title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Rare assembled a team of 12, the largest in their history at that point, and development began. Nintendo was skeptical of Rare's approach to graphics, concerned it would make the game unplayable. Early in development, Mayles and other developers presented a demo to Nintendo staff in Japan. One in attendance, the Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi, felt the game "looked too 3D", but Mayles said "Donkey Kong" creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, was supportive and gave Rare his approval. "Donkey Kong Country" was the first "Donkey Kong" game that was neither directed nor produced by Miyamoto, who was working on "" (1995). Miyamoto was still involved with the project and Rare said he provided crucial input.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Nintendo is usually highly protective of their intellectual properties, but was relatively uninvolved with "Donkey Kong Country", leaving most of the work to Rare. Gunn noted that the Stampers worked to shield the team from outside influence. Rare spent 18 months developing "Donkey Kong Country" from an initial concept to a finished game, and according to product manager Dan Owsen, 20 people worked on it in total. It cost an estimated 1 million to produce, and Rare said that it had the most man hours ever invested in a video game at the time, 22 years. The team worked 12–16-hours every day of the week. The programmer Brendan Gunn said that the team was under significant pressure from the Stampers and to finish the game in time for Thanksgiving due to Nintendo's competition with Sega.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Rare drew inspiration from the "Super Mario" series, Mayles citing "Super Mario Bros. 3" (1988) as the primary influence on the level design. Mayles wanted to make a game that was accessible but would flow seamlessly for a skilled player; as such, objects were placed so well-timed players could continually move through a level. Mayles noted that although the concept of speedrunning did not exist at the time, "the way the game was designed definitely supports it". The team designed levels using Post-it Notes; they would conceive a set piece (such as swinging ropes), create every variation they could think of, drew them on Post-it Notes, and pieced them together. Rare featured barrels as a primary game mechanic to pay homage to the original arcade game, and included hidden collectibles like coins and balloons to add depth.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Kevin Bayliss was in charge of redesigning Donkey Kong. He wanted a character that looked believable and could perform animations like pounding his chest. His initial design was blocky and muscular to make Donkey Kong easy to animate, but it became more cartoonish when Nintendo faxed reference material. Some of Bayliss' designs were in the style of his "Battletoads" work, and the final design's eyes came from those of the Battletoads. Miyamoto provided some suggestions, including the red tie, but left the design's specifics to Bayliss.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Diddy Kong originated from Rare's search for a game mechanic akin to "Super Mario" power-up system. Mayles said: "We thought a second character could perform this function, look visually impressive, and give the player a feeling that they were not alone". Mayles conceived Diddy as a redesign of Donkey Kong Jr. Unlike the original Donkey Kong Jr., Rare did not want Diddy to share his build with Donkey Kong, so they based him on a spider monkey and made him agile to give him distinct moves. Nintendo considered the redesign too great a departure and asked it to be reworked or presented as a new character. Mayles felt the redesign suited the updated "Donkey Kong" universe, so he chose to make it a new character. Naming the character was a challenge, and Rare dropped their preferred "Dinky Kong" due to legal problems.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Rare staff spent hours at the nearby Twycross Zoo watching and videotaping gorillas for reference, but found their movements were unsuitable for a fast game, and instead based the running animation on a horse's gallop. They also attempted to record real gorilla noises, but they proved too quiet to be captured by their microphone, so programmer Mark Betteridge provided Donkey and Diddy's voice clips. Rare positioned Cranky Kong as the original Donkey Kong character from the arcade games but avoided mentioning this in the game and marketing materials out of fear that Nintendo would disapprove of the idea, though it was mentioned in the instruction manual. The antagonists, the Kremlings, were recycled from a cancelled Rare game. Rare's initial story was extensive and spanned 15 pages, but Nintendo had it condensed to fit into an instruction manual.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" did not have much scrapped content; Gunn said he only regretted that Donkey Kong walks across dotted lines instead of paths on the world map, which could not be implemented due to time constraints. Reviewing the game for release, Nintendo directed Rare to reduce the difficulty to appeal to a broad audience, reasoning that the secrets would provide sufficient challenge for hardcore gamers. At this point, Miyamoto made some last-minute suggestions, such as Donkey Kong's terrain slap, that were incorporated. Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe flew to Twycross to localise the game with Rare.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" was one of the first games for a mainstream home video game console to use pre-rendered 3D graphics, a technique used in the earlier 1993 Finnish game "Stardust" for the Amiga. Rare developed a compression technique that allowed the team to incorporate more detail and animation for each sprite for a given memory footprint, which better preserved the pre-rendered graphics. Nintendo and Rare called the technique Advanced Computer Modelling (ACM). Rare briefly feared competition from DMA Design's "Uniracers" (1994), which also featured pre-rendered graphics, but the staff was relieved upon learning that the player character was "Uniracer" only element that was pre-rendered.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: The artists began by modelling the characters in NURBS using PowerAnimator and adding textures. They then created the animations and rendered them frame by frame before compressing them for the game. The ACM process was handled by a designated computer that had a proprietary utility similar to Deluxe Paint. Adapting to the cutting-edge SGI workstations was difficult; Gregg Mayles' brother Steve said they had a steep learning curve. The game was Rare's first to require multiple programmers, and they worked with little guidance. To help, Nintendo provided Rare with research material regarding apes, barrels, and caves. The pre-rendered graphics allowed for variety and detail uncommon at the time, and Tim Stamper constantly pushed the team to go further and incorporate weather and lighting effects.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: The ACM process pushed the SNES hardware to its limits; Betteridge said Rare wanted to do everything they could with the hardware similar to what they had done with the NES game "Battletoads" (1991). A single SGI screen took up more memory than an entire SNES cartridge, and Gregg Mayles described transferring the backgrounds into the game by splitting them into tiles as "the bane of the project". Models took hours to render, so the team would leave the computers running overnight. Sometimes, artists would shut down other artists' computers in the middle of the process so they could render their own models. The SGI machines required a massive air conditioning unit to prevent overheating, while the team worked in the summer heat without relief. Programmer Chris Sutherland was responsible for implementing the graphics and found reducing the characters' frames of animation challenging.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: David Wise composed most of the soundtrack. Wise initially worked as a freelancer and assumed his music would be replaced by a Japanese composer because of the importance of "Donkey Kong" to Nintendo. Rare asked Wise to record three jungle demo tunes that were merged to become the "DK Island Swing", the first level's track. Wise was subsequently offered the job to produce the final score. Before composing, Wise was shown the graphics and given an opportunity to play the level they would appear in, which gave him a sense of the music he would compose. He then chose samples and optimised the music to work on the SNES's SPC700 sound chip. Wise worked separately from the team in a former cattle shed, visited occasionally by Tim Stamper.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" features atmospheric music that mixes natural environmental sounds with prominent melodic and percussive accompaniments. Its soundtrack attempts to evoke the environments and includes music from levels set in Africa-inspired jungles, caverns, oceanic reefs, frozen landscapes, and industrial factories. Wise cited Koji Kondo's music for the "Super Mario" and "Legend of Zelda" games, Tim and Geoff Follin's music for "Plok!" (1993), synthesiser film soundtracks released in the early 1980s, and rock and dance music from the same decade as influences, and wanted to imitate the sound of the Korg Wavestation synthesiser. Wise wanted to compose in the style of 1940s jazz but was restricted by the SPC700's limitations; he "used a lot of small samples and made [the soundtrack] very synthesised" to work around them.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Since "Donkey Kong Country" featured advanced pre-rendered graphics, Wise wanted to push the limits in terms of audio to create "equally impressive" music and make the most of the small space he was working with. "Aquatic Ambience", the music that plays in the underwater levels, took five weeks to compose. Wise considers the track his favourite and the game's biggest technological accomplishment in regards to the audio. K. Rool's theme was influenced by the work of Iron Maiden. For the title screen theme, Wise remixed Nintendo's original "Donkey Kong" theme to demonstrate how Donkey Kong had evolved since his debut. Wise said his primary focus was to make the most of the SPC700, and he input the music by hand to save memory. He noted the process was easier than composing for the NES due to the larger number of sound channels.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Eveline Novakovic contributed seven tracks, including the world map theme, as her first SNES project. Novakovic was inexperienced with the SNES hardware and Wise helped teach her as they worked together. She attempted to provide the levels a sense of purpose and drew inspiration from film composers like Alan Silvestri and Klaus Doldinger. Funky Kong's theme was originally written by Robin Beanland. According to Beanland, the track was intended for an internal progress video about another Rare game, "Killer Instinct" (1994), before Nintendo decided to use it in a "Donkey Kong Country" promotional trailer. Beanland said Tim Stamper liked it and wanted to include it in the game, so Wise adopted it.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Lincoln unveiled "Donkey Kong Country" at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, which took place from 23 to 25 June 1994. The unveiling was the finale of Nintendo's conference and did not reveal that "Donkey Kong Country" was a SNES game until the end of the presentation, fooling the audience into believing that it was for the upcoming Nintendo 64. Gregg Mayles recalled the audience was stunned in silence before bursting into applause.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: As one of the flagship games of Nintendo's Play It Loud! promotion, "Donkey Kong Country" was backed by an exceptionally large marketing campaign—"marketing blitzkrieg", as "Hardcore Gaming 101" put it. According to the "Los Angeles Times", Nintendo spent 16 million on marketing "Donkey Kong Country" in America alone; at the time, major games typically had an average marketing budget of 5 million. Marketing materials emphasised the revolutionary graphics—often noting that Rare's SGI workstations had been used to create the "Jurassic Park" (1993) film's dinosaurs—and positioned "Donkey Kong Country" as a direct competitor to Sega's Mega-CD and 32X platforms to remind players it was not for next-generation hardware.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Nintendo sent a promotional VHS tape, "Donkey Kong Country: Exposed", to subscribers of the magazine "Nintendo Power". "Exposed", hosted by comedian Josh Wolf, provides a "behind-the-scenes" glimpse of the Treehouse, the Nintendo of America division where games are tested. "Nintendo World Report" wrote that "Exposed" was "probably the first time most people outside of Nintendo learned about the [Treehouse]" and the promotion allowed players to see the game for themself at home, rather than having to learn about it secondhand from a magazine. "Exposed" also features gameplay tips and interviews with localisers, playtesters, and Tim Stamper.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: In October 1994, Nintendo of America held an online promotional campaign through the internet service CompuServe. The campaign included downloadable video samples of the game, a trivia contest in which 800 people participated, and an hour-long online chat conference attended by 80 people, in which Lincoln, Arakawa, and vice-president of marketing Peter Main answered questions. Nintendo's CompuServe promotion marked an early instance of a major video game company using the internet to promote its products. Nintendo gave away "Donkey Kong" T-shirts as a pre-order bonus, and partnered with Kellogg's for a promotional campaign in which the packaging for Kellogg's breakfast cereals featured "Donkey Kong Country" character art and announced a prize giveaway. The campaign ran from November 1994 to April 1995. Fleetway Publications published a promotional comic in the UK in 1995.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: A soundtrack CD, "DK Jamz", was released via news media and retailers in November 1994, with a standalone release in 1995. It was one of the earliest video game soundtrack albums released in the United States. A promotional, competition-oriented version of "Donkey Kong Country" was sold through Blockbuster Video. Its changes include a time limit for the playable levels and a scoring system, which had been used in the Nintendo PowerFest '94 and Blockbuster World Video Game Championships II competitions. It was later distributed in limited quantities through "Nintendo Power". The competition version of "Donkey Kong Country" is the rarest licensed SNES game; only 2,500 cartridges are known to exist.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: By October 1994, Nintendo was still in fierce competition with Sega and its popular "Sonic the Hedgehog" franchise. "Donkey Kong Country" was released a month after "Sonic & Knuckles" for the Mega Drive. The "Los Angeles Times" characterised the coinciding releases as a battle; both featured company mascots, boasted "Hollywood-sized" marketing budgets, and advertised revolutionary technological advances (lock-on technology for "Sonic & Knuckles" and 3D-rendered graphics for "Donkey Kong Country").


