title: Yemen

text: Islam is the state religion of Yemen. Religion in Yemen consists primarily of two principal Islamic religious groups: About 35% of the Muslim population is Shia and 65% is Sunni, according to the UNHCR Report. Sunnis are primarily Shafi'i but also include significant groups of Malikis and Hanbalis. Shias are primarily Zaydi and also have significant minorities of Ismaili and Twelver Shias.


title: Yemen

text: The Sunnis are predominantly in the south and southeast. The Zaidis/shias are predominantly in the north and northwest whilst the Ismailis are in the main centres such as Sana'a and Ma'rib. There are mixed communities in the larger cities. About .05 percent of Yemenis are non-Muslim – adhering to Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism or having no religious affiliation.


title: Yemen

text: Yemen is number five on Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. Estimates of the number of Christians in Yemen range from 25,000 to 41,000. A 2015 study estimates 400 Christians from a Muslim background reside in the country.


title: Yemen

text: There are approximately 50 Jews left in Yemen. Some 200 Yemenite Jews were brought to Israel by the Jewish Agency circa 2016. According to a 2020 estimate only estimated 26 Jews remain in Yemen. However, in 2022 its estimated only one Yemeni Jew remains according to a United Nations report about the treatment of religious minorities in conflict zones howevere there are reportedly a handful of “hidden Jews” in Yemen who have converted to Islam but secretly practice Judaism.


title: Yemen

text: According to WIN/Gallup International polls, Yemen has the most religious population among Arab countries and it is one of the most religious populations world-wide.


title: Yemen

text: The adult literacy rate in 2010 was 64%. The government has committed to reduce illiteracy to less than 10% by 2025. Although Yemen's government provides for universal, compulsory, free education for children ages six through 15, the U.S. Department of State reports that compulsory attendance is not enforced. The government developed the National Basic Education Development Strategy in 2003 that aimed at providing education to 95% of Yemeni children between the ages of six and 14 years and also at decreasing the gap between males and females in urban and rural areas.


title: Yemen

text: A seven-year project to improve gender equity and the quality and efficiency of secondary education, focusing on girls in rural areas, was approved by the World Bank in March 2008. Following this, Yemen has increased its education spending from 5% of GDP in 1995 to 10% in 2005.


title: Yemen

text: According to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, the top-ranking universities in the country are the Yemeni University of Science & Technology (6532nd worldwide), Al Ahgaff University (8930th) and Sanaa University (11043rd). Yemen was ranked 131st in the Global Innovation Index in 2021, down from 129th in 2019.


title: Yemen

text: Despite the significant progress Yemen has made to expand and improve its health care system over the past decade, the system remains severely underdeveloped. Total expenditures on health care in 2002 constituted 3.7 percent of gross domestic product.


title: Yemen

text: In that same year, the per capita expenditure for health care was very low, as compared with other Middle Eastern countries—US$58 according to United Nations statistics and US$23 according to the World Health Organization. According to the World Bank, the number of doctors in Yemen rose by an average of more than 7 percent between 1995 and 2000, but as of 2004 there were still only three doctors per 10,000 persons. In 2003 Yemen had only 0.6 hospital beds available per 1,000 persons.


title: Yemen

text: Health care services are particularly scarce in rural areas. Only 25 percent of rural areas are covered by health services, as compared with 80 percent of urban areas. Emergency services, such as ambulance service and blood banks, are non-existent.


title: Yemen

text: Yemen is a culturally rich country with influence from many civilizations, such as the early civilization of Saba'.


title: Yemen

text: Radio broadcasting in Yemen began in the 1940s when it was still divided into the South by the British and the North by the Imami ruling system. After the unification of Yemen in 1990, the Yemeni government reformed its corporations and founded some additional radio stations that broadcast locally. However, it drew back after 1994, due to destroyed infrastructure resulting from the civil war.


title: Yemen

text: Television is the most significant media platform in Yemen. Given the low literacy rate in the country, television is the main source of news for Yemenis. There are six free-to-air channels currently headquartered in Yemen, of which four are state-owned.


title: Yemen

text: The history of Yemeni theatre dates back at least a century, to the early 1900s. Both amateur and professional (government-sponsored) theatre troupes perform in the country's major urban centres. Many of Yemen's significant poets and authors, like Ali Ahmed Ba Kathir, Muhammad al-Sharafi, and Wajdi al-Ahdal, have written dramatic works; poems, novels, and short stories by Yemeni authors like Mohammad Abdul-Wali and Abdulaziz Al-Maqaleh have also been adapted for the stage. There have been Yemeni productions of plays by Arab authors such as Tawfiq al-Hakim and Saadallah Wannous and by Western authors, including Shakespeare, Pirandello, Brecht, and Tennessee Williams. Historically speaking, the southern port city of Aden is the cradle of Yemeni theatre; in recent decades the capital, Sana'a, has hosted numerous theatre festivals, often in conjunction with World Theatre Day.


title: Yemen

text: Football is the most popular sport in Yemen. The Yemen Football Association is a member of FIFA and AFC. The Yemeni national football team participates internationally. The country also hosts many football clubs. They compete in the national and international leagues.


title: Yemen

text: Yemen's mountains provide many opportunities for outdoor sports, such as biking, rock climbing, trekking, hiking, and other more challenging sports, including mountain climbing. Mountain climbing and hiking tours to the Sarawat Mountains, including peaks of and above, particularly that of An-Nabi Shu'ayb, are seasonally organized by local and international alpine agencies.


title: Yemen

text: The coastal areas of Yemen and Socotra Island also provide many opportunities for water sports, such as surfing, bodyboarding, sailing, swimming, and scuba diving. Socotra Island is home to some of the best surfing destinations in the world.


title: Yemen

text: Camel jumping is a traditional sport that is becoming increasingly popular among the Zaraniq tribe on the west coast of Yemen in a desert plain by the Red Sea. Camels are placed side to side and victory goes to the competitor who leaps, from a running start, over the most camels. The jumpers train year round for competitions. Tribesmen (women may not compete) tuck their robes around their waists for freedom of movement while running and leaping.


title: Yemen

text: Yemen's biggest sports event was hosting the 20th Arabian Gulf Cup in Aden and Abyan in the southern part of the country on 22 November 2010. Many thought Yemen was the strongest competitor, but it was defeated in the first three matches of the tournament.


title: Yemen

text: Internationally, Naseem Hamed, a British Yemeni world champion boxer, is the most well known Yemeni athlete.


title: Yemen

text: Among Yemen's natural and cultural attractions are four World Heritage sites. The Old Walled City of Shibam in Wadi Hadhramaut, inscribed by UNESCO in 1982, two years after Yemen joined the World Heritage Committee, is nicknamed "Manhattan of the Desert" because of its skyscrapers. Surrounded by a fortified wall made of mud and straw, the 16th-century city is one of the oldest examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction.


title: Yemen

text: The Old City of Sana'a, at an altitude of more than , has been inhabited for over two and a half millennia, and was inscribed in 1986. Sana'a became a major Islamic centre in the seventh century, and the 103 mosques, 14 hammams (traditional bathhouses), and more than 6,000 houses that survive all date from before the 11th century.


title: Yemen

text: Close to the Red Sea Coast, the historic town of Zabid, inscribed in 1993, was Yemen's capital from the 13th to the 15th century, and is an archaeological and historical site. It played an important role for many centuries because of its university, which was a centre of learning for the whole Arab and Islamic world.


title: Yemen

text: The latest addition to Yemen's list of World Heritage Sites is the Socotra Archipelago. Mentioned by Marco Polo in the 13th century, this remote and isolated archipelago consists of four islands and two rocky islets delineating the southern limit of the Gulf of Aden. The site has a rich biodiversity. Nowhere else in the world do 37% of Socotra's 825 plants, 90% of its reptiles and 95% of its snails occur. It is home to 192 bird species, 253 species of coral, 730 species of coastal fish, and 300 species of crab and lobster, as well as the Dragon's Blood Tree ("Dracaena cinnabari"). The cultural heritage of Socotra includes the unique Soqotri language.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: Rosario Isabel Dawson (born May 9, 1979) is an American actress. She made her feature-film debut in the 1995 independent drama "Kids". Her subsequent film roles include "He Got Game" (1998), "Josie and the Pussycats" (2001), "Men in Black II" (2002), "Rent" (2005), "Sin City" (2005), "Clerks II" (2006), "Death Proof" (2007), "Seven Pounds" (2008), "" (2010), "Unstoppable" (2010), "Zookeeper" (2011), "Trance" (2013), "Top Five" (2014), and "" (2019). Dawson has also provided voice-over work for Disney/Marvel, Warner Bros./DC Comics, and ViacomCBS's Nickelodeon unit.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: Dawson is also known for having several roles in film and television adaptations of comic books. These include Gail in "Sin City" (2005) and "" (2014), Claire Temple in five of the Marvel/Netflix series (2015–2018), and providing the voices of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman in the DC Animated Movie Universe and "" and Barbara Gordon/Batgirl in "The Lego Batman Movie". In 2020, she portrayed Ahsoka Tano in the second season of "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett", and is set to star in the upcoming Disney+ original series "Ahsoka". In 2021, she has a recurring role in the Dwayne Johnson autobiographical comedy series "Young Rock" and in the Hulu miniseries "Dopesick".


title: Rosario Dawson

text: Dawson was born on May 9, 1979, in New York City. Her mother, Isabel Celeste, is of Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican ancestry. Isabel was 17 years old when Rosario was born; she never married Rosario's biological father, Patrick C. Harris. When Rosario was a year old, her mother married Greg Dawson, a construction worker. Isabel and Greg moved into a reclaimed building on 544 East 13th Street after being approved as members of an affordable housing plan. The family later moved to Garland, Texas.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: As a child, Dawson made a brief appearance on "Sesame Street". At the age of 15, she was discovered on her front-porch step by photographer Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, with Korine deciding that she was perfect for a part he had written in his screenplay for the controversial 1995 film "Kids". She went on to star in varied roles, including independent films and blockbusters such as "Rent", "He Got Game", and "Men in Black II".


