title: Ocean acidification

text: Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) is defined as "a proposed carbon dioxide removal (CDR) method that involves deposition of alkaline minerals or their dissociation products at the ocean surface". The process would increase surface total alkalinity. It would work to accelerate Earth’s geologic carbon regulator. The process involves increasing the amount of bicarbonate (HCO-) through accelerated weathering (enhanced weathering) of rocks (silicate, limestone and quicklime). This process mimics the silicate-carbonate cycle, and will ultimately draw down from the atmosphere into the ocean. The will either become bicarbonate, and be stored in the ocean in that form for more than 100 years, or may precipitate into calcium carbonate (CaCO). When the calcium carbonate is buried in the deep ocean, it can store the carbon for approximately one million years when utilizing silicate rocks as the means to increase alkalinity.


title: Ocean acidification

text: Enhanced weathering is a type of ocean alkalinity enhancement. Enhanced weathering will increase alkalinity by means of scatter fine particles of rocks. This can happen both on land and in the ocean (even though the ultimate fate affects the ocean).


title: Ocean acidification

text: In addition to sequestering , alkalinity addition buffers the pH of the ocean therefore reducing the degree of ocean acidification. However, little is known about how organisms will respond to added alkalinity, even from natural sources. For example, weathering of some silicate rocks could release a large amount of potentially trace metals into the ocean at the site of enhanced weathering. In addition, the cost and the energy consumed by implementing ocean alkalinity enhancement (mining, pulverizing, transport) is high compared to other CDR techniques.


title: Ocean acidification

text: The cost of ocean alkalinity enhancement is estimated to be 20–50 USD per ton of CO (for "direct addition of alkaline minerals to the ocean").


title: Ocean acidification

text: Ocean alkalinity is not changed by ocean acidification, but over long time periods alkalinity may increase due to carbonate dissolution and reduced formation of calcium carbonate shells.


title: Ocean acidification

text: Electrochemical methods, or electrolysis, can strip carbon dioxide directly from seawater. Electrochemical process are a type of ocean alkalinity enhancement, too. Some methods focus on direct removal (in the form of carbonate and gas) while others increase the alkalinity of seawater by precipitating metal hydroxide residues, which absorbs in a matter described in the ocean alkalinity enhancement section. The hydrogen produced during direct carbon capture can then be upcycled to form hydrogen for energy consumption, or other manufactured laboratory reagents such as hydrochloric acid.


title: Ocean acidification

text: However, implementation of electrolysis for carbon capture is expensive and the energy consumed for the process is high compared to other CDR techniques. In addition, research to assess the environmental impact of this process is ongoing. Some complications include toxic chemicals in wastewaters, and reduced DIC in effluents; both of these may negatively impact marine life.


title: Ocean acidification

text: As awareness about ocean acidification grows, policies geared towards increasing monitoring efforts of ocean acidification have been drafted. Previously in 2015, ocean scientist Jean-Pierre Gattuso had remarked that "The ocean has been minimally considered at previous climate negotiations. Our study provides compelling arguments for a radical change at the UN conference (in Paris) on climate change".


title: Ocean acidification

text: International efforts, such as the UN Cartagena Convention (entered into force in 1986), are critical to enhance the support provided by regional governments to highly vulnerable areas to ocean acidification. Many countries, for example in the Pacific Islands and Territories, have constructed regional policies, or National Ocean Policies, National Action Plans, National Adaptation Plans of Action and Joint National Action Plans on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction, to help work towards SDG 14. Ocean acidification is now starting to be considered within those frameworks.


title: Ocean acidification

text: The UN Ocean Decade has a program called "Ocean acidification research for sustainability”. It was proposed by the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) and its partners, and has been formally endorsed as a program of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The OARS program builds on the work of GOA-ON and has the following aims: to further develop the science of ocean acidification; to increase observations of ocean chemistry changes; to identify the impacts on marine ecosystems on local and global scales; and to provide decision makers with the information needed to mitigate and adapt to ocean acidification.


title: Ocean acidification

text: The importance of ocean acidification is reflected in its inclusion as one of seven Global Climate Indicators. These Indicators are a set of parameters that describe the changing climate without reducing climate change to only rising temperature. The Indicators include key information for the most relevant domains of climate change: temperature and energy, atmospheric composition, ocean and water as well as the cryosphere. The Global Climate Indicators have been identified by scientists and communication specialists in a process led by Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). The Indicators have been endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). They form the basis of the annual WMO Statement of the State of the Global Climate, which is submitted to the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Additionally, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) of the European Commission uses the Indicators for their annual "European State of the Climate".


title: Ocean acidification

text: In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda and a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including a goal dedicated to the ocean, Sustainable Development Goal 14, which calls to "conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development". Ocean acidification is directly addressed by the target SDG 14.3. The full title of Target 14.3 is: "Minimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels". This target has one indicator: Indicator 14.3.1 which calls for the "Average marine acidity (pH) measured at agreed suite of representative sampling stations".


title: Ocean acidification

text: The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO was identified as the custodian agency for the SDG 14.3.1 Indicator. In this role, IOC-UNESCO is tasked with developing the SDG 14.3.1 Indicator Methodology, the annual collection of data towards the SDG 14.3.1 Indicator and the reporting of progress to the United Nations.


title: Ocean acidification

text: In the United States, the "Federal Ocean Acidification Monitoring Act" of 2009 supports government coordination, such as the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) "Ocean Acidification Program". In 2015, USEPA denied a citizens petition that asked EPA to regulate under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 in order to mitigate ocean acidification. In the denial, the EPA said that risks from ocean acidification were being "more efficiently and effectively addressed" under domestic actions, e.g., under the Presidential Climate Action Plan, and that multiple avenues are being pursued to work with and in other nations to reduce emissions and deforestation and promote clean energy and energy efficiency.


title: Ocean acidification

text: Research into the phenomenon of ocean acidification, as well as awareness raising about the problem, has been going on for several decades. The fundamental research really began with the creation of the pH scale by Danish chemist Søren Peder Lauritz Sørensen in 1909. By around the 1950s the massive role of the ocean in absorbing fossil fuel CO was known to specialists, but not appreciated by the greater scientific community. Throughout much of the 20th century, the dominant focus has been the beneficial process of oceanic CO uptake, which has enormously ameliorated climate change. The concept of “too much of a good thing” has been late in developing and was triggered only by some key events, and the oceanic sink for heat and CO is still critical as the primary buffer against climate change.


title: Ocean acidification

text: In the early 1970s questions over the long-term impact of the accumulation of fossil fuel CO in the sea were already arising around the world and causing strong debate. Researchers commented on the accumulation of fossil CO in the atmosphere and sea and drew attention to the possible impacts on marine life. By the mid-1990s, the likely impact of CO levels rising so high with the inevitable changes in pH and carbonate ion became a concern of scientists studying the fate of coral reefs.


title: Ocean acidification

text: By the end of the 20th century the trade-offs between the beneficial role of the ocean in absorbing some 90 % of all heat created, and the accumulation of some 50 % of all fossil fuel CO emitted, and the impacts on marine life were becoming more clear. By 2003, the time of planning for the "First Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO World" meeting to be held in Paris in 2004, many new research results on ocean acidification were published.


title: Ocean acidification

text: In 2009, members of the InterAcademy Panel called on world leaders to "Recognize that reducing the build up of in the atmosphere is the only practicable solution to mitigating ocean acidification". The statement also stressed the importance to "Reinvigorate action to reduce stressors, such as overfishing and pollution, on marine ecosystems to increase resilience to ocean acidification".


title: Ocean acidification

text: For example, research in 2010 found that in the 15-year period 1995–2010 alone, acidity had increased 6 percent in the upper 100 meters of the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to Alaska.


title: Ocean acidification

text: According to a statement in July 2012 by Jane Lubchenco, head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration "surface waters are changing much more rapidly than initial calculations have suggested. It's yet another reason to be very seriously concerned about the amount of carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere now and the additional amount we continue to put out."


title: Ocean acidification

text: A 2013 study found acidity was increasing at a rate 10 times faster than in any of the evolutionary crises in Earth's history.


title: Ocean acidification

text: The "Third Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World" took place in Monterey, California, in 2012. The summary for policy makers from the conference stated that "Ocean acidification research is growing rapidly".


title: Ocean acidification

text: In a synthesis report published in "Science" in 2015, 22 leading marine scientists stated that from burning fossil fuels is changing the oceans' chemistry more rapidly than at any time since the Great Dying (Earth's most severe known extinction event). Their report emphasized that the 2 °C maximum temperature increase agreed upon by governments reflects too small a cut in emissions to prevent "dramatic impacts" on the world's oceans.


title: Internet bot

text: An Internet bot, web robot, robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity on the Internet, such as messaging, on a large scale. An Internet bot plays the client role in a client–server model whereas the server role is usually played by web servers. Internet bots are able to perform tasks, that are simple and repetitive, much faster than a person could ever do. The most extensive use of bots is for web crawling, in which an automated script fetches, analyzes and files information from web servers. More than half of all web traffic is generated by bots.


title: Internet bot

text: Efforts by web servers to restrict bots vary. Some servers have a codice_1 file that contains the rules governing bot behavior on that server. Any bot that does not follow the rules could, in theory, be denied access to or removed from the affected website. If the posted text file has no associated program/software/app, then adhering to the rules is entirely voluntary. There would be no way to enforce the rules or to ensure that a bot's creator or implementer reads or acknowledges the robots.txt file. Some bots are "good" – e.g. search engine spiders – while others are used to launch malicious attacks on, for example, political campaigns.


title: Internet bot

text: Some bots communicate with users of Internet-based services, via instant messaging (IM), Internet Relay Chat (IRC), or other web interfaces such as Facebook bots and Twitter bots. These chatbots may allow people to ask questions in plain English and then formulate a response. Such bots can often handle reporting weather, zip code information, sports scores, currency or other unit conversions, etc. Others are used for entertainment, such as SmarterChild on AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger.