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" was highly anticipated. "Hardcore Gaming 101" wrote: "It was everywhere. You couldn't escape it. It was on the cover of every magazine. It was on gigantic, imposing displays and marquees at Wal-Mart and Babbages... For kids of the era, November 20th seemed like the eve of a revolution". The "Exposed" VHS tape contributed significantly to the hype. "Donkey Kong Country" was expected to gross at least 140 million in the US if it matched sales projections. Nintendo anticipated that it would sell two million copies in a month, an expectation that Main acknowledged was unprecedented but was "based on the off-the-chart reactions we've received from game players and retailers".


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "USGamer" noted that Nintendo, at the time of "Donkey Kong Country" release, faced difficulty to keep the SNES profitable. The fifth generation of video game consoles was on the horizon, the 32-bit prowess of Sony's PlayStation and the Sega Saturn far exceeding the SNES's capabilities. The Nintendo 64 was not due for release until 1996, so "Donkey Kong Country", wrote "USGamer", served as Nintendo's "bluff" to make it seem that the SNES could hold its ground against next-generation hardware.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" was released worldwide in November 1994, two weeks ahead of schedule and around the Black Friday shopping season. It was released in the UK on 18 November, in North America on 21 November, in Europe on 24 November, and in Japan on 26 November. In Japan, the game was released under the title "Super Donkey Kong". "Donkey Kong Country" set the record for the fastest-selling video game at the time: it sold over 500,000 copies within a week, and sales reached one million copies in the US alone in two weeks. In its second week on sale in the US, the game grossed 15 million, outpacing the week's highest-grossing film ("The Santa Clause", 11.5 million) and album ("", 5.2 million). In the UK, it was the top-selling SNES game in November 1994. "Donkey Kong Country" sold six million copies worldwide in its first holiday season, grossing in worldwide sales revenue. Cumulative sales reached 9.3 million copies. Based on available sales figures, it is the third-bestselling SNES game and the bestselling "Donkey Kong" game.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" received critical acclaim and was lauded as a paradigm shift that set new standards for video games. "Diehard GameFan" and "Total!" said it changed expectations for 16-bit and platform games, and "Entertainment Weekly" wrote it "is to most 16-bit games what most 16-bit games are to their Atari forebears. Once you've played it, everything else before it seems like a peewee". "Electronic Gaming Monthly" ("EGM") called "Donkey Kong Country" "one of the few games that is actually as good as the hype", and "Total!" declared it the best game of 1994. "GameFan" said that "Donkey Kong Country" set a new quality standard that many developers would attempt to imitate.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: The visuals were considered the best aspect. Reviewers considered them a major technological achievement, their detail unprecedented for a 16-bit game. "EGM" said that the graphical quality prompted questions about the purpose of 32- and 64-bit hardware. "Total!" said the character animations surpassed those of a Disney film and applauded the parallax scrolling. Several critics said the graphics were the best on available hardware, with "Entertainment Weekly" writing that they were comparable to matte paintings. The soundtrack and audio were also lauded. "Total!" said the music built atmosphere, "Top Secret" wrote the "captivating" soundtrack asserted itself as a masterpiece in its own right, and "EGM" and "Entertainment Weekly" said the audio quality was unprecedented for the SNES and on par with a CD's.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Reviewers praised the gameplay for its variety and depth; "Entertainment Weekly" appreciated that it did not build upon the original arcade game's design. "Total!" described "Donkey Kong Country" as addictive, accessible and exciting, with humour, imagination, puzzles and secrets, that proved there was still potential in the platform game genre. "EGM" and "GameFan" wrote that the game was lengthy and offered plenty of technique, and "GamePro" commended the replay value that searching for bonus stages provided. "EGM" and "GamePro" found searching for bonus stages was challenging, though "GamePro" said it was easy to "breeze through the game" without them and criticised the boss fights as simplistic.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Critics frequently compared "Donkey Kong Country" to the "Super Mario" series, particularly "Super Mario World" (1990). Some considered "Donkey Kong Country" an improvement upon the "Mario" formula. "GameFan" said it would be a worthy successor to "Super Mario World" even without the graphics and "Total!" wrote that it took "Mario" best elements, increased the speed, and presented them better. "Next Generation" felt the gameplay, though good, did not meet the standards of previous SNES games such as the "Mario" and "Legend of Zelda" series and prevented it from being a "typical Nintendo blockbuster". "CVG" wrote that "Donkey Kong Country" was the only SNES game that matched "Super Mario World", but that it would be a conventional platformer without its graphics. It warned that experienced players may find the game, designed for a broad audience, unoriginal.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" received many Game of the Year awards. For "EGM" Best and Worst of 1994, it won Game of the Year, Best SNES Game, and Best Animation; Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong won Best Game Duo. It also received "" awards for Game of the Year, Best SNES Game, Best Action Game, and Best Graphics. "Donkey Kong Country" was the only video game included in "Time" Best Products of 1994 list, coming in second behind the Chrysler Neon, and it became the first game to win the Favourite Video Game Kids' Choice Award at the 1995 Kids' Choice Awards.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: In April 1995, following "Donkey Kong Country" success, Nintendo purchased a 25 per cent minority stake in Rare, which increased to 49 per cent over time. Rare was the first non-Japanese studio to enter such a relationship with Nintendo, making them a second-party developer; Nintendo published Rare's subsequent games and allowed them to expand its staff from 84 to over 250 and move out of the farmhouse to an advanced development site elsewhere in Twycross. Rare was one of the first developers to receive Nintendo 64 software development kits and decided to start spending more time developing fewer games. Nintendo and Rare's partnership produced acclaimed Nintendo 64 games such as "GoldenEye 007" (1997), "Banjo-Kazooie" (1998), "Perfect Dark" (2000), and "Conker's Bad Fur Day" (2001).