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In 1998, Dawson provided an introductory voice-over for the remixed version of Prince's single "1999". The voice-over was a commentary on the state of the world in the next to last year before the new millennium. The following year, she appeared in The Chemical Brothers' video for the song "Out of Control" from the album "Surrender". She is also featured on the track "She Lives In My Lap" from the second disc of the OutKast album "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below", in which she speaks the introduction and a brief interlude towards the end.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In 2001, she appeared in the movie "Josie and the Pussycats" as band member Valerie Brown and had a role in "Chelsea Walls", the directorial debut of Ethan Hawke.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: Dawson starred opposite Edward Norton in the Spike Lee drama "25th Hour" (2002). In the 2004 Oliver Stone film "Alexander", she played Roxana, the wife of Alexander the Great. In 2005, Dawson made her stage debut as Julia in the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" revival of "Two Gentlemen of Verona".


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In the film adaptation of the popular musical "Rent" in 2005, she played the exotic dancer Mimi Marquez, replacing Daphne Rubin-Vega, who was pregnant and unable to play the part. For her role in "Rent", Dawson won the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. She also appeared in the adaptation of the graphic novel "Sin City", co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, portraying Gail, a prostitute-dominatrix. Also that year, she appeared in a deleted scene in the Rob Zombie film "The Devil's Rejects". The scene was included in the deleted scenes on the DVD release.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: She starred as Becky in "Clerks II" (2006). In "Back to the Well", documentary about the making of the series, she stated that the donkey show sequence was what made her decide to take the role. In May of the same year, Dawson co-created and co-wrote the comic-book miniseries "Occult Crimes Taskforce". She was at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con to promote the comic. She co-starred with former "Rent" alumna Tracie Thoms in the Quentin Tarantino throwback movie "Death Proof" in 2007, part of the Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature "Grindhouse". She produced and starred in "Descent" alongside friend Talia Lugacy, whom she met at the Lee Strasberg Academy. On July 7, 2007, Dawson presented at the American leg of Live Earth.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In 2008, Dawson starred with Will Smith in "Seven Pounds" and in "Eagle Eye", produced by Steven Spielberg. Beginning in August, she starred in "Gemini Division", an online science-fiction series. In the computer-animated series "Afterworld", she voiced Officer Delondre Baines. On January 17, 2009, Dawson hosted "Saturday Night Live". Later in the year, she voiced Artemis of Bana-Mighdall in the animated film "Wonder Woman".


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In 2009, Dawson performed in "The People Speak", a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". In 2009, Dawson also voiced the character of Velvet Von Black in Rob Zombie's animated feature, "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto". For the Kasabian album "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum", she is featured singing on the track "West Ryder Silver Bullet".


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In 2010, she starred in the movies "", as Persephone, and "Unstoppable", as railway yardmaster Connie. In 2013, she appeared in the independent film "Gimme Shelter". The following year, she reprised her role as Gail in "". In 2015, she played Claire Temple in the Netflix web television series "Daredevil", a role which she reprised in "Jessica Jones" and "Luke Cage". Dawson's likeness was also used in the "Jessica Jones" tie-in comic as her character on both shows. Dawson has continued this role in 2017 in "Iron Fist" and "The Defenders".


title: Rosario Dawson

text: She appeared in "Top Five" in 2014, for which she was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in a Comedy. In 2018, she played the female lead role in the Netflix film "Krystal". In 2020, she was cast as the "Star Wars" character Ahsoka Tano in the second season of "The Mandalorian" on Disney+ and reprised her role in "The Book of Boba Fett". She will also reprise the role in the spinoff limited series, "Ahsoka".


title: Rosario Dawson

text: Dawson endorsed Barack Obama for re-election in 2012, and Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 Democratic Party primaries. On April 15, 2016, Dawson was among the protesters arrested during Democracy Spring in Washington, DC.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In mid-2019, Dawson endorsed her boyfriend Cory Booker in the 2020 presidential election. Booker ended his campaign for president on January 13, 2020. Had she become First Lady of the United States, Dawson said she would have advocated for solutions to youth homelessness. On March 9, 2020, Dawson endorsed the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, whom she had also previously endorsed in his 2016 bid.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: Dawson is involved with the Lower East Side Girls Club and supports other charities such as environmental group Global Cool, One Campaign, Oxfam, Operation USA, Amnesty International, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), the International Rescue Committee, Voto Latino, and Stay Close.org, a poster and public service advertising campaign for PFLAG, where she is featured with her uncle Frank Jump. She has participated in the "Vagina Monologues" (she refers to her vagina as "The General") and serves on the board for V-Day, a global non-profit movement that raises funds for women's anti-violence groups through benefits of this play.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In October 2008, Dawson became a spokeswoman for TripAdvisor.com's philanthropy program, More Than Footprints, Conservation International, Doctors Without Borders, National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy, and Save the Children. Also in October 2008, she lent her voice to the RESPECT! Campaign, a movement aimed at preventing domestic violence. She recorded a voice message for the Giverespect.org Web site, stressing the importance of respect in helping stop domestic violence. In 2012, Dawson partnered with SodaStream International in launching the first annual Unbottle the World Day, a campaign conceived in an effort to raise awareness to the impact of cans and plastic bottles on the environment.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: Dawson is a self-professed Trekkie, who mentioned both her brother's and her love of "Star Trek" in an interview with Conan O'Brien, and also demonstrated her knowledge of several Klingon words.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In March 2019, Dawson confirmed that she was in a relationship with United States Senator Cory Booker. Their relationship ended in February 2022.


title: Rosario Dawson

text: In 2018, Dawson made a post to Instagram that was widely perceived as her coming out as queer; when asked about this in a 2020 interview, she stated that this had not been her intention, and further specified that although "People kept saying that I [came out]... I didn’t do that, ... I mean, it’s not inaccurate, but I never did come out. I mean, I guess I am now ... I’ve never had a relationship in that space, so it’s never felt like an authentic calling to me.". A representative of Dawson later clarified to "The Daily Beast" that she meant to say she came out as an ally of the LGBTQ community.


title: Johnny Depp filmography

text: Johnny Depp is an American actor, producer and musician. He has appeared in films, television series and video games. He made his film debut in the horror film "A Nightmare on Elm Street" in 1984. In the two following years, Depp appeared in the comedy "Private Resort" (1985), the war film "Platoon" (1986), and "Slow Burn" (1986). A year later, he started playing his recurring role as Officer Tom Hanson in the police procedural television series "21 Jump Street" (1987–1990) which he played until the middle of season 4, and during this time, he experienced a rapid rise as a professional actor.


title: Johnny Depp filmography

text: In 1990, he starred as the title characters in the films "Cry-Baby" and "Edward Scissorhands". Throughout the rest of the decade, Depp portrayed lead roles in "Arizona Dream" (1993), "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1993), "Benny & Joon" (1993), "Dead Man" (1995) and title characters "Ed Wood" (1994), "Don Juan DeMarco" (1995), and "Donnie Brasco" (1997). He also starred in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998) as Hunter S. Thompson, "The Ninth Gate" (1999) as Dean Corso, and "Sleepy Hollow" (1999) as Ichabod Crane.


title: Johnny Depp filmography

text: In the early 2000s, he appeared in the romance "Chocolat" (2000), crime film "Blow" (2001), action film "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" (2003), drama "Finding Neverland" (2004), and horror films "From Hell" and "Secret Window" (2004). In addition, Depp portrayed the title character in "" (2007) and appeared in "Public Enemies" (2009). In 2003, he portrayed Captain Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, starting with "", and reprised the role in four sequels (2006–2017), becoming one of his most famous roles. For each performance in "The Curse of the Black Pearl", "Finding Neverland", and "Sweeney Todd", Depp was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He also portrayed Willy Wonka and Tarrant Hightopp in the fantasy films "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005) and "Alice in Wonderland" which each garnered over $474 million and $1 billion at the box office, respectively.


title: Johnny Depp filmography

text: In 2010, he went on to star in "The Tourist" with Angelina Jolie and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy. He starred in "Dark Shadows" (2012) with Michelle Pfeiffer, "The Lone Ranger" (2013) with Armie Hammer, and "Transcendence" (2014) with Morgan Freeman. He reprised his role as the Tarrant Hightopp in "Alice Through the Looking Glass" (2016) and starred in the drama "Minamata" (2020). Beginning in 2011, he has produced films through his company Infinitum Nihil. He has also lent his voice to the animated series "King of the Hill" in 2004, "SpongeBob SquarePants" in 2009, and "Family Guy" in 2012, in addition to the animated film "Rango" (2011). Moreover, Depp has appeared in many documentary films, mostly as himself.


title: Eazy-E

text: Eric Lynn Wright (September 7, 1964 – March 26, 1995), known professionally as Eazy-E, was an American rapper who propelled West Coast rap and gangsta rap by leading the group N.W.A and its label, Ruthless Records. He is often referred to as the "Godfather of Gangsta Rap".


title: Eazy-E

text: Born and raised in Compton, California, Wright had several legal troubles before founding Ruthless in 1987. After a short solo career with frequent collaboration with Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, they joined, forming N.W.A, later that year. N.W.A's debut studio album, "Straight Outta Compton", was released in 1988. Controversial upon release, it is now ranked among the greatest and most influential albums ever. The group released its third and final studio album, "Niggaz4Life", in 1991, and soon after disbanded.


title: Eazy-E

text: During N.W.A's splintering, largely by disputes over money, Eazy-E became embroiled in bitter rivalries with fellow group-members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, who had departed for solo careers in 1989 and 1991, respectively. Resuming his solo career, Eazy-E released two EPs. Yet he remained more significant behind the scenes, signing and nationally debuting the rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony from 1993 to 1994. In 1995, Eazy-E was suddenly hospitalized and diagnosed with AIDS, and died due to its complications.


title: Eazy-E

text: Eric Wright was born to Richard and Kathie Wright on September 7, 1964, in Compton, California, a Los Angeles suburb once noted for high crime rates and gang culture. His father was a postal worker and his mother was a grade-school administrator. Wright dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, but later received a general equivalency diploma (GED).


