title: Les Paul

text: In 2007, the biographical film "Les Paul Chasing Sound" was aired on the public television series American Masters. The premier showing was held at Milwaukee's Downer Theater in conjunction with a concert Paul put on for the Waukesha County Historical Society & Museum. The film contained interviews with Les Paul, performances by his trio on his 90th birthday, and interview commentary and performances by other musicians.


title: Les Paul

text: In June 2008, an exhibit showcasing Paul's legacy and featuring items from his personal collection opened at Discovery World in Milwaukee. Paul played a concert in Milwaukee to coincide with the opening of the exhibit. Paul's hometown of Waukesha, Wisconsin, opened a permanent exhibit titled "The Les Paul Experience" at the Waukesha County Museum in June 2013. The exhibit features artifacts on loan from the Les Paul Foundation. A self-guided tour of Les Paul's Waukesha was created by the Les Paul Foundation.


title: Les Paul

text: A permanent Les Paul exhibit is also located at the Mahwah Historical Museum. Other museums that include Les Paul are the Museum of Making Music in Phoenix and the Grammy Museum in Newark, NJ.


title: Les Paul

text: In 2009, the concert film "Les Paul Live in New York" was aired on public television showing Les Paul performing on his 90th birthday at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York and in archival clips.


title: Les Paul

text: Paul was also a prolific composer. Some of the songs he wrote were "Song in Blue", "Cryin'", "Hip-Billy Boogie", "Suspicion", "Mandolino", "Magic Melody", "Don'cha Hear Them Bells", "The Kangaroo", "Big-Eyed Gal", "Deep in the Blues", "All I Need is You", "Take a Warning", "Mammy's Boogie", "Up And At 'Em", "Pacific Breeze", "Golden Sands", "Hawaiian Charms", "Mountain Railroad", "Move Along, Baby (Don't Waste My Time)", "Dry My Tears", "I Don't Want You No More", "Doing the Town", "Les' Blues", "No Strings Attached", "Subterfuge", "Lament For Strings", "Five Alarm Fire", "You Can't Be Fit as a Fiddle (When You're Tight as a Drum)", and "Walkin' and Whistlin' Blues".


title: George Mikan

text: George Lawrence Mikan Jr. (; June 18, 1924 – June 1, 2005), nicknamed "Mr. Basketball", was an American professional basketball player for the Chicago American Gears of the National Basketball League (NBL) and the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBL, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). Invariably playing with thick, round spectacles, the , Mikan was one of the pioneers of professional basketball. Through his size and play he redefined it as a game dominated in his day by "big men". His prolific rebounding, shot blocking, and talent to shoot over smaller defenders with his ambidextrous hook shot — the result of the Mikan Drill — created with Ray Meyer, his coach at DePaul University (where Mikan was a three-time All-American), all helped change the game. He also utilized the underhanded free-throw shooting technique long before Rick Barry made it his signature shot.


title: George Mikan

text: Mikan had an extremely successful playing career, winning seven NBL, BAA, and NBA championships in nine seasons, an NBA All-Star Game MVP trophy, and three scoring titles. He was a member of the first four NBA All-Star games, and the first six All-BAA and All-NBA Teams. Mikan was so dominant that he prompted several significant rule changes in the NBA, including the introduction of the goaltending rule, the widening of the foul lane — known as the "Mikan Rule" — and the creation of the shot clock.


title: George Mikan

text: After his playing career, Mikan became one of the founders of the American Basketball Association (ABA), serving as commissioner of the league. He was instrumental in forming the Minnesota Timberwolves. In his later years, Mikan was involved in a long-standing legal battle against the NBA, to increase the meager pensions of players who had retired before the league became lucrative. In 2005, Mikan died of complications from chronic diabetes.


title: George Mikan

text: For his accomplishments, Mikan was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959, made the 25th, 35th, 50th and 75th NBA anniversary teams. Since April 2001, a statue of Mikan shooting his trademark hook shot stands at the entrance of the Timberwolves' Target Center.


title: George Mikan

text: Mikan was born in Joliet, Illinois, to a Croatian father, Joseph, and a Lithuanian mother, Minnie, along with brothers Joe and Ed and sister Marie. His grandfather, Juraj (George) Mikan was born in Vivodina, Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary, in or about 1874. Juraj emigrated to Braddock, Pennsylvania in 1891, where he married another Croatian immigrant, Marija, in 1906 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. On October 17, 1907, Mikan's father Joseph was born, and soon thereafter the family moved to Joliet, where they opened Mikan's Tavern at the corner of Elsie Avenue and North Broadway.


title: George Mikan

text: As a boy, Mikan shattered one of his knees so badly that he was kept in bed for a year and a half. In 1938, Mikan attended the Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago and originally wanted to be a Catholic priest but later moved back home to finish at Joliet Catholic. Mikan did not seem destined to become an athlete. When Mikan entered Chicago's DePaul University in 1942, he stood , weighed , moved awkwardly because of his frame, and wore thick glasses for his nearsightedness.


title: George Mikan

text: While in high school, Mikan met 28-year-old rookie DePaul basketball coach Ray Meyer. Meyer saw potential in Mikan, who was bright and intelligent but was also clumsy and shy. Meyer's thoughts were revolutionary for the time, when it was still believed that tall players were too awkward to ever play basketball well. In the following months, Meyer transformed Mikan into a confident, aggressive player who took pride in his height rather than being ashamed of it. Meyer and Mikan worked out intensively, and Mikan learned how to make hook shots accurately with either hand. This routine would become later known as the Mikan Drill. In addition, Meyer made Mikan punch a speed bag, take dancing lessons, and jump rope to make him a complete athlete.


title: George Mikan

text: Mikan dominated his peers from the start of his National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college games at DePaul. He intimidated opponents with his size and strength, was unstoppable on offense with his hook shot, and soon established a reputation as one of the hardest and grittiest players in the league, often playing through injuries and punishing opposing centers with hard fouls. In addition, Mikan also surprised the basketball world with his ability to goaltend, swatting balls in flight before they could reach the hoop. "We would set up a zone defense that had four men around the key and I guarded the basket," Mikan later recalled his DePaul days. "When the other team took a shot, I'd just go up and tap it out." As a consequence, the NCAA, and later the NBA, outlawed touching a ball either after it reached its apex in flight or had touched the backboard and had a chance of going in the hoop. Bob Kurland, a tall center for Oklahoma A&M, was one of the few opposing centers to have any success against Mikan.


title: George Mikan

text: Mikan was named the Helms NCAA College Player of the Year in 1944 and 1945 and was an All-American three times. In 1945, he led DePaul to the NIT title, which at that time was more prestigious than the NCAA title. Mikan led the nation in scoring with 23.9 points per game in 1944–45 and 23.1 in 1945–46. When DePaul won the 1945 NIT, Mikan was named Most Valuable Player for scoring 120 points in three games, including 53 points in a 97–53 win over Rhode Island; his 53-point total equaled the score of the entire Rhode Island team.


title: George Mikan

text: After the end of the 1945–46 college season, Mikan signed with the Chicago American Gears of the National Basketball League, a predecessor of the modern NBA. He played with them for 25 games at the end of the 1946–47 NBL season, scoring 16.5 points per game as a rookie. Mikan led the Gears to third place finish at the 1946 World Professional Basketball Tournament, where he was elected Most Valuable Player after scoring 100 points in five games, and also voted into the All-NBL Team.


title: George Mikan

text: However, before the start of the 1947–48 NBL season, Maurice White, the president of the American Gear Company and the owner of the American Gears NBL team, pulled the team out of the league. White planned to create a 24-team league called the Professional Basketball League of America, in which he owned all the teams and arenas. However, the league folded after just a month, and the players of White's teams were equally distributed among the 11 remaining NBL franchises. As a consequence, every team had a 9.09% chance of landing Mikan, who ended up on the Minneapolis Lakers, playing for coach John Kundla.


title: George Mikan

text: In his first season with the Lakers, Mikan led the league in scoring with 1,195 points, becoming the only NBL player to score more than 1,000 points in an NBL season. Following the regular season, he was named the league's MVP. and the Lakers won the NBL title. In April 1948, he led the Lakers to victory in the World Professional Basketball Tournament where he was named MVP after scoring a tournament-record 40 points against the New York Renaissance in the title-clinching game.


title: George Mikan

text: The following year, the Lakers and three other NBL franchises jumped to the fledgling Basketball Association of America. Mikan led his new league in scoring, and again set a single-season scoring record. The Lakers defeated the Washington Capitols in the 1949 BAA Finals.


title: George Mikan

text: In 1949, the BAA and NBL merged to form the NBA. The new league started the inaugural 1949–50 NBA season, featuring 17 teams, with the Lakers in the Central Division. Mikan again was dominant, averaging 27.4 points per game and 2.9 assists per game and taking another scoring title; Alex Groza of Indianapolis Olympians was the only other player to break the 20-point-barrier that year. After comfortably leading his team to an impressive 51–17 record and storming through the playoffs, Mikan's team played the 1950 NBA Finals against the Syracuse Nationals. In Game 1, the Lakers beat Syracuse on their home court when Lakers reserve guard Bob Harrison hit a 40-foot buzzer beater to give Minneapolis a two-point win. The team split the next four games, and in Game 6, the Lakers won 110–95 and won the first-ever NBA championship. Mikan scored 31.3 points per game in the playoffs.