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: A proposed Game Boy port of "Donkey Kong Country" was repurposed as a separate game, "Donkey Kong Land" (1995), after the programmer Paul Machacek convinced Rare that it would be a better use of resources and expand the potential audience. Rare began developing concepts for a "Donkey Kong Country" sequel during production, and Nintendo green-lit the project immediately after the success. "", released in 1995, features Diddy rescuing a kidnapped Donkey Kong from K. Rool and introduces Diddy's girlfriend Dixie Kong. "Diddy's Kong Quest" was designed to be less linear and more challenging, with a theme reflecting Gregg Mayles' fascination with pirates. Like its predecessor, "Diddy's Kong Quest" was a major critical and commercial success.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Other teams at Rare used "Donkey Kong Country" technology in the fighting game "Killer Instinct" and "Donkey Kong Land", "Donkey Kong Land 2" (1996) and "Donkey Kong Land III" (1997), which attempted to replicate "Donkey Kong Country" visuals and gameplay on the handheld Game Boy. Following "Diddy's Kong Quest", the "Donkey Kong Country" team split in two: one half began working on "Project Dream", a role-playing game that used the "Donkey Kong Country" technology, and the other on "" (1996). Rare followed "Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!" with "Donkey Kong 64" (1999), the first "Donkey Kong" game to feature 3D gameplay. In 2002, Rare was acquired by Nintendo's competitor Microsoft and the "Donkey Kong" rights reverted to Nintendo.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: In 2000, Rare developed a port of "Donkey Kong Country" for Nintendo's Game Boy Color (GBC) handheld console. It was released in North America on 4 November 2000, in Europe on 17 November, and in Japan on 21 January 2001. The port was developed alongside the GBC version of "Perfect Dark" and many assets, including graphics and audio, were re-used from the "Donkey Kong Land" games. Aside from graphical and sound-related downgrades due to the GBC's weaker 8-bit hardware, the port is mostly identical to the original release. One level was redesigned and another was added. It also adds bonus modes, including two minigames that supplement the main quest and support multiplayer via the Game Link Cable, as well as Game Boy Printer support. The GBC version was a runner-up for "GameSpot"s annual Best Game Boy Color Game and Best Platform Game awards.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Despite its acquisition by Microsoft, Rare continued to produce games for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance (GBA) since Microsoft did not have a competing handheld. It ported "Donkey Kong Country" as part of Nintendo's line of SNES rereleases for the GBA. The GBA version was released in Europe on 6 June 2003, in North America on 9 June, and in Japan on 12 December. It adds a new animated introductory cutscene, redesigned user interfaces and world maps, the ability to save progress anywhere, minigames, and a time trial mode. It features downgraded graphics and sound, the former due to the GBA's lack of a backlit screen. The GBA version sold 960,000 copies and earned $26 million in the US by August 2006. Between January 2000 and August 2006, it was the 19th highest-selling game for a Nintendo handheld console in the US.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: The SNES version of "Donkey Kong Country" has been digitally rereleased for later Nintendo consoles via Nintendo's Virtual Console service. It was released for the Wii Virtual Console in Japan and Europe in December 2006, and in North America in February 2007. In September 2012, the game was delisted from the Virtual Console for unknown reasons, though "Kotaku" Jason Schreier suggested it may have been related to licensing problems with Rare. "Donkey Kong Country" returned to the Wii U's Virtual Console in February 2015 and was added to the New Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in March 2016. It was included in the Super NES Classic Edition, a dedicated console Nintendo released in September 2017, and was released on the Nintendo Switch for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers in July 2020.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country"s visual appeal helped the SNES remain popular in a period of uncertainty for cartridge-based games. Consumers were unfamiliar with 3D graphics at the time. According to "Official Nintendo Magazine," by bringing next-generation graphics to the SNES just 12 days before the PlayStation's Japanese launch, "Donkey Kong Country" persuaded consumers that an immediate upgrade was unnecessary. "IGN" wrote that the game "saved the SNES" and revitalised sales by bringing back lapsed fans. "Donkey Kong Country" also helped Nintendo pull ahead of Sega and win the console wars of the 1990s. Whereas Nintendo continued to release AAA games such as "Donkey Kong Country", Sega had alienated audiences with add-ons such as the Mega-CD and 32X, and its subsequent console, the Saturn, failed.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: The "Donkey Kong Country" series re-established "Donkey Kong" as one of Nintendo's most popular and profitable franchises. "Donkey Kong Country" heralded Donkey Kong's transition from villain to hero; Rare's redesign became his standard appearance, and its gameplay format was followed by sequels. The game inspired an animated series that ran for 40 episodes from 1997 to 2000, and Diddy Kong starred in a Nintendo 64 racing game spin-off, "Diddy Kong Racing" (1997). Following "Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!", the "Country" series went on a hiatus until "Donkey Kong Country Returns", developed by Retro Studios, was released for the Wii on "Donkey Kong Country" 16th anniversary in 2010. A sequel, "", was released for the Wii U in 2014. Wise, who left Rare in 2009, returned to compose "Tropical Freeze" score.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Reviewing the Virtual Console rerelease, "Nintendo Life" felt the visuals were still among the SNES's best, and "Jeuxvideo.com" said they had offered a new depth of realism. "IGN" and AllGame said the visuals remained impressive for the SNES (though "IGN" thought they were no longer as significant a draw), while "GameSpot" thought the graphics rivalled 32-bit consoles. Conversely, "USGamer" said that, though technically impressive, they did not age well, with "cringe-inducing", "paper-thin backgrounds". "Hardcore Gaming 101" agreed, writing that the visuals looked plastic-like, did not hold up well once the novelty of pre-rendering had worn off, and were clearly experimental, even if their detail was admirable. Critics praised the GBC version for attempting to preserve the visuals in spite of hardware limitations, but criticised the GBA version's downgrades, which "IGN" considered detrimental to the experience.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" became divisive in the years following its release. "Eurogamer" wrote that it became popular to dislike it in the early 2000s, and it was often described as one of the most overrated video games. For example, "Vice" wrote that it did not deserve to be considered a classic and, alongside "GameSpy", called its gameplay unremarkable and lacking depth. According to "IGN", critics accused "Donkey Kong Country" of "sacrificing gameplay for the sake of a short-run attention grab and quick impulse sales", which "USGamer" attributed to the "flimflammery of its visuals and the relative mundanity of its actual game design". "USGamer" wrote the game was often criticized as an example of style over substance, with gameplay that was arguably inferior to SNES launch games such as "Super Mario World" and "Super Castlevania IV". "GameSpy" complained that "Donkey Kong Country" overshadowed games such as "Yoshi's Island", which it considered superior.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Nonetheless, "Donkey Kong Country" is considered one of the greatest video games of all time. "USGamer" wrote that the criticism was unfair because it "exudes craftsmanship ... Rare went to great pains to create a consistent, seamless world that managed to convey trompe-l'oeil immersion", something few developers could replicate. Though retrospective reviewers criticised the boss fights, they praised the rhythm, variety, and replay value. "Polygon" said that although some aspects had not aged well, "Donkey Kong Country" remained among the best "Donkey Kong" games and deserved praise for resurrecting the franchise. Its soundtrack is considered one of the best in games, praised for its atmosphere and diversity. "Hardcore Gaming 101" said it was the one element that had unquestionably aged well and contained some of the 16-bit era's most memorable music.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: In the years following its release, rumours spread that Miyamoto disliked "Donkey Kong Country" and found it amateurish, and that he had created the hand-drawn art style of "Yoshi's Island" in retaliation to its pre-rendered visuals. The author Steven L. Kent allegedly quoted Miyamoto as saying that ""Donkey Kong Country" proves gamers will put up with mediocre gameplay if the art is good" in a 1995 "Electronic Games" interview. Kent said that Nintendo's marketing department had rejected "Yoshi's Island" for lacking "Donkey Kong Country" pre-rendered graphics, which had possibly motivated Miyamoto's remark. Miyamoto denied this in 2010, noting he "was very involved in ["Donkey Kong Country"]. And even emailing almost daily with Tim Stamper right up until the end". In 2014, "USGamer" referred to Kent's claims as "seemingly apocryphal".


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" exerted "revolutionary influence", according to "GameSpot". "Kotaku" said its unprecedented graphics represented the future of games and "Nintendo World Report" wrote that it set standards for how platform games could look and play. Sega commissioned BlueSky Software to develop the Mega Drive game "Vectorman" (1995) in response to "Donkey Kong Country" popularity. Many developers imitated the visuals; "IGN" identified the Saturn games "Clockwork Knight" (1994) and "Bug!" (1995) as examples. "USGamer" wrote that few games achieved the same quality and that 2.5D games, such as Crystal Dynamics' "Pandemonium!" (1996), exposed the "illusion upon which ["Donkey Kong Country"] was built". "Kotaku" said "Donkey Kong Country" was an event that could not be replicated in modern times due to the game industry's growth.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: Naughty Dog's founders Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin cited "Donkey Kong Country" as the primary influence on their break-out game "Crash Bandicoot" (1996). "Crash" first functional levels drew upon techniques employed by "Donkey Kong Country", such as steam vents, drop platforms, bouncy pads, heated pipes, and enemies that move back and forth. The pre-rendered visuals inspired other games, including "Kirby Super Star" (1996) and "" (1996), and critics have identified "Donkey Kong Country" references or influence in games such as the Mega-CD version of "Earthworm Jim" (1995), "Sonic Blast" (1996), "Rayman Origins" (2011), "Mekazoo" (2016), and "Kaze and the Wild Masks" (2021). The Australian Broadcasting Corporation credited "Donkey Kong Country" for maintaining the popularity of 2D games and ensuring the development of new entries in the "Mario", "Kirby", and "Yoshi" series.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: The soundtrack was also influential and Wise developed a cult following for his work. Rearrangements of the music appear in "Donkey Kong 64", "Donkey Kong Country Returns", and "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze", and in crossover games such as Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros." fighting series. Its tracks are often remixed, Wise contributing to an OverClocked ReMix album in 2004. "The A.V. Club" wrote that "Aquatic Ambience" alone spawned a "minor cult" dedicated to remixes. The rapper Donald Glover sampled "Aquatic Ambience" in his 2012 song "Eat Your Vegetables"; Wise expressed approval. In 2019, the composer Sam Miller reconstructed the soundtrack after locating Wise's original samples.