title: Eazy-E

text: Wright supported himself mainly by selling drugs, and introduced his cousin to the illicit occupation. Wright's music manager Jerry Heller recalls seeing Wright selling marijuana, but not cocaine. Heller would claim that Wright's "dope dealer" label was part of his "self-forged armor". Wright was also labeled as a "thug". Heller explains: "The hood where he grew up was a dangerous place. He was a small guy. 'Thug' was a role that was widely understood on the street; it gave you a certain level of protection in the sense that people hesitated to fuck with you. Likewise, 'dope dealer' was a role that accorded you certain privileges and respect."


title: Eazy-E

text: In 1986, at age 22, Wright had allegedly earned as much as US$250,000 from dealing drugs. However, after his cousin was shot and killed, he decided that he could make a better living in the Los Angeles hip hop scene, which was growing rapidly in popularity. He started recording songs during the mid-1980s in his parents' garage, thus starting Ruthless Records.


title: Eazy-E

text: The original idea for Ruthless Records came when Wright asked Heller to go into business with him. Wright suggested a half-ownership company, but it was later decided that Wright would get eighty percent of the company's income and Heller would only get twenty percent. According to Heller, he told Wright, "Every dollar comes into Ruthless, I take twenty cents. That's industry standard for a manager of my caliber. I take twenty, you take eighty percent. I am responsible for my expenses and you're responsible for yours. You own the company. I work for you." Along with Heller, Wright invested much of his money into Ruthless Records. Heller claims that he invested the first $250,000 and would eventually put up to $1,000,000 into the company.


title: Eazy-E

text: N.W.A's (also named as "the world's most dangerous group") original lineup consisted of Arabian Prince, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, and Ice Cube. DJ Yella and MC Ren joined later. The compilation album "N.W.A. and the Posse" was released on November 6, 1987, and would go on to be certified Gold in the United States. The album featured material previously released as singles on the Macola Records label, which was responsible for distributing the releases by N.W.A and other artists like the Fila Fresh Crew, a West Coast rap group originally based in Dallas, Texas.


title: Eazy-E

text: Eazy-E's debut album, "Eazy-Duz-It", was released on 1988, and featured twelve tracks. It was labeled as West Coast hip hop, gangsta rap and, later, as golden age hip hop. It has sold over 2.5 million copies in the United States and reached number forty-one on the "Billboard" 200. The album was produced by Dr. Dre and DJ Yella and largely written by MC Ren, Ice Cube and The D.O.C. Both Glen Boyd from the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" and MTV's Jon Wiederhorn claimed that "Eazy-Duz-It" "paved the way" for N.W.A's most controversial album, "Straight Outta Compton". Wright's only solo in the album was a remix of the song "8 Ball", which originally appeared on "N.W.A. and the Posse". The album featured Wright's writing and performing; he performed on seven songs and helped write four songs.


title: Eazy-E

text: Ice Cube left N.W.A in 1989 because of internal disputes and the group continued as a four-piece ensemble. N.W.A released "100 Miles and Runnin'" in 1990 and "Niggaz4Life" in 1991. A diss war started between N.W.A and Ice Cube when "100 Miles and Runnin'" and "Real Niggaz" were released. Ice Cube responded with "No Vaseline" on "Death Certificate". Wright performed on seven of the eighteen songs on "Niggaz4Life". In March 1991, Wright accepted an invitation to a lunch benefiting the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle, hosted by then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush. A spokesman for the rapper said that Eazy-E supported Bush because of his performance in the Gulf War.


title: Eazy-E

text: N.W.A began to split up after Jerry Heller became the band's manager. Dr. Dre recalls, "The split came when Jerry Heller got involved. He played the divide and conquer game. Instead of taking care of everybody, he picked one nigga to take care of and that was Eazy. And Eazy was like, 'I'm taken care of, so fuck it'." Dr. Dre and The D.O.C. sent Suge Knight to look into Eazy-E's financial situation as they began to grow suspicious of Eazy-E and Jerry Heller. Dr. Dre and The D.O.C. asked Eazy-E to release them from Ruthless, but Eazy-E refused. The impasse led to what reportedly transpired between Suge Knight and Eazy-E at the recording studio where "Niggaz4life" was recorded. After he refused to release Dr. Dre and The D.O.C., Suge Knight told Eazy-E that he had kidnapped Jerry Heller and was holding him prisoner in a van. This did not convince Eazy-E to release Dr. Dre and The D.O.C. from Ruthless, and Suge Knight threatened Eazy-E's family: Suge Knight gave Eazy-E a piece of paper that contained Eazy's mother's address, telling him, "I know where your mama stays." Eazy-E finally signed Dr. Dre and The D.O.C.'s releases, officially ending N.W.A.


title: Eazy-E

text: In 1993, Eazy E regularly attended court in the prosecution of the officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, often standing alongside Theodore J. Briseno, who he had met through sharing the same lawyer. Eazy E said, "The difference is that most people look at the video and say four white officers were responsible for the beating of this helpless, innocent black man. I say, 'Wrong.' Three white officers were responsible for beating Rodney King. The other officer (Theodore J. Briseno) happens to be Mexican-American, and he tried to stop them." This caused controversy in the hip-hop community, with Willie D calling Eazy E a "sellout".


title: Eazy-E

text: The feud with Dr. Dre continued after a track on Dre's debut album "The Chronic", "Fuck wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')", contained lyrics that insulted Eazy-E. Eazy responded with the EP, "It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa", featuring the tracks "Real Muthaphuckkin G's" and "It's On". The album, which was released on October 25, 1993, contains pictures of Dre wearing "lacy outfits and makeup" when he was a member of the Electro-hop World Class Wreckin' Cru.


title: Eazy-E

text: Wright had a son, Eric Darnell Wright (known as Lil Eazy-E), in 1984. He also had a daughter named Erin, who changed her name to Ebie. In October 2016, Ebie launched a crowd-funding campaign to produce a film called "Ruthless Scandal: No More Lies" to investigate her father's death. It ended unsuccessfully in December 2016.


title: Eazy-E

text: Wright met Tomica Woods at a Los Angeles nightclub in 1991 and they married in 1995, 12 days before his death. They had a son named Dominick and a daughter named Daijah (born six months after Wright's death). After Wright's death, Ruthless was taken over by his wife. According to Jerry Heller, Wright had 11 children with eight women.


title: Eazy-E

text: On February 24, 1995, Wright was admitted to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with a violent cough. He was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. He announced his illness in a public statement on March 16, 1995. It is believed Wright contracted the infection from a sexual partner.


title: Eazy-E

text: During the week of March 20, having already made amends with Ice Cube, he drafted a final message to his fans. On March 26, 1995, Eazy-E died from AIDS-induced pneumonia, one month after his diagnosis. He was 30 years old (most reports at the time said he was 31 due to the falsification of his date of birth by one year). He was buried on April 7, 1995, at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California. Over 3,000 people attended his funeral, including Jerry Heller and DJ Yella. He was buried in a gold casket, and was dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and his Compton hat. On January 30, 1996, ten months after Eazy-E's death, his final album, "Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton," was released.


title: Eazy-E

text: According to his son Lil Eazy-E, Eazy-E was worth an estimated US$50 million at the time of his death.


title: Eazy-E

text: Allmusic cites Eazy-E's influences as Ice-T, Redd Foxx, King Tee, Bootsy Collins, Run–D.M.C., Richard Pryor, Egyptian Lover, Schoolly D, Too $hort, Prince, the Sugarhill Gang, and George Clinton. In the documentary "The Life and Timez of Eric Wright", Eazy-E mentions collaborating with many of his influences.


title: Eazy-E

text: When reviewing "Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton", Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted "... Eazy-E sounds revitalized, but the music simply isn't imaginative. Instead of pushing forward and creating a distinctive style, it treads over familiar gangsta territory, complete with bottomless bass, whining synthesizers, and meaningless boasts." When reviewing "Eazy-Duz-It", Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic said, "In terms of production, Dr. Dre and Yella meld together P-Funk, Def Jam-style hip-hop and the leftover electro sounds of mid-'80s Los Angeles, creating a dense, funky, and thoroughly unique style of their own." Birchmeier described Eazy-E's style as "dense, unique and funky", and said that it sounded "absolutely revolutionary in 1988".


title: Eazy-E

text: Several members of N.W.A wrote lyrics for "Eazy-Duz-It": Ice Cube, The D.O.C. and MC Ren. The EP "" features a song written by Naughty By Nature. The track "Merry Muthaphuckkin' Xmas" features Menajahtwa, Buckwheat, and Atban Klann as guest vocalists, and "Neighborhood Sniper" features Kokane as a guest vocalist. "It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa" features several guest vocalists, including Gangsta Dresta, B.G. Knocc Out. Kokane, Cold 187um, Rhythum D, and Dirty Red. "Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton" featured several guest vocalists, including B.G. Knocc Out, Gangsta Dresta, Sylk-E. Fyne, Dirty Red, Menajahtwa, Roger Troutman, and ex-N.W.A members MC Ren and DJ Yella.


title: Eazy-E

text: Eazy-E has been called the "godfather of gangsta rap". MTV's Reid Shaheem said that Eazy was a "rap-pioneer", and he is sometimes cited by critics as a legend. Steve Huey of AllMusic said that he was "one of the most controversial figures in gangsta rap". Since his 1995 death, many book and video biographies have been produced, including 2002's "The Day Eazy-E Died" and "Dead and Gone".


title: Eazy-E

text: When Eazy was diagnosed with AIDS, many magazines like "Jet", "Vibe", "Billboard", "The Crisis", and "Newsweek" covered the story and released information on the topic. All of his studio albums and EPs charted on the "Billboard" 200, and many of his singles—"Eazy-Duz-It", "We Want Eazy", "Real Muthaphuckkin G's", and "Just tah Let U Know"—also charted in the U.S.


title: Eazy-E

text: In 2012 an Eazy-E documentary was released by Ruthless Propaganda, called "Ruthless Memories". The documentary featured interviews from Jerry Heller, MC Ren and B.G. Knocc Out.