title: Internet bot

text: Additional roles of an IRC bot may be to listen on a conversation channel, and to comment on certain phrases uttered by the participants (based on pattern matching). This is sometimes used as a help service for new users or to censor profanity.


title: Internet bot

text: Social bots are sets of algorithms that take on the duties of repetitive sets of instructions in order to establish a service or connection among social networking users. Among the various designs of networking bots, the most common are chat bots, algorithms designed to converse with a human user, and social bots, algorithms designed to mimic human behaviors to converse with patterns similar to those of a human user. The history of social botting can be traced back to Alan Turing in the 1950s and his vision of designing sets of instructional code approved by the Turing test. In the 1960s Joseph Weizenbaum created ELIZA, a natural language processing computer program. considered an early indicator of artificial intelligence algorithms. ELIZA inspired computer programmers to design tasked programs that can match behavior patterns to their sets of instruction. As a result, natural language processing has become an influencing factor to the development of artificial intelligence and social bots. And as information and thought see a progressive mass spreading on social media websites, innovative technological advancements are made following the same pattern.


title: Internet bot

text: Reports of political interferences in recent elections, including the 2016 US and 2017 UK general elections, have set the notion of bots being more prevalent because of the ethics that is challenged between the bot's design and the bot's designer. Emilio Ferrara, a computer scientist from the University of Southern California reporting on Communications of the ACM, said the lack of resources available to implement fact-checking and information verification results in the large volumes of false reports and claims made about these bots on social media platforms. In the case of Twitter, most of these bots are programmed with search filter capabilities that target keywords and phrases favoring political agendas and then retweet them. While the attention of bots is programmed to spread unverified information throughout the social media platforms, it is a challenge that programmers face in the wake of a hostile political climate. The Bot Effect is what Ferrera reported as the socialization of bots and human users creating a vulnerability to the leaking of personal information and polarizing influences outside the ethics of the bot's code, and was confirmed by Guillory Kramer in his study where he observed the behavior of emotionally volatile users and the impact the bots have on them, altering their perception of reality.


title: Internet bot

text: There has been a great deal of controversy about the use of bots in an automated trading function. Auction website eBay took legal action in an attempt to suppress a third-party company from using bots to look for bargains on its site; this approach backfired on eBay and attracted the attention of further bots. The United Kingdom-based bet exchange, Betfair, saw such a large amount of traffic coming from bots that it launched a WebService API aimed at bot programmers, through which it can actively manage bot interactions.


title: Internet bot

text: Bot farms are known to be used in online app stores, like the Apple App Store and Google Play, to manipulate positions or increase positive ratings/reviews.


title: Internet bot

text: A rapidly growing, benign form of internet bot is the chatbot. From 2016, when Facebook Messenger allowed developers to place chatbots on their platform, there has been an exponential growth of their use on that app alone. 30,000 bots were created for Messenger in the first six months, rising to 100,000 by September 2017. Avi Ben Ezra, CTO of SnatchBot, told Forbes that evidence from the use of their chatbot building platform pointed to a near future saving of millions of hours of human labor as 'live chat' on websites was replaced with bots.


title: Internet bot

text: Companies use internet bots to increase online engagement and streamline communication. Companies often use bots to cut down on cost; instead of employing people to communicate with consumers, companies have developed new ways to be efficient. These chatbots are used to answer customers' questions: for example, Domino's developed a chatbot that can take orders via Facebook Messenger. Chatbots allow companies to allocate their employees' time to other tasks.


title: Internet bot

text: One example of the malicious use of bots is the coordination and operation of an automated attack on networked computers, such as a denial-of-service attack by a botnet. Internet bots or web bots can also be used to commit click fraud and more recently have appeared around MMORPG games as computer game bots. Another category is represented by spambots, internet bots that attempt to spam large amounts of content on the Internet, usually adding advertising links. More than 94.2% of websites have experienced a bot attack.


title: Internet bot

text: in 2012, journalist Percy von Lipinski reported that he discovered millions of bots or botted or pinged views at CNN iReport. CNN iReport quietly removed millions of views from the account of iReporter Chris Morrow. It is not known if the ad revenue received by CNN from the fake views was ever returned to the advertisers.


title: Internet bot

text: The most widely used anti-bot technique is the use of CAPTCHA. Examples of providers include Recaptcha, Minteye, Solve Media and NuCaptcha. However, captchas are not foolproof in preventing bots, as they can often be circumvented by computer character recognition, security holes, and outsourcing captcha solving to cheap laborers.


title: Internet bot

text: There are two main concerns with bots: clarity and face-to-face support. The cultural background of human beings affects the way they communicate with social bots.


title: Internet bot

text: Many people believe that bots are vastly less intelligent than humans and so they are not worthy of our respect.


title: Internet bot

text: Min-Sun Kim proposed five concerns or issues that may arise when communicating with a social robot, and they are avoiding the damage of peoples' feelings, minimizing impositions, disapproval from others, clarity issues, and how effective their messages may come across.


title: Internet bot

text: People who oppose social robots argue that they also take away from the genuine creations of human relationships.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead Sciences, Inc. () is an American biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Foster City, California, that focuses on researching and developing antiviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, influenza, and COVID-19, including ledipasvir/sofosbuvir and sofosbuvir. Gilead is a member of the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index and the S&P 500.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead was founded in 1987 under the name Oligogen by Michael L. Riordan. The original name was a reference to oligomers, small strands of DNA used to target genetic sequences. Gilead held its IPO in 1992, and successfully developed drugs like Tamiflu and Vistide that decade.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In the 2000s, Gilead received approval for drugs including Viread and Hepsera, among others. It began evolving from a biotechnology company into a pharmaceutical company, acquiring several subsidiaries, though it still relied heavily on contracting to manufacture its drugs.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: The company continued its growth in the 2010s, but came under heavy scrutiny over its business practices, including extremely high pricing of drugs such as Sovaldi and Truvada in the United States relative to production cost and cost in the developing world.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In June 1987, Gilead Sciences was originally founded under the name Oligogen by Michael L. Riordan, a medical doctor. Riordan graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the Harvard Business School. Three scientific advisers worked with Riordan to create the company: Peter Dervan of Caltech, Doug Melton of Harvard, and Harold M. Weintraub of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Riordan served as CEO from the company's founding until 1996. Menlo Ventures, a venture capital firm where Riordan had previously worked, made the first investment in Gilead of $2 million. Riordan also recruited scientific advisers including Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate who later became Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Jack Szostak, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2009.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: The company's primary therapeutic focus was in antiviral medicines, a field that piqued Riordan's interest after he contracted dengue fever. Riordan recruited Donald Rumsfeld to join the board of directors in 1988, followed by Benno C. Schmidt, Sr., Gordon Moore, and George P. Shultz. Riordan tried to recruit Warren Buffett as an investor and board member, but was unsuccessful.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: The company focused its early research on making small strands of DNA (oligomers, or more particularly, oligonucleotides) to target specific genetic code sequences – that is, antisense therapy, a form of gene therapy. According to Riordan, he had always wanted to use the name Gilead Sciences all along, but used Oligogen as a temporary name because he needed to deal with a trademark clearance issue with a California nonprofit organization that was already using the word Gilead in its name. He had first heard of the Balm of Gilead when he read Lanford Wilson's play "Balm in Gilead" while in medical school, then learned that naturally occurring acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) had been found in modern times in a willow tree species from that part of that world, and was therefore inspired to name his company Gilead. After founding Oligogen, he contacted the nonprofit about the naming issue and secured the right to use the Gilead Sciences name in exchange for a $1,000 donation.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: By 1988, the company had moved its headquarters to Foster City's Vintage Park neighborhood, where it has been based ever since. The company began to develop small molecule antiviral therapeutics in 1991, when the company in-licensed a group of nucleotide compounds including tenofovir.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Riordan later recalled that Gilead's first decade as a startup was an extremely stressful experience for him, as a young venture capitalist serving for the first time as the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of his own biotech company. The new company had no products and very little income, and narrowly escaped going out of business on several occasions: "It was touch and go for a long time". Finding a way for Gilead to make money was Riordan's top priority "every second of the day for eight years".


