HELSINKI: If cold weather and a lack of sunlight in winter are enough to get you down, chances are you’re not Finnish.
The World Happiness Report published Wednesday put Finland at the top among 156 countries ranked by happiness levels, based on factors such as life expectancy, social support and corruption.
Finland has emerged as the happiest place to live even though little sun and low temperatures are often blamed for high rates of depression.
“Well, our politics and our economics. I think the basics are quite good in Finland,” said Sofia Holm, 24-year-old resident of Helsinki, the Nordic country’s capital. “So, yes, we have the perfect circumstances to have a happy life here in Finland.”
And that’s not forgetting other plentiful attractions like skiing and saunas and, for children of all ages, Santa Claus.
“It’s a great thing to live in the happiest country although it’s snowing and we are walking in this wet snow,” said Helsinki resident Inari Lepisto, 28. “Yes, we have many things that make me happy.”
This year, the annual report published by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network also evaluated 117 countries by the happiness and well-being of their immigrants.
In 2015, more than a million migrants entered Europe, and a few thousand made it to Finland, a relatively homogenous country with about 300,000 foreigners and residents with foreign roots, out of its 5.5 million people.
Finland’s largest immigrant groups come from other European nations, but there also are communities from Afghanistan, China, Iraq and Somalia.
John Helliwell, a co-editor of the World Happiness Report and professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia, noted that all the countries in the Top 10 scored highest both in overall happiness and regarding the happiness of immigrants. He said a society’s happiness seems contagious.
“The most striking finding of the report is the remarkable consistency between the happiness of immigrants and the locally born,” Helliwell said. “Those who move to happier countries gain, while those who move to less happy countries lose.”
Europe’s Nordic nations, none particularly diverse, have dominated the index since it first was produced in 2012. In reaching No. 1, Finland nudged neighboring Norway into second place.
Rounding out the Top 10 are Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. The United States fell to 18th place from 14th last year.
Meik Wiking, CEO of the Copenhagen-based Happiness Research Institute, said the five Nordic countries that reliably rank high in the index “are doing something right in terms of creating good conditions for good lives,” something newcomers have noticed.
He said the happiness revealed in the survey derives from healthy amounts of both personal freedoms and social security that outweigh residents having to pay “some of the highest taxes in the world.”
“Briefly put, (Nordic countries) are good at converting wealth into well-being,” Wiking said. The finding on the happiness of immigrants “shows the conditions that we live under matter greatly to our quality of life, that happiness is not only a matter of choice.”
The United States was 11th in the first index and has never been in the Top 10. The report cited several factors to explain its falling ranking.
“The US is in the midst of a complex and worsening public health crisis, involving epidemics of obesity, opioid addiction, and major depressive disorder that are all remarkable by global standards,” the report said.
It added that the “sociopolitical system” in the United States produces more income inequality — a major contributing factor to unhappiness — than other countries with comparatively high incomes.
The US also has seen declining “trust, generosity and social support, and those are some of the factors that explain why some countries are happier than others,” Wiking said.
One of the world’s northernmost countries stretching some 1,160 kilometers (720 miles) from north to south, the sun does not set for 73 consecutive days during summer at Finland’s northernmost point. During the winter months, the sun doesn’t rise at all for 51 days in Lapland, northern Finland.
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Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.
Despite cold, dark, Finland tops 2018 global happiness index
Despite cold, dark, Finland tops 2018 global happiness index
Liam and Olivia dominate — again — with top baby names in the US for a sixth year in a row
- ‘A trend we’re tracking is that Americans are more likely to choose heritage choices’
WASHINGTON: Liam and Olivia dominate. Still.
The two names have, for a sixth year together, topped the list of names for babies born in the US in 2024.
The Social Security Administration annually tracks the names given to girls and boys in each state, with names dating back to 1880. In time for Mother’s Day, the agency on Friday released the most popular names from applications for Social Security cards.
Liam has reigned for eight years in a row for boys, while Olivia has topped the girls’ list for six. Also, for the sixth consecutive year, Emma took the second slot for girls, and Noah for boys.
The girls’ name Luna slipped out of the Top 10 and was replaced by Sofia, which enters at number 10 for the first time.
After Liam, the most common names for boys are, in order: Noah, Oliver, Theodore, James, Henry, Mateo, Elijah, Lucas and William.
After Olivia, the most common names for girls are Emma, Amelia, Charlotte, Mia, Sophia, Isabella, Evelyn, Ava and Sofia.
Sophie Kihm, editor-in-chief of nameberry, a baby naming website, said the latest data showcases how American parents are increasingly choosing names that have cross-cultural appeal. Kihm’s first name shows up in two variations on the annual list.
“A trend we’re tracking is that Americans are more likely to choose heritage choices,” Kihm said, including names that work “no matter where you are in the world.”
”More families in the US come from mixed cultural backgrounds and I hear parents commonly request that they want their child to travel and have a relatively easy to understand name.”