title: Eazy-E

text: In the 2015 film "Straight Outta Compton", Eazy-E is played by Jason Mitchell and the film is dedicated in his memory.


title: Eazy-E

text: Eazy-E was then portrayed by Omari Wallace in the 2016 film "". The film portrays Eazy-E sympathetically as having been a friend to Michel'le, in one scene warning her to get out of the house because he fears that a drunken Dr. Dre is returning home to beat her.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, is a medication used to treat fever and mild to moderate pain. Common brand names include Tylenol and Panadol.


title: Paracetamol

text: At a standard dose, paracetamol only slightly decreases body temperature; it is inferior to ibuprofen in that respect, and the benefits of its use for fever are unclear. Paracetamol may relieve pain in acute mild migraine but only slightly in episodic tension headache. However, the aspirin/paracetamol/caffeine combination helps with both conditions where the pain is mild and is recommended as a first-line treatment for them. Paracetamol is effective for post-surgical pain, but it is inferior to ibuprofen. The paracetamol/ibuprofen combination provides further increase in potency and is superior to either drug alone. The pain relief paracetamol provides in osteoarthritis is small and clinically insignificant. The evidence in its favor for the use in low back pain, cancer pain, and neuropathic pain is insufficient.


title: Paracetamol

text: In the short term, paracetamol is safe and effective when used as directed. Short term adverse effects are uncommon and similar to ibuprofen, but paracetamol is typically safer than NSAIDs for long term use. Paracetamol is also often used in patients who cannot tolerate NSAIDs like ibuprofen. Chronic consumption of paracetamol may result in a drop in hemoglobin level, indicating possible gastrointestinal bleeding, and abnormal liver function tests. Some epidemiological studies have linked paracetamol to cardiovascular, renal, and gastrointestinal diseases, but are largely due to confounding biases and is of insignificant relevance with short-term use of paracetamol. Paracetamol may slightly increase systolic blood pressure in hypertensive patients at a dose of 4 grams a day. Elevated frequency of asthma and developmental and reproductive disorders is observed in the offspring of women with prolonged use of paracetamol during pregnancy, although whether paracetamol is the true cause of this increase is unclear. Some studies suggest that there is evidence for the association between paracetamol during pregnancy and autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, while making clear further research is required to establish any causal link, which has prompted some calls to limit its use in pregnancy to the lowest effective dosage for the shortest possible time.


title: Paracetamol

text: The recommended maximum daily dose for an adult is three to four grams. Higher doses may lead to toxicity, including liver failure. Paracetamol poisoning is the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the Western world, and accounts for most drug overdoses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol was first made in 1877 or possibly 1852. It is the most commonly used medication for pain and fever in both the United States and Europe. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Paracetamol is available as a generic medication, with brand names including Tylenol and Panadol among others. In 2020, it was the 118th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 5million prescriptions.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is a drug of choice for reducing fever. However, there has been a lack of research on its antipyretic properties, particularly in adults. The most recent review on paracetamol and management of fever in the general practice (2008) argued that its benefits are unclear. Additionally, when taken for the common cold paracetamol may relieve stuffed or runny nose but not other cold symptoms such as sore throat, malaise, sneezing and cough; this data, however, is of low quality.


title: Paracetamol

text: For patients in critical care, paracetamol decreased body temperature by only 0.20.3°C more than control interventions; there was no difference in mortality. It did not change the outcome in febrile patients with stroke. The results are contradictory for paracetamol use in sepsis: higher mortality, lower mortality, and no change in mortality were all reported. Paracetamol offered no benefit in the treatment of dengue fever and was accompanied by a higher rate of liver enzyme elevation: a sign of a potential liver damage. Overall, there is no support for a routine administration of antipyretic drugs, including paracetamol, to hospitalized patients with fever and infection.


title: Paracetamol

text: The efficacy of paracetamol in children with fever is unclear. Paracetamol should not be used solely with the aim of reducing body temperature; however, it may be considered for children with fever who appear distressed. It does not prevent febrile seizures and should not be used for that purpose. It appears that 0.2°C decrease of the body temperature in children after a standard dose of paracetamol is of questionable value, particularly in emergency situations. Based on this, some physicians advocate using higher doses that may decrease the temperature by as much as 0.7°C. Meta-analyses showed that paracetamol is less effective than ibuprofen in children (marginally less effective, according to another analysis), including children younger than 2 years old, with equivalent safety. Exacerbation of asthma occurs with similar frequency for both medications. Giving paracetamol and ibuprofen together at the same time to children under 5 is not recommended, however doses may be alternated if required.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is used for the relief of mild to moderate pain such as headache, muscle aches, minor arthritis pain, toothache as well as pain caused by cold, flu, sprains, and dysmenorrhea. It is recommended, in particular, for acute mild to moderate pain, since the evidence for the treatment of chronic pain is insufficient.


title: Paracetamol

text: The benefits of paracetamol in musculoskeletal conditions, such as osteoarthritis and backache, are uncertain.


title: Paracetamol

text: It appears to provide only small and not clinically important benefits in osteoarthritis. American College of Rheumatology and Arthritis Foundation guideline for the management of osteoarthritis notes that the effect size in clinical trials of paracetamol has been very small, which suggests that for most individuals it is ineffective. The guideline conditionally recommends paracetamol for short-term and episodic use to those who do not tolerate nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. For people taking it regularly, monitoring for liver toxicity is required. Essentially the same recommendation was issued by EULAR for hand osteoarthritis. Similarly, European algorithm ESCEO for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis recommends limiting the of use paracetamol to short-term rescue analgesia only.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is ineffective for acute low back pain. No randomized clinical trials evaluated its use for chronic or radicular back pain, and the evidence in favor of paracetamol is lacking.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is effective for acute migraine: 39% of people experience pain relief at one hour compared with 20% in the control group. The aspirin/paracetamol/caffeine combination also "has strong evidence of effectiveness and can be used as a first-line treatment for migraine." The German, Austrian, and Swiss headache societies and the German Society of Neurology recommend the combination as a "highlighted" one for self-medication of migraine, and paracetamol alone as a first choice.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol on its own only slightly alleviates episodic tension headache in those who have them frequently. However, the aspirin/paracetamol/caffeine combination is superior to both paracetamol alone and placebo and offers meaningful relief of tension headache: 2 hours after administering the medication, 29% of those who took the combination were pain free as compared with 21% on paracetamol and 18% on placebo. The German, Austrian, and Swiss headache societies and the German Society of Neurology recommend this combination as a "highlighted" one for self-medication of tension headache, with paracetamol/caffeine combination being a "remedy of first choice", and paracetamol a "remedy of second choice".


title: Paracetamol

text: Pain after a dental surgery provides a reliable model for the action of analgesics on other kinds of acute pain. For the relief of such pain, paracetamol is inferior to ibuprofen. Full therapeutic doses of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) ibuprofen, naproxen or diclofenac are clearly more efficacious than the paracetamol/codeine combination which is frequently prescribed for dental pain. The combinations of paracetamol and NSAIDs ibuprofen or diclofenac are promising, possibly offering better pain control than either paracetamol or the NSAID alone. Additionally, the paracetamol/ibuprofen combination may be superior to paracetamol/codeine and ibuprofen/codeine combinations.


title: Paracetamol

text: A meta-analysis of general post-surgical pain, which included dental and other surgery, showed the paracetamol/codeine combination to be more effective than paracetamol alone: it provided significant pain relief to as much as 53% of the participants, while the placebo helped only 7%.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol fails to relieve procedural pain in newborn babies. For perineal pain postpartum paracetamol appears to be less effective than non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).


title: Paracetamol

text: The studies to support or refute the use of paracetamol for cancer pain and for neuropathic pain are lacking. There is limited evidence in favor of the use of the intravenous form of paracetamol for acute pain control in the emergency department. The combination of paracetamol with caffeine is superior to paracetamol alone for the treatment of acute pain.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol helps ductal closure in patent ductus arteriosus. It is as effective for this purpose as ibuprofen or indomethacin, but results in a less frequent gastrointestinal bleeding than ibuprofen.


title: Paracetamol

text: Gastrointestinal adverse effects such as nausea and abdominal pain are common, and their frequency is similar to that of ibuprofen. Increase in risk-taking behavior is possible. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, the drug may cause rare and possibly fatal skin reactions such as Stevens–Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis, although an analysis of the French Pharmacovigilance Database indicated no obvious risk of these reactions.


title: Paracetamol

text: In clinical trials for osteoarthritis, the number of participants reporting adverse effects were similar for those on paracetamol and on placebo. However, the abnormal liver function tests (meaning there was some inflammation or damage to the liver) were almost four times more likely in those on paracetamol, although the clinical importance of this effect is uncertain. After 13 weeks of paracetamol therapy for knee pain, a drop in hemoglobin level indicating gastrointestinal bleeding was observed in 20% of participants, this rate being similar to ibuprofen group.


title: Paracetamol

text: Due to the absence of controlled studies, most of the information about the long-term safety of paracetamol comes from observational studies. These indicate a consistent pattern of increased mortality as well as cardiovascular (stroke, myocardial infarction), gastrointestinal (ulcers, bleeding) and renal adverse effects with increased dose of paracetamol. Use of paracetamol is associated with 1.9 times higher risk of peptic ulcer. Those who take it regularly at a higher dose (more than 23g daily) are at much higher risk (3.63.7 times) of gastrointestinal bleeding and other bleeding events. Meta-analyses suggest that paracetamol may increase the risk of kidney impairment by 23% and kidney cancer by 28%. Paracetamol is particularly dangerous to the liver in overdose, but even without overdose those who take this drug may develop acute liver failure requiring liver transplantation more frequently than the users of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Paracetamol slightly but significantly increases blood pressure and heart rate. The majority of observational studies suggests that, used chronically, it may increase the risk of developing hypertension, as confirmed in a prospective randomized confirmed trial. The risk is higher with the higher dose.