title: Donkey Kong Country

text: "Donkey Kong Country" established Rare as one of the leading video game developers and set the standard for its work. It originated conventions characteristic of Rare's later output, including an emphasis on collecting items, visual appeal, and tech demo-like design. Nintendo and Rare's partnership continued until "Star Fox Adventures" (2002) for the GameCube, after which Rare was acquired by Microsoft. The 2019 game "Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair"—developed by Playtonic Games, whose staff includes Rare alumni that worked on "Donkey Kong Country"—was noted for its gameplay similarities to "Donkey Kong Country", though Playtonic's head Gavin Price declined to label it a spiritual successor. "Nintendo Life" also identified similarities between "Donkey Kong Country" and "Kroko Bongo: Tap to the Beat!" (2017), a platform game developed by the Stampers' mobile game studio FortuneFish.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Throughout the history of gloved boxing styles, techniques and strategies have changed to varying degrees. Ring conditions, promoter demands, teaching techniques, and the influence of successful boxers are some of the reasons styles and strategies have fluctuated.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: There are four generally accepted boxing styles that are used to define fighters. These are the swarmer, out-boxer, slugger, and boxer-puncher. Many boxers do not always fit into these categories, and it is not uncommon for a fighter to change their style over a period of time.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: The swarmer (in-fighter, crowder, or pressure-fighter) is a fighter who attempts to overwhelm his opponent by applying constant pressure—taking away an opponent's usually superior reach. Swarmers tend to have very good head movement in order to get inside. Good power, a good chin, and a tremendous punch output are required, resulting in a great need for stamina and conditioning. This style favors closing inside an opponent, overwhelming them with intensity and flurries of hooks and uppercuts in mid-range or turning it into an inside battle where they pummel their opponents from close-range. They tend to be fast on their feet which can make them difficult to evade for a slower fighter; or are great at cutting off the ring with precise footwork. They also tend to have a good "chin" because this style usually involves being hit with many jabs before they can maneuver inside where they are more effective. Many swarmers are often either shorter fighters or fighters with shorter reaches, especially in the heavier classes, that have to get in close to be effective.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Peek-a-Boo — a defense style often used by a fighter where the hands are placed in front of the boxer's face, like in the babies' game of the same name. It offers extra protection to the face and makes it easier to jab the opponent's face. Peek-a-Boo boxing was developed by legendary trainer Cus D'Amato. Peek‐a‐Boo boxing utilizes relaxed hands with the forearms in front of the face and the fist at nose‐eye level. Other unique features includes side to side head movements, bobbing, weaving and blind siding your opponent. The number system e.g. 3-2-3-Body-head-body or 3-3-2 Body-Body-head is drilled with the stationary dummy and on the bag until the fighter is able to punch by rapid combinations with what D'Amato called "bad intentions." The theory behind the style is that when combined with effective bobbing and weaving head movement, the fighter has a very strong defense and becomes more elusive, able to throw hooks and uppercuts with great effectiveness. Also it allows swift neck movements as well quick duckings and bad returning damage, usually by rising uppercuts or even rising hooks. Since it is a defense designed for close range fighting, it is mainly used by in-fighters. Bobo Olson was the first known champion to use this as a defense.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: The out-boxer (out-fighter, boxer) is the opposite of the swarmer. The out-boxer seeks to maintain a gap from their opponent and fight with faster, longer range punches. Out-boxers are known for being extremely quick on their feet, which often makes up for a lack of power. Since they rely on the weaker jabs and straights (as opposed to hooks and uppercuts), they tend to win by points decisions rather than by knockout, although some out-boxers can be aggressive and effective punchers. Out-boxers prefer to fight in mid to long-range where they can lure their opponents and frustrate them with counters and accurate long-range blows. Their swiftness and mobility ensure that their opponents can’t land effective blows, especially since out-boxers rarely make risky moves, like fighting from the inside where it’s the most dangerous. The result may end up with the out-boxer out-landing and winning via decision or getting a knock out after exhausting their opponents and finishing them with accurate blows


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: If the out-boxer represents everything elegant about boxing, the slugger (brawler, puncher) embodies everything brutal about the sport. Offensively, they possess the best balance and knockout capabilities due to their tendency to plant their feet on the ground while fighting. The most elite brawlers can punch with power from every angle. Some have the ability to corner their opponents to ensure that the latter ones fall prey to their devastating punches. When it comes to defense, they make use of grappling techniques to smother their opponents and leave them vulnerable for power-punches. At the same time, they tend to be the masters of defensive movement in the danger zone of being punched. They apply subtle defensive movements, such as slipping and minimal ducking to reduce the damage they take in punching zones..


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Most sluggers lack mobility in the ring and may have difficulty pursuing fighters who are fast on their feet but that is not always the case. Compared to swarmers and out-boxers, sluggers normally throw power shots and rely less on combinations. Sluggers often throw predictable punching patterns (single punches with obvious leads) which can leave them open for counterpunching.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: The boxer-puncher possesses many of the qualities of the out-boxer: hand speed, often an outstanding jab combination, and/or counter-punching skills, better defense and accuracy than a slugger, while possessing slugger-type power. The boxer-puncher may also be more willing to fight in an aggressive swarmer-style than an out-boxer. In general the boxer-puncher lacks the mobility and defensive expertise of the pure boxer. They are the most unpredictable among all 4 boxing styles. They don’t fit in the rock-paper-scissors theory, so how the fight plays out between this style and other styles tends to be unpredictable. A boxer-puncher’s ability to mix things up may prove to be a hindrance to any of the three other boxing styles, but at the same time their versatility means that they tend to be a master of none.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: A counterpuncher utilizes techniques that require the opposing boxer to make a mistake, and then capitalizing on that mistake. A skilled counterpuncher can utilize such techniques as winning rounds with the jab or psychological tactics to entice an opponent to fall into an aggressive style that will exhaust him and leave him open for counterpunches. For these reasons this form of boxing balances defense and offense but can lead to severe damage if the boxer who utilizes this technique has bad reflexes or is not quick enough.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: A southpaw fights with a left-handed fighting stance as opposed to an orthodox fighter who fights right-handed. Orthodox fighters lead and jab from their left side, and southpaw fighters will jab and lead from their right side. Orthodox fighters hook more with their left and cross more with their right, and vice versa for southpaw fighters. Some naturally right-handed fighters (such as Marvin Hagler and Michael Moorer) have converted to southpaw in the past to offset their opponents.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: A switch-hitter switches back and forth between a right-handed (orthodox) stance and a left-handed (southpaw) stance on purpose to confuse their opponents in a fight. Right-handed boxers would train in the left-handed (southpaw) stance, while southpaws would train in a right-handed (orthodox) stance, gaining the ability to switch back and forth after much training. A truly ambidextrous boxer can naturally fight in the switch-hitter style without as much training.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Boxing techniques utilize very forceful strikes with the hand. There are many bones in the hand, and striking surfaces without proper technique can cause serious hand injuries. Today, most trainers do not allow boxers to train and spar without hand/wrist wraps and gloves. Handwraps are used to secure the bones in the hand, and the gloves are used to protect the hands from blunt injury, allowing boxers to throw punches with more force than if they did not utilize them.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Headgear protects against cuts, scrapes, and swelling, but does not protect very well against concussions. Headgear does not sufficiently protect the brain from the jarring that occurs when the head is struck with great force. Also, most boxers aim for the chin on opponents, and the chin is usually not padded. Thus, a powerpunch can do a lot of damage to a boxer, and even a jab that connects to the chin can cause damage, regardless of whether or not headgear is being utilized.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: In a fully upright stance, the boxer stands with their legs shoulder-width apart and their rear foot a half-step in front of the lead foot. Right-handed or orthodox boxers lead with the left foot and fist (for most penetration power). Both feet are parallel, and the right heel is off the ground. The lead (left) fist is held vertically about six inches in front of the face at eye level. The rear (right) fist is held beside the chin and the elbow tucked against the ribcage to protect the body. The chin is tucked into the chest to avoid punches to the jaw which commonly cause knock-outs and is often kept slightly off-center. Wrists are slightly bent to avoid damage when punching and the elbows are kept tucked in to protect the ribcage. Some boxers fight from a crouch, leaning forward and keeping their feet closer together. The stance described is considered the "textbook" stance and fighters are encouraged to change it around once it's been mastered as a base. Case in point, many fast fighters have their hands down and have almost exaggerated footwork, while brawlers or bully fighters tend to slowly stalk their opponents. In order to retain their stance boxers take 'the first step in any direction with the foot already leading in that direction.'


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Different stances allow for bodyweight to be differently positioned and emphasised; this may in turn alter how powerfully and explosively a type of punch can be delivered. For instance, a crouched stance allows for the bodyweight to be positioned further forward over the lead left leg. If a lead left hook is thrown from this position, it will produce a powerful springing action in the lead leg and produce a more explosive punch. This springing action could not be generated effectively, for this punch, if an upright stance was used or if the bodyweight was positioned predominately over the back leg. The preparatory positioning of the bodyweight over the bent lead leg is also known as an isometric preload.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Left-handed or southpaw fighters use a mirror image of the orthodox stance, which can create problems for orthodox fighters unaccustomed to receiving jabs, hooks, or crosses from the opposite side. The southpaw stance, conversely, is vulnerable to a straight right hand.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: North American fighters tend to favor a more balanced stance, facing the opponent almost squarely, while many European fighters stand with their torso turned more to the side. The positioning of the hands may also vary, as some fighters prefer to have both hands raised in front of the face, risking exposure to body shots.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Bob and Weave — bobbing moves the head laterally and beneath an incoming punch. As the opponent's punch arrives, the boxer bends the legs quickly and simultaneously shifts the body either slightly right or left. Once the punch has been evaded, the boxer "weaves" back to an upright position, emerging on either the outside or inside of the opponent's still-extended arm. To move outside the opponent's extended arm is called "bobbing to the outside". To move inside the opponent's extended arm is called "bobbing to the inside".


