interior as military cadres and manpower pools of experienced fighters to allow a very large and rapid expansion of the French Liberation Army ("Armée française de la Libération"). It was well equipped and well supplied despite the economic disruption brought by the occupation thanks to Lend-Lease and grew from 500,000 men in the summer of 1944 to over 1,300,000 by V-E day, making it the fourth largest Allied army in Europe.


title: Battle of France

text: The 2e Division Blindée (2nd Armoured Division), part of the Free French forces that had participated in the Normandy Campaign and had liberated Paris, went on to liberate Strasbourg on 23 November 1944, fulfilling the Oath of Kufra made by General Leclerc almost four years earlier. The unit under his command, barely above company size when it had captured the Italian fort, had grown into an armoured division. The I Corps was the spearhead of the Free French First Army that had landed in Provence as a part of Operation Dragoon. Its leading unit, the 1re Division Blindée, was the first Western Allied unit to reach the Rhône (25 August), the Rhine (19 November) and the Danube (21 April 1945). On 22 April, it captured the Sigmaringen enclave in Baden-Württemberg, where the last Vichy regime exiles were hosted by the Germans in one of the ancestral castles of the Hohenzollern dynasty.


title: Battle of France

text: By the end of the war, some 580,000 French citizens had died (40,000 of these were killed by the western Allied forces during the bombardments of the first 48 hours of Operation Overlord). Military deaths were 55,000–60,000 in 1939–40. Some 58,000 were killed in action from 1940 to 1945 fighting in the Free French forces. Some 40,000 "malgré-nous" ("against our will", citizens of the re-annexed Alsace-Lorraine province drafted into the Wehrmacht) became casualties. Civilian casualties amounted to around 150,000 (60,000 by aerial bombing, 60,000 in the resistance and 30,000 murdered by German occupation forces). Prisoners of war and deportee totals were around 1,900,000; of these, around 240,000 died in captivity. An estimated 40,000 were prisoners of war, 100,000 racial deportees, 60,000 political prisoners and 40,000 died as slave labourers.


title: Battle of France

text: German casualties are hard to determine but commonly accepted figures are: 27,074 killed, 111,034 wounded and 18,384 missing. German deaths may have been as high as 45,000 men, due to non-combat causes, such as death from wounds and missing who were later listed as dead. The battle cost the 28 per cent of its front line strength; some 1,236–1,428 aircraft were destroyed (1,129 to enemy action, 299 in accidents), 323–488 were damaged (225 to enemy action, 263 in accidents), making 36 per cent of the strength lost or damaged. casualties amounted to 6,653 men, including 4,417 aircrew; of these 1,129 were killed and 1,930 were reported missing or captured, many of whom were liberated from French prison camps upon the French capitulation. Italian casualties amounted to 631 or 642 men killed, 2,631 wounded and 616 reported missing. A further 2,151 men suffered from frostbite during the campaign. The official Italian numbers were compiled for a report on 18 July 1940, when many of the fallen still lay under snow and it is probable that most of the Italian missing were dead. Units operating in more difficult terrain had higher ratios of missing to killed but probably most of the missing had died.


title: Battle of France

text: According to the French Defence Historical Service, 85,310 French military personnel were killed (including 5,400 Maghrebis); 12,000 were reported missing, 120,000 were wounded and 1,540,000 prisoners (including 67,400 Maghrebis) were taken. Some recent French research indicates that the number of killed was between 55,000 and 85,000, a statement of the French Defence Historical Service tending to the lower end. In August 1940, 1,540,000 prisoners were taken into Germany, where roughly 940,000 remained until 1945, when they were liberated by advancing Allied forces. At least 3,000 Senegalese Tirailleurs were murdered after being taken prisoner. While in captivity, 24,600 French prisoners died; 71,000 escaped; 220,000 were released by various agreements between the Vichy government and Germany; several hundred thousand were paroled because of disability and/or sickness. Air losses are estimated at 1,274 aircraft destroyed during the campaign. French tank losses amount to 1,749 tanks (43 per cent of tanks engaged), of which 1,669 were lost to gunfire, 45 to mines and 35 to aircraft. Tank losses are amplified by the large numbers that were abandoned or scuttled and then captured.


title: Battle of France

text: The BEF suffered or died of wounds, and missing or taken prisoner. About 64,000 vehicles were destroyed or abandoned and 2,472 guns were destroyed or abandoned. RAF losses from 10 May – 22 June, amounted to 931 aircraft and 1,526 casualties. The Allied naval forces also lost 243 ships to bombing in Dynamo. Belgian losses were 6,093 killed, 15,850 wounded and more than 500 missing. Those captured amounted to 200,000 men whom 2,000 died in captivity. The Belgians also lost 112 aircraft. The Dutch Armed forces lost 2,332 killed and 7,000 wounded. Polish losses were around 5,500 killed or wounded and 16,000 prisoners, nearly 13,000 troops of the 2nd Infantry Division were interned in Switzerland for the duration of the war.


title: Battle of France

text: Hitler had expected a million Germans to die in conquering France; instead, his goal was accomplished in just six weeks with only 27,000 Germans killed, 18,400 missing and 111,000 wounded, little more than a third of the German casualties in the Battle of Verdun during World War I. The unexpectedly swift victory resulted in a wave of euphoria among the German population and a strong upsurge in war-fever. Hitler's popularity reached its peak with the celebration of the French capitulation on 6 July 1940.


title: Battle of France

text: On 19 July, during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony at the Kroll Opera House in Berlin, Hitler promoted 12 generals to the rank of field marshal.


title: Battle of France

text: This number of promotions to what had previously been the highest rank in the "Wehrmacht" (Hermann Göring, Commander in chief of the Luftwaffe and already a Field Marshal, was elevated to the new rank of "Reichsmarschall") was unprecedented. In the First World War, Kaiser Wilhelm II had promoted only five generals to Field Marshal.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Fate: The Winx Saga is a teen drama television series based on the Nickelodeon animated series "Winx Club", created by Iginio Straffi. It is produced by Archery Pictures in association with Rainbow, a studio co-owned by Iginio Straffi and Paramount Global. Developed by Brian Young, who also acts as the showrunner and executive producer, it stars Abigail Cowen, Hannah van der Westhuysen, Precious Mustapha, Eliot Salt and Elisha Applebaum.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Iginio Straffi first proposed a live-action version of "Winx Club" in 2011, after Viacom, owner of Nickelodeon, became a co-owner of his studio and started financing his projects. Before approving production on the series, Straffi gained experience with live-action television working as a producer for Nickelodeon's "Club 57". Principal photography for "Fate" eventually began in September 2019 in Ireland.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Early in production, Nickelodeon's American crew members from the cartoon, including Bloom's voice actress, Molly Quinn, met with the "Fate" production team and reviewed the pilot script. Rainbow's Joanne Lee also oversaw the show as an executive producer. Apart from them, the crew behind "Fate" is entirely new to the "Winx" franchise, and the writers were recruited from teen dramas like "The Vampire Diaries".


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: The series features an ensemble cast based on the characters of the animated show. The six-episode first season debuted on Netflix on 22 January 2021 and was watched by 57 million subscribers in the first 28 days of its release. In February 2021, the series was renewed for a second season, which was released on 16 September 2022. In November 2022, the series was canceled after two seasons.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Bloom, a fairy with fire powers, enrolls at a magical boarding school in the Otherworld called Alfea. She shares a suite with Stella, a light fairy; Aisha, a water fairy; Terra, an earth fairy; and Musa, a mind fairy. With the help of her friends, Bloom starts to learn more about her past. Meanwhile, ancient creatures called the Burned Ones return to the Otherworld and threaten everyone at Alfea.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: The idea for a live-action adaptation of "Winx Club" dates back to 2011. "Winx Club" creator Iginio Straffi first proposed a live version in May 2011, several months after Viacom, owner of Nickelodeon, became a co-owner of his studio Rainbow and started financing his projects. At the Ischia Global Fest in 2013, Straffi stated that he was still planning a production "with the Winx in flesh and blood, played by real actors. Sooner or later it will be done." Straffi had only worked on animated productions at the time, so he transitioned his focus to live action, working as a producer for Nickelodeon's live-action show "Club 57".


