title: Kellyanne Conway

text: She has previously held roles as campaign manager and strategist in the Republican Party, and was formerly president and CEO of the Polling Company/WomanTrend.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway lived in Trump World Tower from 2001 to 2008 and conducted private polls for Trump in late 2013 when he was considering running for governor of New York. In the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Conway initially endorsed Ted Cruz and chaired a pro-Cruz political action committee. After Cruz withdrew from the race, Trump appointed Conway as a senior advisor and later campaign manager. On December 22, 2016, Trump announced that Conway would join his administration as counselor to the president. On November 29, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Conway would oversee White House efforts to combat the opioid overdose epidemic.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: After Trump's inauguration, Conway was embroiled in a series of controversies: using the phrase "alternative facts" to describe fictitious and disproven attendance numbers for Trump's inauguration; speaking multiple times of a "Bowling Green massacre" that never occurred; and claiming that Michael Flynn had the full confidence of the president hours before he was dismissed. Members of Congress from both parties called for an investigation of an apparent ethics violation after she publicly endorsed commercial products associated with the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump. In June 2019, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel recommended that Conway be fired for "unprecedented" multiple violations of the Hatch Act of 1939.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: In August 2020, Conway left the administration. This came after months of a public feud between herself and her teenage daughter, Claudia, who lambasted her in the media, politically and personally, and threatened to seek legal emancipation.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was born on January 20, 1967, in the Atco section of Waterford Township, New Jersey, to Diane (née DiNatale) and John Fitzpatrick. Conway's father had German, English, and Irish ancestry, while her mother is of Italian descent; John Fitzpatrick owned a small trucking company, and Diane worked at a bank. Conway's parents divorced when she was three, and she was raised by her mother, grandmother, and two unmarried aunts in Atco. She graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1985 as class valedictorian. In high school, she also sang in the choir, played field hockey, worked on floats for parades, and was a cheerleader. A 1992 New Jersey Organized Crime Commission report identified Conway's grandfather, Jimmy "The Brute" DiNatale, as a mob associate of the Philadelphia crime family; DiNatale did not reside with Conway's grandmother, Conway, and the rest of her family. Conway's cousin, Mark DeMarco, has stated that while in high school, Conway ordered members of the football team to stop bullying him; according to DeMarco, the bullying stopped. Her family is Catholic.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway credits her experience working for eight summers on a blueberry farm in Hammonton, New Jersey, for teaching her a strong work ethic. "The faster you went, the more money you'd make," she said. At age 16, she won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant. At age 20, she won the World Champion Blueberry Packing competition: "Everything I learned about life and business started on that farm."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway graduated "magna cum laude" with a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Trinity College, Washington, D.C. (now Trinity Washington University), where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She earned a Juris Doctor with honors from the George Washington University Law School in 1992. After graduation, she served as a judicial clerk for Judge Richard A. Levie of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.<ref name="ballotpedia.org/Kellyanne"></ref>


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway entered the polling business when she was in law school, working as a research assistant for Wirthlin Group, a Republican polling firm. After graduating, she initially considered working for a law firm, but chose to work for Luntz Research Companies instead. While a student at Trinity College, she had met and become friends with Frank Luntz, the founder, on a year abroad at Oxford University. In 1995, she founded her own firm, the Polling Company. Conway's company has consulted on consumer trends, often trends regarding women. Conway's clients have included Vaseline, American Express and Hasbro.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: In the 1990s, Conway, along with other young conservative women Laura Ingraham, Barbara Olson, and Ann Coulter, helped turn punditry into "stylish stardom" in both Washington and cable television and credited with setting forth Washington D.C.'s "sexual awakening." In another review of the era in the capital, Conway (then known as Fitzpatrick) put it that her "broad mind and small waist have not switched places". Conway, Ingraham, and Coulter were sometimes called "pundettes" and appeared on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect".


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway worked for Representative Jack Kemp; Senator Fred Thompson; Vice President Dan Quayle; Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; and Representative (later Vice President) Mike Pence. She worked as the senior advisor to Gingrich during his unsuccessful 2012 United States presidential election campaign. Another client in 2012 was U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: In addition to her political opinion research work, Conway has directed demographic and attitudinal survey projects for trade associations and private companies, including American Express, ABC News, Major League Baseball, and "Ladies Home Journal". Her firm The Polling Company also includes WomanTrend, a research and consulting division.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway has appeared as a commentator on polling and the political scene, having appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NY1, and the Fox News Channel, in addition to various radio programs. She received the "Washington Post"'s "Crystal Ball" award for accurately predicting the outcome of the 2004 election.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway has been criticized as a spin doctor of high prominence, particularly in her role as cable TV spokesperson for the Trump Administration. She has been lauded as a "Trump whisperer." As part of their long-running feud with Donald Trump, the MSNBC show "Morning Joe" publicly "banned" Conway in February 2017.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: When the 2016 election campaigns got underway, Conway had been acquainted with Donald Trump for years, because she lived in Trump World Tower from 2001 to 2008 and sat on the condo board. Yet she initially endorsed Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican presidential primary and chaired a pro-Cruz political action committee known as Keep the Promise I, which was almost entirely funded by businessman Robert Mercer. Conway's organization criticized Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as "extreme" and "not a conservative". On January 25, 2016, Conway criticized Trump as "a man who seems to be offending his way to the nomination." On January 26, Conway criticized Trump's use of eminent domain, saying "Donald Trump has literally bulldozed over the little guy to get his way."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On July 1, 2016, Trump announced that he had hired Conway for a senior advisory position on his presidential campaign. Conway was expected to advise Trump on how to better appeal to female voters. On August 19, following the resignation of Paul Manafort, Trump named Conway the campaign's third campaign manager. She served in this capacity for 10 weeks, through the November 8 general election, and was the first woman to successfully run an American presidential campaign, and the first woman to run a Republican general election presidential campaign. Since October 2016, Conway has been satirized on "Saturday Night Live", in which she is portrayed by Kate McKinnon. In a January 2017 interview, Conway acknowledged the "SNL" parody by noting that, "Kate McKinnon clearly sees the road to the future runs through me and not Hillary."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On November 10, 2016, Conway tweeted publicly that Trump had offered her a White House job. "I can have any job I want", she said on November 28. On November 24, Conway tweeted that she was "Receiving deluge of social media & private comms re: Romney. Some Trump loyalists warn against Romney as sec of state" with a link to an article on Trump loyalists' discontent for the 2012 nominee. Conway told CNN she was only tweeting what she has shared with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence in private.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On November 28, two top sources at the Trump transition team told media outlets that Trump "was furious" at Conway for media comments she made on Trump administration cabinet appointments. The following day, however, Trump released a written statement stating that the campaign sources were wrong and that he had expressed disappointment at her critical comments on Romney. CNBC reported on November 28 that senior officials in the Trump transition "have reportedly been growing frustrated by Conway's failure to become a team player."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On December 1, Conway appeared with senior aides of the Trump campaign at Harvard Kennedy School for a forum on the 2016 presidential race; the quadrennial post-presidential election forum has been held at the School of Government since 1972. Sitting across from Conway were senior Clinton campaign aides, including Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook. As tempers began to flare, the forum escalated into a "shouting match"; during one exchange, Clinton senior strategist Joel Benenson said "The fact of the matter is that more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump." Conway replied to Benenson while looking at the Trump aides: "Hey, guys, we won. You don't have to respond. He was the better candidate. That's why he won."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: In early December, Conway claimed that Hillary Clinton supporters were making death threats against her. Consequently, Trump assigned Secret Service to protect her. Conway gave up her Secret Service protection in September 2017 due to "reduction in threats."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: According to eyewitnesses, Conway allegedly punched a tuxedo-clad man at an exclusive inauguration ball just hours after Trump was sworn in as president. In an attempt to break up a scuffle, Conway stepped between two men, but they would not break up the fight, and Conway apparently punched one of them in the face with closed fists at least three times.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: It was not immediately clear what triggered the fistfight and a Trump spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: During a "Meet the Press" interview two days after Trump's presidential inauguration, Conway used the phrase "alternative facts" to defend statements made by White House press secretary Sean Spicer regarding the inauguration's crowd size. Conway's phrase reminded liberal-leaning commentators of "Newspeak", an obfuscatory language style that is a key element of the society portrayed in George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984". Soon after Conway's interview, sales of the book had increased by 9,500%, which "The New York Times" and others attributed to Conway's use of the phrase, making it the number-one bestseller on Amazon.com.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: "The Guardian" noted that "[a] search of several online legal dictionaries, however, did not yield any results for the term."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On February 2, 2017, Conway appeared in a television news show interview on "Hardball with Chris Matthews". In order to justify President Trump's immigration ban, she referenced an event allegedly perpetrated by Iraqi terrorists she termed the "Bowling Green massacre". Such an event never took place. Vox suggested Conway was referring to the 2011 arrest of two Iraqi refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Conway stated the next day that she meant to say "Bowling Green terrorists", both of whom had pleaded guilty to carrying out and supporting attacks on American soldiers in Iraq. There was never any suggestion that they had planned to carry out attacks in the United States.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On February 5, 2017, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen argued that, given repeated misstatements of fact, Conway should cease being booked as a guest on television news shows. CNN opted not to book Conway as a guest that day because of what the network said were "serious questions about her credibility."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: The Hatch Act of 1939 states that federal government employees must not advocate their political beliefs while representing a public office. Violating such a law can result in such an employee being removed from public office, but not jailed. Conway has been accused of breaching the act on several occasions.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On February 9, 2017, during an appearance on "Fox & Friends", Conway discussed department store Nordstrom's decision to drop products supplied by Ivanka Trump's business. "Go buy Ivanka's stuff is what I would tell you", said Conway; she elaborated "It's a wonderful line. I own some of it. I'm going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online". Within hours, two organizations filed formal ethics complaints against Conway for violating federal law prohibiting use of a federal position "for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise". Public Citizen asked the Office of Governmental Ethics (OGE) to investigate, saying that Conway's remarks reflected "an on-going careless regard of the conflicts of interest laws and regulations of some members of the Trump family and Trump Administration". The group's president, Robert Weissman, declared, "Since she said it was an advertisement, that both eliminates any question about whether outsiders are unfairly reading into what's being said, and two, it makes clear that wasn't an inadvertent remark". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a similar complaint with the OGE and with the White House Counsel's Office; the group's executive director, Noah Bookbinder, stated "This seems to us to be about as clear-cut a violation as you can find".