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Parry/Block — parrying or blocking uses the boxer's hands as defensive tools to deflect incoming attacks. As the opponent's punch arrives, the boxer delivers a sharp, lateral, open-handed blow to the opponent's wrist or forearm, redirecting the punch.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: The Cover‐up – covering up is the last opportunity to avoid an incoming strike to an unprotected face or body. Generally speaking, the hands are held high to protect the head and chin and the forearms are tucked against the torso to impede body shots. When protecting the body, the boxer rotates the hips and lets incoming punches "roll" off the guard. To protect the head, the boxer presses both fists against the front of the face with the forearms parallel and facing outwards. This type of guard is weak against attacks from below.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: The Clinch – clinching is a rough form of grappling and occurs when the distance between both fighters has closed and straight punches cannot be employed. In this situation, the boxer attempts to hold or "tie up" the opponent's hands so he is unable to throw hooks or uppercuts. To perform a clinch, the boxer loops both hands around the outside of the opponent's shoulders, scooping back under the forearms to grasp the opponent's arms tightly against his own body. In this position, the opponent's arms are pinned and cannot be used to attack. Clinching is a temporary match state and is quickly dissipated by the referee.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: All fighters have their own variations to these styles. Some fighters may have their guard higher for more head protection while others have their guard lower to provide better protection against body punches. Many fighters don't strictly use a single position, but rather adapt to the situation when choosing a certain position to protect them.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Peek-a-Boo — a defense style often used by a fighter where the hands are placed in front of the boxer's face, like in the babies' game of the same name. It offers extra protection to the face and makes it easier to jab the opponent's face. Peek-a-Boo boxing was developed by legendary trainer Cus D'Amato. Peek‐a‐Boo boxing utilizes relaxed hands with the forearms in front of the face and the fist at nose‐eye level. Other unique features includes side to side head movements, bobbing, weaving and blind siding your opponent. The number system e.g. 3-2-3-Body-head-body or 3-3-2 Body-Body-head is drilled with the stationary dummy and on the bag until the fighter is able to punch by rapid combinations with what D'Amato called "bad intentions." The theory behind the style is that when combined with effective bobbing and weaving head movement, the fighter has a very strong defense and becomes more elusive, able to throw hooks and uppercuts with great effectiveness. Also it allows swift neck movements as well quick duckings and bad returning damage, usually by rising uppercuts or even rising hooks. Since it is a defense designed for close range fighting, it is mainly used by in-fighters. Bobo Olson was the first known champion to use this as a defense.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Cross-armed — the forearms are placed on top of each other horizontally in front of the face with the glove of one arm being on the top of the elbow of the other arm. This style is greatly varied when the back hand (right for an orthodox fighter and left for a southpaw) rises vertically. This style is the most effective for reducing head damage. The only head punch that a fighter is susceptible to is a jab to the top of the head. The body is open, but most fighters who use this style bend and lean to protect the body, but while upright and unaltered the body is there to be hit. This position is very difficult to counterpunch from, but virtually eliminates all head damage.


title: Boxing styles and technique

text: Philly Shell or Shoulder Roll — this is actually a variation of the cross-arm. The lead arm (left for an orthodox fighter and right for a southpaw) is placed across the torso usually somewhere in between the belly button and chest and the lead hand rests on the opposite side of the fighter's torso. The back hand is placed on the side of the face (right side for orthodox fighters and left side for southpaws). The lead shoulder is brought in tight against the side of the face (left side for orthodox fighters and right side for southpaws). This style is used by fighters who like to counterpunch. To execute this guard a fighter must be very athletic and experienced. This style is so effective for counterpunching because it allows fighters to slip punches by rotating and dipping their upper body and causing blows to glance off the fighter. After the punch glances off, the fighter's back hand is in perfect position to hit their out‐of‐position opponent. The shoulder lean is used in this stance. To execute the shoulder lean a fighter rotates and ducks (to the right for orthodox fighters and to the left for southpaws) when their opponents punch is coming towards them and then rotates back towards their opponent while their opponent is bringing their hand back. The fighter will throw a punch with their back hand as they are rotating towards their undefended opponent. The weakness to this style is that when a fighter is stationary and not rotating they are open to be hit so a fighter must be athletic and well conditioned to effectively execute this style. To beat this style, fighters like to jab their opponents shoulder causing the shoulder and arm to be in pain and to demobilize that arm. But if mastered and perfected it is an effective way to play defense in the sport of boxing.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Robinhood Markets, Inc. is an American financial services company headquartered in Menlo Park, California,<ref name="Re/code 9.23.14"></ref> that facilitates commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrencies via a mobile app introduced in March 2015. Robinhood is a FINRA-regulated broker-dealer, registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. The company's revenue comes from three main sources: interest earned on customers' cash balances, selling order information to high-frequency traders (a practice for which the SEC opened an investigation into the company in September 2020) and margin lending. , Robinhood had 22.8 million funded accounts and 15.9 million monthly active users. In April 2022, Robinhood rolled out a cryptocurrency wallet to more than 2 million users.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Robinhood was founded in April 2013 by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, who had previously built high-frequency trading platforms for financial institutions in New York City. The company's name comes from its mission to "provide everyone with access to the financial markets, not just the wealthy". Tenev noted that executing a trade cost brokerages "fractions of a penny" but they typically charged fees of $5 to $10 per trade, as well as required account minimums of $500 to $5,000.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: The firm showcased its app publicly for the first time at LA Hacks, first published it on AppStore in December 2014 and then officially launched the app in March 2015.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: As of January 2015, 80% of the firm's customers belonged to the "Millennial" demographic and the average customer age was 26. Fifty percent of users who have made a trade use the app daily and 90% use the app weekly. As of 2022, Robinhood had 22.8 million funded accounts and 15.9 million monthly active users.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In April 2017, Robinhood raised $110 million at a $1.3 billion valuation led by Yuri Milner of DST Global, Greenoaks Capital, and Thrive Capital.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: On May 10, 2018, Robinhood closed a $363 million Series D financing round led by DST Global. , Robinhood raised a total of $539 million in venture capital funding, with the last valuation at $5.6 billion, up from their previous valuation of $1.3 billion.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In February 2018, the company announced that it would be moving its headquarters from Palo Alto to the former headquarters of "Sunset" magazine in Menlo Park.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In May 2019, reports from Bloomberg and other outlets publicized Robinhood's pursuit of an additional $200 million in funding, which could value the company in the $7 billion to $10 billion range. In November 2019, Robinhood announced its expansion to the United Kingdom.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: During the 2020 stock market crash, Robinhood trading increased. The subsequent market rise was partially attributed to Robinhood traders, but a study indicated that Robinhood traders had little daily impact on major shares.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In May 2020, it was announced that Robinhood had raised $280 million in venture funding at a pre-money valuation of $8.3 billion led by Sequoia Capital, and 3 months later, the company announced a $200 million Series G funding round from a new investor, D1 Capital Partners, on August 17.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In late June 2021, Robinhood was fined $57 million by the FINRA and has been ordered to pay $13 million in restitution to clients affected by outages and misleading communications in March 2020. This was the largest-ever FINRA penalty in the history of the organization.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: The company went public on the Nasdaq on July 29, 2021, under the stock ticker HOOD. The opening price was $38, but dropped shortly afterwards to a low of $33.35 before starting to recover, reaching an all time high at $85. Subsequently, it fell sharply again after facing growing regulatory uncertainty, plunging on Q3 earnings and disclosing that a security breach affected 7 million customers. On 1 December 2021 the stock price reached all time lows below $25 and had dropped 70% over the last four months. This rout was a boon to short-sellers of the stock.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Robinhood's further decline was highlighted in its 2022 layoffs, which gained widespread media attention. The first wave of major layoffs occurred in April, with the company cutting its workforce by 9%. More significant were Robinhood's layoff announcement released simultaneously with its 2022 Q2 earnings on August 2, in which Tenev announced the company would layoff 23% of its workforce, mostly in operations, marketing and program management. From January to August 2022, Robinhood's stock has shed 48% of its value.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In August 2022, Robinhood's cryptocurrency division was fined $30 million by the New York State Department of Financial Services for allegedly violating anti-money-laundering and cybersecurity regulations, in the department's first crypto enforcement action.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In May 2022, FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research, disclosed a 7.6% share in Robinhood. According to anonymous sources cited by Reuters in November 2022, Alameda used Robinhood shares as part of its collateral for a transfer of at least $4 billion from FTX.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Robinhood's original product was commission-free trades of stocks and exchange-traded funds. In February 2016, Robinhood introduced instant deposits, crediting users instantly for deposits up to $1,000; previously, funds took three days to appear via ACH transfer. In September 2016 they launched Robinhood Gold, a premium subscription plan that offers up to $50,000 in instant deposits, margin trading, and more market analytics. As of February 2017, the company had executed over $30 billion in trades. In August 2017, the company began offering free stocks in exchange for referring new users. In December 2017, options trading was introduced. Services not offered include retirement accounts, mutual funds and bonds.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Robinhood typically only supports trading stocks and ETFs listed on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange, and normally does not support over-the-counter securities such as those traded on OTC Markets. In August 2018, Robinhood introduced support for American depositary receipts, adding 250 highly searched international stocks. Robinhood has prohibited its users from purchasing some high-risk penny stocks, such as banning purchases of Helios and Matheson Analytics, the owner of MoviePass, in August 2018.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In October 2019, several major brokerages such as E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, and Charles Schwab announced in quick succession they were eliminating trading fees. Competition with Robinhood was cited as a reason. Charles R. Schwab, however, said that it was within his brokerage's intentions to eventually eliminate trading fees, as the firm had historically been a discount broker. Support for purchasing fractional shares and automatic dividend reinvestment was introduced in December 2019. Automatic recurring investments were introduced in May 2020. Access to initial public offering (IPO) shares was introduced in May 2021.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In March 2022, Robinhood announced it was adding four additional hours to extended trading for clients. In a push to eventually provide 24/7 equities trading, Robinhood said it will be available from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM ET. In May 2022, Robinhood announced the launch of a stock lending program, allowing users to give Robinhood permission to lend out any fully paid stocks in their portfolio.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: On January 25, 2018, Robinhood announced a waitlist for commission-free cryptocurrency trading. By the end of the first day, the waitlist had grown to more than 1,250,000. Robinhood began offering trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum to users in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Montana in February 2018. In May 2018, Robinhood expanded its trading platform to Wisconsin and New Mexico. By 2021, cryptocurrency trading was available in every state except Hawaii and Nevada.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Robinhood later added trading for Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Ethereum Classic and Litecoin. In September 2021, automatic recurring investments was introduced and Robinhood launched a waitlist for cryptocurrency wallets. CEO Vladamir Tenev stated that Robinhood may add more coins, saying, "We feel very very good about the coins that we’re currently listing on our platform and any new coins that we add we want to feel equally, if not more good." In April 2022, Robinhood announced that it had rolled out cryptocurrency wallets to every eligible person on its waitlist of over 2 million customers, and added trading for Shiba Inu, Solana, Compound, Chainlink and Polygon. Also in April 2022, the company announced integration of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network to enable faster transactions involving the cryptocurrency.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In June 2018, it was reported that Robinhood was in talks to obtain a U.S. banking license, with a spokesperson from the company claiming the company was in "constructive" talks with the U.S. OCC. In December 2018, Robinhood announced checking and savings accounts, with debit cards issued by Ohio-based Sutton Bank would be available in early 2019. Robinhood claimed the accounts would have a 3% annual interest rate; at the time of the announcement, the highest interest rate on a savings account from a licensed bank was 2.36%. Robinhood initially claimed the accounts would be SIPC insured, which the SIPC denied. The products were rebranded as "Cash Management" the next day. In January 2019, the waitlist and sign-up page were removed from the app.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: A Cash Management feature was announced in October 2019, with FDIC insurance from various partner banks and an annual 2.05% interest rate, though lowered before launch to 1.8% after a federal rate cut. The feature launched in December 2019. In March 2022, Robinhood launched the Robinhood Cash Card, a debit card that allows users to automatically invest in assets like stocks and crypto when spending money. With the launch of the Cash Card, the company retired its Cash Management debit card.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Bloomberg News reported in October 2018 that Robinhood had received almost half of its revenue from payment for order flow. The company later confirmed this on its corporate website when asked by CNBC. "The Wall Street Journal" found that Robinhood "appears to be taking more cash for orders than rivals," by up to a 60-to-1 ratio, according to its regulatory filings.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Robinhood $1.25 million in December 2019 for failing to ensure that its customers received the best price for orders. All of Robinhood's trades between October 2016 and November 2017 were routed to companies that paid for order flow, and the company did not consider the price improvement which may have been obtained through other market makers. Robinhood was sued in a class-action law suit in December 2020 for failing to disclose that a large portion of its revenue relied on payment for order flow.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In July 2019, Robinhood admitted to storing customer passwords in cleartext and in readable form across their internal systems, according to emails it sent to the affected customers. Robinhood declined to say how many customers were affected by the error and claims that it did not find any evidence of abuse. However, in 2020, the firm acknowledged that almost 2,000 Robinhood Markets accounts were compromised in the hack and that the hackers had siphoned off customer funds — a sign that the attacks were more widespread than was previously known, and not forthcoming originally by Robinhood.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In early November 2021 the company announced that about 5 million customers had their email addresses stolen by hackers via a voice phishing scheme. Another 2 million customers's full names were also taken. Three hundred customers had more extensive personal information taken. It is believed that the hacker "pompompurin" who was behind the 2021 FBI email hack was responsible for the breach.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: In November 2019, a user on the WallStreetBets subreddit shared a glitch that allowed Robinhood Gold users to borrow unlimited funds via selling covered calls where the shares had been bought using leverage, and the premium from the call was used to access additional leverage to buy more shares in order to sell more calls and so on. The loophole was closed shortly thereafter and the accounts that exploited it were suspended, but not before some accounts recorded six figure losses by using what WallStreetBets users dubbed the "infinite money cheat code."