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: In February 2016, Iginio Straffi mentioned that a live-action movie concept was being considered in partnership with Hollywood Gang Productions, but the project never proceeded. In March 2018, the idea was revisited as a television series after Netflix ordered a young-adult version for its streaming service. Straffi was involved in the early planning stages, and he declined a suggestion from Netflix for the male characters to be given larger roles.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: After a pilot episode was scripted, Nickelodeon's American crew members from the cartoon, including Bloom's voice actress, Molly Quinn, travelled to meet the "Fate" production team and review the script. Francesco Artibani, one of the Italian writers of the animated version, was brought in to read the storyline. Rainbow's Joanne Lee oversaw the first season as an executive producer.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: The writers behind "Fate" are entirely new to the "Winx" franchise, and they were recruited from teen dramas like "The Vampire Diaries". Brian Young, who worked on seven seasons of "The Vampire Diaries", is the creator and showrunner of "Fate: The Winx Saga". According to an interview with "The Guardian", Young chose to "ditch the look" of the cartoon Winx fairies, who have big eyes and sparkling outfits. He said, "Look, again, I'm a massive manga anime fan... but nobody looks like that." Some episodes of the first season were directed by Lisa James Larsson and Hannah Quinn.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Casting calls were held in August 2019. Abigail Cowen was announced to be headlining the series as Bloom in September 2019. "Bloom is a fire fairy who grew up in the first world, so she did not grow up in the other world. And she finds out, kind of by accident, that she has these powers," said Cowen.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Hannah van der Westhuysen, who plays Stella, revealed "Stella is a very complex girl. She appears a certain way, but she's actually a lot softer and she has a lot of barriers that need to be broken down." Precious Mustapha, who plays Aisha, said, "Aisha is a water fairy. From the offset, she seems quite confident with her powers. But, 'cause she's a perfectionist, she doesn't think that's good enough. She wants to always be developing."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Eliot Salt, who plays Terra, added, "Terra's power is all plant based. It's growing things and sending them off after people. She is the most welcoming. She loves it. She loves to meet new people. She gives too much."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Elisha Applebaum, who portrays Musa, said, "Musa is an empath. Her power is to feel everyone's emotions, whether it's nature or anything around. She's just open and honest, but also she's not honest with herself and she's trying to learn how to do that."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Danny Griffin, Sadie Soverall, Freddie Thorp, Eve Best, and Robert James-Collier were cast to play Sky, Beatrix, Riven, Farah Dowling, and Saul Silva in the series.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Filming of the first season began in County Wicklow, Ireland, in September 2019 and concluded in December 2019. The primary filming locations included Killruddery House and Ardmore Studios in Bray. Some indoor scenes of the series were shot at Ashford Studios. Griffin, who plays Sky, said, "We had an incredible stunt crew who would take us through the steps very slowly and were really patient in the beginning. But it's always a big struggle, because later it had to be fast and accurate." Cowen, who plays Bloom, said, "Playing Bloom was interesting. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself because I knew that so many people are fans of the original "Winx". It was a nerve-wracking but exciting and exhilarating experience."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Westhuysen, who portrays Stella, revealed, "I made diaries, scrapbooks, and things like that. They are really nice to look back on and will be very helpful for filming season two." Salt, who plays Terra, said, "I think what jumped out for me was just the range that everybody gets to do in the show, which is, I guess, quite unusual for most parts, but I think especially when you're generally playing young women, and the fact that we get to do comedy and tragedy and action and there's a lot to get your teeth into, so that's what really stood out to me." Mustapha, who plays Aisha, added, "I think the power of female friendship was something that really struck a chord with me, and I was like, 'This will be really fun to do' because we don't often get shows that are centred around women, let alone five women, so that was something I was definitely really excited about being a part of."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: "Fate: The Winx Saga"s music score was composed by Anne Nikitin, and the official playlist is available on Spotify, including 33 songs from various artists. Netflix also released a playlist for each fairyBloom's Fire Playlist, Stella's Light Playlist, Musa's Mind Playlist, Aisha's Water Playlist, Terra's Earth Playlist, and Beatrix's Air Playliston Spotify.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: On 18 February 2021, Netflix renewed the series for a second season to consist of eight episodes. "The six episodes in season one only scratched the surface of this incredibly rich world and the powerful fairies who inhabit it. As Bloom’s story continues to evolve, I can't wait for you to learn even more about Aisha, Stella, Terra, and Musa! And you never know who might show up at Alfea next term…" said showrunner Brian Young. The second season, which ultimately consisted of seven episodes, released on 16 September 2022.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Young revealed the audience can expect Icy and Darcy, two of the Trix trio, if the show gets renewed for a season three.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Young added, "The benefit of a season 2 show is it gives you the ability to sort of expand the things that made season 1 great. We had more second-unit days, we had more VFX, more everything to be completely honest. We were able to really make the VFX sing to make the show feel like it's the best version of itself that it can be." Visual Effects supervisor David Houghton said, "In COVID times, it is difficult to rally as many extras as you would normally be able to. With some VFX help and some clever filming, we're able to fill out our world."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: On Terra's coming out moment, Salt said, "I was told it was going to happen quite early on in Season 1. So I knew that whole time, and I kept it quiet-ish. It's so important, now more than ever, to see queer joy depicted on screen. In a setting where there's so much else going on, it was nice to put all of that aside for a moment to say that this is great." Young added, "Having Terra not be a canon character from the series gave us a little more leeway with her on the show. Audiences need to see people struggling, then coming out, then having a group of friends loving and supporting them. There's wish fulfillment in that."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: On 20 July 2021, Paulina Chávez, Brandon Grace and Éanna Hardwicke were announced to be joining the series's second season as Flora, Grey and Sebastian. Chávez said about Flora, "She's very much a person that cares about people a lot, and that's what makes her so easily lovable. She really controls the room when she's in it, and that's something that I had to learn to do. I'm a little shy." She further recalled, "I remember when they actually announced it and there was a comment just like, 'Guys, she's Mexican. We won.'" Chávez said, "This is a big win for the Latino community. I'm in Ireland, what the hell?! Who would've thought this girl from El Paso would be here? It's pretty cool." Despite the whitewashing controversy, Applebaum returned as Musa.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: On 27 July 2022, Miranda Richardson and Daniel Betts were announced to be replacing Lesley Sharp and Alex Macqueen as Rosalind Hale and Professor Ben Harvey, respectively. Sharp was not able to return to the series as she had other commitments scheduled and could not make the filming dates work.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: The second season began filming in Ireland in July 2021, with filming concluding in November 2021. The Dublin Hellfire Club was one of the filming locations for the season. The scene featuring Cowen and Best in episode six was filmed with a body double. Farah's lines were played through a massive speaker as Best was not present on set at the moment. Weeks later, she filmed her own parts in London in front of a green screen because of COVID-related hurdles. Houghton added, "Their wings aren't just wings. Their kind of wings are made of various elemental forces, like water or light. They have to fly and then, at the end of it, they use their magical powers to blast the villain, who also has a magical effect all over his body. There were all those different elements in a scene that we had to shoot in 2 or 3 days on a set and then have green screen elements on top of that." He revealed, "Every visual effect shot costs around £310,000, depending on the complexity of it."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Cowen, who plays Bloom, said, "Everything is just kind of amped up. Through our costumes, our hair, our makeup, our characters feel more sure about themselves and are really coming into their own. New secrets are revealed, and it’s going to be really, really awesome. I've seen little clips, and it's very cinematic. We're really excited." Mustapha, who plays Aisha, added, "I feel like this season, in particular, everyone has their own story. We're not always together, and I think that's gonna be really exciting to watch because I've not seen some of the things others have done."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Westhuysen, who portrays Stella, revealed, "We'll sometimes have two different crews at the same time, so in one day you could film a scene from episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 just doting between two different crews. And that's a testament to how brilliant the crew is on this." Applebaum, who portrays Musa, said, "Some of the stunt-y scenes I've had to do have been a bit more challenging because they’re not things I've done before. It's definitely straining on the body. I've gone home and had an Epsom salt bath every single time I've done one, and then it's off to the next."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Talking about the fairy transformations in the final episode, Salt, who plays Terra, said, "It was so much fun. Going up in the little strings and having a man in a green suit spin me around with his hands was one of the most surreal things that has ever happened to me, and I enjoyed every second." Thorp, who plays Riven, said, "I spend a lot of time with our stunt team, who are fantastic and all very experienced, in martial arts, stunt driving, and sword fighting." About the fight scene in the ruins, he said, "It was amazing and epic to shoot because we did it in these old ruins, on top of this hill. It used to be where the Hellfire group used to meet, which is an old cult that had meetings in Ireland."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: "Dark Side" by Neoni was used in the trailer of the second season. Taylor Swift's "Wildest Dreams" was featured in a scene where Bloom and Sky are horse riding in a field.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: On November 1, 2022, Brian Young announced that Netflix decided not to order another season, leaving the series on an unresolved cliffhanger.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 40% based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Flat, flimsy, and forgettable, "Fate: The Winx Saga" is a fantastical flop that fails to capture the magic of its source material."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Caroline Framke of "Variety" criticized the series for relying too much on clichés and wrote that "while adapted from an animated show about friends that was largely targeted at pre-teens, it takes a page out of the "Riverdale" book by giving everything an ominous sheen of sexy intrigue". Joel Keller from "Decider" urged the audience to skip the series, stating that "while there's nothing inherently terrible about "Fate: The Winx Saga", there's nothing about it that stands out. Also, do we need yet another dark and gritty remake of a beloved kids' series?" Deirdre Molumby from "Entertainment.ie" praised the cast but criticized the plot and the poor CGI quality.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Petrana Radulovic of "Polygon" wrote that ""Fate: The Winx Saga" does create a compelling, nuanced plot. The worldbuilding is exciting, offering a spin on the animated series' world of fairies and non-magical, sword-wielding Specialists." Melissa Camacho of "Common Sense Media" criticized the diversity of the cast along with the teen angst shown in the series, but wrote that ""Fate: The Winx Saga" offers a story world that is easy to escape into, and easy to get caught up in, if you're looking for a fantastical universe to explore."