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe told "The New York Times" that "You couldn't think of a clearer example of violating the ban of using your government position as kind of a walking billboard for products or services offered by a private individual," adding "She is attempting quite crudely to enrich Ivanka and therefore the president's family." Chris Lu, deputy secretary of labor in the Obama administration, complained to Jason Chaffetz, chair of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, that Conway had violated federal ethics laws, also saying on Twitter that, under Obama, "If we did what @KellyannePolls did, we would've been fired". Richard Painter, chief ethics attorney for George W. Bush, declined to say whether he thought Conway's statements broke the law, but that such actions would not have been tolerated in the Bush administration. "The events of the past week demonstrate that there is no intent on the part of the president, his family or the White House staff to make meaningful distinctions between his official capacity as president and the Trump family business". At the regularly scheduled afternoon press briefing, Sean Spicer told reporters that "Kellyanne has been counseled, and that's all we are going to go with ... She's been counseled on the subject, and that's it." In a direct rebuke to Spicer, Conway tweeted that Trump "likes 'counselor' more than 'counseled.'"


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway's comments drew bipartisan Congressional condemnation. Chaffetz, a Republican, called them "clearly over the line" and "unacceptable". Cummings, a Democrat and the committee's ranking member, called them "jaw-dropping". Both Chaffetz and Cummings wrote the OGE on February 9, 2017, requesting that Conway's behavior be investigated and that the office recommend "suggested disciplinary action, if warranted".


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On November 24, 2017, Walter Shaub, the former director of the OGE, said that he filed an ethics complaint against Conway. He argued that Conway violated the Hatch Act when she criticized Doug Jones, a candidate in the 2017 U.S. Senate special election in Alabama. On March 6, 2018, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC)led by Trump appointee Henry Kernerissued its final report, determining that Conway violated the Hatch Act in two television interviews in November and December 2017.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway continued to make frequent television appearances and comment on political topics. In May 2019, Conway declared: "If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it's not going to work ... Let me know when the jail sentence starts".


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On June 13, 2019, the OSC formally recommended that Conway be removed from federal service, citing multiple Hatch Act violations by Conway since the preparation of its 2018 report, "by disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media". The OSC noted her criticism from February to May 2019 of candidates such as Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Kirsten Gillibrand, and also called her violations "egregious, notorious, and ongoing". The OSC noted that this was the first time they "had to issue multiple reports to the President concerning Hatch Act violations by the same individual". In an interview, Kerner characterized his agency's recommendation as unprecedented, adding, "You know what else is unprecedented? Kellyanne Conway’s behavior."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Due to Conway's status as a presidential appointee, the OSC was unable to take any steps to implement its recommendation, but it was submitted to the President for consideration. The White House immediately rejected the finding and demanded that it be withdrawn by the OSC. Trump said he thought the recommendation was "very unfair, it's called freedom of speech."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On June 26, 2019, Conway did not appear at a hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, leading that committee to issue a subpoena for her. At that hearing, Special Counsel Henry Kerner testified that Conway had been found guilty of two Hatch Act violations in 2018 and 11 in 2019. In comparison, during the eight years of the Obama administration, only two federal employees were found guilty of violating the Hatch Act, with one violation each.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On February 13, 2017, Conway claimed that former national security advisor Michael Flynn had the president's "full confidence". Hours later, Flynn resigned. The following day, Conway claimed Flynn had offered to resign, but White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump had asked Flynn for his resignation. It was then reported that Conway had allegedly leaked negative stories about Spicer to the press.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway came under widespread criticism because her comments about Flynn had been so inaccurate. On February 15, 2017, "Washington Post" columnist Jennifer Rubin said Conway should be banned from future television appearances. "In recent days, George Stephanopoulos and Matt Lauer blasted her directly, essentially calling her a fabulist. Given all that, it would be irresponsible for any news show to put her out there, suggesting she really does not know what is going on at any given moment", Rubin wrote. Also on February 15 the MSNBC news show "Morning Joe" officially banned her from future appearances. The show's primary host Joe Scarborough said the decision to ban Conway from the show was based on her being "out of the loop" and "in none of the key meetings". He added "She's not briefed. She's just saying things just to get in front of the TV to prove her relevance." The show's co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "I don't believe in fake news, or information that is not true... every time I've ever seen her on television, something's askew, off or incorrect."


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: For the week following her Flynn comments she did not appear on any television shows, and it was reported that the White House had sidelined Conway. Denying the report, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told "CNNMoney" that Conway was going to make many appearances during the week, and Conway told CNN journalist Dylan Byers that she would be appearing on Fox News that evening. The week-long absence from television finally ended when she appeared on an episode of "Hannity" during the Conservative Political Action Conference.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway came under criticism when she was photographed sitting on an Oval Office couch with her legs folded beneath hershoes pressed against the upholsteryduring President Trump's meeting with leaders from historically black colleges and universities. Some observers suggested the sitting position was a sign of disrespect and a lack of decorum. Body language expert Patti Wood asserted that Conway's posture was not only rude, but "rather sexual", and a sign that she "doesn't have to follow the rules" because she was "buddies with Trump." Conway later addressed the controversy with Lou Dobbs, saying that she was asked to take photographs of the meeting from a certain angle and that she certainly meant "no disrespect." She also blamed the media for the ensuing furor.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway views herself as a Generation X conservative. Conway is anti-abortion, saying in 1996: "We're pro-life. The fetus beat us. We grew up with sonograms. We know life when we see it." She spoke at the 2017 March for Life, an annual rally protesting abortion and "Roe v. Wade".


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: She does not consider herself a feminist "in a classical sense", saying that she believes the term is associated with being "anti-male" and "pro-abortion", but identifies as what she calls an "individual feminist". Conway has claimed that many feminists fail to accept women who are pro-life and conservative, and has claimed that they "'mainly care about what happens from the waist down... It's an insult. You know, it's [from] the waist up for me – my eyes, my ears, my head, my heart, my mouth certainly.'" She has also claimed that "nobody cared" about her experience with sexual harassment and her Me Too moment because of her political views.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway is married to George T. Conway III, who is of counsel at the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and wrote the Supreme Court brief for Paula Jones during the Clinton impeachment in 1998. The couple have four children: twins Claudia and George IV, Charlotte, and Vanessa. Prior to Trump's presidency, they lived in Alpine, New Jersey. Prior to her marriage, Conway dated the senator and 2008 presidential candidate Fred Thompson.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway's husband George is a critic of Trump; in December 2019 he co-founded the Lincoln Project, which campaigned against Donald Trump's re-election from a conservative perspective. In March 2019, President Trump responded to criticism from Kellyanne's husband George by describing George as a "stone cold LOSER & husband from hell". Kellyanne defended Trump by saying that George Conway is "not a psychiatrist" and that Trump should not be expected to respond when George, "a non-medical professional accuses him of having a mental disorder".


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: Conway's daughter Claudia is a TikTok influencer who became known in 2020, at age 15, for her anti-Trump messages. In July 2020 she said that her parents' marriage had "failed". Claudia identifies as a leftist and liberal, and described her TikTok fan base as "leftist, A.C.A.B. (All Cops Are Bastards), anti-trump, blm (Black Lives Matter)". In August 2020, Claudia Conway announced she was seeking emancipation. In January 2021, she claimed that her mother has been "physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive," posting videos on TikTok appearing to show her mother screaming at and even once hitting her. On January 25, 2021, Conway's official Twitter account shared a topless photo of a girl later confirmed to be Claudia Conway. New Jersey police launched an investigation into the matter. At age 16, Claudia Conway appeared as a contestant on, but was eliminated from, "American Idol".