title: George Mikan

text: In the 1950–51 NBA season, Mikan was dominant again, scoring a career-best 28.4 points per game in the regular season, again taking the scoring crown, and had 3.1 assists per game. In that year, the NBA introduced a new statistic: rebounds. In this category, Mikan also stood out; his 14.1 rebounds per game (rpg) was only second to the 16.4 rpg of Dolph Schayes of Syracuse. In that year, Mikan participated in one of the most notorious NBA games ever played. When the Fort Wayne Pistons played against his Lakers, the Pistons took a 19–18 lead. Afraid that Mikan would mount a comeback if he got the ball, the Pistons passed the ball around without any attempt to score a basket. With no shot clock invented yet to force them into offense, the score stayed 19–18 to make it the lowest-scoring NBA game of all time. This game was an important factor in the development of the shot clock, which was introduced four years later. Mikan had scored 15 of the Lakers' 18 points, thus scoring 83.3% of his team's points, setting an NBA all-time record. In the postseason, Mikan fractured his leg before the 1951 Western Division Finals against the Rochester Royals. With Mikan hardly able to move all series long, the Royals won 3–1. Decades later, in 1990, Mikan recalled that his leg was taped with a plate; however, despite effectively hopping around the court on one foot, he said he still averaged 20-odd points per game.


title: George Mikan

text: In the 1951–52 NBA season, the NBA decided to widen the foul lane under the basket from 6 feet to 12 feet. As players could stay in the lane for only three seconds at a time, it forced big men like Mikan to post-up from double the distance. A main proponent of this rule was New York Knicks coach Joe Lapchick, who regarded Mikan as his nemesis, and it was dubbed "The Mikan Rule". While Mikan still scored an impressive 23.8 points per game, it was a serious reduction from his 27.4 points per game the previous season, and his field goal percentage sank from .428 to .385. He still pulled down 13.5 rebounds per game, asserting himself as a top rebounder, and logged 3.0 assists per game. Mikan also had a truly dominating game that season—on January 20, 1952, he scored a personal-best 61 points in a 91-81 double-overtime victory against the Rochester Royals. At the time, it was the second-best scoring performance in league history behind Joe Fulks' 63-point game in 1949. Mikan's output more than doubled that of his teammates, who combined for 30 points. He also grabbed 36 rebounds, a record at the time. In the 1952 NBA All-Star Game, Mikan had a strong performance with 26 points and 15 rebounds in a West loss. Later that season, the Lakers reached the 1952 NBA Finals and were pitted against the New York Knicks. This qualified as one of the strangest Finals series in NBA history, as neither team could play on their home court in the first six games. The Lakers' Minneapolis Auditorium was already booked, and the Knicks' Madison Square Garden was occupied by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Instead, the Lakers played in St. Paul and the Knicks in the damp, dimly lit 69th Regiment Armory. Perpetually double-teamed by Knicks' Nat Clifton and Harry Gallatin, Mikan was unable to assert himself and it was more Vern Mikkelsen's credit that the first six games were split. In the only true home game, Game 7 in the Auditorium, the Lakers won 82–65 and edged the Knicks 4–3, winning the NBA title and earning themselves $7,500 to split among the team.


title: George Mikan

text: During the 1952–53 NBA season, Mikan averaged 20.6 points and a career-high 14.4 rebounds per game, the highest in the league, as well as 2.9 assists per game. In the 1953 NBA All-Star Game, Mikan was dominant again with 22 points and 16 rebounds, winning that game's MVP Award. The Lakers made the 1953 NBA Finals, and again defeated the Knicks 4–1.


title: George Mikan

text: In the 1953–54 NBA season, the now 29-year-old Mikan slowly declined, averaging 18.1 points, 14.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. Under his leadership, the Lakers won another NBA title in the 1954 NBA Finals, making it their third-straight championship and fifth in six years; the only time they lost had been when Mikan fractured his leg. From an NBA perspective, the Minneapolis Lakers dynasty has only been convincingly surpassed by the eleven-title Boston Celtics dynasty of 1957–69. At the end of the season, Mikan announced his retirement. He later said: "I had a family growing, and I decided to be with them. I felt it was time to get started with the professional world outside of basketball." Injuries also were a factor, as Mikan had sustained 10 broken bones and 16 stitches in his career, often having to play through these injuries.


title: George Mikan

text: Without Mikan, the Lakers made the playoffs, but were unable to reach the 1955 NBA Finals. In the middle of the 1955–56 NBA season, Mikan returned to the Lakers lineup. He played in 37 games, but his long absence had affected his play. He averaged only 10.5 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists, and the Lakers lost in the first round of the playoffs. At the end of the season, Mikan retired for good. His 10,156 points were a record at the time; he was the first NBA player to score 10,000 points in a career. He was inducted into the inaugural Basketball Hall of Fame class of 1959 and was declared the greatest player of the first half of the century by The Associated Press.


title: George Mikan

text: In 1956, Mikan was the Republican candidate for the United States Congress in Minnesota's 3rd congressional district. He challenged incumbent Representative Roy Wier in a closely fought race that featured a high voter turnout. Despite the reelection of incumbent Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, the inexperienced Mikan lost by a close margin of 52% to 48%. Wier received 127,356 votes to Mikan's 117,716. Returning to the legal profession, Mikan was frustrated after hoping for an influx of work. For six months, Mikan did not get any assignments at all, leaving him in financial difficulties that forced him to cash in on his life insurance.


title: George Mikan

text: Problems also arose in Mikan's professional sports career. In the 1957–58 NBA season, Lakers coach John Kundla became general manager and persuaded Mikan to become coach of the Lakers. However, this was a failure, as the Lakers endured a 9–30 record until Mikan stepped down and returned coaching duties to Kundla. The Lakers ended with a 19–53 record, to record one of the worst seasons in their history. After this failure, Mikan then concentrated on his law career, raising his family of six children, successfully specializing in corporate and real estate law, and buying and renovating buildings in Minneapolis.


title: George Mikan

text: In 1967, Mikan returned to professional basketball, becoming the first commissioner of the American Basketball Association, a rival league to the NBA. In order to lure basketball fans to his league, Mikan invented the league's characteristic red-white-and-blue ABA ball, which he thought more patriotic, better suited for TV, and more crowd-pleasing than the brown NBA ball, and instituted the three-point line. Mikan resigned from the ABA in 1969.


title: George Mikan

text: In the mid-1980s, Mikan headed a task force with a goal of returning professional basketball to Minneapolis, decades after the Lakers had moved to Los Angeles to become the Los Angeles Lakers, and after the ABA's Minnesota Muskies and Minnesota Pipers had departed. This bid was successful, leading to the inception of a new franchise in the 1989–90 NBA season, the Minnesota Timberwolves.


title: George Mikan

text: In 1994, Mikan became the part-owner and chairman of the board of the Chicago Cheetahs, a professional roller hockey team based in Chicago, that played in Roller Hockey International. The franchise folded after their second season.


title: George Mikan

text: In his later years, Mikan suffered from diabetes and failing kidneys, and eventually, his illness caused his right leg to be amputated below the knee. When his medical insurance was cut off, Mikan soon found himself in severe financial difficulties. He fought a long and protracted legal battle against the NBA and the NBA Players' Union, protesting the $1,700/month pensions for players who had retired before 1965, the start of the so-called "big money era". According to Mel Davis of the National Basketball Retired Players Union, this battle kept him going, because Mikan hoped to be alive when a new collective bargaining agreement would finally vindicate his generation. In 2005, however, his condition worsened.


title: George Mikan

text: Mikan died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on June 1, 2005, of complications from diabetes and other ailments. His son Terry reported that his father had undergone dialysis three times a week, four hours a day, for the last five years.


title: George Mikan

text: In 1947, he married his girlfriend, Patricia, and they remained together for 58 years until his death. The couple had six children, sons Larry, Terry, Patrick and Michael, and daughters Trisha and Maureen. All his life, Mikan was universally seen as the prototypical "gentle giant", tough and relentless on the court, but friendly and amicable in private life. He was also the older brother of Ed Mikan, another basketball player for DePaul, the BAA, and the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA.


title: George Mikan

text: Mikan's death was widely mourned by the basketball world, and also brought media attention to the financial struggles of several early-era NBA players. Many felt that the current players of the big-money generation should rally for larger pensions for the pre-1965 predecessors in upcoming labor negotiations. Shaquille O'Neal paid for Mikan's funeral, saying: "Without number 99 [Mikan], there is no me." Before Game 5 of the 2005 Eastern Conference Finals between the Heat and the Detroit Pistons, there was a moment of silence to honor Mikan. Bob Cousy remarked that Mikan figuratively carried the NBA in the early days and single-handedly made the league credible and popular. The 2005 NBA Finals between the Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs was dedicated to Mikan.


title: George Mikan

text: Mikan is lauded as the pioneer of the modern age of basketball. He was the original center, who scored 11,764 points, an average of 22.6 per game, retired as the all-time leading scorer and averaged 13.4 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 520 NBL, BAA and NBA games. As a testament to his fierce playing style, he also led the league three times in personal fouls. He won seven NBL, BAA, and NBA championships, an All-Star MVP trophy, and three scoring titles, and was a member of the first four NBA All-Star games and the first six All-BAA and All-NBA Teams. As well as being declared the greatest player of the first half of the century by The Associated Press, Mikan was on the Helms Athletic Foundation all-time All-American team, chosen in a 1952 poll, made the 25th and 35th NBA Anniversary Teams of 1970 and 1980 and was elected one of the NBA 50 Greatest Players in 1996. Mikan was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in its inaugural 1959 class, the first NBA player inducted into the Hall. Mikan's impact on the game is also reflected in the Mikan Drill, today a staple exercise of "big men" in basketball.