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: The show peaked at #2 on Nielsen's Streaming Charts on the week of 25 January with 918 million minutes in viewership, trailing only "Bridgerton" at 936 million. On 20 April 2021, Netflix reported that 57 million of its subscribers watched the first season of the series during the first 28 days of its release.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: The series received backlash over the casting of Applebaum as Musa, who was coded as East Asian and whose character design was based on Lucy Liu, as well as the apparent replacement of Flora, who was coded as Latina and whose character design was based on Jennifer Lopez, with a new white character named Terra.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: In response to the backlash, Abigail Cowen said she was not involved in the casting but hoped that Flora would be introduced in the second season, saying "I do think diversity both in front of and behind the camera is vital and much-needed throughout the industry and internationally. So I think it's important that we are having these conversations." Brian Young has said Terra is the cousin of Flora, leaving Flora's inclusion in the show a possibility. Elisha Applebaum, who plays Musa, also addressed the controversy. "It's really sad to see that fans were upset with the casting. I wasn't involved in the casting but I hope that what they've seen and how I've portrayed Musa was to their liking," Elisha told "Digital Spy".


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: Responding to the backlash to the casting whitewashing, Iginio Straffi said that Rainbow S.p.A. demanded that the ethnic diversity of "Winx Club" be respected in the live-action adaptation, but that Netflix chose to make different casting choices.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: On 2 February 2021, a novelization of the first season, titled "The Fairies' Path", was released. It features bonus scenes and character backstories not seen on the show. It was written by Irish author Sarah Rees Brennan under the pen name Ava Corrigan.


title: Fate: The Winx Saga

text: On 16 August 2022, another novel, titled "Lighting the Fire", was released. It features an original story not seen in the show, set before the events of the first season. It was again written by Sarah Rees Brennan, this time under her real name.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American businessman and investor. He served as a senior advisor to 45th U.S. president Donald Trump, his father-in-law. Since leaving the White House, Kushner founded Affinity Partners, a private equity firm that derives investment from, among other sources, the Saudi government's sovereign wealth fund.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner is the son of the former real-estate developer Charles Kushner and is married to businesswoman Ivanka Trump, former President Trump's daughter and fellow advisor. As a result of his father's conviction and incarceration for fraud, he took over management of his father's real estate company Kushner Companies, which launched his business career. He later also bought Observer Media, publisher of the "New York Observer". He is the co-founder and part owner of Cadre, an online real-estate investment platform. He is also the co-founder of WiredScore, a company that rates the quality and resilience of digital infrastructure in buildings.


title: Jared Kushner

text: During the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, Kushner helped develop and run Trump's digital media strategy. In 2017, he was named as a senior White House advisor, raising concerns about nepotism. He also stirred controversy for his conflicts of interest, as he continued to engage in business, even profiting on policy proposals that he himself pushed for within the administration. Kushner was unable to obtain Top Secret Security clearance until May 2018, when Trump reportedly intervened on his son-in-law's behalf.


title: Jared Kushner

text: As senior advisor to President Trump, Kushner pushed strongly for the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill which Trump signed into law in 2018. Kushner authored the Trump peace plan to address the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which was announced in January 2020 and widely viewed as highly favorable for Israel and proposed a path to an independent Palestinian state. Kushner was the primary Trump administration participant in talks regarding the Middle East Peace Process, leading to the signing of the Abraham Accords and other normalization agreements between Israel and various Arab states in 2020. Kushner played an influential role in the Trump administration's COVID-19 response, and although advising Trump early on in the pandemic that the media was exaggerating its threat, leading the federal effort to procure medical supplies and equipment and to develop a vaccine. He was a leading broker in the US-Mexico-Canada agreement, for which he was awarded honors by the Mexican government.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner was born in Livingston, New Jersey, to Seryl Kushner (née Stadtmauer) and Charles Kushner, a real-estate developer and convicted felon. His father was friends with Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton occasionally attending dinners with them. Kushner also donated to Clinton campaign and endorsed him. His paternal grandparents, Reichel and Joseph Kushner, were Holocaust survivors who came to the U.S. in 1949 from Navahrudak, now in Belarus. During the Holocaust, Reichel led efforts to escape from the Navahrudak Ghetto by digging a tunnel, and later became a member of the Bielski partisans. Morris Stadtmauer was Jared's maternal grandfather.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish family, Kushner graduated from the Frisch School, a Modern Orthodox yeshiva high school, in 1999. He enrolled at Harvard University in 1999. According to journalist Daniel Golden, Kushner's father, whose foundation gives away millions of dollars a year to various charitable causes, made a donation of $2.5 million to the university in 1998, along with donations to several other universities, not long before Jared was admitted. Several sources quoted in the book subsequently disputed the accuracy of Golden’s reporting, characterizing the claims as “distorted” and “false.” At Harvard, Kushner was elected into the Fly Club, supported the campus Chabad house, and bought and sold real estate in Somerville, Massachusetts, as a vice president of Somerville Building Associates (a division of Kushner Companies), returning a profit of $20 million by its dissolution in 2005. Kushner graduated from Harvard with honors in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner enrolled in the joint-J.D./M.B.A. program at New York University School of Law and New York University Stern School of Business, and graduated with both degrees in 2007. Kushner interned at Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office, and with the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Following his father's conviction and subsequent incarceration between March 4, 2005, and August 25, 2006, Jared Kushner took a much bigger role in the family real estate business. He set about expanding the business and purchased almost $7 billion in property over the next ten years, much of it in New York City. , Kushner's net worth is estimated at about $800 million.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner was a real-estate investor, and increased Kushner Companies' presence in the New York City real-estate market.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner Companies purchased the office building at 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007, for a then-record price of $1.8 billion, most of it borrowed. He assumed the role of CEO in 2008. Following the property crash that year, the cash flow generated by the property was insufficient to cover its debt service, and the Kushners were forced to sell a controlling stake in the retail footage to The Carlyle Group and Stanley Chera and bring in Vornado Realty Trust as a 50% equity partner in the ownership of the building. By that time, Kushner Companies had lost more than $90 million on its investment. He was the face of the deal but his father Charles Kushner pushed him to do the deal.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In 2011, Kushner purchased a 130,000 square foot office tower at 200 Lafayette Street in Manhattan for $50 million from, selling it two years later for $150 million. On August 18, 2014, Kushner acquired a three-building apartment portfolio in Middle River, Maryland, for $38 million with Aion Partners, later selling the complex for $68 million. In 2013, his company led a transaction to purchase the Jehovah’s Witnesses headquarters in Brooklyn Heights for $375 million and invested $100 million into the site, transforming it into a sprawling office park, and signing online retailer Etsy to a 10-year lease.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In 2013, Kushner co-founded WiredScore, a global organization that provides a digital connectivity certification rating the quality and resilience of digital infrastructure in buildings.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In 2013–2014, he and his company acquired more than 11,000 units throughout New York, New Jersey, and the Baltimore area. In May 2015, he purchased 50.1% of the Times Square Building from Africa Israel Investments Ltd. for $295 million.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In 2014, Kushner, with his brother Joshua and Ryan Williams, co-founded Cadre (now RealCadre LLC), an online real-estate investment platform. His business partners included Goldman Sachs and billionaire George Soros, a top Democratic Party donor. In early 2015, Soros Fund Management financed the startup with a $250 million credit line. Kushner did not identify these business relationships in his January 2017 government financial-disclosure form. He did, however, disclose his ownership of BFPS Ventures, the company that housed his stake in Cadre. In 2020, his ownership stake in Cadre was estimated at $25–50 million.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In 2006, Kushner purchased "The New York Observer", a weekly New York City newspaper, for $10 million, outcompeting a bid by Trifecta Enterprises, a group headed by Robert De Niro. To make the bid, Kushner used money he says he earned during his college years by closing deals on residential buildings he purchased in Somerville, Massachusetts, with family members providing the backing for his investments. The buildings, which he purchased for $8.3 million in 2000, sold four years later for $13 million.