title: Paracetamol

text: The association between paracetamol use and asthma in children has been a matter of controversy. However, the most recent research suggests that there is no association, and that the frequency of asthma exacerbations in children after paracetamol is the same as after another frequently used pain killer ibuprofen.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol safety in pregnancy has been under increased scrutiny. There appears to be no link between paracetamol use in the first trimester and adverse pregnancy outcomes or birth defects. However, indications exist of a possible increase of asthma and developmental and reproductive disorders in the offspring of women with prolonged use of paracetamol during pregnancy.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol use by the mother during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of childhood asthma, but so are the maternal infections for which paracetamol may be used, and separating these influences is difficult. Paracetamol, in a small scale meta analysis was also associated with 2030% increase in autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, hyperactivity symptoms, and conduct disorder, with the association being lower in a meta analysis where a larger demographic was used, but it is unclear whether this is a causal relationship and there was potential bias in the findings. There is also an argument that the large number, consistency, and the robust designs of the studies provide a strong evidence in favor of paracetamol causing the increased risk of these neurodevelopmental disorders. In animal experiments, paracetamol disrupts fetal testosterone production, and several epidemiological studies linked cryptorchidism with mother's paracetamol use for more than two weeks in the second trimester. On the other hand, several studies did not find any association.


title: Paracetamol

text: The consensus recommendation appears to be to avoid prolonged use of paracetamol in pregnancy and use it only when necessary, at the lowest effective dosage and for the shortest time.


title: Paracetamol

text: Overdoses of paracetamol, that is, taking more than the recommended maximum daily dose of paracetamol for healthy adults of three or four grams, can cause potentially fatal liver damage.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol toxicity is the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the Western world, and accounts for most drug overdoses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Paracetamol overdose results in more calls to poison control centers in the US than overdose of any other pharmacological substance. According to the FDA, in the United States, "56,000 emergency room visits, 26,000 hospitalizations, and 458 deaths per year [were] related to acetaminophen-associated overdoses during the 1990s. Within these estimates, unintentional acetaminophen overdose accounted for nearly 25% of the emergency department visits, 10% of the hospitalizations, and 25% of the deaths."


title: Paracetamol

text: Overdoses are frequently related to high-dose recreational use of prescription opioids, as these opioids are most often combined with paracetamol. The overdose risk may be heightened by frequent consumption of alcohol.


title: Paracetamol

text: Untreated paracetamol overdose results in a lengthy, painful illness. Signs and symptoms of paracetamol toxicity may initially be absent or non-specific symptoms. The first symptoms of overdose usually begin several hours after ingestion, with nausea, vomiting, sweating, and pain as acute liver failure starts. People who take overdoses of paracetamol do not fall asleep or lose consciousness, although most people who attempt suicide with paracetamol wrongly believe that they will be rendered unconscious by the drug.


title: Paracetamol

text: Treatment is aimed at removing the paracetamol from the body and replenishing glutathione. Activated charcoal can be used to decrease absorption of paracetamol if the person comes to the hospital soon after the overdose. While the antidote, acetylcysteine (also called "N"-acetylcysteine or NAC), acts as a precursor for glutathione, helping the body regenerate enough to prevent or at least decrease the possible damage to the liver; a liver transplant is often required if damage to the liver becomes severe. NAC was usually given following a treatment nomogram (one for people with risk factors, and one for those without), but the use of the nomogram is no longer recommended as evidence to support the use of risk factors was poor and inconsistent, and many of the risk factors are imprecise and difficult to determine with sufficient certainty in clinical practice. Toxicity of paracetamol is due to its quinone metabolite NAPQI and NAC also helps in neutralizing it. Kidney failure is also a possible side effect.


title: Paracetamol

text: Prokinetic agents such as metoclopramide accelerate gastric emptying, shorten time (t) to paracetamol peak blood plasma concentration (C), and increase C. Medications slowing gastric emptying such as propantheline and morphine lengthen t and decrease C. The interaction with morphine may result in patients failing to achieve the therapeutic concentration of paracetamol; the clinical significance of interactions with metoclopramide and propantheline is unclear.


title: Paracetamol

text: There have been suspicions that cytochrome inducers may enhance the toxic pathway of paracetamol metabolism to NAPQI (see Paracetamol#Pharmacokinetics). By and large, these suspicions have not been confirmed. Out of the inducers studied, the evidence of potentially increased liver toxicity in paracetamol overdose exists for phenobarbital, primidone, isoniazid, and possibly St John's wort. On the other hand, the anti-tuberculosis drug isoniazid cuts the formation of NAPQI by 70%.


title: Paracetamol

text: Ranitidine increased paracetamol area under the curve (AUC) 1.6-fold. AUC increases are also observed with nizatidine and cisapride. The effect is explained by these drugs inhibiting glucuronidation of paracetamol.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol raises plasma concentrations of ethinylestradiol by 22% by inhibiting its sulfation. Paracetamol increases INR during warfarin therapy and should be limited to no more than 2 g per week.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol appears to exert its effects through two mechanisms: the inhibition of cyclooxygenase and actions of its metabolite AM404.


title: Paracetamol

text: Supporting the first mechanism, pharmacologically and in its side effects, paracetamol is close to classical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that act by inhibiting COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes and especially similar to selective COX-2 inhibitors. Paracetamol inhibits prostaglandin synthesis by reducing the active form of COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes. This occurs only when the concentration of arachidonic acid and peroxides is low. Under these conditions, COX-2 is the predominant form of cyclooxygenase, which explains the apparent COX-2 selectivity of paracetamol. Under the conditions of inflammation, the concentration of peroxides is high, which counteracts the reducing effect of paracetamol. Accordingly, the anti-inflammatory action of paracetamol is slight. The anti-inflammatory action of paracetamol (via COX inhibition) has also been found to primarily target the central nervous system and not peripheral areas of the body, explaining the lack of side effects associated with conventional NSAIDs such as gastric bleeding.


title: Paracetamol

text: The second mechanism centers on the paracetamol metabolite AM404. This metabolite has been detected in the brains of animals and cerebrospinal fluid of humans taking paracetamol. Apparently, it is formed in the brain from another paracetamol metabolite 4-aminophenol by action of fatty acid amide hydrolase. AM404 is a weak agonist of cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2, an inhibitor of endocannabinoid transporter, and a potent activator of TRPV1 receptor. This and other research indicate that cannabinoid system and TRPV1 may play an important role in the analgesic effect of paracetamol.


title: Paracetamol

text: After being taken by mouth, paracetamol is rapidly absorbed from the small intestine, while absorption from the stomach is negligible. Thus, the rate of absorption depends on stomach emptying. Food slows the stomach emptying and absorption, but the total amount absorbed stays the same. In the same subjects, the peak plasma concentration of paracetamol was reached after 20 minutes when fasting versus 90 minutes when fed. High carbohydrate, but not high protein or high fat, food decreases paracetamol peak plasma concentration by four times. Even in the fasting state, the rate of absorption of paracetamol is variable and depends on the formulation, with maximum plasma concentration being reached after 20 minutes to 1.5 hours.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol's bioavailability is dose-dependent: it increases from 63% for 500mg dose to 89% for 1000mg dose. Its plasma terminal elimination half-life is 1.92.5 hours, and volume of distribution is roughly 50L. Protein binding is negligible, except under the conditions of overdose, when it may reach 1521%. The concentration in serum after a typical dose of paracetamol usually peaks below 30μg/mL (200μmol/L). After 4 hours, the concentration is usually less than 10μg/mL (66μmol/L).


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is metabolized primarily in the liver, mainly by glucuronidation and sulfation, and the products are then eliminated in the urine (see the Scheme on the right). Only 25% of the drug is excreted unchanged in the urine. Glucuronidation by UGT1A1 and UGT1A6 accounts for 5070% of the drug metabolism. Additional 2535% of paracetamol is converted to sulfate by sulfation enzymes SULT1A1, SULT1A3, and SULT1E1.


title: Paracetamol

text: A minor metabolic pathway (5-15%) of oxidation by cytochrome P450 enzymes, mainly by CYP2E1, forms a toxic metabolite known as NAPQI ("N"-acetyl-"p"-benzoquinone imine). NAPQI is responsible for the liver toxicity of paracetamol. At usual doses of paracetamol, NAPQI is quickly detoxified by conjugation with glutathione. The non-toxic conjugate APAP-GSH is taken up in the bile and further degraded to mercapturic and cysteine conjugates that are excreted in the urine. In overdose, glutathione is depleted by the large amount of formed NAPQI, and NAPQI binds to mitochondria proteins of the liver cells causing oxidative stress and toxicity.


title: Paracetamol

text: Yet another minor but important direction of metabolism is deacetylation of 12% of paracetamol to form "p"-aminophenol. "p"-Aminophenol is then converted in the brain by fatty acid amide hydrolase into AM404, a compound that may be partially responsible for the analgesic action of paracetamol.


title: Paracetamol

text: The classical methods for the production of paracetamol involve the acetylation of 4-aminophenol with acetic anhydride as the last step. They differ in how 4-aminophenol is prepared. In one method, nitration of phenol with nitric acid affords 4-nitrophenol, which is reduced to 4-aminophenol by hydrogenation over Raney nickel. In another method, nitrobenzene is reduced electrolytically giving 4-aminophenol directly. Additionally, 4-nitrophenol can be selectively reduced by Tin(II) Chloride in absolute ethanol or ethyl acetate to produce a 91% yield of 4-aminophenol.


title: Paracetamol

text: An alternative industrial synthesis developed at Celanese involves direct acylation of phenol with acetic anhydride in the presence of hydrogen fluoride, conversion of the resulting ketone to a ketoxime with hydroxylamine, followed by the acid-catalyzed Beckmann rearrangement.


title: Paracetamol

text: "4"-Aminophenol may be obtained by the amide hydrolysis of paracetamol. This reaction is also used to determine paracetamol in urine samples: After hydrolysis with hydrochloric acid, "4"-aminophenol reacts in ammonia solution with a phenol derivate, e.g. salicylic acid, to form an indophenol dye under oxidization by air.