title: George Mikan

text: When superstar center Shaquille O'Neal became a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, Mikan appeared on a "Sports Illustrated" cover in November 1996 with O'Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, calling Abdul-Jabbar and Mikan the "Lakers legends" to whom O'Neal was compared. Since April 2001, a statue of Mikan shooting his trademark hook shot graces the entrance of the Minnesota Timberwolves' Target Center. In addition, a banner in the Staples Center commemorates Mikan and his fellow Minneapolis Lakers. He is also honored by a statue and an appearance on a mural in his hometown of Joliet, Illinois.


title: George Mikan

text: Mikan became so dominant that the NBA had to change its rules of play in order to reduce his influence, such as widening the lane from six to twelve feet ("The Mikan Rule"). He also played a role in the introduction of the shot clock; and in the NCAA, his dominating play around the basket led to the outlawing of defensive goaltending. Mikan was a harbinger of the NBA's future, which would be dominated by tall, powerful players.


title: George Mikan

text: As an official, Mikan is also directly responsible for the ABA three-point line which was later adopted by the NBA; the existence of the Minnesota Timberwolves; and the multi-colored ABA ball, which still lives on as the "money ball" in the NBA All-Star Three-Point Contest.


title: Opportunity cost

text: In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a particular activity is the value or benefit given up by engaging in that activity, relative to engaging in an alternative activity. More simply, it means if you chose one activity (for example, an investment) you are giving up the opportunity to do a different option. The optimal activity is the one that, net of its opportunity cost, provides the greater return compared to any other activities, net of their opportunity costs. For example, if you buy a car and use it exclusively to transport yourself, you cannot rent it out, whereas if you rent it out you cannot use it to transport yourself. If your cost of transporting yourself without the car is more than what you get for renting out the car, the optimal choice is to use the car yourself.


title: Opportunity cost

text: In basic equation form, opportunity cost can be defined as: "Opportunity Cost = (returns on best Forgone Option) - (returns on Chosen Option)." The opportunity cost of mowing one’s own lawn for a doctor or a lawyer (who might otherwise make $100 an hour if they elected to work overtime during that time instead) would be higher than for a minimum-wage employee (who in the United States might earn $7.25 an hour), which would make the former more likely to hire someone else to mow their lawn for them.


title: Opportunity cost

text: As a representation of the relationship between scarcity and choice, the objective of opportunity cost is to ensure efficient use of scarce resources. It incorporates all associated costs of a decision, both explicit and implicit. Opportunity cost also includes the utility or economic benefit an individual lost, if it is indeed more than the monetary payment or actions taken. As an example, to go for a walk may not have any financial costs imbedded in to it. Yet, the opportunity forgone is the time spent walking which could have been used instead for other purposes such as earning an income.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Time spent chasing after an income might have health problems like in presenteeism where instead of taking a sick day one avoids it for a salary or to be seen as being active. A production possibility frontier shows the maximum combination of factors that can be produced. For example, if services were on the x-axis of a graph and there were to be an increase in services from 20 to 25, this would lead to an opportunity cost for the goods that are on the y axis, as they would drop from 21 to 16. This means that as a result of the increase in consumption of services, the opportunity cost would be those 5 goods that have decreased. Regardless of the time of occurrence of an activity, if scarcity was non-existent then all demands of a person are satiated. It is only through scarcity that choice becomes essential, since the use of scarce resources in one way prevents its use in another way, resulting in the need to make a selection and/or decision. These decisions are in turn exposed to multiple choice outcomes.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Sacrifice is a given measurement in opportunity cost of which the decision maker forgoes the opportunity of the next best alternative. In other words, to disregard the equivalent utility of the best alternative choice to gain the utility of the best perceived option. If there are decisions to be made that require no sacrifice then these are cost free decisions with zero opportunity cost. Through the analysis of opportunity cost, a company can choose a path where the actual benefits are greater than the opportunity cost, so that limited resources can be optimally allocated to achieve maximum efficiency. When choosing an option among multiple alternatives, the opportunity cost is the gain from the alternative we forgo when making a decision. In simple terms, opportunity cost is our perceived benefit of not choosing the next best option when resources are limited. Opportunity costs are not limited to monetary or financial costs. The actual cost of lost time, lost production, or any other for-profit benefit shall also be considered an opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is a key concept in economics, described as the fundamental relationship between scarcity and choice.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Explicit costs are the direct costs of an action (business operating costs or expenses), executed either through a cash transaction or a physical transfer of resources. In other words, explicit opportunity costs are the out-of-pocket costs of a firm, that are easily identifiable. This means explicit costs will always have a dollar value and involve a transfer of money, e.g. paying employees. With this said, these particular costs can easily be identified under the expenses of a firm's income statement and balance sheet to represent all the cash outflows of a firm.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Implicit costs (also referred to as implied, imputed or notional costs) are the opportunity costs of utilising resources owned by the firm that could be used for other purposes. These costs are often hidden to the naked eye and aren’t made known. Unlike explicit costs, implicit opportunity costs correspond to intangibles. Hence, they cannot be clearly identified, defined or reported. This means that they are costs that have already occurred within a project, without exchanging cash. This could include a small business owner not taking any salary in the beginning of their tenure as a way for the business to be more profitable. As implicit costs are the result of assets, they are also not recorded for the use of accounting purposes because they do not represent any monetary losses or gains. In terms of factors of production, implicit opportunity costs allow for depreciation of goods, materials and equipment that ensure the operations of a company.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Examples of implicit costs regarding production are mainly resources contributed by a business owner which includes:


title: Opportunity cost

text: Sunk costs (also referred to as historical costs) are costs that have been incurred already and cannot be recovered. As sunk costs have already been incurred, they remain unchanged and should not influence present or future actions or decisions regarding benefits and costs. Decision makers who recognise the insignificance of sunk costs then understand that the "consequences of choices cannot influence choice itself".


title: Opportunity cost

text: From the traceability source of costs, sunk costs can be direct costs or indirect costs. If the sunk cost can be summarized as a single component, it is a direct cost; if it is caused by several products or departments, it is an indirect cost.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Analyzing from the composition of costs, sunk costs can be either fixed costs or variable costs. When a company abandons a certain component or stops processing a certain product, the sunk cost usually includes fixed costs such as rent for equipment and wages, but it also includes variable costs due to changes in time or materials. Usually, fixed costs are more likely to constitute sunk costs.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Generally speaking, the stronger the liquidity, versatility, and compatibility of the asset, the less its sunk cost will be.


title: Opportunity cost

text: A company used $5,000 for marketing and advertising on its music streaming service to increase exposure to the target market and potential consumers. In the end, the campaign proved unsuccessful. The sunk cost for the company equates to the $5,000 that was spent on the market and advertising means. This expense is to be ignored by the company in its future decisions and highlights that no additional investment should be made.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Despite the fact that sunk costs should be ignored when making future decisions, people sometimes make the mistake of thinking sunk cost matters. This is sunk cost fallacy.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Example：Steven bought a game for $100, but when he started to play it, he found it was boring rather than interesting. But Steven thinks he paid $100 for the game, so he has to play it through.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Sunk cost: $100 and the cost of the time spent playing the game. Analysis: Steven spent $100 hoping to complete the whole game experience, and the game is an entertainment activity, but there is no pleasure during the game, which is already low efficiency, but Steven also chose to waste time. So it is adding more cost.


title: Opportunity cost

text: The concept of marginal cost in economics is the incremental cost of each new product produced for the entire product line. For example, if you build a plane, it costs a lot of money, but when you build the 100th plane, the cost will be much lower. When building a new aircraft, the materials used may be more useful, so make as many aircraft as possible from as few materials as possible to increase the margin of profit. Marginal cost is abbreviated MC or MPC.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Marginal cost: The increase in cost caused by an additional unit of production is called marginal cost. By definition, marginal cost is equal to change in total cost (TC) (△TC) divided by the corresponding change in output (△Q) : Change in total cost/change in output: MC(Q)=△TC(Q)/△Q or MC(Q)=lim=△TC(Q)/△Q=dTC/dQ(△Q→0) (as shown in Figure 1)


title: Opportunity cost

text: In theory marginal costs represent the increase in total costs (which include both constant and variable costs) as output increases by 1 unit.


title: Opportunity cost

text: The main objective of accounting profits is to give an account of a company’s fiscal performance, typically reported on in quarters and annually. As such, accounting principles focus on tangible and measurable factors associated with operating a business such as wages and rent, and thus, do not “"…infer anything about relative economic profitability".” Opportunity costs are not considered in accounting profits as they have no purpose in this regard.


title: Opportunity cost

text: The purpose of calculating economic profits (and thus, opportunity costs) is to aid in better business decision-making through the inclusion of opportunity costs. In this way, a business can evaluate whether its decision and the allocation of its resources is cost-effective or not and whether resources should be reallocated.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Economic profit does not indicate whether or not a business decision will make money. It signifies if it is prudent to undertake a specific decision against the opportunity of undertaking a different decision. As shown in the simplified example in the image, choosing to start a business would provide "$10,000" in terms of accounting profits. However, the decision to start a business would provide "-$30,000" in terms of economic profits, indicating that the decision to start a business may not be prudent as the opportunity costs outweigh the profit from starting a business. In this case, where the revenue is not enough to cover the opportunity costs, the chosen option may not be the best course of action. When economic profit is zero, all the explicit and implicit costs (opportunity costs) are covered by the total revenue and there is no incentive for reallocation of the resources. This condition is known as normal profit.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Several performance measures of economic profit have been derived to further improve business decision-making such as risk-adjusted return on capital (RAROC) and economic value added (EVA), which directly include a quantified opportunity cost to aid businesses in risk management and optimal allocation of resources. Opportunity cost, as such, is an economic concept in economic theory which is used to maximise value through better decision-making.