title: Jared Kushner

text: After purchasing the "Observer", Kushner published it in tabloid format. Since then, he has been credited with increasing the "Observer"s online presence and expanding the Observer Media Group. With no substantial experience in journalism, Kushner could not establish a good relationship with the newspaper's veteran editor-in-chief, Peter W. Kaplan. "This guy doesn't know what he doesn't know", Kaplan remarked about Kushner, to colleagues, at the time. As a result of his differences with Kushner, Kaplan quit his position. Kaplan was followed by a series of short-lived successors until Kushner hired Elizabeth Spiers in 2011. It has been alleged that Kushner used the Observer as propaganda against rivals in real estate. Spiers left the newspaper in 2012. In January 2013, Kushner hired a new editor-in-chief, Ken Kurson. Kurson had been a consultant to Republican political candidates in New Jersey.


title: Jared Kushner

text: According to "Vanity Fair", under Kushner, the ""Observer" has lost virtually all of its cultural currency among New York's elite, but the paper is now profitable and reporting traffic growth ... [it] boasts 6 million unique visitors per month, up from 1.3 million in January 2013". In April 2016, the "New York Observer" became one of only a handful of newspapers to officially endorse United States presidential candidate Donald Trump in the Republican primary, but the paper ended the campaign period by choosing not to back any presidential candidate at all.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner stepped down from his newspaper role in January 2017 to pursue a role in President Donald Trump's administration. He was replaced by his brother-in-law, Joseph Meyer.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Jared Kushner had been a lifelong Democrat prior to his father-in-law Donald Trump entering politics. He had donated over $10,000 to Democratic campaigns starting at the age of 11. In 2008, he donated to the campaign for Hillary Clinton and his newspaper the "New York Observer" endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain in the 2008 United States presidential election. After expressing disappointment with Obama, however, he registered as an independent in 2009 and endorsed Republican U.S. presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 via the "New York Observer". In 2014 he continued to donate to Democratic groups, but he then continued his "ideological conversion" by joining his father-in-law Donald Trump's nascent US presidential campaign in the field of the Republican candidates in 2015. Kushner had no prior involvement in campaign politics or in government before Trump's campaign.


title: Jared Kushner

text: From the outset of the presidential campaign of his father-in-law Donald Trump, Kushner was the architect of Trump's digital, online, and social media campaigns, enlisting talent from Silicon Valley to run a 100-person social-media team dubbed "Project Alamo." The digital team tested more than one hundred thousand ad combinations a week, raising more than $250 million in small-dollar donations in the closing months of the campaign. Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s top advertising executive during the 2016 campaign cycle, called it the “single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser.”


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner, together with Paul Manafort and Brad Parscale, hired Steve Bannon's firm Cambridge Analytica to support the Trump campaign. Kushner has also helped as a speechwriter, and was tasked with working to establish a plan for Trump's White House transition team. He was for a time seen as Trump's "de facto" campaign manager, succeeding Corey Lewandowski, who was fired in part on Kushner's recommendation in June 2016. He had been intimately involved with campaign strategy, coordinating Trump's visit in late August to Mexico, and he is believed to be responsible for the choice of Mike Pence as Trump's running mate. Kushner's "sprawling digital fundraising database and social media campaign" has been described as "the locus of his father-in-law's presidential bid."


title: Jared Kushner

text: According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who worked on technology for Hillary Clinton's campaign), Kushner's role in the 2016 election was its biggest surprise. Schmidt told "Forbes", "Best I can tell, he actually ran the campaign and did it with essentially no resources." Federal Election Commission filings indicate the Trump campaign spent $343 million, about 59 percent as much as the Clinton campaign.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On July 5, 2016, Kushner wrote an open letter in the "New York Observer" addressing the controversy around a tweet from the Trump campaign containing allegedly anti-Semitic imagery. He was responding to his own paper's editorial by Dana Schwartz criticizing Kushner's involvement with the Trump campaign. In the letter, Kushner wrote, "In my opinion, accusations like 'racist' and 'anti-Semite' are being thrown around with a carelessness that risks rendering these words meaningless." His estranged cousin Marc responded to the op-ed on Facebook that his lesson from the story of his grandparents was to renounce hate.


title: Jared Kushner

text: During the presidential transition, Kushner was said to be his father-in-law's "confidant," and one of Donald Trump's closest advisors, even more so than Trump's four adult children. Trump was reported to have requested the top-secret security clearance for him to attend the presidential daily intelligence briefings as his staff-level companion, along with General Mike Flynn, who already had the clearance prior to his resignation.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On January 9, 2017, Kushner was named Senior Advisor to the President (formally, "Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor"). He consequently resigned as CEO of Kushner Companies, and as publisher of the "Observer".


title: Jared Kushner

text: After Donald Trump became President-elect, Kushner and his wife met with the Japanese prime minister and other Japanese officials, while his wife was conducting a licensing deal between her namesake clothing brand and Sanei International, a company whose investors include the Japanese government’s development bank. Although negotiations around the deal had begun in 2015, well before Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination for president, Ivanka backed out of the deal to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. She sat in on a meeting between her father, then-president-elect Donald Trump, and Japan's prime minister, Shinzō Abe.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In late March 2017, Kushner was also given the new role of leading the "White House Office of American Innovation", where Kushner reportedly has been focusing on improving governmental efforts with regard to Veterans Affairs, information-technology contracting, and the opioid crisis.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner helped broker the sale of $100+ billion of arms to Saudi Arabia, and during a meeting with Saudi officials at the White House to finalize the deal, he called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson to ask for a lower price on a radar system to detect ballistic missiles.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner underwent a series of steps to comply with government ethics requirements, conferring with the Office of Government Ethics during the presidential transition and divesting of foreign investments, all common stock, and more than 35 other assets. Kushner's business activities in China drew press scrutiny for mixing government with business. Kushner's investments in real estate and financial services have also drawn controversy for conflicts of interest. In May, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that he had failed to disclose all required financial information in his security clearance applications, including that he owes $1 billion in loans. While noting that “it is difficult to calculate net worth” using financial disclosure forms, the Washington Post estimated that during 2017, Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump made $82 million in outside income at the same time that they served as senior White House advisors. Kushner and his wife’s lawyers asserted that their net worth had largely remained the same. In March 2020, the Associated Press reported that Kushner had sold stakes in a firm that had benefitted from the same Opportunity Zone tax breaks—incentives for new investment in low-income communities—that Kushner pushed for as a senior White House advisor.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In a statement, Abbe Lowell, Kushner's lawyer, admitted that Kushner had intermittently used private e-mail for official White House business. No classified or privileged information was used on this account. During the campaign for the 2016 presidential election, Trump repeatedly criticized his opponent Hillary Clinton for her use of personal e-mail in her role as Secretary of State, which involved the transmission of classified information over a server Clinton had set up in her basement.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In an HBO/Axios interview released in June 2019, Kushner denied that President Trump was a racist. When asked whether birther conspiracy theories about President Obama (which Trump pushed extensively for a number of years) were racist, Kushner did not answer, saying instead twice, "Look, I wasn't really involved in that." In the interview, Kushner, whose grandparents survived the holocaust and later immigrated to America, spoke of his own family's immigration history: "It's a great reminder of how great this country is." In the same interview, he defended the Trump administration's decision to drastically reduce the number of refugees accepted by the United States (the lowest level in 40 years).


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner was reportedly an influential factor behind the firing of New Jersey governor Chris Christie as head of the transition team, as well as the dismissal from the Donald Trump transition team of anyone connected to Christie. An anonymous source familiar with the transition told "Politico", "Jared doesn't like Christie... He's always held [the prosecution of his father] against Christie." Kushner told "Forbes" that the reports that he was involved in Christie's dismissal were false: "Six months ago, Governor Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. ... I was not behind pushing out him or his people." In his memoir Christie said that Steve Bannon fired him at Trump Tower but that Kushner had his ordered firing as a revenge for what Christie had done to Kushner's father Charles Kushner for several felonies.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner's contacts with Russian officials came under scrutiny as part of the larger federal investigation into Russian interference in the election. Before meeting with the Senate and House intelligence committees, Kushner delivered an 11 page document describing his contacts with Russian figures during the campaign and after the election. The Wall Street Journal called it "comprehensive disclosure" and said it "introduced a useful precedent to the Trump presidency"