The Social Security Administration’s latest data show that 3.61 million babies were born in the US in 2024. That’s a slight increase from last year’s 3.59 million babies, representing an overall increase in the American birthrate.
Social media stars and popular television shows are having some impact on the rising popularity of certain names, Social Security says.
Among those rising in popularity for girls: Ailany, a Hawaiian name that means “chief,” topped the list. The boys’ name Truce, an Old English name meaning “peace,” rose 11,118 spots from last year’s position to rank 991.
The complete, searchable list of baby names is on the Social Security website.
Sweden’s new national security adviser quits over dating site images
- Thyberg said that he had failed to disclose the existence of the images
- “I should have informed about this, but I did not,” he said
OSLO: Sweden’s new national security adviser abruptly resigned on Friday, just one day after his appointment, amid criticism from the prime minister that he failed to disclose information regarding images published years ago on a dating website.
Tobias Thyberg, a foreign service veteran who in previous roles served as ambassador to both Ukraine and Afghanistan, had omitted the information during security background checks, the government said.
The resignation comes just months after Thyberg’s predecessor in the high-profile job stepped down and was charged with negligent handling of classified information.
Thyberg did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on Friday.
But in a statement to daily Dagens Nyheter, Thyberg said that he had failed to disclose the existence of the images.
“These are old pictures from an account I previously had on the dating site Grindr. I should have informed about this, but I did not,” he said, according to DN.
Reuters could not independently verify information about the content of the images.
Background checks for sensitive government jobs typically require the disclosure of any information that could potentially make someone vulnerable to blackmail.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the information should have come to light a long time ago.
“It is a systemic failure that this kind of information has not been brought forward,” Kristersson told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Norway.
Thyberg had been due to travel to Oslo on Friday with the prime minister for a meeting of northern European leaders, but the adviser’s participation was canceled.
Two men found guilty of chopping down iconic UK tree
- The tree at Sycamore Gap had stood for nearly 200 years next to Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern England
- The tree was so striking it featured in the 1991 Hollywood film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves“
LONDON: An English court found two men guilty on Friday of the “deliberate and mindless” felling of one of the UK’s most iconic trees, an incident that sparked national outrage.
A jury at Newcastle Crown Court found former friends Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, guilty of criminal damage for the 2023 felling of the tree at Sycamore Gap.
It had stood for nearly 200 years next to Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern England. The tree was so striking it featured in the 1991 Hollywood film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.”
They were convicted after around five hours of deliberation on two counts of criminal damage: to the sycamore and to the Roman wall, which was damaged when the tree fell on it.
Reacting to the verdict, the National Trust conservation body said the “needless felling” of the tree had “shocked people around the country and overseas, demonstrating the powerful connection between people and our natural heritage.
“It was felt particularly deeply here in the north east of England where the tree was an emblem of the region and the backdrop to many personal memories,” said a spokesperson.
Prosecutors had told the court that the two men used a chainsaw to cut down the tree. It was, they said, “an act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage,” which they filmed on Graham’s phone and shared with others.
Speaking after the conviction, Northumbria Police’s Kevin Waring said: “We often hear references made to mindless acts of vandalism, but that term has never been more relevant than today.
“At no point have the two men given an explanation for why they targeted the tree — and there never could be a justifiable one,” he added.
Graham has “been in custody for his own protection after an episode in December,” his lawyer Chris Knox told court on Friday.
The pair drove to the site near Hexham in Graham’s Range Rover and felled the tree on the night of September 27, 2023, slicing through the trunk in “a matter of minutes,” said prosecutor Richard Wright.
“Having completed their moronic mission, the pair got back into the Range Rover and traveled back toward Carlisle” where they lived, he added.
A video of the act recovered from Graham’s phone was shared by the two men with “the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw, and a tree falling,” said Wright.
The next day, in a voice message from Graham to Carruthers, Graham said “it’s gone viral. It is worldwide. It will be on ITV news tonight,” he added.
“They are loving it, they’re revelling in it. This is the reaction of the people that did it. They still think it’s funny, or clever, or big,” said the prosecutor.
Gale Gilchrist, from the Crown Prosecution Service North, said that “in just under three minutes, Graham and Carruthers ended its (the tree’s) historic legacy in a deliberate and mindless act of destruction.
“We hope our community can take some measure of comfort in seeing those responsible convicted today,” she added.
The pair were jointly charged with causing £622,191 ($832, 821) of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, an ancient Roman fortification stretching from northwest to northeast England.
The two men have been remanded in custody — Carruthers for his own protection. They will be sentenced on July 15.
The sycamore was a symbol of northeast England and a key attraction photographed by millions of visitors over the years, winning the Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year in 2016.
Efforts are under way to see if it can be regrown from its stump or seeds.
The National Trust, which owns the wall and the tree, said it has grown 49 saplings from the sycamore’s seeds, which will be planted this winter at sites across the UK.