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: In September 2019, Conway's cousin Giovanna Coia, who was then White House press assistant, married Vice President Mike Pence's nephew John Pence, who worked for the Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: One of the few White House staffers to have had protection from the Secret Service due to various threats, Conway chose "Blueberry" as her Secret Service code name because of associations with the fruit from her youth in pageants and berry picking.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: In a September 2018 interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Conway stated she was the victim of a sexual assault.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: On August 23, 2020, Conway announced her resignation in order to "spend more time with her family," as did her husband George, who announced he had taken time off from the Lincoln Project and Twitter.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: In October 2020, Conway's daughter, Claudia, revealed on social media that her mother had tested positive for COVID-19.


title: Kellyanne Conway

text: In 2005, Conway and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake co-authored "What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live" (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2005; ).


title: Oni

text: An is a kind of "yōkai", demon, orc, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore. Oni are mostly known for their fierce and evil nature manifested in their propensity for murder and cannibalism. Notwithstanding their evil reputation, oni possess intriguingly complex aspects that cannot be brushed away simply as evil. They are typically portrayed as hulking figures with one or more horns growing out of their heads. Stereotypically, they are conceived of as red, blue, black, yellow, or white-colored, wearing loincloths of tiger pelt, and carrying iron kanabō clubs. They are creatures which instill fear and feelings of danger due to their grotesque outward appearance, their wild and sometimes strange behavior and their powers.


title: Oni

text: They are popular characters in Japanese art, literature, and theater and appear as stock villains in the well-known fairytales of "Momotarō" ("Peach Boy"), "Issun-bōshi", and "Kobutori Jīsan." Although Oni have been described as frightening creatures, they have become tamer in modern culture as people tell less frightening stories about them like "Oni Mask" and "Red Oni Who Cried".


title: Oni

text: "Shuten-dōji" has been regarded as the most famous and strongest "oni" in Japan. The legend of "Shuten-dōji" has been described since the 14th century in various arts, traditional performing arts and literature such as "emakimono", "jōruri", "noh" and "kabuki". The "tachi" (Japanese long sword) ""Dōjigiri"" with which Minamoto no Yorimitsu decapitated "Shuten-dōji"' in the legend is now designated as a National Treasure and one of the "Tenka-Goken" (Five Greatest Swords Under Heaven).


title: Oni

text: Depictions of yokai oni vary widely but usually portray them as hideous, gigantic ogre-like creatures with a single horn or multiple horns emerging from their heads, with sharp claws, wild hair, and fang-like tusks.


title: Oni

text: They are often depicted wearing tiger-skin loincloths and carrying iron clubs called . This image leads to the expression , that is, to be invincible or undefeatable.


title: Oni

text: Their skin may have various colors, but red, blue, and green are particularly common. They may sometimes also be depicted as black-skinned, or yellow-skinned.


title: Oni

text: They are predominantly male but can be female. Females becoming oni has been attributed to them being overcome with grief or jealousy.


title: Oni

text: An old etymology for ""oni"" is that the word derives from "on", the "on'yomi" reading of a character () meaning "to hide or conceal", due to "oni" having the tendency of "hiding behind things, not wishing to appear". This explanation is found in the 10th century dictionary "Wamyōshō", which reveals that the "oni" at the time had a different meaning, defined as "a soul/spirit of the dead".


title: Oni

text: The character for "oni", 鬼 () in Chinese also means a dead or ancestral spirit, and not necessarily an evil specter. Accordingly, Chinese (Taoist) origins for the concept of "oni" have been proposed. Particularly powerful oni may be described as "kishin" or "kijin" (literally "oni god"; the "ki" is an alternate character reading of "oni"), a term used in Japanese Buddhism to refer to Wrathful Deities.


title: Oni

text: The "oni" was syncretized with Hindu-Buddhist creatures such as the man-devouring "yaksha" and the "rakshasa", and became the "oni" who tormented sinners as wardens of Hell (Jigoku), administering sentences passed down by Hell's magistrate, King Yama (Enma Daiō). The hungry ghosts called have also been sometimes considered a type of "oni" (the Kanji for "ki" 鬼 is also read "oni"). Accordingly, a wicked soul beyond rehabilitation transforms into an "oni" after death. Only the very worst people turn into "oni" while alive, and these are the "oni" causing troubles among humans as presented in folk tales.


title: Oni

text: Oni bring calamities to the land, bringing about war, plague/illness, earthquakes, and eclipses. They have the destructive power of lightning and thunder, which terrifies people through their auditory and visual effects.


title: Oni

text: Oni have a massive appetite for human flesh and can eat a person in a single gulp. They are said to suck in a human's vital energy and devour her or his flesh. Oni are capable of transforming into both male and female forms at will, and can change from their grotesque form to a handsome man so that they can gain the trust of their victim.


title: Oni

text: According to Chinese Taoism and esoteric Onmyōdō, the ways of yin and yang, the northeasterly direction is termed the "kimon" (, "demon gate") and considered an unlucky direction through which evil spirits passed. Based on the assignment of the twelve zodiac animals to the cardinal directions, the "kimon" was also known as the "ushitora" (丑寅), or "Ox Tiger" direction. One hypothesis is that the "oni"s bovine horns and tiger-skin loincloth developed as a visual depiction of this term.


title: Oni

text: Temples are often built facing that direction, for example, Enryaku-ji was deliberately built on Mount Hiei which was in the "kimon" (northeasterly) direction from Kyoto in order to guard the capital, and similarly Kan'ei-ji was built towards that direction from Edo Castle.


title: Oni

text: However, skeptics doubt this could have been the initial design of Enryaku-ji temple, since the temple was founded in 788, six years before Kyoto even existed as a capital, and if the ruling class were so feng shui-minded, the subsequent northeasterly move of the capital from Nagaoka-kyō to Kyoto would have certainly been taboo.


title: Oni

text: Japanese buildings may sometimes have L-shaped indentations at the northeast to ward against oni. For example, the walls surrounding the Kyoto Imperial Palace have notched corners in that direction.


title: Oni

text: The traditional bean-throwing custom to drive out "oni" is practiced during Setsubun festival in February. It involves people casting roasted soybeans indoors or out of their homes and shouting , preferably by a strong wrestler. This custom has grown from the medieval ritual of or "oni-yarai", a year-end rite to drive away "oni" (ghosts).


title: Oni

text: Regionally around Tottori Prefecture during this season, a charm made of holly leaves and dried sardine heads are used as a guard against oni.


title: Oni

text: There is also a well-known game in Japan called , which is the same as the game of tag that children in the Western world play. The player who is "it" is instead called the "oni".


title: Oni

text: Oni are featured in Japanese children's stories such as "Momotarō" ("Peach Boy"), "Issun-bōshi", and "Kobutori Jīsan".


title: Oni

text: In more recent times, "oni" have lost some of their original wickedness and sometimes take on a more protective function. Men in oni costumes often lead Japanese parades to dispel any bad luck, for example.


title: Oni

text: Japanese buildings sometimes include oni-faced roof tiles called , which are thought to ward away bad luck, much like gargoyles in Western tradition.


title: Oni

text: Many Japanese idioms and proverbs also make reference to oni. For example, the expression (Translation: "A child that does not resemble its parents is the child of an oni.") may be used by a parent to chastise a misbehaving child.


title: Oni

text: They can be used in stories to frighten children into obeying because of their grotesque appearance, savage demeanor, as well as how they can eat people in a single gulp.


title: Oni

text: The oni remains a very popular motif in Japanese popular culture. Their varied modern depiction sometimes relies on just one or two distinctive features which mark a character as an oni, they will always have horns and will sometimes have a distinctive skin colour, but such a depiction might otherwise appear human and entirely lack the fearsome or grotesque features of traditional oni. The context of oni in popular culture is similarly varied, with instances such as appearances in animated cartoons, video games and use as commercial mascots.


title: The King of Queens

text: The King of Queens is an American television sitcom that ran on CBS from September 21, 1998, to May 14, 2007, a total of nine seasons and 207 episodes. The series was created by Michael J. Weithorn and David Litt, who also served as the show's executive producer, and stars Kevin James and Leah Remini as Doug and Carrie Heffernan, a working-class couple living in Rego Park, Queens, New York City. All the episodes were filmed in front of a live studio audience.


title: The King of Queens

text: "The King of Queens" was produced by Hanley Productions and CBS Productions (1998–2007), CBS Paramount Network Television (2007), in association with Columbia TriStar Television (1998–2002), and Sony Pictures Television (2002–07). It was filmed at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California.


title: The King of Queens

text: The ninth and final season concluded with a double-length finale episode in 2007. In May 2017, Kevin James and Leah Remini reunited in the 2016 television sitcom "Kevin Can Wait", which ended on May 7, 2018.


title: The King of Queens

text: The show exhibits undertones of the original 1950s TV production "The Honeymooners", starring Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows. Doug (Kevin James) and Carrie Heffernan (Leah Remini) are a working-class couple living at "3121 Aberdeen Street" in Rego Park, Queens, New York, along with Carrie's father, Arthur Spooner (Jerry Stiller). Doug works for the fictional International Parcel Service (IPS) as a delivery driver, while Carrie works as a secretary in Manhattan, first for a law firm and later for a real estate firm. Their lives are plagued by the demands of Arthur; so much so that they eventually hire Holly, a professional dog walker, to spend time with him as she walks dogs in the park. Doug Heffernan represents the "everyman" with his love of sports, TV, junk food, and his wife . His constant deceit and schemes through various situations leave him humiliated as his plans backfire.


title: The King of Queens

text: Also featured on the show are Doug's friends Deacon Palmer (Victor Williams), Spence Olchin (Patton Oswalt), and Richie Iannucci (Larry Romano), as well as Doug's cousin Danny Heffernan (played by James' real-life brother Gary Valentine). Deacon's wife Kelly (Merrin Dungey) is Carrie's best friend, having met through the relationship her husband has with Deacon Palmer.


title: The King of Queens

text: Most scenes take place in the Heffernans' home, but other common locations include Doug and Carrie's workplaces, the restaurant "Cooper's Ale House", and the residences of friends and family. While locations seen during the opening montage were filmed in areas around New York, the series was filmed in California.


title: The King of Queens

text: The series begins after Doug and Carrie have been married for 3 years, and how they met is somewhat unclear due to continuity issues. In one flashback episode, "Meet By-Product", Doug meets Carrie while he is a bouncer at a nightclub that Carrie attends. However, in another episode, "Road Rayge", Carrie reflects on a song that she says Doug asked her to dance to when they were in junior high school.