title: Robinhood Markets

text: On Monday, March 2, 2020, Robinhood suffered a systemwide, all-day outage during the largest daily point gain in the Dow Jones' history, preventing users from performing most actions on the platform, including opening and closing positions. During this outage the S&P 500 climbed more than 4.6 percent. Robinhood users postulated that the outage was the result of a coding error regarding leap year handling for Saturday, February 29, 2020. Robinhood denied these claims. Robinhood said that they will offer compensation on a case-by-case basis. Robinhood experienced another major systemwide outage on March 9. Robinhood is currently facing three lawsuits due to outages in March 2020.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Robinhood faced controversy in June 2020 after University of Nebraska student Alexander E. Kearns committed suicide after seeing a negative cash balance of in his Robinhood margin trading account. It was later discovered that this was a temporary negative balance due to unsettled trading activity. In his suicide note, Kearns, who was 20 years old at the time of his death, accused Robinhood of allowing him to pile on too much risk. In a press release, Robinhood promised considering additional criteria and education for customers seeking level 3 options authorization. Kearns' family filed and later settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the company.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: On September 2, 2020, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that Robinhood was under SEC investigation for failing to fully disclose selling clients' orders to high-speed trading firms, with a potential $10 million-plus fine. Robinhood paid $65 million to settle the SEC investigation on December 17, 2020.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: On December 16, 2020, the Securities Division of the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth filed an administrative complaint alleging violation of state securities laws by "marketing itself to Massachusetts investors without regard for the best interests of its customers and failing to maintain the infrastructures and procedures necessary to meet the demands of its rapidly growing customer base." As a result of their gamified interface allowing new investors to participate in short selling and advanced derivatives trading (i.e. options), the Massachusetts Securities Division contended that Robinhood exploits novice investors, since these types of trades are usually considered "out of bounds" for new investors due to the high risk involved in them. In March 2022, Suffolk County Superior Court declared that the new fiduciary duty rule underlying parts of the case was invalid. The decision did not negate all enforcement action from state regulators, which could still pursue some claims against the company.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: On January 28, 2021, Robinhood and other retail brokers, including Webull, restricted the trading of certain stocks following an effort by users of r/wallstreetbets subreddit to drive up their price. Robinhood restricted trading in these stocks in order to meet collateral requirements at their clearinghouse, the National Securities Clearing Corporation. This decision attracted condemnation from internet users on the subreddit and on Twitter, as well as politicians. The House Committee on Financial Services questioned Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev during a hearing on February 18, 2021.


title: Robinhood Markets

text: Following the controversy, the app suffered an influx of one-star reviews on the Google Play app store. Google deleted at least 100,000 such reviews, calling them "coordinated or inorganic". However, after another round of negative reviews on the app dropping it to a 1.1-star rating, Google confirmed that the new reviews do not violate Google policies and will not be removed. Protesters also showed up outside Robinhood headquarters in Menlo Park, California, at the Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters in Washington, D.C., and the New York Stock Exchange. On January 28, a class-action lawsuit against Robinhood for alleged market manipulation was filed in the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit alleges that the app “purposefully, willfully, and knowingly removing the stock ‘GME’ from its trading platform in the midst of an unprecedented stock rise [...] deprived retail investors of the ability to invest in the open-market and manipulating the open-market.” Later that day, the company announced that it would reallow limited buys of the stocks on January 29.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Blockers is a 2018 American sex comedy film directed by Kay Cannon in her directorial debut and written by Brian and Jim Kehoe, and starring John Cena, Leslie Mann, and Ike Barinholtz with supporting roles by Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan, Gideon Adlon, Graham Phillips, Miles Robbins, Jimmy Bellinger, Colton Dunn, Sarayu Blue, Gary Cole, Gina Gershon, June Diane Raphael, and Hannibal Buress. It tells the story of a trio of parents who try to stop their respective daughters from losing their virginity on prom night. The title of the film is a reference to the act of "cockblocking", with marketing materials displaying a rooster (also known as a cock) above the title.


title: Blockers (film)

text: The film premiered at South by Southwest on March 10, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 6, 2018, by Universal Pictures. It grossed $94 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its "humor and performances", as well as for "intelligence and empathy" not often found in the genre.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Single mother Lisa Decker drops off her young daughter, Julie, for her first day of kindergarten. She watches on as Julie is befriended by two other girls, Kayla and Sam. Kayla's father Mitchell and Sam's father Hunter introduce themselves and become close friends after seeing the bond between their children.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Twelve years later, Julie shares with Kayla and Sam that she plans to lose her virginity to her boyfriend Austin at prom. Kayla pledges to do so as well, though on a casual basis with her lab partner, Connor. Sam, a closeted lesbian unsure about her feelings, also joins the pact and arranges to attend the prom with the harmless Chad.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Lisa throws a pre-party for the parents and kids. The girls then head to the prom, texting each other about their sex pact. The three parents hear Julie's laptop and intercept the messages. Hunter deciphers their emoji codes and uncovers their plan. Lisa and Mitchell rush to stop their daughters; Hunter tries to dissuade them from interfering and shares his intuition that Sam is gay, but upon seeing her force herself to kiss Chad, he joins them to stop her from doing something she doesn't want to do.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Having been told that the after-party would be at Austin's house, the parents go there but find only Austin's parents Ron and Cathy engaging in sex games. Ron reveals that the after-party is at a lake house but refuses to give the address. The trio realizes that Mitchell's wife Marcie may have it and return to his house. They retrieve the address against Marcie's wishes, who supports their daughter's right to privacy, but are unable to catch them when the cops show up.