title: Opportunity cost

text: In accounting, collecting, processing, and reporting information on activities and events that occur within an organization is referred to as the accounting cycle. To encourage decision-makers to efficiently allocate the resources they have (or those who have trusted them), this information is being shared with them. As a result, the role of accounting has evolved in tandem with the rise of economic activity and the increasing complexity of economic structure. Accounting is not only the gathering and calculation of data that impacts a choice, but it also delves deeply into the decision-making activities of businesses through the measurement and computation of such data. In accounting, it is common practice to refer to the opportunity cost of a decision (option) as a cost. The discounted cash flow method has surpassed all others as the primary method of making investment decisions, and opportunity cost has surpassed all others as an essential metric of cash outflow in making investment decisions. For various reasons, the opportunity cost is critical in this form of estimation.


title: Opportunity cost

text: First and foremost, the discounted rate applied in DCF analysis is influenced by an opportunity cost, which impacts project selection and the choice of a discounting rate. Using the firm's original assets in the investment means there is no need for the enterprise to utilize funds to purchase the assets, so there is no cash outflow. However, the cost of the assets must be included in the cash outflow at the current market price. Even though the asset does not result in a cash outflow, it can be sold or leased in the market to generate income and be employed in the project's cash flow. The money earned in the market represents the opportunity cost of the asset utilized in the business venture. As a result, opportunity costs must be incorporated into project planning to avoid erroneous project evaluations. Only those costs directly relevant to the project will be considered in making the investment choice, and all other costs will be excluded from consideration. Modern accounting also incorporates the concept of opportunity cost into the determination of capital costs and capital structure of businesses, which must compute the cost of capital invested by the owner as a function of the ratio of human capital. In addition, opportunity costs are employed to determine to price for asset transfers between industries.


title: Opportunity cost

text: When a nation, organisation or individual can produce a product or service at a relatively lower opportunity cost compared to its competitors, it is said to have a comparative advantage. In other words, a country has comparative advantage if it gives up less of a resource to make the same number of products as the other country that has to give up more.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Using the simple example in the image, to make 100 tonnes of tea, Country A has to give up the production of 20 tonnes of wool which means for every 1 tonne of tea produced, 0.2 tonne of wool has to be forgone. Meanwhile, to make 30 tonnes of tea, Country B needs to sacrifice the production of 100 tonnes of wool, so for each tonne of tea, 3.3 tonnes of wool is forgone. In this case, Country A has a comparative advantage over Country B for the production of tea because it has a lower opportunity cost. On the other hand, to make 1 tonne of wool, Country A has to give up 5 tonnes of tea, while Country B would need to give up 0.3 tonnes of tea, so Country B has a comparative advantage over the production of wool.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Absolute advantage on the other hand refers to how efficiently a party can use its resources to produce goods and services compared to others, regardless of its opportunity costs. For example, if Country A can produce 1 tonne of wool using less manpower compared to Country B, then it is more efficient and has an absolute advantage over wool production, even if it does not have a comparative advantage because it has a higher opportunity cost (5 tonnes of tea).


title: Opportunity cost

text: Absolute advantage refers to how efficiently resources are used whereas comparative advantage refers to how little is sacrificed in terms of opportunity cost. When a country produces what it has the comparative advantage of, even if it does not have an absolute advantage, and trades for those products it does not have a comparative advantage over, it maximises its output since the opportunity cost of its production is lower than its competitors. By focusing on specialising this way, it also maximises its level of consumption.


title: Opportunity cost

text: Much like individual decisions, it is often the case that governments must consider opportunity cost when enacting legislation. Taking universal basic healthcare as an example, the opportunity cost at the government level is quite clear. Assume that implementing basic healthcare would cost a government $1 billion: the explicit opportunity cost to implement such legislation would be a combined $1 billion that could have been spent on education, housing, transport infrastructure, environmental protection, or military defence, for example. For this particular scenario, the implicit cost is quite minimal. Only the cost of producing such legislation through human labour and the time of production would need to be accounted for.


title: Opportunity cost

text: While the previous situation’s implicit cost may have been somewhat negligible at a government level, this is not true for all scenarios. Using hijacking prevention methods following the September 11 attacks as an example, the additional burden of implicit costs is evident. To implement more sophisticated airport security systems, the United States government estimated the cost to be around $2 billion. An additional $450 million would be spent to reinforce plane doors, along with an extra $3 billion spent on sky marshals for all American flights to help further prevent future hijackings from taking place. Under this scenario, the explicit cost would be $5.45 billion. Implicit costs, however, would far outweigh this. The US government has calculated that by waiting an additional 30 minutes due to extra airport security, multiplied by an average of 800 million passengers per year with the average cost of time at $20 per hour, the total implicit cost to the US economy from such prevention methods would be upwards of $8 billion. Thus the importance of recognising the opportunity cost at a governmental level is crucial in efficiently allocating government funds.


title: Opportunity cost

text: The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that broke out in recent years on economic operations is unavoidable, the economic risks are not symmetrical, and the impact of Covid-19 is distributed differently in the global economy. Some industries have benefited from the pandemic, while others have almost gone bankrupt. One of the sectors most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic is the public and private health system. Opportunity cost is the concept of ensuring efficient use of scarce resources, a concept that is central to health economics. The massive increase in the need for intensive care has largely limited and exacerbated the department's ability to address routine health problems. The sector must consider opportunity costs in decisions related to the allocation of scarce resources, premised on improving the health of the population.


title: Opportunity cost

text: However, the opportunity cost of implementing policies to the sector has limited impact in the health sector. Patients with severe symptoms of COVID-19 require close monitoring in the ICU and in therapeutic ventilator support, which is key to treating the disease. In this case, scarce resources include bed days, ventilation time, and therapeutic equipment. Temporary excess demand for hospital beds from patients exceeds the number of bed days provided by the health system. The increased demand for days in bed is due to the fact that infected hospitalized patients stay in bed longer, shifting the demand curve to the right (see curve D2 in Graph1.11). The number of bed days provided by the health system may be temporarily reduced as there may be a shortage of beds due to the widespread spread of the virus. If this situation becomes unmanageable, supply decreases and the supply curve shifts to the left (curve S2 in Graph1.11). A perfect competition model can be used to express the concept of opportunity cost in the health sector. In perfect competition, market equilibrium is understood as the point where supply and demand are exactly the same (points P and Q in Graph1.11). The balance is Pareto optimal equals marginal opportunity cost. Medical allocation may result in some people being better off and others worse off. At this point, it is assumed that the market has produced the maximum outcome associated with the Pareto partial order. As a result, the opportunity cost increases when other patients cannot be admitted to the ICU due to a shortage of beds.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Stanley Allen McChrystal (born August 14, 1954) is a retired United States Army general best known for his command of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) from 2003 to 2008 where his organization was credited with the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. His final assignment was as Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, United States Forces – Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He previously served as Director, Joint Staff from August 2008 to June 2009. McChrystal received criticism for his alleged role in the cover-up of the Pat Tillman friendly fire incident. McChrystal was reportedly known for saying what other military leaders were thinking but were afraid to say; this was one of the reasons cited for his appointment to lead all forces in Afghanistan. He held the post from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates described McChrystal as "perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I ever met." However, following unflattering remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials attributed to McChrystal and his aides in a "Rolling Stone" article, McChrystal was recalled to Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama accepted his resignation as commander in Afghanistan.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: His command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan was assumed by the deputy commander, British Army General Sir Nicholas Parker, pending the confirmation of a replacement. Obama named General David Petraeus as McChrystal's replacement; Petraeus was confirmed by the Senate and officially assumed command on June 30. Days after being relieved of his duties in Afghanistan, McChrystal announced his retirement. Since 2010, he has taught courses in international relations at Yale University as a Senior Fellow of the university's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Born on August 14, 1954, on the Fort Leavenworth U.S. Army base in Kansas, McChrystal graduated high school from St. John's College High School in Washington, D.C. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1976 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army. His initial assignment was to Company C, 1st Battalion, 504th Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division, serving as weapons platoon leader from November 1976 to February 1978, as rifle platoon leader from February 1978 to July 1978, and as executive officer from July 1978 to November 1978.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In November 1978, McChrystal enrolled as a student in the Special Forces Officer Course at the Special Forces School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Upon completing the course in April 1979, he remained at Fort Bragg as commander of Operational Detachment A-714 (an "A-team") in Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne). This was not the last time that '714' would be associated with McChrystal. In June 1980, he attended the Infantry Officer Advanced Course at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, until February 1981.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In February 1981, McChrystal moved to South Korea as intelligence and operations officer (S-2/S-3) for the United Nations Command Support Group—Joint Security Area. He reported to Fort Stewart, Georgia, in March 1982 to serve as training officer in the Directorate of Plans and Training, A Company, Headquarters Command. He moved to 3rd Battalion, 19th Infantry, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), in November 1982, where he commanded A Company before becoming battalion operations officer (S-3) in September 1984.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal moved to 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, as battalion liaison officer in September 1985, became commander of A Company in January 1986, served again as battalion liaison officer in May 1987, and finally became battalion operations officer (S-3) in April 1988, before reporting to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, as a student in the Command and General Staff Course in June 1989. It was during this time that McChrystal also completed a Master of Science degree in international relations from Salve Regina University. After completing the course in June 1990, he was assigned as Army Special Operations action officer, J-3, Joint Special Operations Command until April 1993, in which capacity he deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: From April 1993 to November 1994, McChrystal commanded the 2nd Battalion, 504th Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. He then commanded the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, from November 1994 to June 1996. During this time he initiated what would become a complete revamping of the existing Army hand-to-hand combat curricula. After a year as a senior service college fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, he moved up to command the entire 75th Ranger Regiment from June 1997 to August 1999, then spent another year as a military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Promoted to brigadier general on January 1, 2001, he served as assistant division commander (operations) of the 82nd Airborne Division from June 2000 to June 2001, including duty as Commander, United States Army Central (dubbed "Coalition/Joint Task Force Kuwait") in Camp Doha, Kuwait. From June 2001 to July 2002 he was chief of staff of XVIII Airborne Corps, including duty as chief of staff of Combined Joint Task Force 180, the headquarters formation contributed by XVIII Airborne Corps to direct all Operation Enduring Freedom operations in Afghanistan.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: At the beginning of the Iraq War in March 2003, he was serving in the Pentagon as a member of the Joint Staff, where he had been vice director of operations, J-3, since July 2002. McChrystal was selected to deliver nationally televised Pentagon briefings on U.S. military operations in Iraq, including one in April 2003 shortly after the fall of Baghdad in which he announced, "I would anticipate that the major combat engagements are over."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: He commanded the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for five years, serving first as Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command, from September 2003 to February 2006, and then as Commander, Joint Special Operations Command/Commander, Joint Special Operations Command Forward, from February 2006 to August 2008. He took command of JSOC on October 6, 2003. This position he describes as commander of Task Force 714 in his autobiography, a force which has been identified as the JSOC high-value targets task force.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Nominally assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he spent most of his time in Afghanistan, at U.S. Central Command's forward headquarters in Qatar, and in Iraq. In Iraq, he personally directed special operations, where his work there is viewed as "pivotal". Early successes included the capture by JSOC forces of Saddam Hussein in December 2003. He was promoted to lieutenant general on February 16, 2006.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: As head of what "Newsweek" termed "the most secretive force in the U.S. military", McChrystal maintained a very low profile until June 2006, when his forces were responsible for the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. After McChrystal's team successfully located Zarqawi and called in the airstrike that killed him, McChrystal accompanied his men to the bombed-out hut near Baqubah to personally identify the body.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal's Zarqawi unit, Task Force 6-26, became well known for its interrogation methods, particularly at Camp Nama, where it was accused of abusing detainees. After the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal became public in April 2004, 34 members of the task force were disciplined. McChrystal later said that, "we found that nearly every first-time jihadist claimed Abu Ghraib had first jolted him into action." He also said that, "mistreating detainees would discredit us. ... The pictures [from] Abu Ghraib represented a setback for America's efforts in Iraq. Simultaneously undermining U.S. domestic confidence in the way in which America was operating, and creating or reinforcing negative perceptions worldwide of American values, it fueled violence".