title: The King of Queens

text: Centered on the lives of blue-collar, DINK couple Doug and Carrie Heffernan, "The King of Queens" debuted on CBS on September 21, 1998. During its run, it brought in solid ratings (usually ranking in the Top 40, and peaking at #19 in its fourth season) for the most part and was a Monday night staple, competing with shows such as the long-running drama "7th Heaven". In 2003, when moved to Wednesday and scheduled against "The West Wing" and "Nanny 911", it began to drop in the ratings. The final episode aired on May 14, 2007. The series was shot at Sony Pictures Studios' Stage 28 in Culver City, California. The character of Arthur was conceived with Jerry Stiller in mind, but he initially turned down the role. Veteran comedian Jack Carter was then cast and a pilot was shot. Soon afterward, Stiller changed his mind and took the part, which required re-shooting of scenes featuring Carter.


title: The King of Queens

text: "The King of Queens" was partly inspired by the classic television sitcom "The Honeymooners", the characters of Doug and Carrie being loosely based on the Kramden couple, with some similar mannerisms and deadpan expressions. In the 2001 episode "Inner Tube", the show pays homage to "The Honeymooners" as a distraught Doug dreams that he is Ralph Kramden, Carrie is Alice Kramden, and Deacon is Ed Norton. The sequence was filmed in black and white, and the audio quality (including audience reactions) matches a 1950s style.


title: The King of Queens

text: The season one main opening was a simple eight-second sequence which showed the window of a subway train moving past and then quickly stopping at the original show logo, which then peeled off to reveal the names of the show's creators.


title: The King of Queens

text: Starting with season two, the show added a new theme song called "Baby All My Life I Will Be Driving Home to You", which was written by series writers Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, composed by Jonathan Wolff and Scott Clausen, and performed by Billy Vera and the Beaters. An instrumental version was used as the closing theme during season two, but was replaced in season three with a new closing theme composed by Kurt Farquhar.


title: The King of Queens

text: The opening credits from seasons two through nine featured an opening shot of Doug climbing aboard an IPS truck, which then cuts to a long shot of his truck driving past the 111th Street elevated subway station, where the show's logo is digitally placed on the exterior. It then cuts to scenes of Doug, Carrie, and Arthur spending time around Queens, including local landmarks such as the Unisphere and Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. In the season two sequence, Kevin James' starring credit was placed over a shot of the Brooklyn Bridge with the Manhattan skyline, but was edited after the September 11 attacks that felled the World Trade Center. Two short versions of the sequence exist: in original airings where the opening was shortened due to time constraints, and in some syndicated airings the opening featured the shot of the IPS truck going under the bridge, then to the final shot of the credits where Doug and Carrie get ices at the Lemon Ice King of Corona on 108th St in Queens. The second version used in U.S. syndicated airings since 2007 simply features the first eight seconds of the full sequence with the opening establishing shots of Queens placed before the truck scene. In syndicated airings of season one episodes that have aired in the U.S. since the fall of 2007, this version replaced the standard season one sequence in all episodes for unknown reasons.


title: The King of Queens

text: Maryann Johnson of Flick Filospher critiqued, "Obvious and distasteful, "The King of Queens" relies too heavily on class and gender stereotypes to elicit laughs in the same way that one pulls teeth". Clint Morris of "FilmThreat" lauded the series, praising star Kevin James as "one of the funniest guys to grace the TV tube since Bill Cosby". On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the series has a score of 55 out of 100 based on the reviews of 26 critics, indicating "generally mixed reviews".


title: The King of Queens

text: "The King of Queens" received BMI Awards in the TV Music category in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. These awards were presented to Kurt Farquhar, Josh Goldsmith, Andrew Gross, and Cathy Yuspa.


title: The King of Queens

text: During its final two seasons, "The King of Queens" was nominated in the People's Choice Awards' Favorite TV Comedy category for the 2007 and 2008 seasons. In 2004, Scott Heineman and Mark Waters were nominated by the Art Directors' Guild for the Excellence in Production Design Award. Victor Williams was nominated in 2007 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series by the NAACP Image Awards.


title: The King of Queens

text: The show has been in syndication on over-the-air stations in the United States since the early 2000s, and is also a mainstay of cable syndication through the channels of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS) and A&E Networks, including Nick at Nite, TV Land, CMT, FYI, Lifetime, and A&E. It has also streamed on Peacock since the service's debut in the spring of 2020. Previously, it aired on TBS from September 2006 until September 2019. The show has also been a success internationally, both in its original run and in syndication.


title: The King of Queens

text: Seasons two and three were released on Blu-ray disc by Koch Media on November 21, 2008. They are presented with 1080i/25fps VC-1 video, 2.0 DTS audio tracks in both English and German with German subtitles optional. They include the same extras as the DVD releases from Koch Media. Even though they are only released in Germany and Austria, they are not region locked.


title: The King of Queens

text: On March 26, 2015, Koch Media released the whole series on Blu-ray in HD. The complete box set is distributed for Region B/2.


title: The King of Queens

text: In March 2021, a reunion table read was hosted on Facebook in memory of Jerry Stiller. The reunion was held to benefit Henry Street Settlement, a New York City social services, health care, and arts organization where Stiller got his start in theater.


title: The King of Queens

text: Series stars James, Remini, Williams, Oswalt, Valentine, Sullivan, and guest star Rachel Dratch all reprised their roles in the table read with Weithorn, reciting the 2003 episode "Cowardly Lyin'". The reunion was moderated by Sibley Scoles and also featured a video tribute to Stiller.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo ( ) is an American educational technology company which produces apps for language-learning and provides language certification.


title: Duolingo

text: On its main app, users can practice vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and listening skills using spaced repetition. Duolingo offers over 100 total courses across over 40 distinct languages; including a small variety of constructed languages. The company uses a freemium model with over 500 million registered users. Duolingo offers a premium service which eliminates advertising and offers more features.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo also offers the Duolingo English Test certification program and a literacy app for children called Duolingo ABC, and the company released an elementary level math app called Duolingo Math currently exclusive to iOS.


title: Duolingo

text: The idea for Duolingo was initiated at the end of 2009 in Pittsburgh by Carnegie Mellon University professor Luis von Ahn and his post-graduate student Severin Hacker. Von Ahn had sold his second company, reCAPTCHA, to Google and, with Hacker, wanted to work on something related to education. A driving motivation was Von Ahn's upbringing in Guatemala, where he saw how expensive it was for people in his community to learn English. Swiss-born Hacker (co-founder and current CTO of Duolingo) believed that "free education will really change the world" and wanted to supply people an outlet to do so.


title: Duolingo

text: The project was originally sponsored by Luis von Ahn's MacArthur fellowship and a National Science Foundation grant. The founders considered creating Duolingo as a nonprofit organization but Von Ahn judged this model as unsustainable. An early revenue stream was as a crowdsourced translation service. This was replaced as a source of revenue by a Duolingo English Test certification program, advertising and subscription.


title: Duolingo

text: In October 2011, Duolingo announced that it had raised $3.3 million from a Series A round of funding, led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from author Tim Ferriss and actor Ashton Kutcher's investing firm A-Grade Investments. Duolingo launched a private beta on November 27, 2011, and accumulated a waiting list of more than 300,000 people. The platform launched to the general public on June 19, 2012, at which point the waiting list had grown to around 500,000.


title: Duolingo

text: In September 2012, Duolingo announced that it had raised a further $15 million from a Series B funding round led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Union Square Ventures. In November 2012, Duolingo released an iPhone app, followed an Android app in May 2013, at which time Duolingo had a user base of around 3 million. By July 2013, the service had grown to 5 million users and was rated the #1 free education app in the Google Play store.


title: Duolingo

text: In February 2014, Duolingo announced that it had raised $20 million from a Series C funding round led by Kleiner Caufield & Byers, with prior investors also participating. At this time, Duolingo had 34 employees and reported having about 25 million registered users and 12.5 million active users, though it later reported a figure closer to 60 million users.


title: Duolingo

text: In June 2015, Duolingo announced that it had raised $45 million from a Series D funding round led by Google Capital, bringing its total funding to $83.3 million. The round valued the company at around $470 million, with 100 million registered users globally. In April 2016, it was reported that Duolingo had more than 18 million monthly users.


title: Duolingo

text: In July 2017, Duolingo announced that it had raised $25 million in a Series E funding round led by Drive Capital, bringing its total funding to $108.3 million. The round valued Duolingo at $700 million, and the company reported passing 200 million registered users, with 25 million active users. It was reported that Duolingo had 95 employees. Funds from the Series E round would be directed toward creating initiatives such as a related educational flashcard app, TinyCards, and testbeds for initiatives related to reading and listening comprehension. On 1 August 2018, Duolingo surpassed 300 million registered users.


title: Duolingo

text: In December 2019, it was announced that Duolingo raised $30 million in a Series F funding round from Alphabet's investment company CapitalG. The round valued Duolingo at $1.5 billion. Duolingo reported 30 million active users at this time. Headcount at the company had increased to 200, and new offices had been opened in Seattle, New York and Beijing. Duolingo planned to use the funds to develop new products and further expand its team in sectors like engineering, business development, design, curriculum and content creators, community outreach, and marketing.


title: Duolingo

text: In October 2013, Duolingo launched a crowdsourced language incubator. In March 2021, Duolingo announced that it will be ending its volunteer contributor program and donating money to its volunteer contributors who helped to make Duolingo. The company said that from now on, language courses will be maintained and developed by professional linguists aligning with CEFR standards. On 28 June 2021, Duolingo filed for an initial public offering on NASDAQ under the ticker DUOL. From August 2021 to June 2022, the Duolingo language learning app was removed from some app stores in China.