title: Blockers (film)

text: As the group struggles to track down their daughters, it becomes clear that each parent has their own motivation: Mitchell is in denial over his daughter growing up, Hunter feels guilty for neglecting Sam during his bitter separation from her mother, who cheated on him, and Lisa is struggling to let go of her only child and is offended by Julie's plans to go to distant UCLA with Austin rather than a closer college she wanted; this point is proven when an angry Julie reveals she's only going to UCLA to get away from Lisa's clingyness.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Knowing that Austin and Ron have been texting, the parents return to Ron's house, intending to grab his phone. After barging in on the couple playing a blindfold sex game, Hunter is forced to go along with it as Mitchell grabs the phone, which reveals that the girls are at a hotel. There a drunk Sam goes to bed with Chad but decides she does not want to have sex. Kayla and Connor go off together, but she also changes her mind and they limit their intimacy to Connor performing oral sex on Kayla.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Mitch finds Kayla with Connor and throws him against the wall, infuriating Kayla. Mitch confesses his struggles, his good intentions ultimately making amends with Kayla. Hunter finds Sam and they also share a tender moment, where he reveals that a good night was the best he could give her in return for his neglect. Sam comes out to her father, who is deeply moved at being the first person she told. Lisa sneaks into Julie and Austin's room and, realizing how much they clearly love each other, leaves unnoticed. Sam comes out to Julie and Kayla, who embrace her and affirm their lifelong friendships. They leave Sam with her crush Angelica who shares a romantic kiss with her. Mitch, Lisa and Hunter acknowledge their own friendships have been strengthened and drink to their daughters' futures.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Three months later, Sam, Kayla, Julie and Conor ready to drive to California. As they leave, Lisa starts receiving the girls' group text, filled with plans to use drugs and have unprotected sex. The three parents run for the car only for the girls to text that it was a prank, and a final "I love you" to them.


title: Blockers (film)

text: In a post-credits scene, Kayla walks in on Mitchell and Marcie playing a version of Austin's parents' blindfold sex game and the three scream in shock.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on May 2, 2017, in Atlanta, Georgia. During filming, Ike Barinholtz suffered a neck injury while performing a falling stunt.


title: Blockers (film)

text: "Blockers" was released by Universal Pictures on April 6, 2018. The film was originally produced under the name "The Pact", referring to the girls' agreement to lose their virginity.


title: Blockers (film)

text: "Blockers" grossed $60.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $33.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $94 million, against a production budget of $21 million.


title: Blockers (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "Blockers" was released alongside "A Quiet Place", "Chappaquiddick" and "The Miracle Season", and was projected to gross $16–20 million from 3,379 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $7.8 million on its first day (including $1.5 million from Thursday night previews). It went on to debut to $20.6 million, finishing third, behind "A Quiet Place" ($50 million) and "Ready Player One" ($25.1 million). In its second weekend the film dropped 47.6% to $10.8 million, finishing fourth.


title: Blockers (film)

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""Blockers" puts a gender-swapped spin on the teen sex comedy – one elevated by strong performances, a smartly funny script, and a surprisingly enlightened perspective." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 76% overall positive score.


title: Blockers (film)

text: Brian Lowry of "CNN.com" found that "the movie gets by on sheer energy" and praised director Kay Cannon for creating "some truly blue sequences and sight gags that yield explosive laughs [and] largely compensate for the arid patches, as do the warm/fuzzy exchanges, which smartly play off the idea of raising your children and then trusting them enough to let go."


title: Blockers (film)

text: Describing "Blockers" as "absurd and funny", Amy Nicholson of "Uproxx" favorably compared screenwriters Brian and Jim Kehoe to "American Pie" directors Chris and Paul Weitz as "brothers trying to do right by the sexual politics of the time."


title: Blockers (film)

text: Joshua Rothkopf of "Time Out" gave the film four out of five stars, calling it "a wonderfully crude film... in which the overall vibe is sweet" and a "hilarious, parents'-eye view of teenage sexuality."


title: Blockers (film)

text: Adam Graham of "The Detroit News" called the film "highly dubious and not very funny," and stated that the film "awkwardly tries to balance gross-out gags with tender, warm-and-fuzzy moments. It's a tough trick to pull off, and "Blockers" gets stuffed at every turn."


title: Blockers (film)

text: David Sims of "The Atlantic" stated that the film "works because of the time it invests in its teenaged characters. Each is a delight, particularly the supremely chilled-out Kayla (who decides to lose her virginity largely on a whim) and the more introverted Sam (who knows she’s gay but hasn’t quite figured out how to tell her friends and family)."


title: Blockers (film)

text: Ann Hornaday from "The Washington Post" wrote: "The underlying values of "Blockers" are refreshingly healthy and affirming, proclaimed not only by Kayla's pointedly levelheaded mom (Sarayu Blue)—in a fiery speech about the double standards and the dubious politics of policing female sexuality—but by the girls themselves."


title: Blockers (film)

text: Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two out of four stars, giving credit to the cast but saying they were not given much to do: "Despite the best efforts of reliable comedic veterans Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz, not to mention a game and always likable John Cena..."Blockers" becomes less interesting and less funny as the onscreen hijinks grow more outlandish and stupid and demeaning and crotch-oriented."


title: Blockers (film)

text: Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave the film two-and-a-half stars, saying that it is "the kind of comedy one could stumble upon late at night on HBO and thoroughly enjoy, but it strains under the weight of its tonal inconsistencies in a movie theater."


title: Blockers (film)

text: In 2019, the film was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Wide Release. "Blockers" was among 20 of 2018's 100 highest-grossing films awarded The ReFrame Stamp for recognition in "standout, gender-balanced" films, and also one out of four Stamp recipients with a female director.


title: Blockers (film)

text: The single "Love Myself" by Hailee Steinfeld appears twice in the film. In her review of "Blockers", "Insider" writer Kim Renfro wrote, "The anthem carried throughout the movie, Hailee Steinfeld's 'Love Myself,' drives the message home: 'I love me, gonna love myself, no I don't need anybody else.'"


title: Diana Quick

text: Quick was born on 23 November 1946 in London, England. She grew up in Dartford, Kent, the third of four children. Her father was Leonard Quick, a dentist. She was educated at Dartford Grammar School for Girls, Kent. She was greatly aided by her English teacher, who encouraged her to pursue acting. She became a member of an amateur dramatic society in Crayford, Kent, while at school as well as appearing in many school productions. On leaving school, she went on in 1964 to pursue further studies at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Quick was the first female president of the Oxford University Dramatic Society.


title: Diana Quick

text: Quick spent seven years researching a book about her paternal family's life in India, which was published in 2009 by Virago with the title "A Tug on the Thread: From the British Raj to the British Stage". In her book, Quick reveals that she is of mixed race (Anglo-Indian) descent. Her great-grandfather served 23 years in the army in India before becoming a policeman, and her great-grandmother had to flee from the Indian Rebellion of 1857 after her father was killed.


title: Diana Quick

text: Quick is perhaps best known for the role of Lady Julia Flyte in the television production of "Brideshead Revisited". She received an Emmy and British Academy Television Awards nomination for her work. Quick has also appeared in many theatre, film and television productions. She made her stage debut in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, London, in 1959. She has appeared in many stage productions in the United Kingdom and the United States, including The Rivals (1965), Hedda Gabler (1968), Measure for Measure (1970), The School for Scandal (1972), Hay Fever (1973), The Duchess of Malfi (1975), Saint Joan (1977), The Skin of Our Teeth (1981), and The Good Person of Szechwan (1984). Other stage work has included roles in Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida" and Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera".


title: Diana Quick

text: In 2009, she portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Camilla?", an episode of the television documentary drama "The Queen". Quick had played the same character as a younger woman in Alan Bennett's stageplay "A Question of Attribution", one half of his "Single Spies" double bill. She explained how she prepared for the television role:


title: Diana Quick

text: I think one has to try to be as accurate as possible. You have to wear the right clothes, and in my case I wore a white wig, because I'm playing her as a mature Queen rather than when she was a younger woman. So you try and get the externals as accurate as possible, but then I think it's like any acting challenge, you just try to play the situation as truthfully as you can. So you play the spirit of the thing rather than the documentary reality of it.


title: Diana Quick

text: Quick was married to Scottish actor Kenneth Cranham from 1974 until they divorced in 1978. From 1980 until 2008 her partner was English actor Bill Nighy with whom she worked in David Hare's "A Map of the World" at the National Theatre in 1982. They have one daughter, actress Mary Nighy.


title: Diana Quick

text: Quick was one of several celebrities who endorsed the successful parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas at the 2015 general election.


title: Daniel Davis

text: Davis is best known for portraying Niles the butler on the sitcom "The Nanny" (1993 to 1999), and for his two guest appearances as Professor Moriarty on "", affecting an upper class English accent for both roles. He voices the intelligent Cro-Magnon, Longhair, from the Longhair and Doubledome cartoon shorts from Cartoon Network's "Big Pick".


title: Daniel Davis

text: Davis was born in Gurdon, Arkansas, and grew up in Little Rock. His parents operated a cinema. His first acting job was at the age of 11, when he was cast in a local broadcast program, "Betty's Little Rascals".


title: Daniel Davis

text: Davis graduated from Hall High School in Little Rock in 1963. He graduated from the Arkansas Arts Center with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, followed by work with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and six years with the American Conservatory Theater (ACT). During his time at ACT, he taught acting classes.


title: Daniel Davis

text: Davis first became popular in daytime television playing opposite Beverlee McKinsey as her character Iris Cory's former (and presumed dead) husband, Elliot Carrington, on the soap opera "Texas", a spin-off of "Another World", from October 1980 to December 1981. In 1985, he played a renegade soldier in the Season 4 episode, "The Doctor is Out", of the television series "The A-Team".