title: Paracetamol

text: Acetanilide was the first aniline derivative serendipitously found to possess analgesic as well as antipyretic properties, and was quickly introduced into medical practice under the name of Antifebrin by Cahn & Hepp in 1886. But its unacceptable toxic effectsthe most alarming being cyanosis due to methemoglobinemia, an increase of hemoglobin in its ferric [Fe] state, called methemoglobin, which cannot bind oxygen, and thus decreases overall carriage of oxygen to tissueprompted the search for less toxic aniline derivatives. Some reports state that Cahn & Hepp or a French chemist called Charles Gerhardt first synthesized paracetamol in 1852.


title: Paracetamol

text: Harmon Northrop Morse synthesized paracetamol at Johns Hopkins University via the reduction of "p"-nitrophenol with tin in glacial acetic acid in 1877, but it was not until 1887 that clinical pharmacologist Joseph von Mering tried paracetamol on humans. In 1893, von Mering published a paper reporting on the clinical results of paracetamol with phenacetin, another aniline derivative. Von Mering claimed that, unlike phenacetin, paracetamol had a slight tendency to produce methemoglobinemia. Paracetamol was then quickly discarded in favor of phenacetin. The sales of phenacetin established Bayer as a leading pharmaceutical company.


title: Paracetamol

text: Von Mering's claims remained essentially unchallenged for half a century, until two teams of researchers from the United States analyzed the metabolism of acetanilide and phenacetin. In 1947, David Lester and Leon Greenberg found strong evidence that paracetamol was a major metabolite of acetanilide in human blood, and in a subsequent study they reported that large doses of paracetamol given to albino rats did not cause methemoglobinemia. In 1948, Bernard Brodie, Julius Axelrod and Frederick Flinn confirmed that paracetamol was the major metabolite of acetanilide in humans, and established that it was just as efficacious an analgesic as its precursor. They also suggested that methemoglobinemia is produced in humans mainly by another metabolite, phenylhydroxylamine. A follow-up paper by Brodie and Axelrod in 1949 established that phenacetin was also metabolized to paracetamol. This led to a "rediscovery" of paracetamol.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol was first marketed in the United States in 1950 under the name Triagesic, a combination of paracetamol, aspirin, and caffeine. Reports in 1951 of three users stricken with the blood disease agranulocytosis led to its removal from the marketplace, and it took several years until it became clear that the disease was unconnected. The following year, 1952, paracetamol returned to the US market as a prescription drug. In the United Kingdom, marketing of paracetamol began in 1956 by Sterling-Winthrop Co. as Panadol, available only by prescription, and promoted as preferable to aspirin since it was safe for children and people with ulcers. In 1963, paracetamol was added to the "British Pharmacopoeia", and has gained popularity since then as an analgesic agent with few side-effects and little interaction with other pharmaceutical agents.


title: Paracetamol

text: Concerns about paracetamol's safety delayed its widespread acceptance until the 1970s, but in the 1980s paracetamol sales exceeded those of aspirin in many countries, including the United Kingdom. This was accompanied by the commercial demise of phenacetin, blamed as the cause of analgesic nephropathy and hematological toxicity. Available in the US without a prescription since 1955 (1960, according to another source) paracetamol has become a common household drug. In 1988, Sterling Winthrop was acquired by Eastman Kodak which sold the over the counter drug rights to SmithKline Beecham in 1994.


title: Paracetamol

text: In June 2009, an FDA advisory committee recommended that new restrictions be placed on paracetamol use in the United States to help protect people from the potential toxic effects. The maximum single adult dosage would be decreased from 1000mg to 650mg, while combinations of paracetamol and other products would be prohibited. Committee members were particularly concerned by the fact that the then-present maximum dosages of paracetamol had been shown to produce alterations in liver function.


title: Paracetamol

text: In January 2011, the FDA asked manufacturers of prescription combination products containing paracetamol to limit its amount to no more than 325mg per tablet or capsule and began requiring manufacturers to update the labels of all prescription combination paracetamol products to warn of the potential risk of severe liver damage. Manufacturers had three years to limit the amount of paracetamol in their prescription drug products to 325mg per dosage unit.


title: Paracetamol

text: In November 2011, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency revised UK dosing of liquid paracetamol for children.


title: Paracetamol

text: In September 2013, "Use Only as Directed", an episode of the radio program "This American Life" highlighted deaths from paracetamol overdose. This report was followed by two reports by ProPublica alleging that the "FDA has long been aware of studies showing the risks of acetaminophen. So has the maker of Tylenol, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson & Johnson" and "McNeil, the maker of Tylenol, ... has repeatedly opposed safety warnings, dosage restrictions and other measures meant to safeguard users of the drug."


title: Paracetamol

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic it was considered by some in the scientific community that it was an effective analgesic medication to treat symptoms of COVID-19, but this was found to be unsubstantiated.


title: Paracetamol

text: "Paracetamol" is the Australian Approved Name and British Approved Name as well as the international nonproprietary name used by the WHO and in many other countries; "acetaminophen" is the United States Adopted Name and Japanese Accepted Name and also the name generally used in Canada, Venezuela, Colombia, and Iran. Both "paracetamol" and "acetaminophen" are contractions of "para"-acetylaminophenol, a chemical name for the compound. The initialism "APAP" used by dispensing pharmacists in the United States comes from the alternative chemical name ["N"-]acetyl-"para"-aminophenol.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is available in oral, suppository, and intravenous forms. Intravenous paracetamol is sold under the brand name Ofirmev in the United States.


title: Paracetamol

text: In some formulations, paracetamol is combined with the opiate codeine, sometimes referred to as co-codamol (BAN) and Panadeine in Australia. In the US, this combination is available only by prescription. As of 1 February 2018, medications containing codeine also became prescription-only in Australia. Paracetamol is also combined with other opioids such as dihydrocodeine, referred to as co-dydramol (British Approved Name (BAN)), oxycodone or hydrocodone. Another very commonly used analgesic combination includes paracetamol in combination with propoxyphene napsylate. A combination of paracetamol, codeine, and the doxylamine succinate is also available.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is sometimes combined with phenylephrine hydrochloride. Sometimes a third active ingredient, such as ascorbic acid, caffeine, chlorpheniramine maleate, or guaifenesin is added to this combination.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is extremely toxic to cats, which lack the necessary UGT1A6 enzyme to detoxify it. Initial symptoms include vomiting, salivation, and discoloration of the tongue and gums. Unlike an overdose in humans, liver damage is rarely the cause of death; instead, methemoglobin formation and the production of Heinz bodies in red blood cells inhibit oxygen transport by the blood, causing asphyxiation (methemoglobinemia and hemolytic anemia). Treatment with N-acetylcysteine is recommended.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol has been reported to be as effective as aspirin in the treatment of musculoskeletal pain in dogs. A paracetamol-codeine product (brand name Pardale-V) licensed for use in dogs is available for purchase under supervision of a vet, pharmacist or other qualified person. It should be administered to dogs only on veterinary advice and with extreme caution.


title: Paracetamol

text: The main effect of toxicity in dogs is liver damage, and GI ulceration has been reported. N-acetylcysteine treatment is efficacious in dogs when administered within two hours of paracetamol ingestion.


title: Paracetamol

text: Paracetamol is lethal to snakes, and has been suggested as a chemical control program for the invasive brown tree snake ("Boiga irregularis") in Guam. Doses of 80mg are inserted into dead mice that are scattered by helicopter, as lethal bait to be consumed by the snakes.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada—since the 2023 season. The league is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Major League Soccer is the most recent in a series of men's premier professional national soccer leagues established in the United States and Canada. The predecessor of MLS was the North American Soccer League (NASL), which existed from 1968 until 1984. MLS was founded in 1993 as part of the United States' successful bid to host the 1994 FIFA World Cup. The inaugural season took place in 1996 with ten teams. MLS experienced financial and operational struggles in its first few years, losing millions of dollars and folding two teams in 2002. Since then, developments such as the proliferation of soccer-specific stadiums around the league, implementation of the Designated Player Rule allowing teams to sign star players such as David Beckham, and national TV contracts have made MLS profitable. With an average attendance of over 20,000 per game, MLS has the fourth-highest average attendance of any major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada after the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB), and Canadian Football League (CFL), and was the seventh-highest attended professional soccer league worldwide by 2013.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The MLS regular season typically starts in late February or early March and runs through mid-October, with each team playing 34 games; the team with the best record is awarded the Supporters' Shield. Fourteen teams compete in the postseason MLS Cup Playoffs in late October and November, culminating in the league's championship game, the MLS Cup.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Instead of operating as an association of independently owned clubs, MLS is a single entity in which each team is owned by the league and individually operated by the league's investors. The league has a fixed membership like most sports leagues in the United States and Canada, which makes it one of the few soccer leagues that does not use a promotion and relegation process.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Major League Soccer's regular season runs from late February or early March to October. Teams are geographically divided into the Eastern and Western Conferences, playing 34 games in an unbalanced schedule. With 27 teams in 2021, each team plays two games, home and away, against every team in its conference and one game against all but four or five of the teams in the opposite conference. The 2020 season was the first season in league history in which teams did not play against every other team in the league. At the end of the regular season, the team with the highest point total is awarded the Supporters' Shield and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Teams break for the annual All-Star Game midway through the season, an exhibition game containing the league's best players. The format of the All-Star Game has changed several times since the league's inception; 2020 was the first year in which the MLS All-Stars were planned to play against an all-star team from Mexico's Liga MX, before the event's cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Unlike most major soccer leagues around the world, but similar to other leagues in the Americas, the MLS regular season is followed by a postseason knockout tournament to determine the league champion. Fourteen teams participate in the MLS Cup Playoffs in October, which concludes with the MLS Cup championship game in early December.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Major League Soccer's spring-to-fall schedule results in scheduling conflicts with the FIFA calendar and with summertime international tournaments such as the World Cup and the Gold Cup, causing some players to miss league matches. While MLS has looked into changing to a fall-to-spring format, there are no current plans to do so. Were the league to change its schedule, a winter break would be necessary to accommodate teams located in harsh winter climates. It would also have to compete with the popularity and media presence of the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), and National Hockey League (NHL), which all run on fall-to-spring schedules.