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal was also criticized for his role in the aftermath of the 2004 death by friendly fire of Ranger and former professional football player Pat Tillman. Within a day of Tillman's death, McChrystal was notified that Tillman was a victim of friendly fire. Shortly thereafter, McChrystal was put in charge of paperwork to award Tillman a posthumous Silver Star for valor.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: On April 28, 2004, six days after Tillman's death, McChrystal approved a final draft of the Silver Star recommendation and submitted it to the acting Secretary of the Army, even though the medal recommendation deliberately omitted any mention of friendly fire, included the phrase "in the line of devastating enemy fire", and was accompanied by fabricated witness statements. On April 29, McChrystal sent an urgent memo warning White House speechwriters not to quote the medal recommendation in any statements they wrote for President George W. Bush because it "might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman's death become public." McChrystal was one of the first to caution restraint in public statements, until the investigation was complete. McChrystal was one of eight officers recommended for discipline by a subsequent Pentagon investigation, but the Army declined to take action against him.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: According to Pulitzer Prize-winning "Washington Post" reporter Bob Woodward, beginning in late spring 2007 JSOC and CIA Special Activities Division teams launched a new series of highly effective covert operations that coincided with the Iraq War troop surge of 2007. They did this by killing or capturing many of the key al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq. In a CBS "60 Minutes" interview, Woodward described a new special operations capability that allowed for this success, noting that it was developed by the joint teams of CIA and JSOC. Several senior U.S. officials stated that the "joint efforts of JSOC and CIA paramilitary units were the most significant contributor to the defeat of al-Qa'ida in Iraq." Journalist Peter Bergen also credits McChrystal with transforming and modernizing JSOC into a "force of unprecedented agility and lethality," playing a key factor in the success of JSOC efforts in subsequent years and in the success of the war in Iraq.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal was considered a candidate to succeed General Bryan D. Brown as commander of U.S. Special Operations Command in 2007, and to succeed General David Petraeus as commanding general of Multi-National Force – Iraq or Admiral William J. Fallon as commander of U.S. Central Command in 2008, all four-star positions. Instead, McChrystal was nominated by George W. Bush to succeed Lieutenant General Walter L. Sharp as director of the Joint Staff in February 2008, another three-star position.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Normally a routine process, McChrystal's Senate confirmation was stalled by members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who sought more information about the alleged mistreatment of detainees by Special Operations troops under McChrystal's command in Iraq and Afghanistan. After meeting with McChrystal in private, the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmed his reappointment as lieutenant general in May 2008 and he became Director of the Joint Staff in August 2008.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: With his June 10, 2009, Senate approval to take command in Afghanistan, McChrystal was promoted to General. Shortly after McChrystal assumed command of NATO operations, Operation Khanjar commenced, marking the largest offensive operation and the beginning of the deadliest combat month for NATO forces since 2001.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal submitted a 66-page report to Defense Secretary Robert Gates calling for more troops in Afghanistan, saying "We are going to win." That became public on September 20, 2009. McChrystal warned that the war in Afghanistan might be lost if more troops were not sent, but the report ends on a note of cautious optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In 2009, McChrystal publicly suggested between 30,000 and 40,000 more troops were needed in Afghanistan, as the lowest risk option out of a number of possible troop level changes. He was advised by White House Staff not to present troop increases numbers to "defeat the Taliban", but to "degrade" them.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Scott Ritter, former Chief UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq, stated at the time that McChrystal should be fired for insubordination for disclosing information that he should have said only in private to the President of the United States.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: "New York" magazine refers to the leaked report as the "McChrystal risk" as it boxed Obama into a corner about boosting troop levels in Afghanistan.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In an article written by freelance journalist Michael Hastings ("The Runaway General", appearing in "Rolling Stone" magazine, July 8–22, 2010 issue), McChrystal and his staff mocked civilian government officials, including Joe Biden, National Security Advisor James L. Jones, US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry, and Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke. McChrystal was not quoted as being directly critical of the president or the president's policies, but several comments from his aides in the article reflected their perception of McChrystal's disappointment with President Obama after their first two meetings.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: According to "Rolling Stone", McChrystal's staff was contacted prior to release of the article and did not deny the validity of the article, although senior members of his staff dispute this, and have accused Hastings in "Army Times" of exaggerating the seniority of aides quoted and breaking the off the record trust of private conversations between him and the aides.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Hastings told "Newsweek" that he was quite clearly a reporter gathering material, and actually bemused at the degree to which soldiers freely spoke to him. A report by the Department of Defense inspector general finds "Not all of the events at issue occurred as reported in [Hastings'] article".


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: The statements attributed to McChrystal and members of his staff drew the attention of the White House when McChrystal called Vice President Biden to apologize. McChrystal issued a written statement, saying:


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Biden's call to President Obama to tell him of the apology prompted Obama to request a copy of the profile and then to summon McChrystal to attend in person the president's monthly security team meeting at the White House in lieu of attending via secure video teleconference. During a meeting with Obama on June 23, two days before the article was released to newsstands and only one day after it was released online, McChrystal tendered his resignation, which the president accepted. Shortly thereafter, President Obama nominated General David Petraeus to replace McChrystal in his role as top commander in Afghanistan.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Obama's statement on the topic began as follows: "Today I accepted Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation as commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. I did so with considerable regret, but also with certainty that it is the right thing for our mission in Afghanistan, for our military and for our country."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Shortly after his removal from command in Afghanistan, McChrystal announced that he would retire from the Army. The day after the announcement, the White House announced that he would retain his four-star rank in retirement, although law generally requires a four-star officer to hold his rank for three years in order to retain it in retirement. His retirement ceremony was held on July 23, 2010, at Fort McNair in Washington D.C. During this ceremony, McChrystal was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and the Defense Distinguished Service Medal by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: Hastings and Eric Bates, executive editor of "Rolling Stone", repeatedly defended the accuracy of Hastings' article. An inquiry by the Defense Department inspector general found no evidence of wrongdoing by McChrystal or his military and civilian associates. The Pentagon report also challenged the accuracy of Hastings' article, disputing key incidents or comments reported in it.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: The report from the inquiry states: "In some instances, we found no witness who acknowledged making or hearing the comments as reported. In other instances, we confirmed that the general substance of an incident at issue occurred, but not in the exact context described in the article." In response, "Rolling Stone" stated that "the report by the Pentagon's inspector general offers no credible source—or indeed, any named source—contradicting the facts as reported in our story."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: After the report was made public, the White House tapped McChrystal to head a new advisory board to support military families, an initiative led by First Lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of the vice president. The selection of McChrystal was announced on April 12, four days after the inspector general's report was finished.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In 2010, after leaving the Army, McChrystal joined Yale University as a Jackson Institute for Global Affairs senior fellow. He teaches a course entitled "Leadership", a graduate-level seminar with some spots reserved for undergraduates. The course received 250 applications for 20 spots in 2011 and was taught for a third time in 2013.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In November 2010, JetBlue Airways announced that McChrystal would join its board of directors. On February 16, 2011, Navistar International announced that McChrystal would join its board of directors.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal is chairman of the Board of Siemens Government Technologies, and is on the strategic advisory board of Knowledge International, a licensed arms dealer whose parent company is EAI, a business "very close" to the United Arab Emirates government. He co-founded and is a partner at McChrystal Group, an Alexandria, Virginia-based consulting firm. His philosophy of leadership and building stronger organizations is quoted in the bestselling book by Daniel Levitin "The Organized Mind".