Rare New Zealand snail is filmed for the first time laying an egg from its neck
- The habits of the threatened Powelliphanta augusta snail were once shrouded in mystery
- The video was taken at a facility on the South Island’s West Coast
WELLINGTON: The strange reproductive habits of a large, carnivorous New Zealand snail were once shrouded in mystery. Now footage of the snail laying an egg from its neck has been captured for the first time, the country’s conservation agency said Wednesday.
What looks like a tiny hen’s egg is seen emerging from an opening below the head of the Powelliphanta augusta snail, a threatened species endemic to New Zealand.
The video was taken at a facility on the South Island’s West Coast, where conservation rangers attempting to save the species from extinction have cared for a population of the snails in chilled containers for nearly two decades.
The conditions in the containers mimic the alpine weather in their only former habitat — a remote mountain they were named for, on the West Coast of the South Island, that has been engulfed by mining.
Observing their habits
Lisa Flanagan from the Department of Conservation, who has worked with the creatures for 12 years, said the species still holds surprises.
“It’s remarkable that in all the time we’ve spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we’ve seen one lay an egg,” she said in a statement.
Like other snails, Powelliphanta augusta are hermaphrodites, which explains how the creatures can reproduce when encased in a hard shell. The invertebrate uses a genital pore on the right side of its body, just below the head, to simultaneously exchange sperm with another snail, which is stored until each creates an egg.
A long but slow reproductive life
Each snail takes eight years to reach sexual maturity, after which it lays about five eggs a year. The egg can take more than a year to hatch.
“Some of our captive snails are between 25 and 30 years old,” said Flanagan. “They’re polar opposites to the pest garden snail we introduced to New Zealand, which is like a weed, with thousands of offspring each year and a short life.”
The dozens of species and subspecies of Powelliphanta snails are only found in New Zealand, mostly in rugged forest and grassland settings where they are threatened by habitat loss.
They are carnivores that slurp up earthworms like noodles, and are some of the world’s largest snails , with oversized, distinctive shells in a range of rich earth colors and swirling patterns.
A political storm
The Powelliphanta augusta was the center of public uproar and legal proceedings in the early 2000s, when an energy company’s plans to mine for coal threatened to destroy the snails’ habitat.
Some 4,000 were removed from the site and relocated, while 2,000 more were housed in chilled storage in the West Coast town of Hokitika to ensure the preservation of the species, which is slow to breed and doesn’t adapt well to new habitats.
In 2011, some 800 of the snails accidentally died in a Department of Conservation refrigerator with faulty temperature control.
But the species’ slow survival continues: In March this year, there were nearly 1,900 snails and nearly 2,200 eggs in captivity, the conservation agency said.
Poisoned guests rarely invited before deadly mushroom lunch, Australia trial hears
- An Australian woman accused of triple murder with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington had rarely invited her four guests to eat at her home before, a court heard Friday
SYDNEY: An Australian woman accused of triple murder with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington had rarely invited her four guests to eat at her home before, a court heard Friday.
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband in July 2023 by serving them the pastry-and-beef dish with death cap mushrooms.
She is also accused of the attempted murder of her husband’s uncle, who survived the meal after a long stay in hospital.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
In a trial that has seized international attention, prosecutors played a recording of a police interview with Patterson’s son, then 14, following the lunch.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said his mother had hosted his paternal grandparents at her house “once before.”
And she had “never” previously hosted Heather and Ian Wilkinson, his father’s aunt and uncle, the boy said.
His mother’s relationship with the couple was “not a negative one, but it is not strong,” the youngster told police.
The accused’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, had declined the invitation to lunch at her home in the sedate Victoria state farm village of Leongatha.
Four members of his family attended: his parents Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt and uncle.
While the guests had lunch, Patterson’s children went to a McDonald’s and the cinema.
Within hours after eating, the four guests developed diarrhea and vomiting and were taken to hospital, where doctors diagnosed death cap mushroom poisoning.
Days later, three of the guests were dead. Ian Wilkinson, a local pastor, lived after weeks of hospital treatment.
On the morning after the lunch, Patterson’s son said she was “a little bit quieter” than usual, complaining of “feeling a bit sick and had diarrhea,” the court heard.
The family had missed their local church service because “mum was feeling too sick,” he said.
That night, Patterson and her children ate the purported leftovers of the beef Wellington.
The defendant has said she scraped off the mushrooms because her children were picky eaters.
“It was probably some of the best meat I’ve ever had,” her teenage son said.
“Mum said it was leftovers.”
Jurors also heard a recording of a police interview with Patterson’s daughter, then nine, who said her mum was a good cook.
“We make cupcakes and muffins,” she said.
The girl, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, said she did not get sick from eating the claimed leftovers.
The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests and took care that neither she, nor her children, consumed the deadly mushrooms.
Her defense says it was “a terrible accident” and that Patterson ate the same meal as the others but did not fall as sick.
The trial is expected to last another five weeks.