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead's antisense intellectual property portfolio was sold to Ionis Pharmaceuticals. Gilead debuted on the NASDAQ in January 1992. Its initial public offering raised $86.25 million in proceeds.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In June 1996, Gilead launched Vistide (cidofovir injection) for the treatment of cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis in patients with AIDS.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In January 1997, Donald Rumsfeld was appointed chairman, but left the board in January 2001 when he was appointed United States Secretary of Defense during George W. Bush's first term as president.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In March 1999, Gilead acquired NeXstar Pharmaceuticals of Boulder, Colorado. At the time, NeXstar's annual sales of $130 million was three times Gilead's sales; it sold AmBisome, an injectable fungal treatment, and DaunoXome, an oncology drug taken by HIV patients. That same year, Roche announced FDA approval of Tamiflu (oseltamivir) for the treatment of influenza. Tamiflu was originally discovered by Gilead and licensed to Roche for late-phase development and marketing.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: One reason for entering into the Tamiflu licensing agreement was that with only 350 employees, Gilead still did not yet have the capability to sell its drugs directly to overseas buyers. To avoid having to license future drugs in order to access international markets, Gilead simply acquired the 480-employee NeXstar, which had already built its own sales force in Europe to market AmBisome there.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2002, Gilead changed its corporate strategy to focus exclusively on antivirals, and sold its cancer assets to OSI Pharmaceuticals for $200 million.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In December 2002, Gilead and Triangle Pharmaceuticals announced that Gilead would acquire Triangle for around $464 million; Triangle's lead drug was emtricitabine that was near FDA approval, and it had two other antivirals in its pipeline. The company also announced its first full year of profitability. Later that year, Hepsera (adefovir) was approved for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B, and Emtriva (emtricitabine) for the treatment of HIV.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: During this era, Gilead completed its gradual evolution from a biotech startup into a pharmaceutical company. The "San Francisco Chronicle" noted that by 2003, the Gilead corporate campus in Foster City had expanded to "seven low-slung sand-colored buildings around a tiny lake on which ducks happily paddle." Like many startups, Gilead originally leased its space, but in 2004, the company paid $123 million to buy all its headquarters buildings from its landlords. However, even as Gilead developed its ability to distribute and sell its own drugs, it remained distinct from most pharmaceutical companies in terms of its strong reliance on subcontracting most of its manufacturing to contract manufacturing organizations.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2004, during the Avian flu pandemic scare, Gilead Sciences' revenue from Tamiflu almost quadrupled to $44.6m as more than 60 national governments stockpiled the antiviral drug, though the firm had made a loss in 2003 before concern about the flu started. As stocks soared, US Defense Secretary and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld sold shares of the company, receiving more than $5 million in capital gains, while still maintaining up to $25m-worth of shares by the end of the year. Sales of Tamiflu almost quadrupled again in 2005, to $161.6m, during which time the share price tripled. A 2005 report showed that, in all, Rumsfeld owned shares worth up to $95.9m, from which he got an income of up to $13m.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2006, Gilead completed two acquisitions that allowed the company to branch out from its historical antiviral franchise into the cardiovascular and respiratory therapeutic arenas. Under an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline, Myogen marketed Flolan (epoprostenol sodium) in the United States for the treatment of primary pulmonary hypertension. Additionally, Myogen was developing (in Phase 3 studies) darusentan, also an endothelin receptor antagonist, for the potential treatment of resistant hypertension.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2006, the company acquired Corus Pharma, Inc. for $365 million. The acquisition of Corus signaled Gilead's entry into the respiratory arena. Corus was developing aztreonam lysine for the treatment of patients with cystic fibrosis who are infected with "Pseudomonas aeruginosa".


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In July 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Atripla, a once a day single tablet regimen for HIV, combining Sustiva (efavirenz), a Bristol-Myers Squibb product, and Truvada (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil), a Gilead product.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead purchased Raylo Chemicals, Inc. in November 2006, for a price of . Raylo Chemical, based in Edmonton, Alberta, was a wholly owned subsidiary of Degussa AG, a German company. Raylo Chemical was a custom manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients and advanced intermediates for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries. Later in the same year, Gilead acquired Myogen, Inc. for $2.5 billion (then its largest acquisition). With two drugs in development (ambrisentan and darusentan), and one marketed product (Flolan) for pulmonary diseases, the acquisition of Myogen has solidified Gilead's position in this therapeutic arena.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead expanded its move into respiratory therapeutics in 2007 by entering into a licensing agreement with Parion for an epithelial sodium channel inhibitor for the treatment of pulmonary diseases, including cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchiectasis.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2009, the company acquired CV Therapeutics, Inc. for $1.4 billion, bringing Ranexa and Lexiscan into Gilead. Ranexa is a cardiovascular drug used to treat chest pain related to coronary artery disease, with both of these products and pipeline building out Gilead's cardiovascular franchise. Later that year, the company was named one of the Fastest Growing Companies by "Fortune".


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2010, the company acquired CGI Pharmaceuticals for $120 million, expanding Gilead's research expertise into kinase biology and chemistry. Later that year, the company acquired Arresto Biosciences, Inc. for $225 million, obtaining developmental-stage research for treating fibrotic diseases and cancer.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In February 2011, the company acquired Calistoga Pharmaceuticals for ($225 million plus milestone payments). The acquisition boosted Gilead's oncology and inflammation areas. Later that year, Gilead made its most important acquisition – and by then most expensive – with the purchase of Pharmasset, Inc. This transaction helped cement Gilead as the leader in treatment of the hepatitis C virus by giving it control of sofosbuvir (see below).


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In October 2011, Gilead broke ground on a massive multi-year expansion of its 17-building headquarters campus in Foster City. By replacing eight one or two-story buildings with seven new structures ranging as tall as 10 stories, Gilead nearly doubled its headquarters real estate footprint from about 620,000 square feet to about 1.2 million square feet.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: On July 16, 2012, the FDA approved Gilead's Truvada for prevention of HIV infection (it was already approved for treating HIV). The pill was a preventive measure (PrEP) for people at high risk of getting HIV through sexual activity.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2013, the company acquired YM Biosciences, Inc. for $510 million. The acquisition brings drug candidate CYT387, an orally-administered, once-daily, selective inhibitor of the Janus kinase (JAK) family, specifically JAK1 and JAK2, into Gilead's oncology pipeline. The JAK enzymes have been implicated in myeloproliferative diseases, inflammatory disorders, and certain cancers.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2016, the company acquired Nimbus Apollo, Inc. for $400 million, giving Gilead control of the compound NDI-010976 (an ACC inhibitor) and other preclinical ACC inhibitors for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and for the potential treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. Also in 2016, the company was named the most generous company on the 2016 "Fortune" list of The Most Generous Companies of the "Fortune" 500. Charitable donations to HIV/AIDS and liver disease organizations totaled over 440 million in 2015.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In August 2017, the company announced it would acquire Kite Pharma for $11.9 billion, equating to $180 cash per share, a 29% premium over the closing price of the shares. The deal was Gilead's entry into the cell therapy market and added a CAR-T candidate to the company's portfolio. By 2022 this acquisition had led to two marketed products for lymphoma: Yescarta and Tecartus. In November, the company announced it will acquire Cell Design Labs for up to $567 million, after it indirectly acquired a stake of 12.2% via the Kite Pharma deal.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: On May 9, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that Gilead Sciences will donate Truvada, the only drug approved to prevent infection with H.I.V., for free to 200,000 patients annually for 11 years. On December 3, 2019, HHS explained how the government would distribute the donated drugs. HHS Secretary Alex Azar explained that the U.S. government will pay Gilead $200 per bottle for 30 pills for costs associated with getting the drug from factories into the eventual hands of patients.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In March 2020, the company announced it would acquire Forty Seven Inc. for $95.50 a share ($4.9 billion in total). On April 7, 2020, Gilead completed acquisition of Forty Seven, Inc. for "$95.50 per share, net to the seller in cash, without interest, or approximately $4.9 billion in the aggregate."


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In June 2020, "Bloomberg" reported that AstraZeneca Plc had made a preliminary approach to Gilead for a potential merger, worth almost $240 billion. In the same month, the company announced it would acquire a 49.9% stake in privately held Pionyr Immunotherapeutics Inc for $275 million.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In September 2020, Gilead announced it had reached a deal to acquire Immunomedics for $21 billion ($88 per share), gaining control of the cancer treatment Trodelvy (Sacituzumab govitecan-hziy) – a first-in-class Trop-2 antibody-drug conjugate. In December, the business announced it would acquire German biotech, MYR GmbH, for €1.15 billion plus up to a further €300 million. MYR focuses on the treatment of chronic hepatitis delta virus.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: On August 11, 2021, U.S. Senator Rand Paul disclosed that his wife Kelley Paul had purchased a stake in Gilead Sciences on February 26, 2020.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In January 2022, Gilead pulled its cancer drug Zydelig (idelalisib) from its accelerated approval in relapsed follicular B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (FL) and relapsed small lymphocytic leukemia (SLL). In September, the company completed its acquisition of MiroBio for $405 million.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: The drug sofosbuvir had been part of the 2011 acquisition of Pharmasset. In 2013, the FDA approved this drug, under the trade name Sovaldi, as a treatment for the hepatitis C virus. "Forbes" magazine ranked Gilead its number 4 drug company, citing a market capitalization of US$113 billion and stock appreciation of 100%, and describing their 2011 purchase of Pharmasset for $11 billion as "one of the best pharma acquisitions ever". Deutsche Bank estimated Sovaldi sales in the year's final quarter would be $53 million, and "Barron's" noted the FDA approval and subsequent strong sales of the "potentially revolutionary" drug as a positive indicator for the stock.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: On July 11, 2014, the United States Senate Committee on Finance investigated Sovaldi's high price ($1,000 per pill; $84,000 for the full 12-week regimen). Senators questioned the extent to which the market was operating "efficiently and rationally", and committee chairman Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and ranking minority member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to CEO John C. Martin asking Gilead to justify the price for this drug. The committee hearings did not result in new law, but in 2014 and 2015, due to negotiated and mandated discounts, Sovaldi was sold well below the list price. For poorer countries, Gilead licensed multiple companies to produce generic versions of Sovaldi; in India, a pill's price was as low as $4.29.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead later combined Sovaldi with other antivirals in single-pill combinations. First, Sovaldi was combined with ledipasvir and marketed as Harvoni. This treatment for hepatitis C cures the patient in 94% to 99% of cases (HCV genotype 1). By 2017, Gilead was reporting drastic drops in Sovaldi revenue from year to year, not only because of pricing pressure but because the number of suitable patients decreased. Later single-pill combinations were Epclusa (with velpatasvir) and Vosevi (with velpatasvir and voxilaprevir).