title: Duolingo

text: In August 2022, Duolingo overhauled its user interface and user experience, changing the structure of the courses from a tree-like design where users could choose from a range of lessons after completing previous ones, to a linear progression. This was widely criticized by users across a variety of social media outlets, including Reddit and Twitter. CEO Luis von Ahn said that they had no plans of undoing the changes, commenting that their decision was made in order to simplify Duolingo for new users, and that maintaining both the old and new versions would be difficult.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo language courses are built upon the concept of a "tree". Trees are composed of skills, which focus on a specific aspect of the target language. Trees are usually split into sections, or units, containing a chunk of related skills. Skills can be vocabulary and grammatically based, but other skills relating to color, idioms, relationships, and countries are also featured in courses. Skills are composed of six levels: levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Legendary. Users progress through levels on skills by practicing the lessons a certain number of times, usually 2 to 6, depending on the skill. Users also have the option to "test out" into the next level on a skill. Users also have the option to test out of entire units within a course. When users complete a lesson or test out, they are rewarded experience points. Users are also tested on prior knowledge in future lessons as lessons will call back to previously learned words and expect the user to be able to apply them in new sentences.


title: Duolingo

text: Lessons can include matching, translating, speaking, multiple choice. In 2019, the company launched Duolingo Stories. This feature consists of a small story for a particular situation to help improve learners reading and listening skills. Stories are available on selected, most popular courses. For some languages Duolingo offers podcasts for people in intermediate level consisting on stories told usually by native speakers from different parts of the world where the target language is spoken, but with simplified grammar, vocabulary, and with a slower intonation, as well with occasional assistance with providing context or explanations of unusual words in the source language by a narrator.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo also provides a competitive space. In Leagues, people can compete against their friends or see how they stack up against the rest of the world in randomly selected groupings of up to 30 users. Rankings in leagues are determined by the amount of XP earned in a week. Badges in Duolingo represent achievements that are earned from completing specific objectives or challenges.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo provides features designed to allow teachers to track students' progress in language acquisition.


title: Duolingo

text: In 2022, Duolingo began rolling out a redesigned user interface, featuring a single learning path. This change upset some users.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo provides language courses in many languages, including constructed languages such as High Valyrian ("A Song of Ice and Fire") and Klingon ("Star Trek").


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo ABC is a mobile app for young children for learning letters, their sounds, phonics, and other foundational early reading concepts that was released in 2020.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo Math is a mobile app for learning mathematics in a form similar to the original app. It is currently only available on iOS devices.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo English Test (DET) is a standardized test of English language proficiency for non-native English language speakers.


title: Duolingo

text: Most language-learning features in Duolingo are free of charge, but it has periodic advertising in both its mobile and web browser applications, which users can remove by paying a subscription fee or invite links. This feature is known as "Super Duolingo" and includes benefits such as unlimited hearts (retries), level skipping, no ads, and progress quizzes.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo had a revenue of $1 million in 2016, $13 million in 2017, $36 million in 2018, and $250.77 million in 2021. In May 2022, it was reported that 6.8% of Duolingo's monthly active users pay for the ad-free version of the app. Duolingo derived most of its revenue from subscription, advertising, and its Duolingo English Test. In April 2020, Duolingo passed one million paid subscribers. In March 2022, it had 2.9 million paid subscribers.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo utilizes the Amazon Web Services (AWS) product suite, including Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, nearly 200 virtual instances in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). The website's backend is written in the programming language Python. A component called the Session Generator was rewritten in Scala by 2017. The front end was written in Backbone.js and Mustache but is now primarily in React and Redux. Duolingo uses Amazon Polly for voice synthesis.


title: Duolingo

text: Duolingo provides a single-page web application for desktop computer users and also smartphone applications on Android and iOS App Store platforms. 20% of traffic comes from desktop users and 80% from mobile app users.


title: Duolingo

text: A 2017 study found no significant difference between elementary students learning Spanish through the "gamification" of Duolingo and those learning in classroom environments, with both groups demonstrating a similar increase in achievements and self-efficacy. A 2022 study on adults using Duolingo as their only language learning tool, published in the journal Foreign Language Annals, found that the participants that completed a course had similar proficiency to university students after four semesters of study. The authors therefore suggested that Duolingo could be an effective tool for foreign language learning. Another 2022 study of Malaysian students learning French published by the National University of Malaysia Press found that it facilitated acquisition of vocabulary, with the authors suggesting that it was well suited for beginners in this regard.


title: Duolingo

text: Linguist Steven Sacco at San Diego State University attempted to test Duolingo's claim that "34 hours of Duolingo are equivalent to a full university semester of language education" by completing a course in Swedish, and taking a standardized elementary exam, ultimately receiving a failing grade. Sacco suggested that Duolingo is helpful for learning vocabulary only in addition to immersion environments like a classroom.


title: Duolingo

text: In 2013, Apple chose Duolingo as its iPhone App of the Year, the first time this honor had been awarded to an educational application. In 2013, Duolingo ranked on Fast Company's "The World's Most Innovative Companies: Education Honorees" list "for crowdsourcing web translation by turning it into a free language-learning program". Duolingo won Best Education Startup at the 2014 Crunchies, and was the most downloaded app in the Education category in Google Play in 2013 and 2014.


title: Duolingo

text: In 2015, Duolingo was announced the 2015 award winner in Play & Learning category by Design to Improve Life. Duolingo won "Inc." magazine's Best Workplaces 2018, "Entrepreneur" magazine's Top Company Culture List 2018, and appeared in CNBC's 2018 and 2019 "Disruptor 50" lists and "TIME" magazine's 50 Genius Companies. In 2019, Duolingo was named one of Forbes's "Next Billion-Dollar Startups 2019". In July 2020, Duolingo was named by "PCMag" as "The Best Free Language Learning App".


title: Duolingo

text: Due to the app's sometimes aggressive sense of humor and attempts to ensure learners use it on a daily basis, Duolingo's mascot, a green cartoon owl named Duo, has been a subject of an Internet meme in which the mascot is "evil" and will stalk and threaten users if they do not keep using the app. Acknowledging the meme, Duolingo released a video on 1 April 2019; the video depicts a new feature called "Duolingo Push". In the video, users of "Duolingo Push" will receive reminders to use the app in person by Duo himself, who stares at users and follows them around until they use the app (in the video, Duo is depicted by a person in a large mascot costume). On 1 April 2022, Duolingo released another video in the form of a spoof legal advertisement where the lawyers sue the company for damages due to family members going missing, once again alluding to the meme.


title: Duolingo

text: In November 2019, "Saturday Night Live" parodied Duolingo in a sketch in which adults learn to communicate with children using a fictitious course on the app entitled "Duolingo for Talking to Children".


title: Barclays

text: Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays traces its origins to the goldsmith banking business established in the City of London in 1690. James Barclay became a partner in the business in 1736. In 1896, twelve banks in London and the English provinces, including Goslings Bank, Backhouse's Bank and Gurney, Peckover and Company, united as a joint-stock bank under the name Barclays and Co. Over the following decades, Barclays expanded to become a nationwide bank. In 1967, Barclays deployed the world's first cash dispenser. Barclays has made numerous corporate acquisitions, including of London, Provincial and South Western Bank in 1918, British Linen Bank in 1919, Mercantile Credit in 1975, the Woolwich in 2000 and the North American operations of Lehman Brothers in 2008.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange. It is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board. According to a 2011 paper, Barclays was the most powerful transnational corporation in terms of ownership and thus corporate control over global financial stability and market competition, with Axa and State Street Corporation taking the 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively. Barclays operates in over 40 countries, employs over 80,000 people and is the fifth largest bank in Europe by total assets. Barclays is Europe's largest funder of fossil fuel companies.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays UK comprises the British retail banking operations, consumer credit card business, wealth management business, and corporate banking for small, medium and large-sized businesses in the UK. Barclays International consists of Barclays Corporate and Investment Bank (formerly known as Barclays Capital) and the Consumer, Cards & Payments business. The investment banking business provides advisory, financing and risk management services to large companies, institutions and government clients. It is a primary dealer in Gilts, U.S. Treasury securities and various European Government bonds.


title: Barclays

text: The name of the bank has never been spelled with an apostrophe (Barclay's), it being first registered in 1896 as 'Barclay and Company, Limited', which was changed to 'Barclays Bank Limited' in 1917, and to 'Barclays Bank PLC' in 1982.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays traces its origins back to 17 November 1690, when John Freame, a Quaker, and Thomas Gould, started trading as goldsmith bankers in Lombard Street, London. The name "Barclays" became associated with the business in 1736, when Freame's son-in-law James Barclay became a partner. In 1728, the bank moved to 54 Lombard Street, identified by the 'Sign of the Black Spread Eagle', which in subsequent years would become a core part of the bank's visual identity.


title: Barclays

text: The Barclay family were connected with slavery, both as proponents and opponents. David and Alexander Barclay were engaged in the slave trade in 1756. David Barclay of Youngsbury (1729–1809), on the other hand, was a noted abolitionist, and Verene Shepherd, the Jamaican historian of diaspora studies, singles out the case of how he chose to free his slaves in that colony.


title: Barclays

text: In 1776, the firm was styled "Barclay, Bevan and Bening" and remained so until 1785, when another partner, John Tritton, who had married a Barclay, was admitted, and the business then became "Barclay, Bevan, Bening and Tritton". In 1896, twelve houses in London and the English provinces, notably Goslings and Sharpe, Backhouse's Bank of Darlington and Gurney's Bank of Norwich (the latter two of which also had their roots in Quaker families), united to form Barclays and Co., a joint-stock bank, which at its formation held around one quarter of deposits in English private banks.