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In 2011, McChrystal joined Spirit of America, a 501(c)(3) organization that supports the safety and success of Americans serving abroad and the local people and partners they seek to help, as an Advisory Board Member.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In 2011, McChrystal advocated instituting a national service program in the United States. He stated, "'Service member' should not apply only to those in uniform, but to us all ... America is falling short in endeavors that occur far away from any battlefield: education, science, politics, the environment, and cultivating leadership, among others. Without a sustained focus on these foundations of our society, America's long-term security and prosperity are at risk."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal's memoir, "My Share of the Task", published by Portfolio of the Penguin Group, was released on January 7, 2013. The autobiography had been scheduled to be released in November 2012, but was delayed due to security clearance approvals required from the Department of Defense. Portfolio publishers stated, "We have decided to delay the publication date of General McChrystal's book, "My Share of the Task", as the book continues to undergo a security review by the Department of Defense ... General McChrystal has spent 22 months working closely with military officials to make sure he follows all the rules for writing about the armed forces, including special operations."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: On January 8, 2013, McChrystal appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, in which he endorsed stronger U.S. gun control laws, saying that assault weapons were for the battlefield, not schools or streets.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: He established a consultancy firm, McChrystal Group, in 2011 which uses the slogan "Bringing Lessons from the Battlefield to Boardroom". It includes researchers, practitioners and former military officers.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In 2014, McChrystal endorsed Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democratic congressional hopeful, attempting to unseat Representative John F. Tierney in the Democratic primary. Having never before made an endorsement, McChrystal said he endorsed Moulton, a Marine veteran, because the United States Congress could benefit from a man of his character.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In 2015, McChrystal's second book "Team of Teams" was released and aimed at business organizations and their leaders. With his co-authors, Tantum Collins, David Silverman and Chris Fussell, McChrystal describes how he and his staff remade the Joint Special Operations Task Force in the Middle East to fight a new kind of decentralized, tech-savvy enemy.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In the fall of 2014 McChrystal's townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia was the address Michael Flynn used to register his consulting and intelligence business, the Flynn Intel Group.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In January 2016, McChrystal became the chair of the Board of Service Year Alliance—an organization merged from ServiceNation, the Franklin Project at The Aspen Institute, and the Service Year Exchange. Service Year Alliance aims to make a year of full-time service—a service year—a common expectation and opportunity for young Americans of all backgrounds. McChrystal called on the 2016 presidential candidates to embrace practical solutions to restore social trust in the United States "such as engaging young Americans in a year or more of national service." He has also said, "A service year that teaches young Americans the habits of citizenship and the power of working in teams to build trust is one of the most powerful ways this generation can help restore political and civic responsibility—and in the process help to heal a wounded nation."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In May 2016, McChrystal was a commencement speaker at The Citadel and received an honorary Doctor of Military Science degree.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: After speculation that he might be considered for Republican Donald Trump's running mate in the 2016 presidential election, McChrystal made it known that he would "decline consideration for any role" in a Trump administration. On November 16, 2016, McChrystal rejected the offer to be president-elect Trump's first choice of Secretary of Defense saying, 'I've been watching the campaign and I don't think I'd be a good fit for the ...team. I don't think I would be happy. Also, I'm not sure you'd be happy...'


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In May 2020, "The Washington Post" reported: "A new Democratic-aligned political action committee advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal ... is planning to deploy technology ... to combat online efforts to promote President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The group, Defeat Disinfo, will ... map discussion of the president's claims on social media. It will seek to intervene ... through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers ... paying users with large followings to take sides against the president."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: On October 1, 2020, on the "Morning Joe" program, McChrystal endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president in that year's election. Despite the two's philosophical differences and the fallout from the 2010 "Rolling Stone" article, McChrystal explained Biden and Obama openly listened to his comments during his service, and that disagreements were paramount in a functioning democracy. McChrystal commented, "You have to believe your commander in chief, at the end of the day, is someone you can trust, and I can trust Joe Biden."


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal is the son of Major General Herbert J. McChrystal (1924–2013), and his wife, Mary Gardner Bright (1925–1971). His grandfather was US Army Colonel Herbert J. McChrystal Sr. (1895–1954). He is the fourth child in a family of five boys and one girl, all of whom would serve in the military or became military spouses. His older brother, Colonel Scott McChrystal, is a retired Army chaplain, and is the endorsing agent for the Assemblies of God. He is a distant relative of Corporal Charles Edward McChrystal (1922–1944), US Army Corporal and Purple Heart recipient, who died in France during World War II.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: McChrystal married Annie Corcoran, also from a military family, in 1977. The couple have one son. McChrystal is reported to run daily, eat one meal per day, and sleep four hours a night.


title: Stanley A. McChrystal

text: In May 2017, Netflix released the film "War Machine" in which Brad Pitt plays a thinly veiled version of McChrystal named McMahon. It was directed by Animal Kingdom's David Michôd and is an adaptation of Michael Hastings' book "The Operators". Hastings wrote the "Rolling Stone" article that revealed the friction between McChrystal's staff and Obama's, which ultimately led to McChrystal losing his job.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk duo consisting of the sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, born in 1990 and 1993, respectively. When performing live, they are accompanied by a drummer, a guitarist and a keyboard player. In 2008, they gained some Internet popularity for their cover of the Fleet Foxes' song "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song". "Rolling Stone" magazine chose their song "Emmylou" as the number 10 "Single of the Year" in 2012. They have released five albums, four EPs and several singles. In 2015, they were nominated for a Brit Award as one of the five best international groups. They were nominated again in 2019.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Sisters Johanna (born 31 October 1990) and Klara (born 8 January 1993) Söderberg are from Enskede, in Stockholm. Their father Benkt Söderberg was a member of the Swedish rock pop band Lolita Pop, but quit before Johanna was born and became a teacher of history and religion. Their mother teaches cinematography.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: From childhood, Klara and Johanna were eager singers, giving concerts using a jump rope as a pretend microphone. Klara's favorite songs were Judy Garland's songs from "The Wizard of Oz" and Billie Holiday's version of "Gloomy Sunday", which she sang without much understanding of the English lyrics. Klara wrote her first song, "Femton mil i min Barbiebil" [Fifteen Scandinavian miles in my Barbie car], when she was six.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Klara and Johanna both attended the Internationella Engelska Skolan of Enskede. Klara applied for admission to Adolf Fredrik's Music School, but was not accepted.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: In 2005, when Klara was 12, a friend introduced her to the band Bright Eyes. This led her to country and folk music stars such as Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the Carter Family, Louvin Brothers, Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. The same year, she received a guitar as a Christmas present and quickly learned to play it.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Johanna enjoyed a wide range of music, from Britney Spears to German techno. When she saw the film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and listened to its soundtrack, she was inspired to sing "Down in the River to Pray" with Klara. Fascinated by the result, the two began to sing together, first at home and then as street singers in the Stockholm metro and in front of liquor stores. Klara chose the name for their band at age 13 by looking through a dictionary. She found the term "first aid kit" and thought it best described what she wanted her music to be.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Klara and Johanna began to write their own country-folk songs inspired by Devendra Banhart and CocoRosie, among others, without much influence from their parents, who were fonder of Patti Smith, Velvet Underground and the Pixies. Their father has said that he was astonished and a little jealous of the ease his daughters had in producing their music. The most important advice their father gave them was to sing so loud that even somebody behind a wall could hear it.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: In April 2007, the sisters began to upload their self-made songs to the social networking site MySpace. They also sent a demo of their song "Tangerine" to Swedish radio. It immediately went on air and was listed as one of the best songs of the summer 2007, which led to requests for live performances and even some offers from record companies. The first official performance as First Aid Kit was at PUNKTmedis library in Stockholm on 6 October. More performances followed, but as Klara was 14 and still at school, they could only play during weekends.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Coincidentally, their younger brother attended the same kindergarten as the daughter of Karin Dreijer, half of Swedish electronic duo The Knife, also known as Fever Ray. Their mother asked Dreijer to check out her daughters' songs on MySpace. The band subsequently signed with Rabid Records, a label co-owned by The Knife, with conditions that allowed the duo to have full control over their music and album art.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: In April 2008, the band released their debut EP "Drunken Trees" in Sweden, and made their first appearance on Swedish TV. The EP was produced by their father, and was a re-recorded collection of songs from their MySpace, originally entitled "Cross Oceans".


