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Finland is again ranked the happiest country in the world as the U.S. falls to its lowest-ever position

Finland is again ranked the happiest country in the world as the U.S. falls to its lowest-ever position

The Associated Press reports: Finland is the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to the World Happiness Report 2025 published Thursday. Other Nordic countries are also once again at the top of the happiness rankings in the annual report published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. Besides Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden remain the top four and in the same order. Aino Virolainen, a digital commerce director, has lived…

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Venezuelan migrant deportations based on conjecture instead of hard evidence

Venezuelan migrant deportations based on conjecture instead of hard evidence

Slate reports: After the Trump administration rounded up hundreds of Venezuelan migrants around the country—without notice or court hearings—and sent them off to a prison in El Salvador, we’re finally getting details on who was deported and why. And the more we learn, the more obvious it becomes why the government is so eager to expel these individuals without any semblance of due process. It claims that these men are terrorists by virtue of their alleged membership in the Tren…

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Michael Lewis: There’s more fraud on Wall Street than in the federal government

Michael Lewis: There’s more fraud on Wall Street than in the federal government

  Janet Hook writes: “Bureaucrat” is a really loaded pejorative. There’s no flattering use of the word. No child says, “I want to be a bureaucrat when I grow up.” Government workers are saddled with a stereotype of being faceless, lazy, unaccountable, corrupt paper pushers in a vast, wasteful machine of government.  That caricature is one reason President Donald Trump has been able, so far, to get away with slashing the federal workforce with relatively little outcry from the public….

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The Trump administration’s attack on academic freedom

The Trump administration’s attack on academic freedom

Christopher L. Eisgruber writes: The United States is home to the best collection of research universities in the world. Those universities have contributed tremendously to America’s prosperity, health, and security. They are magnets for outstanding talent from throughout the country and around the world. The Trump administration’s recent attack on Columbia University puts all of that at risk, presenting the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s. Every American should be concerned. The rise of…

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Israel’s return to war is a prelude to mass expulsion

Israel’s return to war is a prelude to mass expulsion

Ben Reiff writes: Two months after agreeing to a ceasefire deal that should have ended the war, Israel has resumed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip with an intensity that recalls the earliest days of the onslaught. Israeli airstrikes have killed over 400 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more since the early hours of this morning, and the army has ordered thousands of residents of the towns and neighborhoods spanning the perimeter of the Strip to flee their homes. Israel has again fully sealed off Rafah…

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Tesla and Musk face a ‘brand tornado crisis’ as 46,000 Cybertrucks are recalled

Tesla and Musk face a ‘brand tornado crisis’ as 46,000 Cybertrucks are recalled

The Guardian reports: Tesla and Elon Musk are embroiled in a “brand tornado crisis moment” and the electric carmaker’s chief executive needs to cut back on his work for Donald Trump to stem the damage, one of the company’s biggest supporters has said. The warning came as Tesla announced a recall of 46,000 Cybertrucks in the US on Thursday to fix an exterior panel that could detach while driving. It came as protesters announced on Wednesday they were planning what…

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Some Democrats start to echo Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric

Some Democrats start to echo Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric

The New York Times reports: When he took the stage in downtown Eau Claire, Wis., on Tuesday night to rev up Democrats ahead of a critical State Supreme Court race, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said he didn’t think name-calling would help things. Then he called Elon Musk a “dipshit” and, later, a “South African nepo baby” with the power to cut government programs. The crowd roared. Mr. Walz, his party’s nominee for vice president last year, is one of…

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After Roberts’ rebuke, Trump responds with weasel words

After Roberts’ rebuke, Trump responds with weasel words

USA Today reports: The growing clash between President Donald Trump and the judiciary took a major turn Tuesday as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump’s call for the impeachment of a federal judge. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a rare public statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” Trump’s call for impeachment escalated his increasing…

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Top IRS lawyer warned that Trump firings, based on false statements, were a ‘fraud’ on the courts

Top IRS lawyer warned that Trump firings, based on false statements, were a ‘fraud’ on the courts

By Andy Kroll This story was originally published by ProPublica On Feb. 20, nearly 7,000 probationary employees at the Internal Revenue Service began receiving an unsigned letter telling them that they had been fired for poor performance. Trump administration lawyers insist that the IRS and other federal agencies have acted within their authority when they ordered waves of mass terminations since Trump took office. But according to previously unreported emails obtained by ProPublica, a top lawyer at the IRS warned…

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For Trump, human rights seem to be more problematic than human rights abuses

For Trump, human rights seem to be more problematic than human rights abuses

Politico reports: The Trump administration is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report — cutting sections about the rights of women, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community and more. The goal appears to be a far thinner report that meets the minimum standards required by the law, according to documents obtained by POLITICO, as well as a current and a former State Department official who were familiar with the plan. The move underscores President Donald Trump’s resistance to emphasizing human…

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Arrest of immigrant-rights advocate is a ‘Putin-style persecution of political dissidents’

Arrest of immigrant-rights advocate is a ‘Putin-style persecution of political dissidents’

The New York Times reports: An undocumented woman in Denver who became a symbol of immigrant resistance during President Trump’s first term as she evaded deportation was arrested at work on Monday by federal immigration agents, her family and immigrant activists said. Jeanette Vizguerra, 53, had been on her break at a Target store near Denver when immigration agents took her into custody, said Jordan Garcia, an immigrant-rights advocate with the American Friends Service Committee who has known Ms. Vizguerra…

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I’m the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

I’m the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

Jasmine Mooney writes: I restarted the visa process and returned to the same immigration office at the San Diego border, since they had processed my visa before and I was familiar with it. Hours passed, with many confused opinions about my case. The officer I spoke to was kind but told me that, due to my previous issues, I needed to apply for my visa through the consulate. I told her I hadn’t been aware I needed to apply that…

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U.S. Institute of Peace sues to stop DOGE ‘takeover by force’

U.S. Institute of Peace sues to stop DOGE ‘takeover by force’

Democracy Docket reports: An independent nonprofit created by Congress to promote peace efforts around the world filed a lawsuit late Tuesday to block an aggressive takeover by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) board members, including former U.S. ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, asked the D.C. District Court to stop DOGE from “completing the unlawful dismantling of the Institute and irreparably impairing Plaintiffs’ ability to perform their vital peace promotion and conflict resolution…

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Greenpeace must pay at least $660m over Dakota pipeline protests, says jury

Greenpeace must pay at least $660m over Dakota pipeline protests, says jury

The Guardian reports: A jury in North Dakota has decided that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the pipeline company Energy Transfer and is liable for defamation and other claims over protests in the state nearly a decade ago. Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, had sued Greenpeace, alleging defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017, claiming the organization…

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