title: Barclays

text: Between 1905 and 1916, Barclays extended its branch network by making acquisitions of small English banks. Further expansion followed in 1918 when Barclays amalgamated with the London, Provincial and South Western Bank, and in 1919, when the British Linen Bank was acquired by Barclays, although the British Linen Bank retained a separate board of directors and continued to issue its own banknotes (see Banknotes of the pound sterling).


title: Barclays

text: In 1925, the Colonial Bank, National Bank of South Africa and the Anglo-Egyptian Bank were amalgamated and Barclays operated its overseas operations under the name Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas)—Barclays DCO. In 1938, Barclays acquired the first Indian exchange bank, the Central Exchange Bank of India, which had opened in London in 1936 with the sponsorship of Central Bank of India.


title: Barclays

text: In 1941, during the German occupation of France, a branch of Barclays in Paris, headed by Marcel Cheradame, worked directly with the invading force. Senior officials at the bank volunteered the names of Jewish employees, as well as ceding an estimated one hundred Jewish bank accounts to the German occupiers. The Paris branch used its funds to increase the operational power of a large quarry that helped produce steel for the Germans. There was no evidence of contact between the head office in London and the branch in Paris during the occupation. Marcel Cheradame was kept as the branch manager until he retired in the sixties.


title: Barclays

text: In May 1958, Barclays was the first UK bank to appoint a female bank manager. Hilda Harding managed Barclays' Hanover Square branch in London until her retirement in 1970.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays launched the first credit card in the UK, Barclaycard, in 1966. On 27 June 1967, Barclays deployed the world's first cash machine, in Enfield. The British actor Reg Varney was the first person to use the machine.


title: Barclays

text: In 1969, a planned merger with Martins Bank and Lloyds Bank was blocked by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, but the acquisition of Martins Bank on its own was later permitted. Also that year, the British Linen Bank subsidiary was sold to the Bank of Scotland in exchange for a 25% stake, a transaction that became effective from 1971. Barclays DCO changed its name to Barclays Bank International in 1971.


title: Barclays

text: From 1972 until 1980, a minority stake in Banca Barclays Castellini SpA, Milan was owned by the Castellini family. In 1980, Barclays Bank International acquired the remaining stake in Barclays Castellini from the Castellini family.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays Bank International expanded its business in 1980 to include commercial credit and took over American Credit Corporation, renaming it Barclays American Corporation.


title: Barclays

text: During 1985 Barclays Bank and Barclays Bank International merged, and as part of the corporate reorganisation the former Barclays Bank plc became a group holding company, renamed Barclays Group Plc, and UK retail banking was integrated under the former BBI, and renamed "Barclays Bank PLC" from "Barclays Bank Limited".


title: Barclays

text: In response to the Big Bang on the London Stock Exchange, in 1986 Barclays bought UK stockbroker de Zoete & Bevan and jobbing firm Wedd Durlacher (formerly Wedd Jefferson). They were merged with Barclays Merchant Bank to form Barclays de Zoete Wedd (BZW). Also that year Barclays sold its South African business operating under the Barclays National Bank name after protests against Barclays' involvement in South Africa and its apartheid government.


title: Barclays

text: In 1988, Barclays sold Barclays Bank of California, which at that time was the 17th-largest bank in California measured by assets, to Wells Fargo for US$125 million in cash.


title: Barclays

text: Edgar Pearce, the "Mardi Gra Bomber", began a terror campaign against the bank and the supermarket chain Sainsbury's in 1994.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays bought Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors (WFNIA) in 1996 and merged it with BZW Investment Management to form Barclays Global Investors. Bob Diamond took charge of the investment banking businesses that year.


title: Barclays

text: Two years later, in 1998, the BZW business was broken up and the Equity and Corporate Finance Divisions were sold to Credit Suisse First Boston: Barclays retained the debt-focused Fixed Income business and Structured Capital Markets which formed the foundation of the rebranded Barclays Capital (BarCap). Barclays Capital had offices in over 29 countries and employed over 20,000 people, with over 7,000 people working in its IT division.


title: Barclays

text: In 1998, Barclays Bank agreed to pay $3.6m to Jews whose assets were seized from French branches of the British-based bank during World War II. Barclays, along with seven French banks, was named in a lawsuit filed in New York on behalf of Jews who were unable to reclaim money they deposited during the Nazi era.


title: Barclays

text: In an unusual move as part of the trend at the time for free ISPs, Barclays launched an internet service in 1999 called Barclays.net. This entity was acquired by British Telecom in 2001.


title: Barclays

text: In the 1990s, Barclays helped to fund President Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe. The most controversial of a set of loans provided by Barclays was the £30 million it gave to help sustain land reforms that saw Mugabe seize white-owned farmland and drive more than 100,000 black workers from their homes. Opponents have called the bank's involvement a 'disgrace' and an 'insult' to the millions who have suffered human rights abuses. A Barclays spokesman said the bank has had customers in Zimbabwe for decades and abandoning them now would make matters worse, "We are committed to continuing to provide a service to those customers in what is clearly a difficult operating environment". Barclays also provided two of Mugabe's associates with bank accounts, ignoring European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe. The men are Elliot Manyika and minister of public service Nicholas Goche. Barclays has defended its position by insisting that the EU rules do not apply to its 67%-owned Zimbabwean subsidiary because it was incorporated outside the EU.


title: Barclays

text: In August 2000, Barclays took over the recently de-mutualised Woolwich PLC, formerly the Woolwich Building Society, in a £5.4 billion acquisition. Woolwich thus joined the Barclays group of companies, and the Woolwich name was retained after the acquisition. The company's head office remained in Bexleyheath, south-east London, from the original head office in Woolwich.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays closed 171 branches in the UK in 2001, many of them in rural communities: Barclays called itself "The Big Bank" but this name was quickly given a low profile after a series of embarrassing PR stunts.


title: Barclays

text: On 31 October 2001, Barclays and CIBC agreed to combine their Caribbean operations to establish a joint venture company known as FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB).


title: Barclays

text: In 2003, Barclays bought the American credit card company Juniper Bank from CIBC, re-branding it as "Barclays Bank Delaware". The same year saw the acquisition of Banco Zaragozano, the 11th-largest Spanish bank.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays took over sponsorship of the Premier League from Barclaycard in 2004. In May 2005, Barclays moved its group headquarters from Lombard Street in the City of London to One Churchill Place in Canary Wharf. Also in 2005 Barclays sealed a £2.6bn takeover of Absa Group Limited, South Africa's largest retail bank, acquiring a 54% stake on 27 July 2005.


title: Barclays

text: Then in 2006, Barclays purchased the HomEq Servicing Corporation for US$469 million in cash from Wachovia Corp. That year also saw the acquisition of the financial website CompareTheLoan and Barclays announcing plans to rebrand Woolwich branches as Barclays, migrating Woolwich customers onto Barclays accounts and migrating back-office processes onto Barclays systems—the Woolwich brand was to be used for Barclays mortgages. Barclays also exited retail-banking operations in the Caribbean-region which extended as far back as 1837 through selling of its joint venture stake in FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB) to CIBC for between $989 million and $1.08 billion.


title: Barclays

text: In March 2007, Barclays announced plans to merge with ABN AMRO, the largest bank in the Netherlands. However, on 5 October 2007 Barclays announced that it had abandoned its bid, citing inadequate support by ABN shareholders. Fewer than 80% of shares had been tendered to Barclays' cash-and-shares offer. This left the consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland free to proceed with its counter-bid for ABN AMRO.


title: Barclays

text: To help finance its bid for ABN AMRO, Barclays sold a 3.1% stake to China Development Bank and a 3% stake to Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singaporean government.


title: Barclays

text: Also in 2007, Barclays agreed to purchase Equifirst Corporation from Regions Financial Corporation for US$225 million. That year also saw Barclays Personal Investment Management announcing the closure of their operation in Peterborough and its re-siting to Glasgow, laying off nearly 900 members of staff.


title: Barclays

text: On 30 August 2007, Barclays was forced to borrow £1.6 billion (US$3.2 billion) from the Bank of England sterling standby facility. This is made available as a last-resort when banks are unable to settle their debts to other banks at the end of daily trading. Despite rumours about liquidity at Barclays, the loan was necessary due to a technical problem with their computerised settlement network. A Barclays spokesman was quoted as saying "There are no liquidity issues in the U.K markets. Barclays itself is flush with liquidity."


title: Barclays

text: On 9 November 2007, Barclays shares dropped 9% and were even temporarily suspended for a short period of time, due to rumours of a £4.8 billion (US$10 billion) exposure to bad debts in the US. However, a Barclays spokesman denied the rumours.


title: Barclays

text: In February 2008, Barclays bought the credit card brand Goldfish for US$70 million gaining 1.7 million customers, and US$3.9 billion in receivables. Barclays also bought a controlling stake in the Russian retail bank Expobank for US$745 million. Later in the year Barclays commenced its Pakistan operations with initial funding of US$100 million.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays sought to raise capital privately, avoiding direct equity investment from the UK government, which was offered to boost its capital ratio. Barclays believed that "maintaining its independence from government was in the best interests of its shareholders".


title: Barclays

text: In July 2008, Barclays attempted to raise £4.5 billion through a non-traditional rights issue to shore up its weakened Tier 1 capital ratio, which involved a rights offer to existing shareholders and the sale of a stake to Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Only 19% of shareholders took up their rights leaving investors China Development Bank and Qatar Investment Authority with increased holdings in the bank.