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: The duo was relatively well-known in Sweden by August 2008, when they uploaded a cover version of "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by Fleet Foxes to YouTube. Robin Pecknold, frontman and lead guitarist for Fleet Foxes, praised the cover on his band's webpage, causing a surge in popularity for the video. This exposure led to international recognition, and by the end of 2008, the duo had signed a record deal with Wichita Records.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Due to international touring, Johanna quit high school in the autumn of 2008 (and Klara never started). Their father took a leave from his job as a teacher and accompanied them on tour. First Aid Kit's first show outside Scandinavia took place on 22 November 2008 at the Crossing Border Festival in Netherlands. Fleet Foxes performed the day before, and when Pecknold spotted the duo standing at the edge of the stage, they were spontaneously asked to join to sing "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song".


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Wichita re-released "Drunken Trees" on 23 February 2009 as an enhanced EP, with "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" added as a bonus track, along with several videos.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: The duo released their first album, "The Big Black and the Blue" on 1 February 2010. As with the "Drunken Trees" EP, the album was again produced by their father. The release was followed by an extensive tour throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, including Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 19 November 2009, Klara and Johanna met Conor Oberst after the Monsters of Folk's concert in Stockholm, and gave him a demo of their coming album. Oberst watched the duo perform at the Austin City Limits Music Festival pre-party in Texas on 7 October 2010. At this concert, he was especially impressed by the duo's acoustic performance of Ghost Town, which the audience listened to in rapt silence. After meeting the duo, Oberst called Mike Mogis and asked him to see the duo's performance at the ACL Festival two days later, on October 9. After watching this performance, Mogis offered to produce the duo's next album.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Two days later, on 11 October 2010, after playing a concert in Nashville, the duo received a telephone call from Jack White, who asked the duo to visit his studio the next day. The result was a vinyl single containing cover versions of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Universal Soldier" and Mel London's and Tampa Red's "It Hurts Me Too". The single was released on White's Third Man Records label.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit performed at the Polar Music Prize gala on 30 August 2011 in Stockholm, where they performed the song "Dancing Barefoot" for the winner Patti Smith. Smith was moved to tears at the intense ending of the song.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: In January 2012, the band released their second album, "The Lion's Roar", produced by Mike Mogis. The album was critically acclaimed, debuting at number one in Sweden and number 35 in the UK. The duo toured extensively in support of the album, including performances at several major festivals. The duo performed the song "Emmylou" on "Conan" in April 2012, and on "The Late Show with David Letterman" in October 2012.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 28 August 2012, they performed "America" for the Polar Music Prize winner Paul Simon, who gave the duo a standing ovation.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: The song "The Lion's Roar" was featured in episode 2 of series 4 of "Misfits", and in the opening sequence of the video game "The Long Dark". "In the Hearts of Men" was featured in episode 21 of season 8 of "Bones". The song "I Found a Way" appeared in the second episode of the Dontnod Entertainment's 2019 video game "Life Is Strange 2" in 2019.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: In November 2012, the duo received awards for "Composer of the year" and "Breakthrough of the Year" from the Swedish Music Publishers Association. The song "Emmylou" was chosen by "Rolling Stone" magazine as the #10 "Single of the Year" in 2012. In February 2013, First Aid Kit was awarded the Nordic Music Prize for Best Nordic 2012 Album. They were also awarded four Swedish Grammis awards for 2012 "Artist of the Year", "Songwriter of the Year", "Best Pop of the Year" and "Album of the Year".


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Their third studio album, "Stay Gold", was released on 10 June 2014 through Columbia Records. The band released two singles from the album: "My Silver Lining" and "Cedar Lane". As a result, the duo again received the "Composer of the year" prize from the Swedish Music Publishers Association. In January 2015, First Aid Kit was nominated for the 2015 Brit Awards in the Best International Group category as one of five nominees, and won the "Best group of the year" prize in the Swedish Radio P3 Gold Gala. In the same month, the band was featured on a Swedish postage stamp. The album "Stay Gold" was listed at number 6 in the Paste magazine's 40 best folk albums of the 2010s list.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit began touring again in May 2014, visiting North America, Europe, Japan and Australia. The final performance was on 15 August 2015, at Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. Except for two Christmas concerts with Seinabo Sey, Amanda Bergman and Maja Francis on 13 December 2015 in Stockholm, the duo performed no concerts again until summer 2017, as they needed a break in order to prepare the new record.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: During 2014-2016 they performed twice on "The Late Show with David Letterman". and on "Later... with Jools Holland". They also appeared on "Conan", "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "The Graham Norton Show" and "CBS This Morning" TV show. On 9 June 2015, they performed "Red Dirt Girl" and "Emmylou" for the Polar Music Prize winner Emmylou Harris in the TV broadcast gala at Stockholm, Sweden. They also performed covers songs by Bob Dylan and other folk singers on several Swedish TV programs.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: The duo sing harmonies on six tracks of Conor Oberst's album "Upside Down Mountain" released on 20 May 2014. The duo sang backing vocals on five songs of Conor Oberst's set at Haldern Pop Festival in Germany on 9 August. They also contributed vocals to the title track of Jenny Lewis's album "The Voyager", released on 29 July 2014. On 28 November 2014, First Aid Kit's 10" vinyl single "America" was released as a Black Friday record store day release. They sang backing vocals on Van William's single "Revolution", released on 7 September 2016. The song was subsequently included on Van William's album "Countries", released in January 2018, and peaked at number six on the US AAA chart.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: At the end of October 2014, it was announced that First Aid Kit's cover of R.E.M.'s "Walk Unafraid" would be included on the soundtrack of the movie "Wild". Moreover, their song "Frozen Lake" appeared in the Swedish film "Min Så Kallade Pappa".


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: At the beginning of 2017 Klara and Johanna were at Flora Recording & Playback in Portland, Oregon, finishing their fourth album.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: In early 2017, First Aid Kit provided backing vocals for Jesper Lindell's "A Little Less Blue" EP, which was produced by Sten Booberg and the duo's father, Benkt Söderberg. The EP was released on 21 April 2017.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 10 March, First Aid Kit released a new single, "You Are the Problem Here", for International Woman's Day. The band called the song an angry song, inspired by yet another story of a man getting off easy after raping a woman. The track was produced and mixed by Tucker Martine from Flora Recording & Playback studio. A 7-inch vinyl copy of "You Are the Problem Here" was released on Record Store Day 2018. All profits from the song are donated to Women for Women International.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit held four Leonard Cohen-themed concerts in Spring 2017 with their friends in Dramaten, Stockholm, Sweden. Their concert on 13 March was filmed by Sveriges Television, and broadcast on 14 and 15 October by SVT2. An audio recording of the concert was released on 26 March 2021.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On Record Store Day 2017, Third Man Records published the book "The Blue Series: The Story Behind the Color", which contains a story by Johanna and Klara about recording songs in Jack White's studio, and a 7-inch split blue vinyl single with the band's previously-unreleased cover of "Gloomy Sunday". The record store day issue was limited to 500 copies. A regular release on black vinyl single was released on 6 June.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Johanna and Klara sang several songs with Håkan Hellström at concerts on 9 and 10 June at Stockholm Olympic Stadium, and on 28 and 29 July at Ullevi stadium in Gothenburg. On 25 August, Håkan Hellström published a live recording of "Du Fria" in digital format.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit resumed touring in Summer 2017, beginning with a concert on 16 June in Borgholm, Sweden. BBC broadcast their performance at Glastonbury Festival on 23 June, during which they performed two songs from their upcoming album "Ruins": "Fireworks" and "It's a Shame".


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: During Fall 2017, the band gave several interviews in the UK and European media, including the German late night show "Inas Nacht" ("Ina's Night"), BBC Radio, Channel 4 TV news and the Channel 4 "Sunday Brunch" TV programme. Their performances of "Perfect Places" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" were released as "Live From BBC Radio 2" singles in digital format on 18 December 2017.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 12 January 2018, First Aid Kit performed "It's a Shame" on BBC's "Graham Norton Show". Johanna and Klara were also interviewed on the Norwegian-Swedish TV show "Skavlan", where they performed "Fireworks".


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: The album "Ruins" was released on 19 January 2018. The album was recorded at Flora Recording & Playback in Portland, Oregon, and contained 10 new songs. The album was certified Gold in Sweden in August, and Silver in the UK in November. The release was followed by a tour throughout Canada, the US, Europe and Australia, including performances at Coachella on 14 and 21 April 2018. During this period, they also performed on several radio and TV programs such as "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "The Andrew Marr Show", "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." The songs on Ruins album are related with Klara's breakup with her boyfriend, but performing the songs on tour was hard for Johanna too as she had broken up with her boyfriend in January 2018 shortly after the album release.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 8 June, Columbia released the "Live from the Rebel Hearts Club" EP in digital format, containing live versions of five songs from the "Ruins" album, and a live version of "You Are the Problem Here". On 11 July, Spotify released a stripped-down version of "Fireworks" and a cover of Kate Bush's song "Running Up That Hill" as singles that were recorded in the new Spotify studio in Stockholm. On 14 September, the vinyl EP "Tender Offerings" was released, containing four previously unreleased tracks. The EP reached number one on the UK vinyl charts.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit sang backing vocals on several 2018 releases, including Alela Diane's song "Ether & Wood" from the album Cusp, George Ezra's song "Saviour" from the album "Staying at Tamara's," and on Little Jinder's song "Goldwing" from the album "Hejdå".