title: Gilead Sciences

text: For the fiscal year 2017, Gilead Sciences reported earnings of US$4.628 billion and annual revenue of US$26.107 billion, a decline of 14.1% over the previous fiscal cycle. Gilead Sciences's shares traded at over $70 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at US$93.4 billion in October 2018.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: As of 2017, Gilead's challenge is to develop or acquire new blockbuster drugs before its current revenue-producers wane or their patent protection expires. Gilead benefited from the expansion of Medicaid in the ACA; Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges wrote that Gilead's HIV drugs could face funding pressure under reform proposals. Gilead has $32 billion in cash, but $27.4 billion is outside the U.S. and is unavailable for acquisitions unless Gilead pays U.S. tax on it, though it could borrow against it. Gilead would benefit from proposals to let companies repatriate offshore capital with minimal further taxation.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead's Entospletinib has shown a 90% complete response rate for MLL type acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Several class-action lawsuits have been filed against Gilead over allegations that the company deliberately delayed development of antiretroviral drugs based on tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (TAF) in order to maximize profits from previous-generation medications containing tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF). Plaintiffs allege that Gilead suspended TAF in 2004 despite clear evidence indicating that TAF-based medications were safer than TDF, a compound whose long-term use was associated with adverse side effects such as nephrotoxicity and bone density loss.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead's first TAF medication, marketed under the trade name Genvoya, came out in 2015. Lawsuits allege that in the interim period, many HIV patients who continuously took Gilead's older TDF-based drugs suffered severe side effects, including nephrotoxicity.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead came under intense criticism for its high pricing of its patented drug sofosbuvir (sold under the brand name Sovaldi), used to treat hepatitis C. In the US, for instance, it was launched at $1,000 per pill or $84,000 for the standard 84-day course, but it was drastically cheaper in the developing world; in India, it dropped as low as $4.29 per pill. While Sovaldi represented a significant improvement over contemporary treatments, the controversy surrounding its price ignited a national debate in the US, according to Reuters.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: The United States Senate Committee on Finance launched an 18-month investigation of Gilead's Sovaldi pricing, and argued in its 2015 report that Gilead set prices high in disregard of the human cost and in order to set the stage for a higher eventual price for Sovaldi's successor, Harvoni. The committee's investigation, based in part on internal documents obtained from Gilead, revealed that the company had considered prices ranging from $50,000 to $115,000 per year, trying to strike a balance between revenue and predicted activist and public relations blowback, with little regard to research and development costs.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: The high prices forced state Medicaid programs to ration treatment to patients, delaying treatment of less advanced hepatitis C cases. In Oregon, for example, 10,000 Medicaid patients were deemed good candidates for Sovaldi therapy, but the Oregon Health Authority estimated that treating half of these patients would more than double the state's total drug expenditures. The state thus opted to limit treatment to 500 patients per year.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: When Truvada was introduced, it cost approximately $1,200 per month in the United States. By 2018, this price had increased to up to $2,000, despite generally costing less than $100 outside the U.S. Gilead made over $3 billion in sales of Truvada in 2018.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: The high price drew the ire of activist groups such as ACT UP and was the subject of a Congressional hearing in May 2019. Gilead's CEO defended its pricing in the hearing by noting the large sums the company spends on HIV/AIDS research. The research behind Truvada was primarily funded by the United States government, which filed the original patent.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In May 2019, Gilead announced it would donate enough Truvada to treat up to 200,000 patients annually for up to 11 years, the result of discussions with the Department of Health and Human Services under Trump. Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted that the donations still covered less than one-fifth of the people who need the drug, and argued it was possibly a move to help the company market Descovy, a more advanced successor drug. Walensky led a 2020 study that concluded the high costs of Descovy would on the whole negate any comparative advantage of prescribing it over a generic Truvada alternative.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In July 2021, Gilead announced it would decrease 340B Drug Pricing Program reimbursements to clinics serving primarily low-income communities; clinics argued this severely hinders their ability to provide HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services among vulnerable populations.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead has also been accused of stifling competition. A lawsuit filed in the United States in 2019 alleged that the company entered "pay for delay" agreements with other manufacturers, wherein the manufacturers agreed to delay releasing generic versions of Truvada. In 2021, CVS Pharmacy and RiteAid filed a lawsuit on similar grounds against Gilead, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Teva Pharmaceuticals in 2021.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In response to criticisms over the price of Sovaldi, Gilead began licensing the rights to produce generic versions of the drug to select producers in India in 2015. Included in the licensing agreements were 'anti-diversion' provisions, designed to prevent the drug from being exported back to developed countries where the cheaper, generic alternatives were still unavailable. (In India, a one-month treatment cost approximately US$300, versus $1,000 per pill in the United States.) Gilead required the Indian producers to screen patients to determine who could buy Sovaldi, which was criticized by Médecins Sans Frontières since it could lead to the exclusion of vulnerable groups like refugees and migrants from accessing the medicines. In response to the criticism, Gilead eventually relaxed these requirements.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead has been criticized for tax avoidance. Tax avoidance, as opposed to tax evasion, is the use of legal means to shift tax burdens from the one jurisdiction to overseas affiliates that pay a lower tax rate, even if revenue is primarily generated outside the overseas jurisdiction.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: A 2016 report by the liberal think tank Americans for Tax Fairness argued that Gilead was able to avoid up to $10 billion in taxes on U.S. sales through mechanisms such as transfer pricing, the sale of assets between affiliated entities. In particular, Gilead sells intellectual property to an Irish subsidiary, which then sells the finished products, such as Sovaldi, in the United States and elsewhere, paying the low Irish tax rate on profits. The practice is common among multinational pharmaceutical companies like Gilead.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: On December 26, 2018, "The Times" reported that Gilead had used the Double Irish arrangement to avoid U.S. corporate taxes on global profits, stating that the firm "used a controversial tax loophole arrangement to shift almost in profits through an Irish entity in just two years" without paying Irish taxes. The company repatriated a portion of the Irish subsidiary's holdings, $28 billion, to the United States in 2018 following reductions of the corporate tax rate. For this it paid an estimated $5.5 billion in tax.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Gilead sought and obtained orphan drug designation for remdesivir from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 23, 2020. This designation is intended to encourage the development of drugs affecting fewer than 200,000 Americans by granting strengthened and extended legal monopoly rights to the manufacturer, along with waivers on taxes and government fees.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Remdesivir became a candidate for treating COVID-19; at the time the status was granted, fewer than 200,000 Americans had COVID-19, but numbers were climbing rapidly as the COVID-19 pandemic reached the US, and crossing the threshold soon was considered inevitable. Gilead retains 20-year remdesivir patents in more than 70 countries.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: In 2021, remdesivir (tradename "Veklury") generated more than $4.5 billion in annual revenues, and was Gilead's highest selling product.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: Emergency use authorization for remdesivir was granted in the U.S. on May 1, 2020, for people hospitalized with severe COVID-19. In September 2020 following a review of the evidence, the WHO issued guidance not to use remdesivir for people with COVID-19, as there was no good evidence of benefit. However, over 2020–22 with further clinical research, remdesivir had been approved for treatment of hospitalized people with COVID-19 in the United States, European Union, and multiple other countries. In 2022, the Canadian component of the WHO international Solidarity Trial reported that in-hospital people with COVID-19 treated with remdesivir had lower death rates (by about 4%) and reduced need for oxygen and mechanical ventilation compared to people receiving standard-of-care treatments.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: "Veklury" received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2020 use in hospitalized adults and children 12 years and older for treatment of severe COVID-19 infections. In January 2022, the FDA gave regulatory approval to "Veklury" for use in adults and children (12 years of age and older who weigh at least and are positive for COVID-19, not hospitalized, and are ill having high risk for developing severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death.


title: Gilead Sciences

text: The FDA also provided Emergency Use Authorization for "Veklury" treatment of children under age 12 who are COVID-positive and not hospitalized, but have mild-to-moderate COVID-19 with high risk of developing severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Knightfall" is a 1993–1994 Batman story arc published by DC Comics. It consists of a trilogy of storylines that ran from 1993 to 1994, consisting of "Knightfall", "Knightquest", and "KnightsEnd".


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The story takes place over approximately six months. Bruce Wayne (Batman) suffers burnout and is systematically assaulted and crippled by a "super steroid"-enhanced genius named Bane. Wayne is replaced as Batman by an apprentice named Jean-Paul Valley (a.k.a. Azrael), who becomes increasingly violent and unstable, tarnishing Batman's reputation. Eventually, Wayne is healed through paranormal means and reclaims his role as Batman.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Knightfall" resulted in long-term ramifications for the Batman continuity, as Batman's trust from the police, the public, and his fellow superheroes had to be rebuilt due to Azrael's violence. Additionally, Wayne realizes the peril and burden of attempting to work in solitude, leading to the eventual creation of the modern incarnation of the Batman Family. The events of "Knightfall" also led to the (temporary) resignation of Wayne's loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The entire "Knightfall" storyline took over a year to complete in the comic book serials. In later years, the comics were reprinted several times, though never in full, as the "Knightquest: The Search" story arc had not been collected until the second omnibus edition in 2017.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The initial idea for the character of Azrael stemmed from a two-part story idea pitched by "Detective Comics" writer Peter Milligan circa 1991, as he was leaving that position. After line editor Dennis O'Neil decided to expand it into a larger epic, he and the Batman line writers Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench and Alan Grant convened an authors' summit over a long weekend to flesh out the details and story points. At the same time, the Superman team was planning for a similar character-altering storyline, and neither they nor the Batman group initially had any knowledge of each other's plans. Dennis O'Neil denies the Knightfall storyline was in any way inspired by the "Death of Superman" storyline and states that it was already in development by as much as three years, saying that if the Batman staff had known, the storyline would likely have been pushed down a year.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The serial stories of the monthly Batman comics titles began slowly building toward the "Knightfall" arc several months prior, in conjunction with the publication of the four-issue "Sword of Azrael" miniseries and the "Vengeance of Bane" one-shot, which also laid foundation for the larger story.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Knightfall" ran from April to October 1993, "Batman" issues #492-500 and "Detective Comics" issues #659-666, with the two titles sharing a single narrative during this time. The two series each hit numerical milestones at the end of the arc, with a triple-size 500th issue of "Batman" and the ominous "Detective Comics" number 666 wrapping up the storyline only one month apart. The massive story was quickly collected into two volumes of trade paperbacks. Volume One was subtitled "Broken Bat" and Volume Two "Who Rules the Night". “Knightfall” was the first time that multiple Batman titles had shared a single narrative for an extended period since the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" era.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Knightfall" was immediately followed by "Knightquest" in the monthly serials. "Knightquest" is divided into two storylines, one following Bruce Wayne ("Knightquest: The Search") and the other on the new Batman ("Knightquest: The Crusade"). The stories were not treated as crossovers and the "Batman" titles continued as they had before "Knightfall" where the creative teams each pursued its own storyline. Instead of a crossover, "Knightquest" was more of an umbrella title that also encompassed some issues of "" (to avoid giving away their plans, the publishers treated it as though it were the new status quo, so issues were not numbered as chapters). Additionally, "The Crusade" served as a launching point for the first ongoing monthly series featuring Robin in solo adventures. Neither thread of "Knightquest" was collected in book format until over two decades later.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Although previous parts of the "KnightSaga" had taken considerable time to run their course, the entirety of "KnightsEnd" was published within a two-month span, as the Batman books had to prepare themselves for DC's impending company-wide crossover "Zero Hour", which would immediately follow the "KnightSaga". Nothing was truncated, as the "Batman" editorial line made use of all of the Batman-related titles at their disposal, such as "Catwoman", "Robin" and "Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight" (normally an anthology title with stories set in the past). "KnightsEnd" was collected in trade paperback as "Knightfall Volume 3" soon after completion.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The serial nature of the Batman titles continued beyond the end of "KnightsEnd", with the "Prodigal" and "Troika" storylines, and into subsequent unbannered stories. This setup resurfaced in later arcs such as "", "", "", "", and "", and has on occasion continued into the present.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The intent of "Knightfall"'s writers was to counter the then-popular style of violent heroes in comics and demonstrate that the traditional Batman made for a better hero. The issues featuring Jean-Paul Valley as Batman on the cover depict him with highly exaggerated musculature and legs which taper into disproportionally tiny feet, mimicking the styles of contemporary "violent hero" artists such as Rob Liefeld.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The prelude to "Knightfall" began with the introduction of two new characters key to its storyline in issues prior to the release of "Knightfall":