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner has said he had four meetings with Russians during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition, and that none of those Russian contacts were improper.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In June 2016, an agent of Emin Agalarov reportedly offered Donald Trump Jr., Kushner's brother-in-law, compromising information on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government if he met with a lawyer connected to the Kremlin. A meeting took place on June 9, 2016, and included Kushner, Trump Jr., and Paul Manafort, who was then chairman of the presidential campaign, who met with Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower. According to Rinat Akhmetshin, who was also present at the meeting, Veselnitskaya claimed to have evidence of "violations of Russian law by a Democratic donor", and that the "Russian lawyer described her findings at the meeting and left a document about them with Trump Jr. and the others". According to the Mueller Report, Kushner arrived at the meeting and quickly grew aggravated, texting Paul Manafort that it was a “waste of time,” and emailing two different assistants to call him so he would have an excuse to leave the meeting. Investigators did not identify any follow up from the meeting. The Democratic National Committee cyber attacks were revealed later that week.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Between April and November 2016, Kushner had two undisclosed phone calls with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak. (In May 2017, Kushner's attorney Jamie Gorelick told Reuters that Kushner had participated in "thousands of calls in this time period" and did not recall any with Kislyak.) In December 2016, Kushner met with Kislyak. That month, U.S. intelligence officials who were monitoring Kislyak reportedly overheard him relaying to Moscow a request from Kushner to establish a "secret and secure communications channel" with the Kremlin using Russian diplomatic facilities. Kislyak reportedly was "taken aback by the suggestion of allowing an American to use Russian communications gear at its embassy or consulate – a proposal that would have carried security risks for Moscow as well as the Trump team".


title: Jared Kushner

text: Also in December 2016, Kushner met with Sergey N. Gorkov, a trained Russian spy who then headed Vnesheconombank (VEB), a Russian state-owned bank. Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that Kushner met with Gorkov briefly as part of his role in the transition, and as a diplomatic conduit to the State Department. However, VEB has stated that Gorkov met with Kushner on a private matter concerning his family's real estate corporation, Kushner Companies, even though VEB has been under international sanctions since July 2014. The Mueller investigation examined this meeting and could not confirm VEB’s account. The Mueller report did state, however, that it was unable to find evidence that there was any follow up between Kushner and Gorkov after the meeting.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In July 2017, Kushner appeared before both the House and Senate intelligence committees in closed session as part of their investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He also released a public statement. In October 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee requested numerous documents from Kushner. Kushner's attorneys gave the committee many documents on November 3, but the committee followed up on November 16 with a request for many additional documents it said had not been produced.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In early November 2017, Kushner was interviewed by investigators from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office. Reportedly the interview focused on former national security advisor Michael Flynn. On December 1, Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI, as part of a plea bargain. "Bloomberg" reported that Kushner is most likely the "senior member of the Trump transition team," mentioned in Flynn's plea documents, who is said to have ordered Flynn to contact Russia.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Mueller investigated meetings between Trump associates including Kushner and George Nader, an emissary representing the crown princes of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia. In August 2016, Nader offered help to the Trump presidential campaign. In December 2016, Nader attended a New York meeting between the United Arab Emirates officials and Kushner, Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon. Mueller also investigated Kushner's possible ties to Qatar, Israel and China. Two months after the Mueller report was released, Kushner’s top secret security clearance was permanently restored.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Since the electoral defeat of his father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, Kushner has stayed active in the region through a nonprofit organization he established.he took a special interest in the petroleum-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf. Kushner attempted to raise money from the Persian Gulf states for a new investment firm he has founded.


title: Jared Kushner

text: The transcript of Kushner's interview with FBI investigators was not publicly released in January 2020 as ordered by a federal judge, as the Justice Department stated it required a security review by an unnamed intelligence agency. The transcript was released on February 3, redacted nearly in its entirety.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In June 2019, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Community made a criminal referral of Kushner to federal prosecutors on concerns that his testimony was contradicted by Richard Gates, a former Trump campaign aides, although the referral did not accuse Kushner of making false statements.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner was a strong supporter within the Trump administration for the bipartisan criminal justice reform bill Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act (FIRST STEP ACT, ) which President Trump signed into law in December 2018. The legislation implemented several reforms to America’s prison and criminal justice systems, reducing sentences for certain non-violent offenders and improving prison programs to reduce recidivism, among other priorities. In announcing his support for the bill, Trump argued that it would “make our communities safer and give former inmates a second chance at life. According to reporting by "Axios" in 2020, Trump expressed regrets in private about having followed Jared Kushner's lead in going through with the First Step Act.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Trump put Kushner in charge of brokering peace in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, despite the fact that Kushner had no foreign experience or experience in the Middle East. On August 24, 2017, Kushner traveled to Israel to talk to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (with whom Kushner has longstanding personal links and family ties, causing Palestinians to distrust him). He then traveled to Palestine to meet President Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to restart a peace process in the Middle East.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Donald Trump formally unveiled a plan authored by Kushner in a White House press conference alongside Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on January 28, 2020; while representatives from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman attended the event. Palestinian representatives were not invited. In an interview, Kushner said he had "been studying this now for three years", and that he had "read 25 books on it, I've spoken to every leader in the region, I've spoken to everyone who's been involved in this." The plan, which was endorsed by the Israeli government, offered the Palestinians a conditional path to an independent state with defined borders. It has been characterized as requiring too few concessions from the Israelis and imposing too harsh requirements on the Palestinians. Both the West Bank settlers' Yesha Council and the Palestinian leadership rejected the plan: the former because it proposed a path to a Palestinian state, the latter arguing it is too biased in favor of Israel. Reaction was muted among the Arab states, although Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon issued statements expressing appreciation for the effort. The proposal gave American approval for Israel to annex its settlements in the West Bank, contingent on Israel and the United States agreeing to a concrete map for the contested areas within the West Bank and Jerusalem.


title: Jared Kushner

text: After Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, wrote a June 2020 opinion piece warning that annexation of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank would threaten better relations between Israel and the Arab world, Kushner saw an opportunity and stepped in to facilitate talks. The talks led to the August establishment of diplomatic ties between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, normalizing what had long been informal relations between the two countries and ultimately becoming the first Abraham Accord, which was the first normalization agreement between Israel and an Arab country since it normalized relations with Jordan in 1994. As part of the agreement, Netanyahu suspended the annexation of West Bank settlements, which the Kushner peace plan had approved months earlier. The first commercial flight from Israel to the UAE later arrived in Abu Dhabi with a U.S.-Israeli delegation led by Kushner.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Hours after the August 13 announcement of the U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, senior Bahraini officials called Kushner with a message: "We want to be next". Over the next 29 days Kushner and aide Avi Berkowitz negotiated, and traveled to Bahrain, before closing the deal on September 11, 2020, in a call between Trump, Netanyahu and the king of Bahrain.