title: Daniel Davis

text: Davis played his most famous character, Niles the Butler, on the television series "The Nanny" throughout its run from 1993 to 1999 and in its in 2004 (in cameo flashbacks only). Niles was known for his frequent use of deadpan one-liners, usually insulting character C. C. Babcock, with whom Niles eventually fell in love and married in the series' last season.


title: Daniel Davis

text: His natural accent is Southern American; however, his English accent as Niles was so accurate that many viewers thought he was actually English. He also used an English accent as Professor Moriarty in the "" episodes "Elementary, Dear Data" and "". However, as the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS "Enterprise" in the 1990 film "The Hunt for Red October", Davis spoke with his own American accent. Davis' cartoon voice for the aforementioned Longhair character used an English accent.


title: Daniel Davis

text: In 2000, Davis was nominated for a Best Actor Tony Award for his role in David Hirson's Broadway play "Wrong Mountain". In 2003, he appeared in the Alan Bennett play "Talking Heads". In 2004, he portrayed George Bernard Shaw in the Stephen Sondheim musical "The Frogs". He co-starred in "La Cage Aux Folles" with Gary Beach from November 2004 to March 2005. (Reportedly, he clashed frequently with Beach and others. He was eventually replaced by Robert Goulet.)


title: Daniel Davis

text: In 2002, Davis guest-starred on the television series "Frasier", playing Dr. Shafer in Season 10, Episode 8, "Rooms with a View".


title: Daniel Davis

text: Davis was among the group of celebrities lip-synching to the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" on the "Idol Gives Back" episode of "American Idol" on April 25, 2007. He appeared briefly in the 2006 film "The Prestige", directed by Christopher Nolan.


title: Daniel Davis

text: In July 2008, he portrayed King Lear at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, under the direction of Bonnie J. Monte. That year he also guest-starred on the television series "Ugly Betty".


title: Daniel Davis

text: In November 2010, Davis was part of the Celebrity Autobiography series at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, Texas. He performed along with fellow "Nanny" alum Lauren Lane and "Ugly Betty" alum Michael Urie.


title: Daniel Davis

text: In December 2010, he appeared on "The Fran Drescher Show" through Skype. In 2012, he recorded the audiobook of the Star Wars novel "Star Wars: Darth Plagueis", by James Luceno.


title: Daniel Davis

text: Davis is an established theatre actor. He has appeared in both Broadway and off-Broadway productions in New York, and has appeared at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


title: Daniel Davis

text: Off-Broadway, he played Rubin in "Lake No Bottom" in 1990, the Duke of Buckingham in "The Tragedy of Richard III", Graham in the Alan Bennett monologue "A Chip in the Sugar" for the series Talking Heads in 2003, and he starred as Gaev in "The Cherry Orchard" in 2011.


title: Daniel Davis

text: On Broadway, he played Antonio Salieri in "Amadeus" in 1980, Maurice Montesor in "Wrong Mountain" in 2000, Oscar Wilde in "The Invention of Love" in 2001, Georges in "La Cage aux Folles" in 2004, and George Bernard Shaw in "The Frogs", also in 2004.


title: Daniel Davis

text: In 2007, Davis was a member of the cast of an audio production of the play "Blue/Orange", in which he took the part of Dr. Robert Smith.


title: Daniel Davis

text: In 2016, he appeared on Broadway as Selsdon Mowbray in the Roundabout Theatre revival of "Noises Off" at the American Airlines Theatre.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package or American Rescue Plan, is a economic stimulus bill passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021, to speed up the country's recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. First proposed on January 14, 2021, the package builds upon many of the measures in the CARES Act from March 2020 and in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, from December.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Beginning on February 2, 2021, Democrats in the United States Senate started to open debates on a budget resolution that would allow them to pass the stimulus package through the process of reconciliation which would not require support from Republicans. The House of Representatives voted 218–212 to approve its version of the budget resolution. A so-called "vote-a-rama" session started two days later after the resolution was approved, and the Senate introduced amendments in the relief package. The day after, Vice President Kamala Harris cast her first tie-breaking vote as vice president in order to give the Senate's approval to start the reconciliation process, with the House following suit by voting 219–209 to agree to the Senate version of the resolution.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: On February 8, 2021, the Financial Services and Education and Labor committees released a draft of $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation. A portion of the relief package was approved by the House Ways and Means on February 11, setting it up for a vote in the House. The legislation was also approved by the Transportation and Infrastructure, Small Business, and House Veterans Affairs committees. On February 22, the House Budget Committee voted 19–16 to advance the bill to the House for a floor vote. The bill passed the House by a vote of 219–212 on February 27. All but two Democrats voted for the bill and all Republicans voted against the bill. A modified version passed the Senate on March 6 by a vote of 50–49. The final amended bill was passed by the House on March 10 by a vote of 220–211 with one Democrat voting against it with all Republicans. The bill was signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021, which was the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: By mid-2020, the United States was facing what the National Bureau of Economic Research determined was an economic recession, and by February 2021, 500,000 Americans had died of COVID-19. Over 29 million Americans had tested positive for COVID-19 by March. The United States also faced eviction, unemployment, and hunger crises since the start of the pandemic. Over 30 to 40 million Americans faced a risk of being evicted from their homes by January 2021. Then-president Donald Trump also faced criticism for not having a federal strategy to combat the pandemic, such as nationwide mask mandates on transportation, a mass testing strategy, health guidelines, providing medical-grade protective gear, and having an effective vaccine distribution strategy. On January 20, the day after Joe Biden was inaugurated, he warned that the death toll could exceed 500,000. According to Snopes, Biden inherited a vaccine distribution strategy from Trump, and disease expert Anthony Fauci said that his administration would incorporate some aspects of that Trump-era strategy in its ongoing work.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Prior to the passing of the American Rescue Plan, the CARES Act and Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 were signed into law by then-president Donald Trump in March and December 2020, respectively. Trump previously expressed support for direct payments of $2,000 along with Joe Biden and many Democrats. Even though Trump called for Congress to pass a bill increasing direct payments from $600 to $2,000, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the effort. Additionally, the House voted on the HEROES Act in May 2020, which would operate as a $3 trillion relief package. Despite approval in the lower chambers, the Republican-led Senate would not consider such a bill, citing it to be "dead on arrival". Prior to the Georgia Senate runoffs, Biden said that the direct payments of $2,000 would be passed only if Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won; the promise of comprehensive COVID-19 relief legislation was reported as a factor in their eventual victories. On January 14, prior to being inaugurated as president, Biden announced the $1.9 trillion stimulus package.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Ten Republican senators announced plans to unveil a roughly $600 billion COVID-19 relief package as a counterproposal to President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion plan meant to force negotiations. The senators, including Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Rob Portman of Ohio, told Biden in a letter that they devised the plan "in the spirit of bipartisanship and unity" that the President has urged and said they planned to release a full proposal on February 1. On the same day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a budget resolution co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders as a step to pass the legislation without support from the Republican Party. The next day, Biden met with Majority Leader Schumer and other Democrats regarding the relief package.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: On February 7, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed support for the stimulus package. Yellen said that the funding would help millions of Americans and rejected concerns the colossal spending could cause inflation. Yellen also said that the stimulus package would restore full employment by 2022. On February 9, Biden met with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and other CEOs to discuss the stimulus plan, with Yellen and Harris taking part in the meeting. On February 11, Pelosi said that she expects lawmakers to complete the legislation by the end of February, and for the legislation to be signed into law by March 14.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: On February 16, Biden promoted his stimulus plan in a visit in Milwaukee, Wisconsin during his first official trip as president. He promoted it via a CNN townhall meeting with voters. On February 18, Yellen called for major stimulus checks during an interview on CNBC, and said that stimulus checks would help the economy stage a full recovery.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The United States Senate voted 50–49 to open debate on the resolution, which would allow Democrats to pass the relief package without support from Republicans through the process of reconciliation. The House voted 218–212 to approve the budget resolution. On February 4, a vote-a-rama session began, and the Senate introduced amendments to the relief package, including an amendment in a 90–10 vote that would provide direct relief to the restaurant industry. Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote as President of the Senate for final Senate passage of the reconciliation bill, sending it to the House approval of the changes, and allowing drafting of the relief bill to begin in the committees. The House approved the resolution 219–209, with Jared Golden being the sole Democrat to join all Republicans in opposition to the bill due to a preference for a separate vaccine bill instead of the longer reconciliation process.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: One of the many non-binding budget amendments in the vote-a-rama session was meant to prohibit people who are in the country illegally from receiving pandemic relief checks. The non-binding amendments are not likely to have any effect on the final relief bill. The minority party uses the hundreds of non-binding votes in the hours-long vote-a-rama session to send messages. Under current law, people in the country unlawfully are already prohibited from receiving checks. The amendment passed with eight Democrats joining all Republicans. The amendment received criticism from progressive immigration activist Greisa Martínez Rosas and Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI). The White House later stated that it would continue to support legislation that would give all otherwise eligible individuals with social security numbers stimulus checks.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: On February 8, a draft of the $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation was released by the Financial Services and Education and Labor committees. On February 11, the House Ways and Means Committee advanced a portion of the $1.9 trillion relief package. The legislation was also approved by several other House committees such as the Transportation and Infrastructure, Small Business, and House Veterans Affairs.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: On February 19, the full text of the bill was released. It included an increase in the federal minimum wage, direct checks for Americans making $75,000 or less a year, an extension of $400 federal unemployment benefits and more money for small businesses. On February 22, the House Budget Committee voted 19–16 to advance the bill. The following day, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced that the House vote would occur that Friday. On February 26, the House passed the trillion dollar relief package by a vote of 219–212; two Democrats, Kurt Schrader (OR) and Jared Golden (ME) joined all Republicans in opposition.