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The two characters were quickly added to the cast in the monthly "Batman" titles, with Azrael being a superhero-in-training who fights alongside Batman, while Bane was introduced as a supervillain.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Within the regular series, the buildup to "Knightfall" begins with a six-issue run in "Batman" #484-489 (September 1992 - February 1993), in which Batman (at the onset of a personal psychological mid-life crisis) is forced to deal, in rapid succession, with the returning villain Black Mask and his gang (who target Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox), a crazed killer called Metalhead, and a sharpshooter assassin hired by an imprisoned mobster to murder Commissioner Gordon. Batman begins to feel that he has lost his edge, especially after his failure to capture Black Mask. He finds himself unable to meditate or even focus. As Bruce Wayne, he contacts holistic therapist Shondra Kinsolving for treatment. He also assigns Robin (Tim Drake) to train Jean-Paul Valley in detective work to aid them as an ally, hoping to guide Valley's brainwashing away from making him a villainous threat. Despite the advice of everyone in his life, including Dr. Kinsolving, Bruce refuses to rest and continues to pursue his self-imposed duty despite his worsening condition (although not explicitly noted as a cause, these events take place immediately after the death of Superman, Batman's peer, elsewhere in the DC Universe). In addition, since the events from "," Batman struggles with the trauma of the loss of his protégé Jason Todd.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The next storyline, in "Detective Comics" #654-656 (December 1992 - February 1993), involves a young military student usurping power in Gotham's underworld and assaulting a police station, with Bruce's fatigue continuing to worsen. At the conclusion of this story, Bane and his henchman are shown monitoring Batman's performance.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Bane begins a series of encounters letting Batman know of his presence and his intentions. In "Batman" #489-490 (February–March 1993), Bane interferes with encounters pitting villains Killer Croc and the Riddler against Batman, and, to test Batman's limits, goes so far as to inject the Riddler with the Venom drug. This escalation culminates in an assault on Arkham Asylum in "Batman" #491 (April 1993), where Bane breaks the inmates free and supplies them with numerous weapons to escape. Meanwhile, Robin finds it difficult to work with Jean-Paul, due to the man's violent subconscious training and lack of social skills, and also finds himself being shut out from working alongside Batman.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The plot of "Knightfall" begins with the master criminal Bane freeing all of the maximum-security inmates of Arkham Asylum, a notorious psychiatric facility in Gotham City. Aware that he would lose in a direct assault against Batman, Bane's plan consists of weakening Batman by forcing him to deal with the deadly villains simultaneously. Among the freed inmates, there are numerous high-profile villains, such as the Joker (who trapped Arkham's administrator Jeremiah Arkham), the Scarecrow, the Riddler, and Poison Ivy, as well as many lesser-known villains, such as the Mad Hatter, the Ventriloquist, the Firefly, the Cavalier, the Film Freak, Mr. Zsasz, Cornelius Stirk, Abattoir, and Amygdala. The scenario creates a rift in the relationship between Robin and Batman, as Batman irrationally seeks to face the outbreak alone—in later issues, Robin asks Batman if he is even needed as his sidekick anymore. A later flashback to this time period ("Showcase '93" #7-8) shows Batman pursuing Two-Face alone, being trapped and kidnapped to stand a mock trial; he is saved only by a rescue attempt from Robin.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Over the next few issues, Batman becomes weaker and weaker as each criminal is put away. The rescue of Mayor Krol from the teaming of the Joker and Scarecrow pushes Batman to his mental and physical limits: a dose of Scarecrow's fear gas makes him relive , which he considers to be his greatest failure. After this encounter, Bane's men assault Batman before he himself makes his move and attacks him at Wayne Manor, his home as his alter-ego—long before this time, Bane had deduced the secret identity of Batman. The fight between Bruce Wayne and Bane is detailed in "Batman" #497. After three months, the exhausted Batman was no match for Bane; Bane pummels him ruthlessly before breaking Wayne's back over his knee inside the Batcave below the manor, symbolically "breaking" Batman. Bane takes the grievously-wounded Wayne (still costumed in the Batman outfit) downtown to Gotham Square and throws him from a rooftop to demonstrate his superiority to the populace. Quick action by Robin and Alfred spares Batman's life, but at great cost - he is left a paraplegic. With Batman incapacitated, Bane assumes control of Gotham City's underworld and takes over several illegal operations within it.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: After his defeat, Bruce Wayne enlists the aid of Dr. Shondra Kinsolving to rehabilitate him and asks Jean-Paul Valley to take up the mantle of Batman so that Gotham has a protector. Tim Drake argues with Bruce to allow Dick Grayson (the former Robin and then-current Nightwing) to become Batman, as he is more experienced and mentally competent. Bruce replies that Grayson has his own responsibilities and would only take up the mantle of the Bat reluctantly (Dick later expressed resentment at not being asked to stand in as Batman). Bruce's rationale for this decision is revealed in later issues - secretly, he does not want Dick to have to face Bane, as he knows Dick's character will compel him to try. Indeed, Bruce gives Jean-Paul strict orders never to engage Bane in combat—and when Jean-Paul does face Bane, only his modified gloves save Jean-Paul from being thrown to his death.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Soon after, Kinsolving and Tim's father Jack Drake are kidnapped and Bruce and Alfred leave the country to find them - their story is continued in "Knightquest: The Search", while the happenings in Gotham are recorded in "Knightquest: The Crusade". Jean-Paul is shown to be a different, but not dangerous, Batman until an encounter with the Scarecrow, which results in Jean-Paul being infected by Scarecrow's fear gas and "The System"—his programming as Azrael—taking over, in order to combat Jean-Paul's fear. Following this, Jean-Paul is unable to shake the influence of the System, giving in to it completely after his first defeat at Bane's hands and being increasingly influenced by it during the rest of his tenure as Batman. Gradually, Jean-Paul alienates Robin with his paranoia and arrogance.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In "Batman" #500, Jean-Paul, in his new mechanical Batsuit (which is an amalgam of Azrael's costume and the Batman's), confronts Bane in an arduous battle and prevails, although many bystanders are put at risk. Jean-Paul leaves Bane broken mentally and physically, though he struggles with the choice of whether to simply kill Bane or hand him over to the police. He decides that he will let Bane go to Blackgate Prison. Jean-Paul continues to watch over Gotham after the fight, but grows increasingly unstable.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: At the onset of "Knightquest", Jean-Paul Valley has been established as Batman, and Bruce Wayne is out of the country. Instead of a crossover with a definite ending, the publishers treated the scenario as though it were the new status quo, leaving it open-ended.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Knightquest: The Crusade" follows the story of Jean-Paul Valley during his tenure as Batman. He becomes increasingly violent and mentally unbalanced. During this time, he drives Robin away because he believes Gotham to be so tough that only violence could answer its criminals. In several issues, Robin is left horrified as Jean-Paul ferociously attacks common criminals, often with a weapon and sometimes nearly to death. This surge of violence from Gotham's defender puts pressure on Batman's relationship with Police Commissioner Gordon, who begins to distrust and even fear the new Batman and eventually comes to realize he is not the same man he has known.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: All of Jean-Paul's actions are compelled by "the System"; on numerous occasions, he experiences the ghosts of his father and the patriarch Saint Dumas giving him guidance and he is driven to near-insanity by the time the saga ends. He repeatedly redesigns his Batman costume, adding more gadgets and lethal weapons, including metal claws, a laser, razor-sharp batarangs and a flamethrower. Eventually, he also adds a Bat-symbol, matching the one used for the series' logo. Valley becomes compelled by a desire to be a better Batman than Bruce Wayne, especially when he discovers his lack of interest in detective work caused him to make false assumptions about Catwoman (he thought that she would sell a powerful nerve gas to terrorists, when she merely wanted to dispose of it so that it could not be used to hurt anyone).