title: Major League Soccer

text: MLS teams also play in other international and domestic competitions. Each season, up to five MLS teams—four from the U.S. and one from Canada—play in the CONCACAF Champions League against other clubs from the CONCACAF region. Two U.S.-based MLS teams qualify based on regular-season results from the previous year: the teams with the highest point total from each of the two conferences, one of whom is the Supporter's Shield champion. The third U.S. team to qualify is the reigning MLS Cup champion. A fourth U.S.-based MLS team can qualify by winning the U.S. Open Cup. If a team qualifies through multiple berths, or if any of the three MLS berths are taken by a Canadian team, the berth is reallocated to the highest-placed U.S.-based team in the previous season's overall table that has otherwise not qualified. Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver compete against other Canadian sides in the Canadian Championship for the one CONCACAF Champions League berth allocated to Canada.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Seattle Sounders FC became the first MLS team to win the CONCACAF Champions League under the competition's current branding in 2022.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Since 2018, the reigning MLS Cup champion plays in the Campeones Cup, a single game against the Campeón de Campeones from Liga MX, hosted by the MLS team in September. The inaugural edition saw Tigres UANL defeat Toronto FC at BMO Field in Toronto in 2018.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Another inter-league competition with Liga MX, the Leagues Cup, was established in 2019. The 2020 edition of the tournament was originally planned to pair eight MLS clubs against eight Liga MX clubs in a single-elimination tournament hosted in the United States, reviving an inter-league rivalry that previously took place in the now-defunct North American Superliga, before its cancelation. The 2023 edition will have all MLS and Liga MX teams participate.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The 29 teams of Major League Soccer are divided between the Eastern and Western conferences. Each team is allowed up to 30 players on its first team roster. All 30 players are eligible for selection to each 18-player game-day squad during the regular season and playoffs.


title: Major League Soccer

text: MLS has regularly expanded since the 2005 season, most recently with the addition of St. Louis City SC for the 2023 season.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The league features numerous rivalry cups that are contested by two or more teams, usually geographic rivals. Each trophy is awarded to the team with the best record in matches during the regular season involving the participating teams. The concept is comparable to rivalry trophies played for by American college football teams.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Major League Soccer is the most recent of a series of men's premier professional national soccer leagues established in the United States and Canada. The predecessor of MLS was the North American Soccer League (NASL), which existed from 1968 until 1984. The United States did not have a truly national top-flight league with FIFA-sanctioning until the creation of the NASL. The first league to have U.S. and Canadian professional clubs, the NASL struggled until the mid-1970s when the New York Cosmos, the league's most prominent team, signed a number of the world's best players including Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer. Pelé's arrival attracted other well-known international stars to the league including Johan Cruyff, Gerd Müller, Eusébio, Bobby Moore, and George Best. Despite dramatic increases in attendance (with some matches drawing over 70,000 fans such as Soccer Bowl '78, the highest attendance to date for any club soccer championship in the United States) over-expansion, the economic recession of the early 1980s, and disputes with the players union ultimately led to the collapse of the NASL following the 1984 season, leaving the United States without a top-level soccer league until MLS.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In 1988, in exchange for FIFA awarding the right to host the 1994 World Cup, U.S. Soccer promised to establish a Division 1 professional soccer league. In 1993, U.S. Soccer selected Major League Professional Soccer (the precursor to MLS) as the exclusive Division 1 professional soccer league. Major League Soccer was officially formed in February 1995 as a limited liability company.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Tab Ramos was the first player signed by MLS, on January 3, 1995, and was assigned to the New York/New Jersey MetroStars. MLS began play in 1996 with ten teams. The first game was held on April 6, 1996, as the San Jose Clash defeated D.C. United before 31,000 fans at Spartan Stadium in San Jose in a game broadcast on ESPN. The league had generated some buzz by managing to lure some marquee players from the 1994 World Cup to play in MLS—including U.S. stars such as Alexi Lalas, Tony Meola and Eric Wynalda, and foreign players such as Mexico's Jorge Campos and Colombia's Carlos Valderrama.


title: Major League Soccer

text: D.C. United won the MLS Cup in three of the league's first four seasons. The league added its first two expansion teams in 1998—the Miami Fusion and the Chicago Fire; the Chicago Fire won its first title in its inaugural season.


title: Major League Soccer

text: After its first season, MLS suffered from a decline in attendance. The league's low attendance was all the more apparent in light of the fact that eight of the original ten teams played in large American football stadiums.


title: Major League Soccer

text: One aspect that had alienated fans was that MLS experimented with rules deviations in its early years in an attempt to "Americanize" the sport. The league implemented the use of shootouts to resolve tie games. MLS also used a countdown clock and halves ended when the clock reached 0:00. The league realized that the rule changes had alienated some traditional soccer fans while failing to draw new American sports fans, and the shootout and countdown clock were eliminated after the 1999 season.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The league's quality was cast into doubt when the U.S. men's national team, which was made up largely of MLS players, finished in last place at the 1998 World Cup.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Major League Soccer lost an estimated $250 million during its first five years, and more than $350 million between its founding and 2004.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The league's financial problems led to Commissioner Doug Logan being replaced by Don Garber, a former NFL executive, in August 1999. Following decreased attendance and increased losses by late 2001, league officials planned to fold but were able to secure new financing from owners Lamar Hunt, Philip Anschutz, and the Kraft family to take on more teams. MLS announced in January 2002 that it had decided to contract the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion, leaving the league with ten teams.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Despite the financial problems, though, MLS did have some accomplishments that would set the stage for the league's resurgence. Columbus Crew Stadium, now known as Historic Crew Stadium, was built in 1999, becoming MLS's first soccer-specific stadium. This began a trend among MLS teams to construct their own venues instead of leasing American football stadiums, where they would not be able to generate revenue from other events. In 2000, the league won an antitrust lawsuit, "Fraser v. Major League Soccer", that the players had filed in 1996. The court ruled that MLS's policy of centrally contracting players and limiting player salaries through a salary cap and other restrictions were a legal method for the league to maintain solvency and competitive parity since MLS was a single entity and therefore incapable of conspiring with itself.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The 2002 FIFA World Cup, in which the United States unexpectedly made the quarterfinals, coincided with a resurgence in American soccer and MLS. MLS Cup 2002 drew 61,316 spectators to Gillette Stadium, the largest attendance in an MLS Cup final until 2018. MLS limited teams to three substitutions per game in 2003, and adopted International Football Association Board (IFAB) rules in 2005.


title: Major League Soccer

text: MLS underwent a transition in the years leading up to the 2006 World Cup. After marketing itself on the talents of American players, the league lost some of its homegrown stars to prominent European leagues. For example, Tim Howard was transferred to Manchester United for $4 million in one of the most lucrative contract deals in league history. Many more American players did make an impact in MLS. In 2005, Jason Kreis became the first player to score 100 career MLS goals.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The league's financial stabilization plan included teams moving out of large American football stadiums and into soccer-specific stadiums. From 2003 to 2008, the league oversaw the construction of six additional soccer-specific stadiums, largely funded by owners such as Lamar Hunt and Phil Anschutz, so that by the end of 2008, a majority of teams were now in soccer-specific stadiums.


title: Major League Soccer

text: It was also in this era that MLS expanded for the first time since 1998. Real Salt Lake and Chivas USA began play in 2005, with Chivas USA becoming the second club in Los Angeles. By 2006 the San Jose Earthquakes owners, players and a few coaches moved to Texas to become the expansion Houston Dynamo, after failing to build a stadium in San Jose. The Dynamo became an expansion team, leaving their history behind for a new San Jose ownership group that formed in 2007.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In 2007, the league expanded beyond the United States' borders into Canada with the Toronto FC expansion team. Major League Soccer took steps to further raise the level of play by adopting the Designated Player Rule, which helped bring international stars into the league.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The 2007 season witnessed the MLS debut of David Beckham. Beckham's signing had been seen as a coup for American soccer, and was made possible by the Designated Player Rule. Players such as Cuauhtémoc Blanco (Chicago Fire) and Juan Pablo Ángel (New York Red Bulls), are some of the first Designated Players who made major contributions to their clubs.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The departures of Clint Dempsey and Jozy Altidore, coupled with the return of former U.S. national team stars Claudio Reyna and Brian McBride, highlighted the exchange of top prospects to Europe for experienced veterans to MLS.


title: Major League Soccer

text: By 2008, San Jose had returned to the league under new ownership, and in 2009, the expansion side Seattle Sounders FC began play in MLS. The Sounders set a new average attendance record for the league, with 30,943 spectators per match, and were the first expansion team to qualify for the playoffs since 1998. The 2010 season ushered in an expansion franchise in the Philadelphia Union and their new PPL Park stadium (now known as Subaru Park). The 2010 season also brought the opening of the New York Red Bulls' soccer-specific stadium, Red Bull Arena, and the debut of French striker Thierry Henry.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The 2011 season brought further expansion with the addition of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC, the second Canadian MLS franchise, and the Portland Timbers. Real Salt Lake reached the finals of the 2010–11 CONCACAF Champions League.


title: Major League Soccer

text: During the 2011 season, the Galaxy signed another international star in Republic of Ireland all-time leading goalscorer Robbie Keane. MLS drew an average attendance of 17,872 in 2011, higher than the average attendances of the NBA and NHL. In 2012, the Montreal Impact became the league's 19th franchise and the third in Canada, and made their home debut in front of a crowd of 58,912, while the New York Red Bulls added Australian all-time leading goalscorer Tim Cahill.


title: Major League Soccer

text: With an average attendance of over 20,000 per game, MLS has the third highest average attendance of any sports league in the U.S. after the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB), and is the seventh highest attended professional soccer league worldwide .