title: Barclays

text: Reuters reported in October 2008 that the British government would inject £40 billion (US$69 billion) into three banks including Barclays, which might seek over £7 billion. Barclays later confirmed that it rejected the Government's offer and would instead raise £6.5 billion of new capital (£2 billion by cancellation of dividend and £4.5 billion from private investors).


title: Barclays

text: Barclays launched a further round of capital raising, approved by special resolution on 24 November 2008, as part of its overall plan to achieve higher capital targets set by the UK's Financial Services Authority to ensure it would remain independent. Barclays raised £7 billion from investors from Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Existing Barclays shareholders complained they were not offered full pre-emption rights in this round of capital raising, even threatening to revolt at the extraordinary meeting. Sheikh Mansour and Qatar Holding agreed to open up £500 million of their new holdings of reserve capital instruments for clawback. Existing investors now took this up.


title: Barclays

text: Bob Diamond led the effort to purchase the North American business of Lehman Brothers after its bankruptcy in September 2008, securing Barclays a presence in U.S. Equities and Investment Banking. On 16 September 2008, Barclays announced its agreement to purchase, subject to regulatory approval, the investment-banking and trading divisions of Lehman Brothers (including its New York skyscraper) which was a United States financial conglomerate that had filed for bankruptcy.


title: Barclays

text: On 20 September 2008, a revised version of the deal, a US$1.35 billion (£700 million) plan for Barclays to acquire the core business of Lehman Brothers (mainly Lehman's US$960 million Midtown Manhattan office skyscraper, with responsibility for 9,000 former employees), was approved. After a seven-hour hearing, New York bankruptcy court Judge James Peck ruled:


title: Barclays

text: Luc Despins, the creditors committee counsel, said: "The reason we're not objecting is really based on the lack of a viable alternative. We did not support the transaction because there had not been enough time to properly review it." In the amended agreement, Barclays would absorb US$47.4 billion in securities and assume US$45.5 billion in trading liabilities. Lehman's attorney Harvey R. Miller of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, said "the purchase price for the real estate components of the deal would be US$1.29 billion, including US$960 million for Lehman's New York headquarters and US$330 million for two New Jersey data centres. Lehman's original estimate valued its headquarters at US$1.02 billion but an appraisal from CB Richard Ellis this week valued it at US$900 million." Further, Barclays will not acquire Lehman's Eagle Energy unit, but will have entities known as Lehman Brothers Canada Inc, Lehman Brothers Sudamerica, Lehman Brothers Uruguay and its Private Investment Management business for high-net-worth individuals. Finally, Lehman will retain US$20 billion of securities assets in Lehman Brothers Inc that are not being transferred to Barclays. Barclays had a potential liability of US$2.5 billion to be paid as severance, if it chooses not to retain some Lehman employees beyond the guaranteed 90 days.


title: Barclays

text: In September 2014, Barclays was ordered to pay $15 million in settlement charges that alleged the bank had failed to maintain an adequate internal compliance system after its acquisition of Lehman Brothers during the 2008 financial crisis.


title: Barclays

text: In January 2009, the press reported that further capital may be required and that while the government might be willing to fund this, it may be unable to do so because the previous capital investment from the Qatari state was subject to a proviso that no third party might put in further money without the Qataris receiving compensation at the value the shares had commanded in October 2008. In March 2009, it was reported that in 2008, Barclays received billions of dollars from its insurance arrangements with AIG, including US$8.5 billion from funds provided by the United States to bail out AIG.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays' share price fell 54% in June 2009 after the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), which had invested up to £4.75 billion in November 2008, sold 1.3 billion Barclays shares.


title: Barclays

text: Qatar Holding sold a 3.5% stake worth £10 billion in October 2009, and a further sale of warrants worth around £750 million in November 2012, but remains one of the bank's largest shareholders. In July 2012, Barclays revealed that the FSA was investigating whether the bank adequately disclosed fees paid to Qatar Investment Authority. In August 2012, the Serious Fraud Office announced an investigation into the Middle East capital raising. The Financial Services Authority announced an expansion of the investigation into the Barclays-Qatar deal in January 2013, focusing on the disclosure surrounding the ownership of the securities in the bank.


title: Barclays

text: The UK's Serious Fraud Office commenced its investigation in August 2012. In October 2012, the United States Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission informed Barclays they had commenced an investigation into whether the group's relationships with third parties who assist Barclays to win or retain business are compliant with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays had sought to raise capital privately, avoiding direct equity investment from the Government of the United Kingdom and, therefore, a bailout. The result was Abu Dhabi's £3.5 billion investment in the bank, a deal in which Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan made a profit of £3.5 billion.


title: Barclays

text: Much of the focus to date has been on the injections by Qatar in June and November 2008, notably the so far unproven allegation that Barclays lent Qatar the money to invest in the bank. Other questions include what happened to the £110 million in fees paid by Barclays ostensibly to Sheikh Mansour, and the £66 million provided by Barclays to the Qataris for unexplained "advisory fees".


title: Barclays

text: In June 2017, following a five-year investigation by the UK's Serious Fraud Office covering Barclays' activities during the financial crisis of 2007–2008, former CEO John Varley and three former colleagues, Roger Jenkins, Thomas Kalaris and Richard Boath, were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and the provision of unlawful financial assistance in connection with capital raising. The executives were cleared in February 2020.


title: Barclays

text: In February 2018, the Serious Fraud Office charged Barclays with "unlawful financial assistance" related to billions of pounds raised from the Qatar deal.


title: Barclays

text: On 8 June 2020, Barclays was also accused of deceit by a British businesswoman Amanda Staveley's firm PCP Capital. The company sued the bank in a £1.5 billion lawsuit, claiming that it had "deliberately misled" the market over the terms of its capital raising deal with Qatar. PCP alleged that Qatar Holdings was offered a "completely different" deal than that offered to Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, who according to Amanda Staveley was introduced to Barclays by PCP. However, during the hearing in the High Court of London, the Barclays lawyer, Jeffery Onions accused Staveley of "significantly exaggerating" her business relationship with the Abu Dhabi sheikh and of creating a "hustle" by getting involved in a crucial capital raising. Staveley and PCP Capital subsequently reduced the amount of their claim but lost the case in the High Court.


title: Barclays

text: In March 2009, Barclays was accused of violating international anti-money laundering laws. According to the NGO Global Witness, the Paris branch of Barclays held the account of Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang's son, Teodorin Obiang, even after evidence that Obiang had siphoned oil revenues from government funds emerged in 2004. According to Global Witness, Obiang purchased a Ferrari and maintains a mansion in Malibu with the funds from this account.


title: Barclays

text: A 2010 report by the Wall Street Journal described how Credit Suisse, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, and other banks were involved in helping the Alavi Foundation, Bank Melli, the Iranian government, and/or others circumvent US laws banning financial transactions with certain states. They did this by 'stripping' information out of wire transfers, thereby concealing the source of funds. Barclays settled with the government for US$298 million.


title: Barclays

text: In March 2009, Barclays obtained an injunction against "The Guardian" requiring it to remove from its website confidential leaked documents describing how SCM, Barclays' structured capital markets division, planned to use more than £11 billion of loans to create hundreds of millions of pounds of tax benefits, via "an elaborate circuit of Cayman Islands companies, US partnerships and Luxembourg subsidiaries". In an editorial on the issue, "The Guardian" pointed out that, due to the mismatch of resources, tax-collectors (HMRC) now have to rely on websites such as WikiLeaks to obtain such documents, and indeed the documents in question have now appeared on WikiLeaks. Separately, another Barclays whistleblower revealed several days later that the SCM transactions had produced between £900 million and £1 billion in tax avoidance in one year, adding that "The deals start with tax and then commercial purpose is added to them."


title: Barclays

text: In February 2012, Barclays was ordered by the Treasury to pay £500 million in tax which it had tried to avoid. Barclays was accused by HMRC of designing two schemes that were intended to avoid substantial amounts of tax. Tax rules had required the bank to tell the UK authorities about its plans. David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said that "We do not take today's action lightly, but the potential tax loss from this scheme and the history of previous abuse in this area mean that this is a circumstance where the decision to change the law with full retrospective effect is justified."


title: Barclays

text: In June 2012, as a result of an international investigation, Barclays Bank was fined a total of £290 million (US$450 million) for manipulating the daily settings of London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor). The United States Department of Justice and Barclays officially agreed that "the manipulation of the submissions affected the fixed rates on some occasions". The bank was found to have made 'inappropriate submissions' of rates which formed part of the Libor and Euribor setting processes, sometimes to make a profit, and other times to make the bank look more secure during the financial crisis. This happened between 2005 and 2009, as often as daily.


title: Barclays

text: The BBC said revelations concerning the fraud were "greeted with almost universal astonishment in the banking industry." The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA), which levied a fine of £59.5 million ($92.7 million), gave Barclays the biggest fine it had ever imposed in its history. The FSA's director of enforcement described Barclays' behaviour as "completely unacceptable", adding "Libor is an incredibly important benchmark reference rate, and it is relied on for many, many hundreds of thousands of contracts all over the world." The bank's chief executive Bob Diamond decided to give up his bonus as a result of the fine. Liberal Democrat politician Lord Oakeshott criticised Diamond, saying: "If he had any shame he would go. If the Barclays board has any backbone, they'll sack him." The US Department of Justice has also been involved, with "other financial institutions and individuals" under investigation.