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: His questionable behavior climaxes when he encounters the serial killer Abattoir, who is keeping an innocent prisoner in a secret torture chamber: Jean-Paul purposely lets Abattoir die, thereby condemning the prisoner to death as well. Other villains Jean-Paul faces include Mr. Freeze, the Trigger Twins, Gunhawk and Gunbunny, the Tally Man and Clayface III and IV; the most notable encounters are with Catwoman and the Joker, both of whom could tell that Valley was not the original Batman.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Knightquest: The Search" follows Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth's search for Jack Drake and Shondra Kinsolving, the father of the current Robin and the physical therapist with whom Bruce Wayne had fallen in love during his rehabilitation sessions, respectively. Their investigation leads them to the Caribbean and then Great Britain. Kinsolving's brother-by-adoption Benedict Asp kidnapped her to use her special powers to kill people at a distance. Asp demonstrates this new form of mass murder on a small English village. When Bruce Wayne finds Kinsolving, he finds himself caught in the middle of a telekinetic tug-of-war between Asp and Kinsolving. The battle climaxes with her refocusing her energy to defeat Asp; as a side effect of the energy, Bruce's broken spine becomes healed. However, the drugs forced onto her by Asp, combined with the effects of the fight with Asp, reduce her mind to that of a child as Shondra's traumatised mind regresses to the past to escape her unhappy present, and Wayne reluctantly puts her into a mental institution.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Bruce eventually leaves England to return home to a civilian life in Gotham, but Alfred remains in England, not wanting to see Bruce Wayne damage his body further. He does not return to Gotham until a while later, when Dick Grayson persuades him to do so in later issues.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Jean-Paul Valley sees visions of his dead father, who had programmed him at birth to be a deadly weapon. These visions tell Jean-Paul to avenge his father's death, and Jean-Paul searches Gotham for his father's killer. Though the killer, Carlton LeHah, had already been encountered and defeated (in "Batman: Sword of Azrael"), Jean-Paul's conditioning had warped his mind to the extent that he no longer remembered the incident. He eventually comes to believe that Penn Selkirk, a Gotham mobster turned weapons dealer who has taken over the remnants of LeHah's organization, is his father's murderer. Valley now spends his time doggedly pursuing him.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Returning to Gotham, Bruce meets with Tim. Even though Jean-Paul disobeyed Bruce's order to refrain from attacking Bane, Bruce is sufficiently impressed with Jean-Paul's results. Bruce decides to retire and allow Jean-Paul to continue as Batman. But when Robin tells Bruce of the circumstances surrounding Abattoir's death, Bruce sneaks into the Batcave and demands that Jean-Paul step down. Jean-Paul refuses and tells Bruce to leave the cave and never come back.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: To rehabilitate his skills due to his lost reflexes after so long out of action, Bruce asks the famed assassin Lady Shiva to retrain him, using a mask to conceal his identity and arguing that she will do it for the same reason that she does anything; it might be interesting. After helping him regain the essentials of his combat reflexes, Shiva then pits Bruce against several vengeful expert martial artists, having killed their master while wearing a distinctive "tengu" mask that carries a motif of a bat that she subsequently gives to Batman. Shiva's caveat is that these attacks will continue indefinitely until Bruce Wayne breaks his vow to never kill. Finally, in the midst of an attack by the final martial artist, Bruce feigns using the "Leopard Blow" fatal maneuver Shiva had taught him, leaving his would-be assailant apparently dead. Shiva finally declares him worthy of fighting her at some point in the future, with Bruce only revealing his adversary's survival to Nightwing and Robin after her departure. Shiva would later learn the truth.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Now back in fighting shape, Bruce returns to the Batcave and resumes his role as Batman. Along with Robin and Nightwing, he tracks Valley down to Selkirk's penthouse. Coincidentally, Catwoman is chasing the same man because he owns a neural enabler which might allow her paraplegic friend to walk again. Selkirk already wants to kill Jean-Paul for destroying a valuable weapons cache in Gotham Harbor.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: When they eventually all meet, mass fighting and gunfire ensue. The battle ends with Selkirk's helicopter crashing into the Gotham Narrows Bridge while Bruce and Jean-Paul fight on the attached Batrope; Jean-Paul falls aflame into the Gotham River. Bruce and Catwoman save Selkirk and his aides just before the helicopter explodes from the leaking fuel, his decision to protect criminals affirming to Catwoman that the true Batman has returned. When Bruce tries to find Jean-Paul using the Batmobile, it explodes due to a planted booby-trap. Nightwing fears Bruce dead and takes his vengeance out on Jean-Paul on a party boat. The police arrive in time to prevent Nightwing from committing murder, but Jean-Paul escapes. However, to his shock, Jean-Paul finds Bruce waiting at Wayne Manor; Bruce had managed to escape the Batmobile before Jean-Paul's trap destroyed it, reasoning that he would have done the same thing with a less dangerous trap.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The final battle of the "Knightfall" saga takes place between Jean-Paul Valley and Bruce Wayne in the caverns surrounding the Batcave below Wayne Manor: rather than beating Jean-Paul at hand-to-hand combat, Bruce outwits him by escaping into a passage too narrow for Jean-Paul to go through in his armor, thus forcing Jean-Paul to remove most of it. Bruce then opens a hatch to the outside, which covered the very hole he fell into as a child, allowing sunlight to enter the night lenses in Jean-Paul's helmet. After being momentarily blinded, Jean-Paul removes his cowl, sees Bruce standing over him in the original Batman costume and concedes defeat, saying ""You are the Batman... You've always been the Batman... and I am nothing..."" Bruce comforts Jean-Paul, who leaves to wander the streets of Gotham, homeless and destitute. Bruce decides not to take Jean-Paul to the police because it was his decision to make Jean-Paul the Batman, leading to his subsequent breakdown.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "KnightsEnd" was collected into a trade paperback about a year later. Originally released as "Batman: KnightsEnd", recent editions retitled it as "Knightfall Volume 3".


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Shortly after the events of "," Bruce reaffirms his partnership with Tim, resolving the tension caused by Bruce's unwillingness to accept help during the Arkham prison break. Bruce passes the mantle of Batman to Grayson so he can re-evaluate what it will take to restore his aura of invincibility. This begins the "Prodigal" storyline, a reference to Dick Grayson essentially being Bruce's prodigal son; Bruce had adopted Dick after his parents were murdered.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Because of the events of the entire arc, considerable time passes before Commissioner Gordon restores his trust in the idea of a Batman working for good. Gordon can tell that he is not looking at the original Batman (based on Jean-Paul's costume and Dick's height, and the fact that Jean-Paul was more than ready to kill people), and he refuses to place blind trust in a costume after spending so long learning to trust the man. "Prodigal" was utilized as a way of tying up the numerous loose ends that "Knightfall" left, with Killer Croc, the Ventriloquist, the Ratcatcher and Two-Face, along with many other, less notorious escaped inmates being returned to prison. In doing so, Dick avenges his worst mistake from his days as Robin, when a mistake in a confrontation with Two-Face caused a man to die and nearly killed Bruce. He also comes to appreciate the incredible physical and mental burden Bruce places on himself in donning the Batsuit. During the story, a firm bond arises between Dick and Tim as they share Wayne Manor together in Bruce's and Alfred's absence.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: It is revealed later in "No Man's Land" that Bruce also used this time to set up contingency bases throughout Gotham.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: When Bruce finally returns for good, he wears a sturdier, matte-black Batsuit made of a combination Nomex and Kevlar (inspired by the costume of the Tim Burton "Batman" films), and drives a new, state-of-the-art Batmobile. He fights former Soviet agents Colonel Vega (who teamed with Asp in "Knightquest: The Search"), KGBeast, and Dark Rider, in order to foil a plot to nuke Gotham City with a device the size and shape of a baseball. ("Troika" is the Russian word for "trio".) The saga also shows how Batman makes changes to his life as Bruce Wayne, his relationships with his "family", plans to live without Alfred, and copes with the decision of making Jean-Paul his replacement.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: A one-shot that features the return of Alfred after his resignation during "Knightquest: The Search". It has Nightwing going to England in order to track Alfred down.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: A new series following Jean-Paul Valley was begun in April 1995, titled "Azrael". In it, he is found on the street by Bruce Wayne and given money to leave Gotham to travel the world and find his purpose, as had Bruce. His journeys take him to Europe, where he uncovers conspiracies within the Sacred Order of Saint Dumas which had brainwashed him. Later, he returns to Gotham City to aid Batman and the series was retitled "Azrael: Agent of the Bat" at issue #47. The series ended after 100 issues, with Valley's apparent death. Each issue was written by Dennis O'Neil. Azrael's demise occurred at the same time as the "" storyline, which focused on how Bruce Wayne as Batman interacted with his various friends, allies, loved ones, and enemies; oddly enough though, Jean-Paul Valley was neither mentioned, alluded to, or appeared during this time.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: This crossover event involves a rematch between Batman and Bane, who is now allied with Ra's al Ghul. It is followed by the one-shot graphic novel "Batman: Bane".


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Batman Annual" #22 featured the return of Arnold Etchinson (Abattoir)'s spirit, wishing to take revenge on Batman (specifically, Azrael-Batman) for his death. Now calling himself Etkar, he possesses Azrael's former Batsuit and returns to the site of his own death with a hostage.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In "Azrael" issues #36-40, a final thread of the "Knightfall" plot is resolved in the four-part storyline "Angel and the Bane" and its following issue, "Hour of the Quake".


