How happy would you rank yourself? Like, if you were asked to rate your life as a whole on a scale from zero for the worst possible life and 10 for the best possible, how would you rate the state of your life right now?

Because this is the exact question Gallup asks roughly 1,000 people each year in 136 countries. Dating back to 2012, the resulting World Happiness Report—with 100 different social scientists contributing over the years—generates an average measure of life satisfaction for each nation.

As expected, a group of especially happy countries continue to stand out positively. And it’s no surprise that a group of conflict-ridden countries show uniquely low levels of happiness.But while general happiness across the world continues to grow, it continues to be perplexing for many to see overall happiness of most Western countries continuing to decrease.

Comparing happiness levels from a decade and a half ago until now among the 136 countries assessed, almost twice as many countries had “significant gains” in happiness (79) compared with “significant losses” (41). Those gains include essentially all of central and Eastern Europe — like Serbia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Slovenia, Romania and Lithuania — with 21 countries gaining a point or more in Central and Eastern Europe. A number of other countries in the global south also made the list of significant gains in happiness, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

Speaking of overall happiness, Finland still leads the way for the ninth year in a row, followed by Iceland and Denmark. Costa Rica took a surprise fourth place—the highest ranking any Latin American country has achieved—followed by Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. But Western happiness keeps dropping. They still rank high overall, but the United States 23rd on the list, for example.

As Vox points out, by almost any measure, the last two centuries delivered astonishing leaps in human prosperity. “We live longer, healthier, safer lives than almost any generation that came before us. And yet, the experience of modern life often feels unsettled. People are anxious, politics are brittle, and the promise of progress feels shakier than ever.”

President Trump said the U.S. military would postpone strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days following “productive” talks between Washington and Tehran. Trump said Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, two of his leading envoys, began talks Sunday that would continue Monday. Trump said a deal with Iran would prohibit nuclear weapons and involve regime change. He then said Iran “wants to settle” the war.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied Tehran was in talks with the U.S., but acknowledged countries in the region were trying to get diplomacy going. Arab officials said they have been talking separately with both sides, but that Iran has set a high bar for ending hostilities.

But Trump used the opening of even an early dialogue as an offramp from the threat he issued Saturday to attack the power plants—the deadline he’d set would have expired yesterday. Now it’s been extended to Friday to give the talks time to proceed, setting off a flurry of diplomacy by a number of nations seeking to nurture the talks. It remains unclear, though, how seriously the White House was taking the potential for a breakthrough in a conflict that has seen both sides escalate for weeks.

When the world is this crazy, it’s nice to look up into the vastness of space and get reminded of how truly immense the universe is. And A vivid comet could soon be slicing through our sky to do just that. If it survives its approach toward the sun next week, the cosmic orb could even become visible to the naked eye.

According to Outside, a lot has to go right for this to happen, and astronomers are crossing their fingers that it does because Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) is a special type of "shooting star” known as a sungrazer. This is a term used for any comet that gets especially close to the sun (within 850,000 miles). Comet MAPS, named for a group of French astronomers who helped find it in January, will get as close as 465,000 miles from the sun; that’s roughly the round-trip distance from Earth to the moon.

As of mid-March, the comet is brightening as it heads into the inner solar system. If it survives this phase, it will likely be visible in Earth’s sky around Easter. If you want to see it, astronomers say we should look for it to appear close to the west horizon during or shortly after sunset.

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