title: Major League Soccer

text: In 2013, MLS introduced New York City FC as its 20th team, and Orlando City Soccer Club as its 21st team, both of which would begin playing in 2015.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In 2013, the league implemented its "Core Players" initiative, allowing teams to retain key players using retention funds instead of losing the players to foreign leagues. Among the first high-profile players re-signed in 2013 using retention funds were U.S. national team regulars Graham Zusi and Matt Besler.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Beginning in summer of 2013 and continuing in the run up to the 2014 World Cup, MLS began signing U.S. stars based abroad, including Clint Dempsey, Jermaine Jones, and Michael Bradley from Europe; and DaMarcus Beasley from Mexico's Liga MX. By the 2014 season, fifteen of the nineteen MLS head coaches had previously played in MLS. By 2013, the league's popularity had increased to the point where MLS was as popular as Major League Baseball among 12- to 17-year-olds, as reported by the 2013 Luker on Trends ESPN poll, having jumped in popularity since the 2010 World Cup.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In 2014, the league announced Atlanta United FC as the 22nd team to start playing in 2017. Even though New York City FC and Orlando City were not set to begin play until 2015, each team made headlines during the summer 2014 transfer window by announcing their first Designated Players—Spain's leading scorer David Villa and Chelsea's leading scorer Frank Lampard to New York, and Ballon d'Or winner Kaká to Orlando. The 2014 World Cup featured 21 MLS players on World Cup rosters and a record 11 MLS players playing for foreign teams—including players from traditional powerhouses Brazil (Júlio César) and Spain (David Villa); in the U.S. v. Germany match the U.S. fielded a team with seven MLS starters.


title: Major League Soccer

text: On September 18, 2014, MLS unveiled their new logo as part of a branding initiative. In addition to the new crest logo, MLS teams display versions in their own colors on their jerseys. Chivas USA folded following the 2014 season, while New York City FC and Orlando City SC joined the league in 2015 as the 19th and 20th teams. Sporting Kansas City and the Houston Dynamo moved from the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference in 2015 to make two 10-team conferences.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In early 2015, the league announced that two teams—Los Angeles FC and Minnesota United—would join MLS in either 2017 or 2018. The 20th season of MLS saw the arrivals of several players who have starred at the highest levels of European club soccer and in international soccer: Giovanni dos Santos, Kaká, Andrea Pirlo, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Didier Drogba, David Villa, and Sebastian Giovinco. MLS confirmed in August 2016 that Minnesota United would begin play in 2017 along with Atlanta United FC.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In April 2016, the league's commissioner Don Garber reiterated the intention of the league to expand to 28 teams, with the next round of expansion "likely happening in 2020". In December 2016, he updated the expansion plans stating that the league will look to approve the 25th and 26th teams in 2017 and to start play in 2020. In January 2017, the league received bids from 12 ownership groups.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In July 2017, it was reported that Major League Soccer had rejected an offer by MP & Silva to acquire all television rights to the league following the conclusion of its current contracts with Fox, ESPN, and Univision, where MP & Silva insisted that the deal would be conditional on Major League Soccer adopting a promotion and relegation system. The league stated that it rejected the offer due to the exclusive periods that the current rightsholders have to negotiate extensions to their contracts. Additionally, media noted that Major League Soccer has long-opposed the adoption of promotion and relegation, continuing to utilize the fixed, franchise-based model used in other U.S. sports leagues. Furthermore, MP & Silva founder Riccardo Silva also owned Miami FC of the NASL, which stood to benefit from such a promotion and relegation system.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In October 2017, Columbus Crew owner Anthony Precourt announced plans to move the franchise to Austin, Texas by 2019. The announcement spawned a league-wide backlash and legal action against the league by the Ohio state government. On August 15, 2018, the Austin City Council voted to approve an agreement with Precourt to move Crew SC to Austin, and on August 22, 2018, the club's new name, Austin FC, was announced. After negotiations between Precourt and Jimmy Haslam, owner of the Cleveland Browns, were announced, MLS made it clear that Austin would receive an expansion team only after a deal to sell Columbus to a local buyer had completed. The purchase of Crew SC by Haslam's group was finalized in late December 2018, and on January 15, 2019, Austin FC was officially announced as a 2021 MLS entry.


title: Major League Soccer

text: MLS announced on December 20, 2017, that it would be awarding an expansion franchise to Nashville, Tennessee, to play in a yet-to-be-built 27,000-seat soccer-specific stadium, Nashville Fairgrounds Stadium, and would join MLS in 2020. The management of the Nashville franchise announced in February 2019 that the MLS side would assume the Nashville SC name then in use by the city's USL Championship team.


title: Major League Soccer

text: On January 29, 2018, MLS awarded Miami an expansion team, led by David Beckham. Inter Miami CF started MLS play on March 1, 2020, and plan on opening the proposed 25,000-seat stadium sometime in the near future. An expansion team was awarded to Cincinnati, Ohio on May 29, 2018, to the ownership group of USL's FC Cincinnati. The team, which assumed the existing FC Cincinnati name, started MLS play in 2019 and moved to the new 26,000-seat TQL Stadium in 2021.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In 2013, New York City FC agreed to pay a record $100 million expansion fee for the right to join MLS in 2015. This record was surpassed by the ownership groups of FC Cincinnati and Nashville SC, which each paid $150 million to join MLS (FC Cincinnati in 2019 and Nashville SC in 2020). Despite being announced in January 2018, Inter Miami CF only paid a $25 million expansion fee due to a clause in part-owner David Beckham's original playing contract signed in 2007. The same $150 million was paid as an effective entrance fee by a group that bought Columbus Crew in 2018, which led to that team's previous operator receiving rights to Austin FC, which joined MLS in 2021. MLS has also announced the ownership groups of the 28th and 29th teams would each pay a $200 million entrance fee.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The league planned to expand to 30 teams with the addition of Austin FC in 2021, Charlotte in 2022, and Sacramento and St. Louis in 2023; however, this was reduced to 29 after Sacramento's bid was placed on indefinite hold. Commissioner Don Garber has suggested that another round of expansion could lead to 32 teams in MLS.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The league suspended its 2020 season on March 12, 2020, after two weeks, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and other U.S.-based sports leagues did the same. The 2020 season resumed in July with the MLS is Back Tournament, a competition in which 24 out of the 26 teams competed at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando for a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League. In September 2020, the league announced the formation of MLS Next, an academy league for MLS academy teams from the under-13 to under-19 level.


title: Major League Soccer

text: In 2022, the league signed a $2.5 billion deal with Apple Inc. that will make Apple TV the primary broadcaster for all MLS games. The agreement will see both MLS and Leagues Cup games shared across the streaming service.


title: Major League Soccer

text: As of the 2022 season, 31 different clubs have competed in the league, with 15 having won at least one MLS Cup, and 15 winning at least one Supporters' Shield. The two trophies have been won by the same club in the same year on seven occasions (two clubs have accomplished the feat twice).


title: Major League Soccer

text: Major League Soccer operates under a single-entity structure in which teams and player contracts are centrally owned by the league. Each team has an investor-operator that is a shareholder in the league. In order to control costs, MLS shares revenues and holds players contracts instead of players contracting with individual teams. In "Fraser v. Major League Soccer", a lawsuit filed in 1996 and decided in 2002, the league won a legal battle with its players in which the court ruled that MLS was a single entity that can lawfully centrally contract for player services. The court also ruled that even absent their collective bargaining agreement, players could opt to play in other leagues if they were unsatisfied.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Having multiple clubs operated by a single investor was a necessity in the league's first ten years. At one time Phil Anschutz's AEG operated six MLS franchises and Lamar Hunt's Hunt Sports three franchises. In order to attract additional investors, in 2002 the league announced changes to the operating agreement between the league and its teams to improve team revenues and increase the incentives to be an individual club operator. These changes included granting operators the rights to a certain number of players they develop through their club's academy system each year, sharing the profits of Soccer United Marketing, and being able to sell individual club jersey sponsorships.


title: Major League Soccer

text: As MLS appeared to be on the brink of overall profitability in 2006 and developed significant expansion plans, MLS announced that it wanted each club to have a distinct operator. The league has attracted new investors that have injected more money into the league. Examples include Red Bull's purchase of the MetroStars from AEG in 2006 for over $100 million. For the 2014 season, the league assumed control of the former Chivas USA club, which had suffered from mismanagement and poor financial results under its individual operator relationship. The league eventually dissolved the team, in favor of awarding rights to a second soccer club in the Los Angeles area to a new investor group on October 30, 2014.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The league now has 30 investor-operators for its 28 current and 2 future clubs, with no member of any club's investor group having a stake in that of any other club. Since December 2015, when AEG sold its remaining 50% interest in the Houston Dynamo, the former multiple-team operators AEG and Hunt Sports, with the LA Galaxy and FC Dallas respectively, now only control one franchise.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Don Garber has been the commissioner of Major League Soccer since 1999, serving as the league's chief executive. The league's first commissioner was Doug Logan, who served in the role from 1995 to 1999.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Mark Abbott, a former MLS business partner, has served as the league's president and Deputy Commissioner since 2006.


title: Major League Soccer

text: The average salary for MLS players is $373,094, lower than the average salaries in England's second-tier EFL Championship ($420,000 in 2015), the Netherlands' Eredivisie ($445,000), or Mexico's Liga MX ($418,000 in 2015). The league's minimum player salary increased in 2017 to $65,000 for most players, and roster players #25–30 saw their minimum salary increased to $53,000.


title: Major League Soccer

text: MLS salaries are limited by a salary cap, which MLS has had in place since the league's inception in 1996. The purpose of the salary cap is to prevent the team's owners from unsustainable spending on player salaries and to prevent a competitive imbalance among teams. The salary cap survived a legal challenge by the players in the "Fraser v. Major League Soccer" lawsuit. The 2017 salary cap increased to $3.845 million per team.


title: Major League Soccer

text: Teams may augment their squads by signing players from other leagues. MLS has two transfer windows—the primary pre-season transfer window lasts three months from mid February until mid May, and the secondary mid season transfer window runs one month from early July to early August. When an MLS club sells one of its players overseas, the club and the league split the transfer revenues, with the club retaining from 33% to 75% depending on the player's status and tenure.


title: Major League Soccer

text: MLS teams have a limited number of international roster slots that they can use to sign non-domestic players. However, MLS teams often obtain green cards for their non-domestic players in order to qualify them for domestic status and thus free up international roster slots. In 2015, 49% of MLS players were born outside of the U.S. and Canada, with players from 58 countries represented.