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: In November 2018, "Ruins" was nominated for International Album of the Year at the 2019 UK Americana Awards. The band also received two Swedish Grammis award nominations in 2019, one for Song of the Year for """Fireworks," and another for Alternative Pop Album of the Year for "Ruins". In January 2019, they were again nominated for the International Group Brit Award.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: The duo's song "Home Again" appeared on the soundtrack for the TV show Moominvalley, which was released on 19 April.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On May 18 2019, the duo canceled all planned 2019 summer dates due to unforeseen medical circumstances, including the Pinkpop Festival in Landgraaf, Netherlands. They were replaced on the bill for that event by Eurovision Song Contest 2019 winner Duncan Laurence. It was later revealed that the concerts were canceled because Klara was experiencing burnout.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: Klara wrote "Strange Beauty" after the suicide of David Berman. The track was published on August 22, along with their cover of """Random Rules" by Berman's band Silver Jews.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 16 October 2019, the duo received the Ulla Billquist scholarship, which is awarded each year to female artists who enrich the Swedish music scene through their artistry.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 11 December, First Aid Kit played three songs at the Swedish TV's charity program Musikhjälpen with Maja Francis. First Aid Kit had Christmas-themed shows on December 17, 18 and 19 in Stockholm with Amanda Bergman and Maja Francis.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 13 January 2020, Johanna announced that she is expecting a baby in the summer A baby girl was born on 18 June. On 16 January, Klara announced that she will start a country club in Stockholm with a house band. The first event was held on 21 February, right before the concert venues were closed due to pandemy. During spring 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns the band streamed live concerts from Johanna's home.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 14 August 2020, First Aid Kit released a cover version of Willie Nelson's song "On the Road Again". Proceeds from the song were donated to Crew Nation, to support crew members who were forced out of work due to COVID-19 pandemic. On 25 September, they released two cover versions of Ted Gärdestad's "Come Give Me Love", one sung with the original Swedish lyrics, and the other with their own translation of the lyrics into English. In 2021 the band performed on some Swedish TV-programs.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: "Suzanne" single from the "Who by Fire" live album recorded in 2017 at the Leonard Cohen tribute concert was released in February 2021 and the full album on 26 March 2021.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit appear as the Treetaur Shamans named Big Tree (voiced by Johanna) and Little Tree (voiced by Klara) in both the original English version and Swedish dub of Season 1 Episode 4 of the Netflix series Centaurworld. They reprised their roles in Season 2.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit appear on Thomas Stenström's song """Hotel Amigo" on his album "Spring Baby Spring", released on 17 September 2021; Maja Francis' song """Mama" on her album "A Pink Soft Mess" released on 24 September 2021; and on Thåström's single "Isbergen" released on 15 October 2021. The duo appear on Thåström's song "Södra Korset" as well.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 19 January 2022 First Aid Kit streamed Lion's Roar 10th anniversary concert from Mosebacke Etablissement, Stockholm with brothers Johannes and Gabriel Runemark who will be new band members.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: On 8 March 2022 Swedish TV4 aired combined cooking and music program ”Benjamin’s” episode where Klara and Johanna were guests. The Swedish version of Come Give Me Love performed with Benjamin Ingrosso in the show was released as a single in various streaming services.


title: First Aid Kit (band)

text: First Aid Kit started touring in June 2022 and released the first single "Angel" from their fifth album "Palomino". They played Glastonbury on 24 June with Freja Drakenberg, Gabriel Runemark and Johannes Runemark. At the end of July they released a cover of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" as a single in various streaming services. Second single, "Out of My Head" from the album was released on 12 August, the third one "Turning Onto You", on 30 September. and the fourth, "A Feeling That Never Came", on 20 October. "Palomino" was released on 4 November 2022. Extensive touring follows the album release.


title: LGBT rights in Russia

text: In the Russian Federation, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people face legal and social challenges not experienced by others. Although sexual activity between same-sex couples has been legal since 1917, homosexuality is disapproved of by most Russians, and same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are ineligible for the legal protections available to opposite-sex couples. Russia provides no anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people and does not have a designation for hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Transgender people are allowed to change their legal gender without requiring sex reassignment surgery; however, there are currently no laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression, and recent laws could discriminate against transgender residents.


title: LGBT rights in Russia

text: Russia has long held strongly negative views regarding homosexuality, with recent polls indicating that a majority of Russians are against the acceptance of homosexuality and have shown support for laws discriminating against homosexuals. Despite receiving international criticism for the recent increase in social discrimination, crimes, and violence against homosexuals, larger cities such as Moscow and Saint Petersburg have been said to have a thriving LGBT community. However, there has been a historic resistance to gay pride parades by local governments; despite being fined by the European Court of Human Rights in 2010 for interpreting it as discrimination, the city of Moscow denied 100 individual requests for permission to hold Moscow Pride through 2012, citing a risk of violence against participants.


title: LGBT rights in Russia

text: In December 1917, after the October Revolution, the Russian Soviet Republic legalised homosexuality, discarding of the Legal Code of the Russian Empire. The legalisation of homosexuality was confirmed in the RSFSR Penal Code of 1922, and following its redrafting in 1926. However, in 1933, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin recriminalised sex between men. Article 121 was added to the criminal code on 7 March 1934 for the entire Soviet Union that expressly prohibited only male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labour in prison. There were no criminal statutes regarding sex between women. During the Soviet regime, Western observers believed that between 800 and 1,000 men were imprisoned each year under Article 121. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, homosexuality acts between consenting males were re-legalised in 1993, removing Article 121 from the RSFSR penal code.


title: LGBT rights in Russia

text: Since 2006, under Vladimir Putin, regions in Russia have enacted varying laws restricting the distribution of materials promoting LGBT relationships to minors; in June 2013, a federal law criminalizing the distribution of materials among minors in support of non-traditional sexual relationships was enacted as an amendment to an existing child protection law. The law has resulted in the numerous arrests of Russian LGBT citizens publicly opposing the law and there has reportedly been a surge of anti-gay protests, violence, and even hate crimes. It has received international criticism from human rights observers, LGBT activists, and media outlets and has been viewed as a "de facto" means of criminalizing LGBT culture. The law was ruled to be inconsistent with protection of freedom of expression by the European Court of Human Rights but as of 2021 has not been repealed. In 2022, the law was extended to apply to anyone regardless of age, thus making any expression deemed a promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships illegal.


title: LGBT rights in Russia

text: In a report issued on 13 April 2017, a panel of five expert advisors to the United Nations Human Rights Council—Vitit Muntarbhorn, Sètondji Roland Adjovi; Agnès Callamard; Nils Melzer; and David Kaye—condemned the wave of torture and killings of gay men in Chechnya.


title: LGBT rights in Russia

text: The Russian Embassy in Canada on 26 Nov 2022, posted a tweet and described the family like this: “It is all about family. Family is a man and a woman and children.”


title: LGBT rights in Russia

text: Public opinion in Russia tends to be hostile toward homosexuality and the level of intolerance has been rising. A 2013 survey found that 74% of Russians said homosexuality should not be accepted by society (up from 60% in 2002), compared to 16% who said that homosexuality should be accepted by society. In a 2015 survey of 2,471 Russians, 86% said homosexuality should not be accepted by society. In a 2007 survey, 68% of Russians said homosexuality is always wrong (54%) or almost always wrong (14%). In a 2005 poll, 44% of Russians were in favour of making homosexual acts between consenting adults a criminal act; at the same time, 43% of Russians supported a legal ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2013, 16% of Russians surveyed said that gay people should be isolated from society, 22% said they should be forced to undergo treatment, and 5% said homosexuals should be "liquidated". In Russian psychiatry, Soviet mentality about homosexuality has endured into the present day. For instance, in spite of the removal of homosexuality from the nomenclature of mental disorders, 62.5% of 450 surveyed psychiatrists in the Rostov Region view it as an illness, and up to three-quarters view it as immoral behavior. The psychiatrists sustain the objections to pride parades and the use of veiled schemes to lay off openly lesbian and gay persons from schools, child care centres, and other public institutions. A Russian motorcycle club called the Night Wolves, which is closely associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin and which suggests "Death to faggots" as an alternate name for itself, organized a large Anti-Maidan rally in February 2015 at which a popular slogan was "We don't need Western ideology and gay parades!"


title: LGBT rights in Russia

text: Neither same-sex marriages nor civil unions of same-sex couples are allowed in Russia. In July 2013, Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, of which approximately 71% of Russians are adherents, said that the idea of same-sex marriage was "a very dangerous sign of the Apocalypse". At a 2011 press conference, the head of the Moscow Registry Office, Irina Muravyova, declared: "Attempts by same-sex couples to marry both in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia are doomed to fail. We live in a civil society, we are guided by the federal law, [and] by the Constitution that clearly says: marriage in Russia is between a man and a woman. Such a marriage [same-sex] cannot be contracted in Russia." The vast majority of the Russian public are also against same-sex marriage. In July 2020, Russian voters approved a Constitution amendment banning same-sex marriage. In the 2021 case "Fedotova and Others v. Russia", the European Court of Human Rights ruled that it was a violation of human rights for Russia not to offer any form of legal recognition to same-sex relationships.