title: Jared Kushner

text: All three countries officially committed to the deals on September 15, 2020, with the signing of the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On September 4, 2020 Kosovo, a Muslim-majority country, announced that it intended to normalize relations with Israel as part of an economic agreement the United States had brokered between it and Serbia. The negotiations were led by Ric Grenell, special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, with support from Kushner.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On October 23, 2020, Israel and Sudan agreed to normalize ties, making Sudan the third Arab country to set aside hostilities in two months. The agreement was negotiated on the U.S. side by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner, Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz, national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security official Miguel Correa.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On December 10, 2020, President Trump announced that Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco agreed to establish full diplomatic relations. The agreement was negotiated by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz and marked Kushner and Berkowitz's fourth normalization agreement in as many months. As a component of the deal, the United States agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On November 30, 2020, Kushner and Berkowitz traveled to Saudi Arabia for negotiations on the Qatar diplomatic crisis. The next day, Kushner continued to Qatar, but left Berkowitz in Saudi Arabia so the duo could continue to mediate the deal between the Saudis and the Qataris over the phone in real time. The negotiations led to a breakthrough, and on January 5, 2021, Kushner and Berkowitz attended the GCC Summit in Saudi Arabia, where the parties signed an agreement ending the Qatar diplomatic crisis. For his efforts in the Middle East, Kushner has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Shortly after Trump assumed office, Kushner and several administration officials initiated discussions with the Mexican government around renegotiating NAFTA. In April 2017 reports surfaced that Trump intended to withdraw from the trade agreement. Working with counterparts in the Mexican and Canadian governments, Kushner convinced Trump to set aside these plans and instead enter into formal trade negotiations. When the Senate confirmed Robert Lighthizer as United States Trade Representative in May 2017, Lighthizer commenced formal negotiations, leading on the technical aspects of the discussions while Kushner managed the relationships with the Mexican and Canadian governments. On August 27, 2018, the United States and Mexico announced that they had reached a preliminary deal without Canada. A month later, Canada announced that it intended to join the deal as well. At a press conference in the Rose Garden on September 30, 2018, Lighthizer stated that the $1.3 trillion trade deal “would not have happened” without Kushner’s efforts. In recognition of these efforts, President Peña Nieto awarded Kushner the Order of the Aztec Eagle, Mexico’s highest honor granted to a non-Mexican citizen, calling Kushner a “grand ally” of Mexico and an “important actor” in the U.S.-Mexico relationship.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Kushner was an influential advisor to President Trump, and shaped the administration's actions. At Trump's order, Kushner set up what has been described as a "shadow task force," separate from the official coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President Mike Pence. The Kushner operation was staffed by a dozen young volunteers from the private sector; they worked out of offices on the seventh floor of the Health and Human Services building. Their first assignment was to facilitate the search for medical supplies and protective equipment, with their performance receiving criticism for favoritism shown to Trump associates. According to "The Washington Post", numerous rudimentary initiatives proposed by Kushner interrupted the work of other government officials who were seeking to manage the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. "The New York Times" reported that one way that Kushner was seeking advice on how to deal with the coronavirus outbreak was to ask his brother's father-in-law, a physician, for recommendations. The physician then proceeded to crowdsource advice on a Facebook group for physicians.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Early on during the outbreak, Kushner advised Trump that the media was exaggerating the dangers of the coronavirus outbreak; at the time, Trump downplayed the dangers of the coronavirus. Kushner helped write the Oval Office address that President Trump gave to the nation on March 11, 2020, along with Trump's advisor Stephen Miller. Drafts of the address were not shared with any of the staff working on the coronavirus task force or with the agencies dealing with the coronavirus response, and Kushner, Miller and Vice President Pence (who joined the writing process later on) were still working making edits to the draft shortly before Trump gave the address. "The Washington Post" wrote that the address that Kushner, who had "zero expertise in infectious diseases and little experience marshaling the full bureaucracy behind a cause", helped write was "widely panned". In the address, Trump blamed Europeans and the Chinese for the virus, describing the virus as a "foreign virus". During the address, Trump inaccurately said "all travel from Europe" would be prohibited, and that the travel prohibitions would apply to goods. The speech caused markets to plunge, as White House aides had to clarify what the actual policy was. European leaders said they were blindsided by the address. The speech set off panic among Americans abroad who had to scramble to learn whether they could return to the United States and under what circumstances; this created chaos at airports in Europe and the United States. Trump reportedly blamed Kushner for the widely panned address, telling aides that he should not have listened to Kushner.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner also helped put together a March 13 Rose Garden event where Trump falsely claimed that Google was "quickly developing" a website that could help test people for coronavirus. Google later clarified their involvement, stating that the website would initially serve the Bay Area. Trump also announced a project intended to set up testing sites across parking lots across the United States, taking the state and federal health care workers who oversee the project by surprise. These drive-through testing sites were later used to support distribution of the coronavirus vaccine. On March 30, 2020, "The Atlantic" reported that a website that Trump had said would help Americans to diagnose themselves and direct them to a nearby coronavirus testing site in a March 13 press conference had been a project between the government and Oscar Health, a company that Kushner had ties with. Kushner's brother, Joshua, co-founded and owns Oscar Health, and Kushner himself was a partial owner of the firm before joining the White House. The website was quickly scrapped.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In April 2020, Kushner made a rare public appearance, when in the White House briefing room he defended the administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. In response to requests by state and local governments that the federal government distribute medical supplies to the states, Kushner said, "The notion of the federal stockpile is that it's supposed to be our stockpile. It's not supposed to be states' stockpiles that they then use." The Strategic National Stockpile page on the Public Health Emergency website was retconned on the same day to reflect this new interpretation of its mission.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In late April 2020, the Department of Defense revealed that the federal government had less than 10,000 ventilators remaining in the strategic national stockpile, far short of the anticipated need. At that time, Governor Andrew Cuomo projected that New York would need 37,000 ventilators. New Jersey, Louisiana, and Michigan also requested thousands of ventilators. The Trump administration, however, refused to empty the stockpile to fulfill these requests, claiming that the states needed far fewer than they were projecting. Kushner described the administration's response to the coronavirus as "a great success story." During the pandemic, Kushner relied on a team of volunteers from consulting and private equity firms who had little relevant experience in dealing with a pandemic. Kushner described the volunteers as "true patriots." The team was intended to assist in procuring PPE, but the team struggled to do so. "The New York Times" wrote that the search for supplies was "fumbling" and that "personal relationships and loyalty are often prized over governmental expertise, and private interests are granted extraordinary access and deference." Kushner's volunteer team advised senior officials in New York that Yaron Oren-Pines, a Silicon Valley engineer, could produce 1,000 ventilators. New York officials assumed that the team had vetted him and gave him an $86 million contract to produce the ventilators; no ventilators were produced.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In May 2020, Kushner reportedly told those involved in the coronavirus response that the coronavirus was under control and that there would not be a second wave. By June 2020, cases were surging in the United States. It was revealed that businesses owned by the Kushner family obtained coronavirus relief, which raised concerns with potential conflicts of interests due to Kushner's White House role.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In August 2020, when 170,000 had died from the coronavirus in the United States, Kushner reiterated his claim from April 2020 that the administration's response had been a "success story."


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner did not participate in the Trump administration's attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. Rather than fight Mr. Giuliani and Sidney Powell for president Trump's attention, he started writing a memoir, made plans to move his family to Miami, and focused on his project of Middle East diplomacy.


title: Jared Kushner

text: He met with Biden administration security advisors Jake Sullivan and Jeffrey Zients to prepare for transition of power.


title: Jared Kushner

text: When vice presidential advisor Marc Short requested his help in reasoning with president Trump, Kushner replied that the vice president “is a big boy,” and if he disagreed with the president on a legal issue, he should bring in his lawyers. He stated “I'm too busy working on Middle East peace right now, Marc.”


title: Jared Kushner

text: During the January 6th 2021 United States Capitol attack, he was returning from a diplomatic trip around the Persian gulf states.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On 11 January 2021, he arranged a meeting between vice-president Mike Pence and Donald Trump to try to reconcile their relationship.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On 31 March 2022, he voluntarily spoke to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack for six hours. He was the highest-ranking Trump administration official interviewed to date, as well as the first Trump family member to be interviewed.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Within the Trump administration, Kushner had been a staunch defender of Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman. In 2021, Kushner started an investment firm, Affinity Partners. He sought funds for the new company through the sovereign wealth funds of Gulf countries. Advisers for the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi government's sovereign wealth fund, expressed several concerns about the transaction—including the inexperience of Affinity management, the degree of risk to be assumed by the Saudi kingdom, an "excessive" management fee, and a finding that Affinity's operations were "unsatisfactory in all aspects". However, PIF management overruled them and invested $2 billion in Kushner's firm, only six months after Kushner had left the White House. The firm primarily depended on Saudi money, as, by April 2022, it only had $2.5 billion under its management. According to ethics experts, the investment created the appearance of potential payback for Kushner. The House Oversight Committee said on June 2, 2022 that it had opened an investigation into whether Kushner had traded on his government position to get the deal.


title: Jared Kushner

text: The fund plans to invest Saudi money into startup companies in Israel. According to the "Wall Street Journal", "The decision marks the first known instance that the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s cash will be directed to Israel, a sign of the kingdom’s increasing willingness to do business with the country, even though they have no diplomatic relations."


title: Jared Kushner

text: In March 2021 he claimed that we are witnessing the last vestiges of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and praised the foreign policy of the Joe Biden administration in its handling of China and Iran, in an op-ed published by the WSJ, that generated some responsa from the political class.


title: Jared Kushner

text: He wrote "This negotiation is high-stakes and, thanks to his policies, America holds a strong hand. Iran is feigning strength, but its economic situation is dire and it has no ability to sustain conflict or survive indefinitely under current sanctions... America should be patient and insist that any deal include real nuclear inspections and an end to Iran's funding of foreign militias."


title: Jared Kushner

text: “The Biden administration, however, has one asset that the Trump administration never had—a relationship with Iran. While many were troubled by the Biden team’s opening offer to work with Europe and rejoin the Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, I saw it as a smart diplomatic move,” Kushner wrote. “The Biden administration called Iran’s bluff. It revealed to the Europeans that the JCPOA is dead and only a new framework can bring stability for the future. When Iran asked for a reward merely for initiating negotiations, President Biden did the right thing and refused.”


title: Jared Kushner

text: “The table is set. If it is smart, the Biden administration will seize this historic opportunity to unleash the Middle East’s potential, keep America safe, and help the region turn the page on a generation of conflict and instability,” he wrote.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner's appointment as Trump's senior advisor in the White House in January 2017 was questioned on the basis of a 1967 anti-nepotism law which forbids public officials from hiring family members, and explicitly one's son-in-law, in agencies or offices they oversee. The law was passed in response to President John F. Kennedy's decision to appoint his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general in 1961. However, on January 20, 2017, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion stating the anti-nepotism law does apply to appointments within the White House, after Kushner's lawyer, Jamie Gorelick claimed the 1967 law does not apply to the White House because it is not an 'agency'. Among other precedents, the OLC opinion invoked a 1993 D.C. Circuit Court ruling that enabled Hillary Clinton to serve within the White House during the Clinton administration. Kushner was sworn in on January 22, 2017 and was given the office which is physically the closest to the Oval Office.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On January 18, 2017, immediately after his appointment as senior advisor to President Trump, Kushner requested Top Secret security clearance, using "Standard Form 86 (SF86): Questionnaire for National Security Positions". The request omitted all of Kushner's contacts with foreign officials, including the meetings with Kislyak and Gorkov, though he quickly updated his filing to notify government officials that he would supplement his disclosure to provide the required information. Failure to disclose pertinent contacts can cause security clearances to be declined or revoked, and an intentional failure to disclose can result in imprisonment. Kushner's lawyers said that the omissions were "an oversight", and that "a member of [Kushner's] staff had prematurely hit the 'send' button" before the form was completed.