title: Barclays

text: On 2 July 2012, Marcus Agius resigned from the chairman position following the interest rate rigging scandal. On 3 July 2012, Bob Diamond resigned with immediate effect, leaving Marcus Agius to fill his post until a replacement is found. Within the space of a few hours, this was followed by the resignation of the Bank's chief operating officer, Jerry del Missier. Barclays subsequently announced that Antony Jenkins, its existing chief executive of Global Retail & Business Banking would become group chief executive on 30 August 2012. On 17 February 2014 the Serious Fraud Office charged three former bank employees with manipulating Libor rates between June 2005 and August 2007. Four employees were jailed in July 2016 for up to six-and-a-half years, with two others cleared after a retrial.


title: Barclays

text: In July 2013, US energy regulator the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ordered Barclays to pay £299 million fine penalty for attempting to manipulate the electricity market in the US. The fine by FERC relates to allegations in December 2008.


title: Barclays

text: In May 2014, the Financial Conduct Authority fined the bank £26 million over systems and controls failures, and conflict of interest in relation to the bank and its customers in connection to the gold fixing during the period 2004–2013, and for manipulation of the gold price on 28 June 2012.


title: Barclays

text: In June 2014, the US state of New York filed a lawsuit against the bank alleging it defrauded and deceived investors with inaccurate marketing material about its unregulated trading system known as a "dark pool". Specifically, the firm was accused of hiding the fact that Tradebot participated in the dark pool when they were in fact one of the largest players. The state, in its complaint, said it was being assisted by former Barclays executives and it was seeking unspecified damages. The bank's shares dropped 5% on news of the lawsuit, prompting an announcement to the London Stock Exchange by the bank saying it was taking the allegations seriously, and was co-operating with the New York attorney general.


title: Barclays

text: A month later the bank filed a motion for the suit to be dismissed, saying there had been no fraud, no victims and no harm to anyone. The New York Attorney General's office issued a statement saying the attorney general was confident the motion would fail. On 31 January 2016, Barclays settled with both the New York Attorney General's office and the SEC, agreeing to pay $70 million split evenly between the SEC and New York state, admitting it violated securities laws and agreeing to install an independent monitor for the dark pool.


title: Barclays

text: In 2017, Barclays faced protests by environmentalists because of its ownership of Third Energy which planned to extract natural gas using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) at Kirby Misperton in Yorkshire. Barclays later sold Third Energy in 2020 to Alpha Energy.


title: Barclays

text: Between 2016 and 2021, Barclays along with HSBC, Santander, NatWest and Lloyds funnelled $368 billion into the fossil fuel industry. The Big 5 UK high street banks provided $15.7 billion in finance to the Top 50 oil and gas expanders in 2021.


title: Barclays

text: In 2020, the campaign group ShareAction filed a resolution at Barclays AGM because of its role as Europe's largest funder of fossil fuel companies. Barclays invested $85 billion in fossil fuel extraction and $24 billion in expansion.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays agreed to pay $150 million to resolve an investigation by New York's banking regulator into a trading practice that allowed the bank to exploit a milliseconds-long lag between an order and its execution that sometimes hurt its clients, the latest fallout from the bank's foreign-exchange business.


title: Barclays

text: In certain instances, Barclays used this last-look system to automatically reject client orders that would be unprofitable for the bank because of subsequent price swings during milliseconds-long latency ("hold") periods. Furthermore, when clients questioned Barclays about these rejected trades, Barclays failed to disclose the reason that the trades were being rejected, instead citing technical issues or providing vague responses.


title: Barclays

text: According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Barclays' inadequate supervisory procedures failed to stop many customers from swapping one mutual fund for another when the benefits of switching might be undermined by the transaction costs, resulting in $8.63 million of losses for their customers between January 2010 and June 2015. Additionally, from March to August 2014, Barclays processed 1,723 fund transactions that were inconsistent with its customers' goals, risk tolerance or other investments which caused an additional $818,000 of customer harm. As a result, Barclays was required to pay $10 million in restitution, including interest, to affected customers and was fined $3.75 million, but did not admit or deny wrongdoing.


title: Barclays

text: In February 2020, it was reported that, in a pilot programme at its London headquarters, the company used tracking software to assess how long employees spent at their desks and warn them if they took excessive breaks. Staff who spent too much time away could find this mentioned on their daily report cards. Following criticisms by staff, the bank said it had taken steps to ensure that individual data would no longer be visible to managers, although the company still holds this data.”


title: Barclays

text: The bank faced similar privacy concerns in 2017 when it used OccupEye sensors to track staff through black boxes in their desks.


title: Barclays

text: On 12 June 2009, Barclays sold its Global Investors unit, which included its exchange-traded fund business, iShares, to BlackRock for US$13.5 billion. Standard Life sold Standard Life Bank to Barclays in October 2009. The sale was completed on 1 January 2010. Barclays sold its Retail Banking unit in Spain to CaixaBank in 2014. With the sale, Caixabank acquired around 550,000 new retail and private banking clients and 2,400 employees.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays announced in June 2015 that it would sell its US wealth and investment management business to Stifel for an undisclosed fee. The bank announced in May 2017 that it would sell £1.5 billion worth of shares of its Barclays Africa Group subsidiary as part of its strategy to refocus its business from Africa to the UK and US. In September 2017, Barclays sold off the last part of its retail banking segment on continental Europe after selling its French retail, wealth and investment management operations to AnaCap.


title: Barclays

text: In October 2012, Barclays announced it had agreed to buy the ING Direct UK business of the ING Group. The transfer of the business to Barclays was approved at the High Court on 20 February 2013 and ING Direct was renamed Barclays Direct and would be integrated into the existing Barclays business within two years.


title: Barclays

text: To ward off the effects of Brexit, Barclays borrowed £6 billion from the Bank of England between April and June 2017, as part of a post-referendum stimulus package launched in August 2016. In August 2021, Barclays announced a $400 million capital infusion into its business in India, which was the single largest capital infusion into its Indian business in three decades.


title: Barclays

text: On 31 October 2021, in a surprise move, group CEO Jes Staley agreed to step down amid investigation of his ties to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He was replaced as group CEO by the Indian-born American banker C. S. Venkatakrishnan, who became the first person of Indian origin to lead Barclays.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK (BUK) and Barclays International (BI), supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services (BX).


title: Barclays

text: Barclays has over 4,750 branches in about 55 countries and of which about 1,600 are in the United Kingdom. In the UK, Barclays also offers some personal banking services through branches of the Post Office. Most Barclays branches have 24/7 ATMs. Barclays customers and the customers of many other banks can use Barclays ATMs for free in the UK, although in some other countries fees are charged. Barclays is a member of the Global ATM Alliance, an alliance of international banks which allows each banks' customers to use their ATM or debit card at all other member banks with no ATM access fees when travelling internationally.


title: Barclays

text: "The position of Group Chairman was formed in 1896, along with the formation of Barclay and Company Limited."


title: Barclays

text: "The position of Group Chief Executive was formed in 1992; prior to that, the Chairman was also the de facto Chief Executive."


title: Barclays

text: In 2007, Barclays agreed a 20-year naming rights agreement for $400 million for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York City, home of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team. Two years later, due to the slump in the economy the deal was renegotiated to $200 million.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays was the sponsor of the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme in London from its inception in 2010 to 2015, as part of a £25 million deal with Transport for London.


title: Barclays

text: Barclays was a longtime title sponsor of the Premier League, in a sponsorship that started with the 2003–04 season.


title: Île-de-France

text: The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the "Région parisienne" (; ). Île-de-France is densely populated and retains a prime economic position on the national stage: though it covers only , about 2% of metropolitan French territory, its 2017 population was nearly one-fifth of the national total.


title: Île-de-France

text: The region is made up of eight administrative departments: Paris, Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Seine-et-Marne, Val-de-Marne, Val-d'Oise and Yvelines. It was created as the "District of the Paris Region" in 1961. In 1976, when its status was aligned with the French administrative regions created in 1972, it was renamed after the historic province of Île-de-France. Residents are sometimes referred to as "Franciliens", an administrative word created in the 1980s. The GDP of the region in 2019 was nearly one-third of the French, and 5% of the European Union's. It has the highest per capita GDP of any French region and the third highest of any region in the European Union.


title: Île-de-France

text: Beyond the city limits of Paris, the region has many other important historic sites, including the palaces of Versailles and Fontainebleau, as well as the most-visited tourist attraction in France, Disneyland Paris. Though it is the richest French region, a significant number of residents live in poverty: the official poverty rate in the Île-de-France was 15.9% in 2015. The region has witnessed increasing income inequality in recent decades and rising housing prices have pushed the less affluent outside Paris.


title: Île-de-France

text: Although the modern name "Île-de-France" literally means "Island of France", its etymology is in fact unclear. The "island" may refer to the land between the rivers Oise, Marne and Seine, or it may also have been a reference to the Île de la Cité, where the French royal palace and cathedral were located.


title: Île-de-France

text: Alternatively, the name may refer to the lands that were under the direct rule of the Capetian kings during the Middle Ages; thus, the lands were an "island" in a sea of various feudal territories ruled by vassals of the king.


title: Île-de-France

text: The Île-de-France was inhabited by the "Parisii", a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, from around the middle of the 3rd-century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; the meeting place of land and water trade routes gradually became an important trading centre. The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins for that purpose.


title: Île-de-France

text: The Romans conquered the area in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris's Left Bank. It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris. According to legend, when Denis refused to renounce his faith before Roman authorities, he was beheaded on the hill that became known as "Mons Martyrum" (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later "Montmartre". The legend further states that Denis walked headless from this hill to the north of the city. The place that he finally fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, the Basilica of Saint-Denis.