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: After the events of "Batman: Bane", Azrael is tasked by Batman to track down the recently resurfaced Bane. After meeting, the two men struggle, and Bane gets the upper hand with the aid of a small band of Santa Priscan soldiers and his old henchman Bird. He restrains Azrael and injects him with Venom, with the plan of using him as a super soldier to take over Santa Prisca. Azrael is able to resist addiction to the drug and eventually conquers Bane and flies him back to Gotham City. They arrive just as the occurs. Bane attempts escape but is unable; as a last-ditch effort he unsuccessfully tries to convince Azrael to form a partnership. Instead, Azrael reaffirms his dedication to Bruce Wayne.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The cover of issue #37 depicts Bane breaking Azrael over his knee in a recreation of the famous cover of "Batman" #497, "Knightfall" part 11.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Each story arc of the "Knightfall" saga ran across a number of Gotham City-related comics. This created a fairly complex reading order, which is summarized below.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: DC Comics published "Knightfall" around the same time as "The Death of Superman" storyline. "Knightfall" started almost immediately after the "Funeral For a Friend" storyline in the "Superman" books. During the breakout at Arkham Asylum, Batman and Robin both wear a black arm band with the S-shield engraved on it. The two stories involved DC Comics's most prominent characters. Similar stories followed for Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Green Arrow, with Green Lantern Hal Jordan being driven insane and replaced with Kyle Rayner, a new Wonder Woman being appointed by Hippolyta, Aquaman losing his hand, and Green Arrow dying in a plane crash as his long-lost son took over the role.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In the opening of the novelisation, "KnightFall", Dennis O'Neil stated that part of the reason "Knightfall" was written was due to the recent popularity of more "ruthless" heroes such as the Terminator and James Bond in films, as editors were starting to wonder if readers would prefer a Batman who was willing to kill his opponents.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: During "DC vs. Marvel", Bane attempts to break Captain America's back in a fight in a similar maneuver, but is caught off-guard when Captain America's shield returns to its owner to strike Bane in the back of the head and knock him out.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In the climax to Year One of "", Superman confronts Batman in the Batcave as Batman is downloading the formula to a pill that can grant the user superhuman strength and durability, stolen from the Fortress of Solitude. While Superman does not want to kill Batman, he chooses to paralyze him by breaking his back in a similar fashion to Bane (albeit by standing on Batman's back instead of slamming him over his knee as Bane did). This puts Batman out of commission for much of Year Two as he heals.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: IGN "Comics" #15 ranked "Batman: Knightfall Part One-Broken Bat" on a list of the 25 greatest Batman graphic novels, saying: "What makes 'Knightfall, Part One' so memorable is not the actually snapping of Batman's back. It's the quick fall into despair that proves most shocking. The ending is a foregone conclusion as Batman is worn down both physically and mentally. The Batman's spirit is broken before his vertebrae and that's a feat you'll never see accomplished anywhere else."


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The bulk of the events in the "Knightfall" saga are estimated to take place in the 10th or 11th year of Batman's career by most reckonings, including official DC timelines. It begins within a few months of Tim Drake assuming the role of the third Robin. Dick Grayson's wedding to Starfire occurs very shortly after Bruce Wayne's injury. It is an election year, and Armand Krol is campaigning for re-election as mayor both before and after the story arc.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: The initial scenes of the prelude miniseries "Batman: Sword of Azrael" #1-4 take place during the Gotham City "Founders' Day" parade.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: A meeting between Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne on his airplane is explicitly described as the first Post-"Crisis" out-of-costume interaction between the two.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: As the contemporary Batmobile was destroyed in "KnightsEnd", the original Batmobile (with the large hood ornament) was used by Batman and Robin for several issues following. "Knightquest" also introduces Batman's rocket rail car linking the Batcave to the Gotham subway system; it was designed and completed by Harold Allnut after his discovery of the cavern passages in "Detective Comics" #650 ("The Dragon").


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In "KnightsEnd, Part 1: Spirit of the Bat" ("Batman" #509 (July 1994)), Jean-Paul Valley references his defeat of Marvel Comics' Jigsaw during the crossover issue "Batman/Punisher: Lake of Fire". This is a very rare mention of a character from another company in a non-intercompany capacity, made possible by the insanity of Jean-Paul.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In the one-shot issue Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Knightfall, Azrael-Batman viciously defeats Bruce Wayne in their final confrontation. The storyline then jumps to 30 years later where Jean-Paul Valley, who now calls himself "Saint Batman", uses Venom to maintain his physicality (possibly to compensate for his aging) after killing all of Gotham's villains. Saint Batman also has Gotham burnt down and completely rebuilt as he isolates it from the rest of the outside world, which is hinted to have fallen into chaos. Jean-Paul keeps Bruce Wayne 'alive' as only a head and torso in Wayne Tower, linked to a life support system. Jean Paul visits Wayne at Wayne Tower once a year and attempts to sway him to approve of his methods. Wayne is eventually 'rescued' by Bane's son and Lady Shiva, the son of Bane seeking revenge for Bane's death at Jean-Paul's hands decades earlier, with the two even providing Wayne with a new body made of nanotech. The three of them, along with other insurgents, work to destroy Jean-Paul's hold on Gotham, even persuading his own wife to turn against him by stealing his Venom supply. However, after confronting Bane's son (whose blood naturally produces Venom) and Lady Shiva, Saint Batman manages to defeat them in battle after nearly being beaten to death. Distracted while fighting Shiva and Wayne, the son of Bane stabs Jean-Paul in the back and proceeds to break his back shortly afterwards. But after their victory, Wayne then kills Shiva and Bane's son after they suggest restoring Gotham to its former glory; Wayne refutes their suggestion, revealing that his years of isolation and torment have driven him to a point where he concludes that he can only rely on himself and that Jean-Paul was mostly right all along. Wayne confesses this to Jean-Paul and then hangs him up on a bat-sigil in the style of a crucifixion for all the citizens of Gotham to see.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Dennis O'Neil adapted the entire storyline into a 1994 novel which was released by Warner Books in hardcover form and then in mass paperback later on (Hardcover , Paperback ). A young adults' book version was also released, this one written by Alan Grant and titled "Batman: Knightfall and Beyond" ().


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In 1994, BBC Radio 1 broadcast a radio-play adaptation, later also released on audio-tape () and CD by BBC Audiobooks on March 5, 2007. It was adapted, produced and directed by Dirk Maggs, with music composed by Mark Russell, who had recently made "" on BBC Radio 5. This show, however, was not commissioned of its own, but rather to be three-minute episodes on the "Mark Goodier Show". This meant it was written with a sense of immediacy; having to make an instant effect and each three-minute segment contains a major plot development or sound effect stunt and end on a cliffhanger. DC acknowledged the effort in an issue of "Shadow of The Bat" by having villains jump past a sign that read Dirk Maggs Radio. The radio-play itself contained similar minor allusions to Batman - the host of a TV show called Chuck Dixon and Dennis O'Neil an author of a book.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In 1994, Kenner released the Legends of Batman action figure collection. This revolved primarily around Elseworlds stories and the modern "Knightfall" era; although it strangely did not include a Bane figure. The collection lasted two series and corresponded with the Superman: Man of Steel figure line based on "The Death of Superman".


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: In 2006, DC Direct released a series of figures specifically based on the "Knightfall" saga. This included Jean Paul Valley as Batman, Nightwing, Bane, Catwoman, and the unique "Mask of Tengu" Batman figure.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Part of the storyline has been collected into a few trade paperbacks. Earlier printings of the "Knightfall" books had covers by Kelley Jones and were under the "Knightfall" name and book three was under the "KnightsEnd" name (with this volume featuring a new cover by Graham Nolan and Brian Stelfreeze). These earlier editions also featured the original cover art/DC Comics monthly ads of the storyline as the chapter headings. The later printings of these three books do not have these cover/ads and solely title the three books under the "Knightfall" name with a similar cover dressing design. These new editions have covers by Mike Deodato.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Accompanying the release of the movie "The Dark Knight Rises" in 2012, DC Comics released a new edition of trade paperbacks collecting the Knightfall storyline. While the 1993 editions omitted the complete Knightsquest story arc, the 2012 editions re-release "The Crusade" part of this arc in volume 2, leaving "The Search" part still uncollected. In addition, Bane's back story from the one-shot publication "Batman: Vengeance of Bane" #1 is included in the first volume, providing a proper introduction of the character, and volume 3 sees the "KnightsEnd" and "Prodigal" arcs released in a single volume.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 1" () was released in April 2017 in hardcover format, featuring a new cover by artist Kelley Jones. At 960 pages, this edition contains the entire contents of the 2012 edition of "Batman: Knightfall Vol. 1" and also contains several never before reprinted prelude issues to Knightfall. These extra issues include "Batman" #484-490 and "Detective Comics" #654–658. Other new features in this edition include a two-page introduction written by Doug Moench, a two-page afterword written by Chuck Dixon, a short story from "Batman Villains Secret Files and Origins" #1 (October 1998) titled "Lost Pages: How Bane Infiltrated Wayne Manor", and other various concept art and covers.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 2 - Knightquest" () was released in hardcover in October 2017. This edition includes "The Crusade", which was included in the 2012 edition "Batman: Knightfall Vol. 2 - Knightquest", as well as "The Search", which had never before been reprinted.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: "Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 3 - KnightsEnd" () was released in May 2018 in hardcover. This edition includes "KnightsEnd" and "Prodigal", which were included in the 2012 edition "Batman: Knightfall Vol. 3 - KnightsEnd", as well as "Troika", which had never before been reprinted.