title: Jared Kushner

text: By July 2017, Kushner had updated his SF86, this time disclosing contacts with foreign nationals. This was the first time that government officials were made aware of the June 2016 Trump campaign–Russian meeting and Kushner's role in it.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On September 15, 2017, Carl Kline, the director of the personnel security office within the Executive Office of President Trump, recorded Kushner as having an interim Top Secret/SCI security clearance. Kushner and his wife were among at least 48 officials granted interim clearance giving them access to sensitive compartmented information (SCI): detailed accounts of intelligence sources and methods.


title: Jared Kushner

text: On February 27, 2018, in response to the Rob Porter scandal, White House chief of staff John Kelly downgraded Kushner's interim security clearance to "secret" status, along with other White House staffers working with interim security clearances. White House sources said that part of the reason Kushner had not yet been granted permanent security clearance was that he was under investigation by Robert Mueller.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner finally received permanent Top Secret security clearance on May 23, 2018. In January 2019, Trump told "The New York Times" that he had not intervened to grant Kushner's security clearances. On February 8, 2019, Kushner's wife Ivanka also denied that Trump had intervened to grant her or Kushner's security clearances. However, on February 28, 2019, CNN (citing three anonymous sources) and "The New York Times" (citing four anonymous sources) reported that in May 2018 Trump ordered Kelly to grant Kushner a top-secret clearance, which Kelly contemporaneously documented in an internal memo. Reportedly, this was the first time any U.S. president had intervened in such a way. Carl Kline later testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that there had been no external intervention in the decision to restore Kushner’s clearance.


title: Jared Kushner

text: While serving in the Trump administration, Kushner retained ownership of businesses, which drew criticism from government ethics experts who said it created conflicts of interest.


title: Jared Kushner

text: After his appointment as Senior Advisor to Donald Trump (in January 2017), Kushner resigned as head of his family's real-estate firm, Kushner Companies, and partially divested himself of some of its assets, including all his stake in Thrive Capital, a venture capital firm co-founded by his brother, all common stock holdings and over 35 other investments, and his stake in 666 Fifth Avenue. However, he did not actually sell off his assets or set up a blind trust with outside management. Instead, he transferred ownership of some of his assets to his brother and to a trust overseen by his mother rather than selling off his assets to a third party or setting up a blind trust with outside management. "The New York Times" reported that Kushner managed to retain "the vast majority of his interest in Kushner Companies. His real estate holdings and other investments are worth as much as $761 million." Disclosures he was required to make show that Kushner still receives millions of dollars a year in income from rent collected by his assorted real estate portfolio.


title: Jared Kushner

text: After her father was elected president, global sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise surged. On April 6, 2017, the same day that Kushner and Ivanka dined with Chinese president Xi Jinping and his wife at a dinner hosted by the president at Mar-a-Lago, the Chinese government provisionally approved three new trademarks for the Ivanka Trump brand giving it monopoly rights to sell Ivanka Trump brand jewelry, bags and spa services in the world's second-largest economy. Ivanka applied for the trademarks in 2016 due to concerns about the proliferation of knock off and counterfeits goods being sold under her name in China as her father’s presidential campaign progressed.


title: Jared Kushner

text: While a White House official, Kushner used WhatsApp to conduct government business. This raised concerns among cybersecurity experts who said this left his communications vulnerable to potential exploitation by foreign governments and hackers. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was reportedly one of the individuals that Kushner contacted through WhatsApp; in January 2020, UN investigators said that there was evidence that the bin Salman was involved in the hacking of Jeff Bezos's phone through WhatsApp communications, which led to warnings that Kushner should stop using WhatsApp. Kushner reportedly used WhatsApp to communicate with his coronavirus team during March and April 2020. Ethics watchdogs have since confirmed that Kushner turned over his WhatsApp records prior to departing the White House, and that these records have been acquired in full by the National Archives and Records Administration.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Jared Kushner was in the list of 13 family members and nearly three Cabinet appointees, who were granted security for additional six months after Donald Trump left the White House, a dispensation which had also been granted to Sasha and Malia Obama.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In May 2021, Kushner used the taxpayers' money to visit Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It was nearly six months after Trump lost the position as the US President. The US State Department used at least $12,950 for Kushner's Secret Service security team that accompanied him. For that, a total of 50 "room nights" at $259 each were booked between May 5 and 14 at Abu Dhabi's Ritz-Carlton hotel. The extra-luxurious hotel was selected as per Kushner's decision, citing the requirement of high security. On the other side, ethics watchdogs viewed the financial links between Kushner and the UAE as a threat, citing that former Senior Advisor to the US President was believed to be "particularly manipulable" by the UAE. Even a month before Trump left office, Kushner's last overseas trip cost the US taxpayers around $24,335 in hotel costs alone.


title: Jared Kushner

text: Kushner has a younger brother, Joshua, and two sisters, Dara and Nicole. He married Ivanka Trump in a Jewish ceremony on October 25, 2009. They had met in 2005 through mutual friends. Kushner and his wife (who converted to Judaism in 2009) are Modern Orthodox Jews, keep a kosher home, and observe the Jewish Shabbat. They have three children, a daughter born in July 2011 and two sons, born in October 2013 and March 2016.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In 2004, Kushner's father pleaded guilty to eighteen felony counts of tax fraud, election violations, and witness tampering. (He retaliated against his own sister who was a cooperating witness in the case.) The case against Charles Kushner was prosecuted by Chris Christie, who later became Governor of New Jersey and, for a period was part of Donald Trump's election campaign team in 2016. Christie subsequently claimed that Jared Kushner was responsible for having him fired as revenge for sending his father to prison.


title: Jared Kushner

text: In 2017, federal disclosures suggested Kushner and his wife had assets worth at least $240 million, and as much as $740 million. They also have an art collection, estimated to be worth millions, that was not mentioned in the financial disclosures initially. The United States Office of Government Ethics has said that the updated disclosures comply with the regulations and laws.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Marcia Lynne "Marcheline" Bertrand (May 9, 1950 – January 27, 2007) was an American actress. She was the former wife of actor Jon Voight, and the mother of actress Angelina Jolie and actor James Haven.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Born at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois, Bertrand was brought up in the nearby small town of Riverdale. Her parents were Lois June (née Gouwens) and Rolland F. Bertrand. She had two younger siblings: a sister, Debbie, and a brother, Raleigh. In 1965, Bertrand's family moved from the Chicago area to Beverly Hills, California, where she attended Beverly Hills High School from sophomore year through graduation.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Bertrand's father was of French-Canadian descent, and her mother was of Dutch and German ancestry, with ancestors who had immigrated to the United States in the mid-19th century. Bertrand claimed to be of Iroquois ancestry through her father's line, although her only known Native American ancestor is a Huron woman born in 1649 in present-day Quebec. According to her daughter, Bertrand was often wrongly identified as a French actress because of her stage name; she said, "My mom is as far from French Parisian as you can get. She grew up in a bowling alley that my grandparents owned."


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: During her early years as an actress, Bertrand studied with Lee Strasberg. In 1971, she played Connie in the episode "Love, Peace, Brotherhood and Murder" on the fourth season of the television show "Ironside". A decade later, she appeared in a minor role in 1982's "Lookin' to Get Out", a film co-written by and starring her former husband, Jon Voight. The following year, Bertrand played her final film role in the 1983 comedy "The Man Who Loved Women", a remake of the 1977 French film of the same name.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Bertrand then turned her attention toward producing. In 1983, she founded Woods Road Productions with her then-partner, Bill Day. In 2005, Bertrand was the executive producer of the documentary "Trudell", which chronicles the life and work of her partner, John Trudell, a Santee Sioux musician and activist. "Trudell" was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival, and it won the Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Bertrand and her partner, John Trudell, founded the All Tribes Foundation, to support the cultural and economic survival of Native peoples. By 2007, the foundation had issued over $800,000 in grants to reservation-based programs that strengthen tribal ways of life and safeguard a future for Native communities.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: On International Women's Day in 2003, Bertrand and Trudell produced a benefit concert for Afghan women refugees in conjunction with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Bertrand, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999, also founded the Give Love Give Life organization with Trudell; their objective was to raise public consciousness about ovarian and other gynecological cancers through music. The first Give Love Give Life concert was held in February 2004 at The Roxy in West Hollywood. Bertrand and Trudell worked to organize strategic support in the music and film community for Johanna's Law, legislation to fund national outreach and education about the signs and symptoms of gynecological cancers, which was signed into law on January 12, 2007. To benefit the Women's Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a second Give Love Give Life concert was held at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles in February 2007, a month after Bertrand died from cancer.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Bertrand married actor Jon Voight on December 12, 1971. Following a miscarriage in 1972, they had two children, James Haven and Angelina Jolie. Both children became actors. Bertrand and Voight separated in 1976, publicly citing Voight's adultery. Bertrand filed for divorce in 1978, which was finalized in 1980.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Following her legal separation from Voight, Bertrand began a relationship with documentary filmmaker Bill Day. They lived together for eleven years but never married. During her later life, Bertrand was in a relationship with activist and musician John Trudell.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: At the time of her death, Bertrand had three grandchildren by her daughter. Another granddaughter, who was born the following year, was given the middle name "Marcheline" in her honor.


