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Finland Tops Happiest Countries List for the Seventh Time
For the seventh year running, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world by the United Nations’ World Happiness Report. The Nordic nation has long been known for its sauna culture, but the Finns’ enduring well-being goes beyond warm rooms and cold plunges. Some Finns have told the press that their citizens read more

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With its towering dome, St. Paul’s Cathedral is one of the most famous structures in all of London. Soon, some lucky travelers will have a chance to spend the night at the famed landmark—the first to do so since the St. Paul’s Watch fire brigade took nightly shifts protecting the building during World War II.

Airbnb is offering a one-night read more

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An international team of scientists may have found more than 100 new species, during a mission to explore seamounts off the coast of Chile. These creatures who look like they come from a sci-fi novel call the 1,800-mile-long Salas y Gómez Ridge home.

Seamounts are large underwater mountains that are often formed by volcanic activity and can be found in every ocean basin on Earth. They are a critical read more

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San Francisco’s Lunar New Year parade celebrates the Year of the Dragon (Video)
Amid the loud pops of firecrackers, thousands of people gathered as dozens of floats rolled from Market and Second streets on a balmy Saturday to celebrate the Year of the Dragon.

San Francisco’s Lunar New Year parade, the largest one outside read more

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This Italian Airport Will Have A Vineyard On Its Roof
From their window seats, future visitors landing at the Amerigo Vespucci Airport in Florence (sometimes called Peretola Airport) will catch the view of a 19-acre vineyard gently sloping upward toward the new international terminal.

This remarkable feature will visually reflect Tuscany’s integral read more

Mulan’s Lunar New Year Procession, Los Angeles, USA
London, England
Lion dance, Edinburgh, Scotland
Dragon dance, Manila, Philippines
Traditional stilt walkers, Beijing, China
Sydney, Australia
Barcelona, Spain
Auspicious Dragon Lego set 2024

Image courtesy Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images, Leon Neal/Getty Images, Ezra Acayan/Getty Images, Kevin Frayer/Getty Images, Axel Miranda/SOPA Images/Sipa/Reuters, Disney and Lego

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Sea Otters Returned to a Degraded Coastline Ate Enough Crabs to Restore Balance and Cut Erosion by 90%
Against all odds, a distressed California coastal ecosystem is on the mend, in large part, thanks to the insatiable appetite sea otters have for crabs.

In a groundbreaking study published this week in Nature, scientists revealed that the return of sea otters read more

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Tough crowd? Feds putting end to ‘humorous’ highway signs to prioritize safety
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is cracking down on “humorous” digital signs that have been cracking smiles on drivers all across the US.

The days an Ohio highway tells drivers to “slow down” to arrive at the in-laws late or a New Jersey road advising Halloween read more

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Jobs, Not Jail: A Judge Was Sick of Sending Kids to Prison, So He Found a Better Way
By the year 2000, Judge John Phillips had long since lost count of the number of minors he had sent through the California penitentiary system for crimes committed during a violent, unguided, and hopeless adolescence. “You send these young people to prison, and read more

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Well, bless their hearts — Gen Z is killing the Southern drawl, y’all.
That’s according to a new study published in Language Variation and Change, which claims the classic Southern American accent has been slowly fading over time — with the younger generation now helping to hammer the final nail into the proverbial pine box.

“Today’s college students don’t read more

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From September 16 to October 3, the largest folk festival in the world takes place on the Theresienwiese. The festival site covers an area of 34.5 hectares. 898 companies have applied for Oktoberfest 2023. 474 businesses were approved this year, including 140 from the catering trade, 138 fairground businesses, 196 market traders and several service businesses. There will read more

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Indian wildlife officials are mourning the death of a pregnant wild elephant in Kerala, India, who reportedly died after being fed a firecracker-filled pineapple by an unknown assailant.
“Her jaw was broken and she was unable to eat after she chewed the pineapple and it exploded in her mouth,” says chief wildlife warden Surendra Kumar. The outraged official tells read more

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At sea, objects in the distance may appear to be floating above the horizon. A Fata Morgana is a complex, rapidly changing form of a superior mirage, an optical phenomenon that is created when light bends as it passes through a layer of air that is warmer than the layer below it, according to SKYbrary. Made up of several inverted and upright images stacked on top of each other, Fata Morganas appear as read more