title: Batman: Knightfall

text: Starting on September 11, 2018, nine new trade paperback books were planned for release which were completed on February 5, 2019 as part of the 25th anniversary of the "Batman: Knightfall" event. These new volumes essentially have the same issues from all the past collected editions, including the ones first reprinted in the "Omnibus" editions, which is the first time these issues have been published in a trade paperback format. Unlike the "Omnibus"es and the 2012 editions, these new editions are printed in smaller volumes, much like the original 1990s editions, essentially only focusing on specific points of the storyline instead of merging more than one together in a single volume. Much like the 2012 editions, the 25th anniversary editions were also released digitally.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha (; born Vichai Raksriaksorn, ; 4 April 1958 – 27 October 2018) was a Thai billionaire businessman and the founder, owner and chairman of King Power Duty Free. He was the owner of Premier League football club Leicester City from 2010 until his death in a helicopter crash at the King Power Stadium in Leicester.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: Vichai was the founder and CEO of King Power Duty Free, an operator of duty-free shops. In December 2009, King Power received the royal warrant from King Bhumibol of Thailand in a ceremony attended by Vichai. In October 2018, he was ranked by "Forbes" magazine as the 5th richest man in Thailand, reportedly worth US$4.9 billion.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: The first football match Vichai watched in England was the 1997 League Cup Final between Leicester City and Middlesbrough, which may have attracted him to the club.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: In August 2010, the Asia Football Investments consortium including Vichai and his son Aiyawatt purchased English Football League Championship club Leicester City. He succeeded Milan Mandarić as chairman of the club in February 2011 while continuing as owner, and Aiyawatt became the vice chairman. In July 2011, the club's formerly named Walkers Stadium was renamed the King Power Stadium.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: Leicester City went on to win the 2015–16 Premier League title after starting the season as 5000/1 rank outsiders. Shortly before the 2016–17 season, Vichai gifted 19 players a BMW i8—at £100,000 each—as a gift for winning the title.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: Vichai Raksriaksorn was born into a Thai Chinese family. His father, Wiwat Raksriaksorn () traces his roots to Zhao'an, Fujian, China. Vichai was married to Aimon Srivaddhanaprabha, with whom he had four children: Voramas, Apichet, Aroonroong, and Aiyawatt. In 2012, the King of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej bestowed the family the new surname of Srivaddhanaprabha, which means "light of progressive glory". He was awarded an honorary doctorate as a Doctor of Laws by the University of Leicester in 2016. As a young man, Vichai studied in Taiwan and the United States.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: In his spare time, Vichai was an avid polo player, and owned the VR Polo Club in Bangkok. He was the president of Ham Polo Club in London from 2008 to 2012. In addition, his sons Apichet and Aiyawatt competed in the 2017 Southeast Asian Games, representing Thailand's national polo team and earning a team silver medal.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: Vichai believed that Leicester City F.C.'s success or failure was affected by karma, and he therefore endeavored to build Buddhist temples and support Buddhist monks to accumulate good karma. Vichai had a good relationship with the Thai monk and his fellow monks, who often blessed the team players, either in England or at the monks' home temple in Thailand, Wat Traimit. The monks flying in to see the players of the team became a common sight. In 2015, Aiyawatt became ordained as a Buddhist monk for a month.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: In April 2019, The Asian Awards honoured him with the Outstanding Contribution to the Community Award.


title: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

text: On 27 October 2018, Vichai's AgustaWestland AW169 helicopter crashed outside the King Power Stadium shortly after taking off from the pitch. Eyewitnesses described seeing the helicopter spinning before crashing and creating a fireball. The next day, it was confirmed that Vichai, along with the other two passengers and the pilots, had died in the crash. Numerous tributes were laid to Vichai outside the King Power Stadium by players along with fans of Leicester City and other football clubs. In accordance with Thai burial customs, Vichai's funeral lasted for eight days, beginning on 3 November.


title: V Wars

text: V Wars is a 2019 American science fiction horror streaming television series based on the anthology series of the same name and comic book by Jonathan Maberry. The series stars Ian Somerhalder, Adrian Holmes, Jacky Lai, Kyle Breitkopf, Peter Outerbridge, Kimberly-Sue Murray and Sydney Meyer. It premiered on Netflix on December 5, 2019. The series was canceled after one season, in March 2020.


title: V Wars

text: "V Wars" follows the story of the physician/scientist Dr. Luther Swann, and his best friend Michael Fayne, as they face the evolving crisis of a deadly outbreak that fractures society into opposing factions, potentially escalating to a future war between humans and vampires. The outbreak is caused by an ancient biological infectious agent, a prion, that turns humans into vampires, released from ice by climate change.


title: V Wars

text: In the conflict, the vampire faction, called Blood, is opposed by the elements of the government, such as Calix Niklos (Peter Outerbridge) who plots with anti Blood senator Smythe (Ted Atherton).


title: V Wars

text: On April 16, 2018, it was announced that Netflix had given the production a series order for a first season consisting of ten episodes. The series was created by William Laurin and Glenn Davis, who are credited as the showrunners and executive producers of the series. Additional executive producers were set to include Brad Turner, Eric Birnberg, Thomas Walden, David Ozer, Ted Adams and James Gibb.


title: V Wars

text: Production companies involved with the series include High Park Entertainment and IDW Entertainment. Netflix canceled the series after one season, on March 30, 2020.


title: V Wars

text: In April 2018, Ian Somerhalder was cast in the role of Dr. Luther Swann. In June 2018, Adrian Holmes, Jacky Lai and Peter Outerbridge joined the main cast. In July 2018, Laura Vandervoort, Kyle Breitkopf and Kimberly-Sue Murray were cast in the series.


title: V Wars

text: Principal photography began in Sudbury and Cambridge, Ontario in the end of June 2018. Principal photography wrapped in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in October 2018.


title: V Wars

text: There have been four anthologies, edited by Jonathan Maberry and published by IDW Publishing, in the "V Wars" series. Notable authors who contributed short stories to the series include Maberry, Jennifer Brozek, Larry Correia, Keith R. A. DeCandido, John Everson, Gregory Frost, Nancy Holder, Jeff Mariotte, Joe McKinney, James A. Moore, Yvonne Navarro, Scott Nicholson, Weston Ochse, Jeremy Robinson, Scott Sigler, John Skipp, and Tim Waggoner.


title: V Wars

text: The "V Wars" comics series was released in 11 issues by IDW from April 2014 through March 2015. They have been collected in the following volumes:


title: V Wars

text: On November 19, 2019, the official trailer for the series was released by Netflix. The series was released on December 5, 2019.


title: V Wars

text: Critical reviews are mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a critic approval rating of 56%, with an average rating of 6.73/10, based on nine reviews. Isaac Feldberg at "The Boston Globe" enjoyed it, calling it "unabashedly silly...a fun, freaky B-movie stretched out to series’ length". "The Sydney Morning Herald" reviewer, Brad Newsome, was less kind in calling it a "a frustrating thing" that doesn't deliver on its promises. Andrew Dex at "Starburst" criticized the weak character development and mix of seemingly-unrelated side characters while also praising the growing strength of the series by the end of the season.


title: V Wars

text: In her review for "Film Inquiry", Stephanie Archer stated "the series left much to be desired" and that there was "an immediate disconnect with Dr. Swann, played by Somerhalder". Vincent Schilling of "Indian Country Today", on the other hand, praised the casting of Somerhalder and Michael Greyeyes, stating he was "hooked from the beginning". He goes on to say that the "show is a blast". Dustin Rowles at "Pajiba" described the series as "very low-rent", "poorly written", and "humorless".


title: V Wars

text: Mikel Zorilla of the Spanish-language web magazine "Espinof" criticized the series' lack of focus, saying it had potential but failed to do anything to stand out. "WhatCulture" described the series "a thrilling well-paced ride...[and] damn good fun that compels you to keep watching" despite "moments that temporarily draw focus from the plot and leave you scratching your head".


title: Wine (software)

text: Wine (formerly a recursive backronym for "Wine Is Not an Emulator", now just "Wine") is a free and open-source compatibility layer that aims to allow application software and computer games developed for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, named "Winelib", against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like systems.


title: Wine (software)

text: Wine provides its compatibility layer for Windows runtime system (also called runtime environment) which translates Windows API calls into POSIX API calls, recreating the directory structure of Windows, and providing alternative implementations of Windows system libraries, system services through codice_1 and various other components (such as Internet Explorer, the Windows Registry Editor, and msiexec). Wine is predominantly written using black-box testing reverse-engineering, to avoid copyright issues.


title: Wine (software)

text: The selection of "Wine is Not an Emulator" as the name of the Wine Project was the result of a naming discussion in August 1993 and credited to David Niemi. There is some confusion caused by an early FAQ using "Windows Emulator" and other invalid sources that appear after the Wine Project name being set. No code emulation or virtualization occurs when running a Windows application under Wine. "Emulation" usually would refer to execution of compiled code intended for one processor (such as x86) by interpreting/recompiling software running on a different processor (such as PowerPC).


title: Wine (software)

text: While the name sometimes appears in the forms "WINE" and "wine", the project developers have agreed to standardize on the form "Wine".


title: Wine (software)

text: Wine is primarily developed for Linux and macOS, and there are, , well-maintained packages available for both platforms.


title: Wine (software)

text: In a 2007 survey by desktoplinux.com of 38,500 Linux desktop users, 31.5% of respondents reported using Wine to run Windows applications. This plurality was larger than all x86 virtualization programs combined, as well as larger than the 27.9% who reported not running Windows applications.


title: Wine (software)

text: Bob Amstadt, the initial project leader, and Eric Youngdale started the Wine project in 1993 as a way to run Windows applications on Linux. It was inspired by two Sun Microsystems' products, the Wabi for the Solaris operating system, and the Public Windows Initiative, which was an attempt to get the Windows API fully reimplemented in the public domain as an ISO standard but rejected due to pressure from Microsoft in 1996. Wine originally targeted 16-bit applications for Windows 3.x, but focuses on 32-bit and 64-bit versions which have become the standard on newer operating systems. The project originated in discussions on Usenet in comp.os.linux in June 1993. Alexandre Julliard has led the project since 1994.


title: Wine (software)

text: The project has proven time-consuming and difficult for the developers, mostly because of incomplete and incorrect documentation of the Windows API. While Microsoft extensively documents most Win32 functions, some areas such as file formats and protocols have no publicly available specification from Microsoft, and Windows also includes undocumented low-level functions, undocumented behavior and obscure bugs that Wine must duplicate precisely in order to allow some applications to work properly. Consequently, the Wine team has reverse-engineered many function calls and file formats in such areas as thunking.