title: Marcheline Bertrand

text: Toward the end of her life, Bertrand preferred her privacy and did not grant interviews. After a nearly eight-year battle with ovarian and breast cancer, she died aged 56 on January 27, 2007, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in the company of her children. Bertrand's mother and sister also died of cancer. Her daughter explained, "My grandmother also died young; so, my mother always thought it could happen to her."


title: Batman: Arkham

text: Batman: Arkham is a series of action-adventure video games based on the DC Comics character Batman, developed by Rocksteady Studios and WB Games Montréal, and published originally by Eidos Interactive and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The franchise consists of four main installments and an upcoming spin-off, along with four smaller titles for mobile devices, a virtual reality , and tie-in comic books and an . The continuity established by the games is often referred to as the Arkhamverse.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: Eidos had obtained the rights to make a Batman game from Warner Bros. in early 2007 and approached Rocksteady. The first two games in the series, "" and "", were written by veteran Batman writer Paul Dini and featured voice actors Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their roles as Batman and the Joker, respectively, from the DC Animated Universe (DCAU). Conroy and Hamill returned to voice their characters in the fourth main installment of the series, "". Additional voice actors who reprised their characters from the DCAU include Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn in "Batman: Arkham Asylum" and Robert Costanzo and CCH Pounder as Harvey Bullock and Amanda Waller in "", respectively.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: The main games in the "Batman: Arkham" series have been met with positive commercial success and critical acclaim, with praise for their narratives, voice acting, world design, graphics, and gameplay. The games have collectively sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: "", the first game in the series, was written by veteran "Batman" writer Paul Dini and developed by Rocksteady. The game takes place entirely on Arkham Island, which houses the eponymous Arkham Asylum, home of some of Batman's most notorious foes. In the main storyline, Batman must once again stop his archenemy, the Joker, who has instigated an elaborate plot to seize control of Arkham and trap Batman on the island, while threatening Gotham City with hidden bombs. While fighting through the Asylum's inmates and attempting to restore order, Batman learns that the Joker has gained possession of a large quantity of Titan, an experimental chemical based on Venom, the drug used by Bane to enhance his powers, and must destroy it before the Joker can use it for his nefarious schemes. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill respectively voice Batman and the Joker in the game, reprising their roles from the DC Animated Universe.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: After its initial release, "Arkham Asylum" received downloadable content (DLC) that added new maps to the game's challenge mode, as well as the Joker as a playable character (albeit only on the PlayStation 3 and "Return to Arkham" versions).


title: Batman: Arkham

text: "" is the sequel to "Arkham Asylum" and features a bigger cast of characters and a story again written by Paul Dini, along with Paul Crocker and Sefton Hill. Set 18 months after "Arkham Asylum", the game sees Bruce Wayne incarcerated within Arkham City, a new super-prison based in the decaying urban slums of Gotham City, established by former Arkham Asylum warden and current Gotham mayor Quincy Sharp. While contending with various inmates taking advantage of Arkham City's lawlessness, Batman must uncover the secret behind a sinister scheme, code-named "Protocol 10", orchestrated by the facility's warden, Hugo Strange. At the same time, the Joker is slowly dying due to the unstable properties of the Titan formula in his blood, and infects Batman with the same disease to force him to find a cure. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprise their respective roles as Batman and the Joker.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: "Arkham City" introduces side missions to the series, each focusing on different villains whose schemes Batman must thwart. It also features DLC that adds Catwoman as a playable character, along with her own campaign that runs parallel with the main story. In addition to Batman and Catwoman, the game's challenge mode also features Nightwing and Robin as playable characters. Another DLC, titled "Harley Quinn's Revenge", adds a second campaign, set after the main story, in which Robin must rescue Batman after he is captured by a vengeful Harley Quinn in Arkham City.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: "" is a prequel to the series, taking place eight years before the events of "Arkham Asylum". It was developed by WB Games Montréal and written by "Assassin's Creed" and "Prince of Persia" writers Corey May and Dooma Wendschuh. The game is the first in the series to feature multiplayer gameplay, developed by Splash Damage. The story follows a younger, less refined, and less experienced Batman, who has a bounty placed on his head by Black Mask, drawing eight of the world's deadliest assassins to Gotham City on Christmas Eve. While attempting to bring Black Mask to justice, Batman must also contend with the police, who want to apprehend him for his vigilantism, and other villains taking advantage of the chaos in Gotham. The plot features key moments in Batman's career, such as his first encounter with the Joker, and the beginning of his partnership and friendship with Jim Gordon. "Arkham Origins" features roughly the same setting as "Arkham City"—Old Gotham—but with several changes to reflect the different time period, as the area has yet to be transformed into Arkham City. The setting also incorporates a new area of the city, called New Gotham, located in the south, and the Batcave. Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker voice Batman and the Joker, respectively, replacing Conroy and Hamill from the previous two games.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: Like its predecessors, the game features DLC that adds new challenge maps and costumes for Batman, as well as Bruce Wayne and Deathstroke as playable characters in the challenge mode. The "Cold, Cold Heart" DLC adds a new story-driven campaign, set a week after the events of the main story, on New Year's Eve; it depicts Batman's first encounter with Mr. Freeze, borrowing heavy inspiration from the "" episode "".


title: Batman: Arkham

text: "" is the sequel to "Arkham City" and the biggest installment in the series. Intended to be the final "Batman: Arkham" game, it was developed once again by Rocksteady, and released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows on June 23, 2015. Set nine months after the events of "Arkham City", the game sees the return of the villain Scarecrow, who forces a citywide evacuation in Gotham and unites several of Batman's greatest villains in an attempt to destroy the Dark Knight once and for all. Scarecrow is aided by the mysterious Arkham Knight, who has a personal vendetta against Batman and seems to know all of his secrets. Although aided by several allies, Batman's quest to stop the villains is hindered by the Joker, who, despite his death in "Arkham City", lives on as a hallucination in Batman's mind and is slowly taking over his body. "Arkham Knight" is set in Uptown Gotham, which is located west of "City" and "Origins"' Old and New Gotham, and comprises three main islands: Bleake Island, Miagani Island, and Founders' Island. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprise their roles as Batman and the Joker, respectively.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: DLC released for the game includes four side missions centered around the villains Killer Croc, Ra's al Ghul, Mr. Freeze, and Mad Hatter; short story-driven missions set both before and after the main story, focusing on characters other than Batman, such as Batgirl, Red Hood, Harley Quinn, Nightwing, Robin, and Catwoman; additional challenge maps; and skins for both the playable characters and the Batmobile (which makes its debut in the series as a driveable vehicle).


title: Batman: Arkham

text: A Suicide Squad game was first considered a possibility following the end of "Batman: Arkham Origins", which featured a post-credits scene in which Deathstroke is asked by Amanda Waller to join the Suicide Squad. In the years after "" released, there were rumors suggesting the studio was working on a Suicide Squad game, but no official announcement was made from the development team or publisher. In December 2016, Jason Schreier from "Kotaku" revealed that the title had been cancelled, and WB Games Montreal shifted their focus to a "Batman: Arkham" soft reboot set several years after the ending of Rocksteady's main storyline and starring Damian Wayne as the new Batman. In April 2017, Schreier reported that even the Damian title was canned and turned into a different Batman game which was revealed to be "Gotham Knights" at the 2020 DC FanDome. As a result, Rocksteady Studios took over as the main developer of the game. Rocksteady was initially rumored to be working on a Superman-themed game, which they later debunked. The game's official artwork was revealed by Rocksteady on August 7, 2020. The first trailer for the game premiered at DC FanDome. On March 23, 2022, Rocksteady announced that the game had been delayed from its intended 2022 launch window to Spring 2023.


title: Batman: Arkham

text: As the game is set in the Arkhamverse, plot threads established in the "Batman: Arkham" series would continue in "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League". The game will feature co-op gameplay and will allow players to choose from four playable characters—Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark. In the main storyline, Brainiac attacks Metropolis and enslaves most of the Justice League with his mind-controlling technology, forcing Amanda Waller to assemble a task force of former Arkham Asylum inmates to stop him.