WHR Editorial Board, formed of John F. Helliwell, Lord Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Lara B. Aknin, and Shun Wang., - World Happiness Report
Stephan:
The 2024 World Happiness Report has just come out. The report is researched and written by a partnership among Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the World Happiness Report’s Editorial Board. The news for America is very sad. The United States of America has fallen out of the top 20 for the first time since the World Happiness Report was first published in 2012, driven by a large drop in the wellbeing of Americans under 30, and now ranks 23rd. Almost no one in politics talks about any of this, except for a few brave souls like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. You never see anyone in corporate media even dare mention it. The truth is, however, by any objectively verifiable social outcome measure you choose, the United States is a failing society.
To download the full report: https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/WHR+24.pdf
World Happiness Report 2024: Most comprehensive picture yet of happiness across generations
Fresh insights from the World Happiness Report 2024, released today (March 20), paint the richest picture yet of happiness trends across different ages and generations.
The findings, announced today to mark the UN’s International Day of Happiness, are powered by data from the Gallup World Poll and analysed by some of the world’s leading wellbeing scientists.
Experts use responses from people in more than 140 nations to rank the world’s ‘happiest’ countries. Finland tops the overall list for the seventh successive year, though there is considerable movement elsewhere:
Serbia (37th) and Bulgaria (81st) have had the biggest increases in average life evaluation scores since they were first measured by the Gallup World Poll in 2013, and this is reflected in climbs up the rankings between the World Happiness Report 2013 and this 2024 edition of 69 places for Serbia and 63 places for Bulgaria.
The next two countries showing the largest increases in life evaluations are Latvia (46th) and Congo (Brazzaville) (89th), with rank increases of 44 and 40 places, respectively, between 2013 and 2024.
Significantly, the United States of America (23rd) has fallen out of […]
Another story about the depth of corruption in the United States. America is perhaps the most corrupt democracy if one can still call us a democracy, in the world. Were is not for our military power we would be considered a failing state, and if the election goes to the Trump christofascist Party (TCP) (former Republican Party) it will be game over. This is all coming down to the American voters. So how are you planning to vote.
Leonard Leo (left) shakes hands with Justice Neil Gorsuch. Leo has been called former President Donald Trump’s “court whisperer” for helping to choose and advocate for his Supreme Court nominees. Credit: Sait Serkan Gurbuz / AP
Allies of Leonard Leo have mounted a monthslong offensive against the man investigating the judicial activist’s network: Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb.
Since news of the probe broke last August, the GOP chairs of powerful congressional committees launched their own investigation of Schwalb’s investigation; conservative media wrote articles criticizing Schwalb on unrelated crime issues — based on a social media post from a top Leo lieutenant; and a group of his Republican law enforcement peers sent letters warning Schwalb to stand down.
Leo is the Federalist Society co-chair who has been called former President Donald Trump’s “court whisperer” for helping to choose and advocate for his Supreme Court nominees. His aligned network of tax-exempt nonprofits is also a major contributor to Project 2025, an initiative seeking to create a “government in waiting” for another Trump term.
The white-hot pressure campaign targeting Schwalb attests to the growing range of Leo’s influence. Beyond its work in promoting […]
Lauren Weber and Sabrina Malhi, Accountability Reporter | Infant and Maternal Health Issues Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan:
The weaponization of misinformation, and the drive to control women and girls has entered a new phase, attacking birth control. The result is going to be an increase in unplanned pregnancies which, in blue states is going to mean an increase in abortions and, in Red states, increased anxiety, stress, and maternal deaths. This is yet another manifestation of The Great Schism Trend. We are becoming an increasingly dysfunctional nation in which fostering wellbeing is hardly a consideration, let alone a priority.
Illustration by Miki Kim / The Washington Post
Search for“birth control” on TikTok or Instagram and a cascade of misleading videos vilifying hormonal contraception appear: Young women blaming their weight gain on the pill. Right-wing commentators claiming that some birth control can lead to infertility. Testimonials complaining of depression and anxiety.
Instead, many social media influencers recommend “natural” alternatives, such as timing sex to menstrual cycles — a less effective birth-control method that doctors warn could result in unwanted pregnancies in a country where abortion is now banned or restricted in nearly half the states.
Physicians say they’re seeing an explosion of birth-control misinformation online targeting a vulnerable demographic: people in their teens and early 20s who are more likely to believe what they see on their phones because of algorithms that feed them a stream of videos reinforcing messages often divorced from scientific evidence. While doctors say hormonal contraception — which includes birth-control pills and intrauterine devices (IUDs) —is safe and effective, they worry the profession’s long-standing lack of transparency about some of the serious but rare side effects has left many patients seeking information from unqualified online communities.
Criminal Trump makes no attempt to hide what he is planning, or who he brings into his administration if he is re-elected. If American actually do vote this monster back into the presidency then it will be the end of America as a country with any honorable ethical standards or a democracy, and maybe that is what is going to happen. The Roman empire came to an end, the Russian Tsarist system came to an end, the French monarchy and the Chinese emperors came to an end. History makes it clear that when the consciousness of a people changes so does their culture. I actually think what will happen is we will retain a symbolic federal government but that we will actually break into two countries with real power devolving to the states, and internationally America will become another failed state like Russia or North Korea.
Paul Manafort, Christina Bobb, Roger Stone, Laura Loomer. Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon / Axios. Photos: Yana Paskova, John Lamparski, Gabby Jones / Bloomberg, Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post / Getty
Sidelined characters from former President Trump’s past campaigns — “crazies,” some of his top advisers call them — are reattaching themselves to his inner circle now that he’s locked up the Republican nomination.
Why it matters:Trump’s 2024 campaign has been notable for its rigor: Top advisers have largely steered clear of the most controversial far-righters who surrounded Trump in the past. But ex-advisers, conspiracy theorists and convicted felons are now knocking on the campaign’s door — and some are getting in.
They’re returning as Trump more aggressively touts Jan. 6 rioters as “patriots,” ramps up his racist, incendiary rhetoric — and embraces some of his most provocative loyalists.
Zoom in: In recent weeks, several of these loyalists have moved to rejoin his team or have had a bigger presence at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s team is in talks to hire 2016 campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Corey Lewandowski, The Washington Post and The New York Times first reported.
Manafort spent two years in prison on a 7½-year […]
The good news part of this story is that Governor Newsom and the Democrats in California are trying to make decent eyecare available to more low-income people. They are trying to foster wellbeing within America’s appallingly bad illness profit system. The bad news, of course, is this is another example of how awful our healthcare system is.
Credit: Gregory Bull / AP
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — When Hunter Morgan, OD, bought an optometry practice in Southern California 3 years ago, one of the first things he did was start seeing patients who use Medicaid — the government-funded health insurance program for low-income people.
The previous owners had not accepted patients on Medicaid, which covers roughly a third of California’s 39 million residents. But Morgan felt he had a responsibility to serve people in need.
Just 5 months later, Morgan said, he had to stop treating Medicaid patients because of the paltry pay. He charges $175 for eye exams, but the most he could get from Medicaid was about $40. That made it difficult to pay his staff and pricey rent in the upscale beach community of Encinitas, 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of San Diego.
“We couldn’t function that way,” he said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and his Democratic allies in the state Legislature have greatly increased the number of people on Medicaid, including all eligible adults in the state who are in the country without legal permission opens in a new tab or window. But while California’s […]
