No standardized tests, no private schools, no stress. Finland's education system is consistently ranked best in the world. Why isn't America copying it?

Finland will go carbon neutral by 2035, under a coalition deal published on Monday, setting one of the world’s earliest timelines for reaching that mark. After more than a month of negotiations, five parties agreed on the goal championed by incoming Social Democrat prime minister Antti Rinne.

New left-leaning government sets ambitious target as it plans major rise in public spending

On a recent afternoon in Helsinki, a group of students gathered to hear a lecture on a subject that is far from a staple in most community college curriculums. Standing in front of the classroom at Espoo Adult Education Centre, Jussi Toivanen worked his way through his PowerPoint presentation. A slide titled “Have you been hit by the Russian troll army?” included a checklist of methods used to deceive readers on social media: image and video manipulations, half-truths, intimidation and false profiles.

Empowerment or exploitation?

“Prison labor” is usually associated with physical work, but inmates at two prisons in Finland are doing a new type of labor: classifying data to train artificial intelligence algorithms for a startup. Though the startup in question, Vainu, sees the partnership as a kind of prison reform that teaches valuable skills, other experts say the claim of job training is more evidence of hype around the promises of AI.

New results are in for a landmark experiment in basic income.

A Finnish man has been handed a whopping 54,000-euro fine for speeding, it's reported. Finland's speeding fines are linked to income, with penalties calculated on daily earnings, meaning high earners get hit with bigger penalties for breaking the law. So, when businessman Reima Kuisla was caught doing 103km/h (64mph) in an area where the speed limit is 80km/h (50mph), authorities turned to his 2013 tax return.

Tough Viking is the largest and toughest obstacle race series in the Nordics. This year, a total of nine races will be organised in the Nordic countries, two of which are in Finland. The first, the Arctic Tough Viking was held in Levi, Finland, and is the first extreme obstacle race in the world. The race was held 170km north of the Arctic Circle with over 300 participants and around 1,500 spectators.

Finland has one of the best education systems in the world. The prestigious PISA rankings place it among the world’s highest for maths, reading and science, and teachers flock to the country from all over the globe to learn from its success. It may come as a surprise, therefore, that Finland is undergoing a radical overhaul in its education system, dropping ‘teaching by subject’ in favour of ‘teaching by phenomenon’.

Credit: Roopesh Davda

How did Finland moved having the highest incarceration rate in Europe to having one of its lowest? Part of the answer lies in its open prisons, where prisoners — even those convicted of crimes like rape and murder — can be gradually eased back into normal life. “It’s quite relaxing to be here,” says Hannu Kallio, a convicted drug smuggler. “We have bunnies.” The 70 inmates in this facility go to work every day in the greenhouse. Today, they’re potting seedlings...

The Finnish navy drops underwater depth charges as a warning to a suspected submarine in waters near its capital, Helsinki.

Testing uploading and posting. The image is from midsummer 2013.

Finnish Police counter the Taxi Association's request and say that monitoring should be equal - not merely a tool to single out one operator.

Some toy and game shops sell sets of drinking games such as Beer Pong, which do not themselves include any alcohol. However, retail chains such as Tiger are allowed to refuse to sell of the games to minors.

For anyone who has ever grumbled about the plodding pace of play in baseball, the Finnish version of the game offers something previously unimaginable: America’s pastime without wasted time.

Love the tribe suggestion engine for suggesting Finland on that one. :)

Plans to build a Russian nuclear reactor in Finland suffered a setback on Thursday afterthe government said its probe into the ownership of a Croatian investor pointed to Russia. The Croatian company reported a net profit of just $20,000 last year and has Russia-born owners, its documents and Finnish media reports showed.

Welcome to the nerve-wracking reality of being Finland. By Masha Gessen.

Kimmo Kalliola knows the feeling that thousands of Finns have been dealing with over the last couple of years. He spent more than a decade working on geolocation positioning at Nokia, a highly technical job, but the Finnish tech giant hit hard times. In late 2012, Mr. Kalliola and 10,000 others at the company were laid off.

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Leo Komarov appears to be set to pay a heavy fine for speeding in Finland. According to Finnish news outlet Helsingin Sanomat, Komarov was fined more than 35,000 euros on Friday as result of two counts of speeding and two counts of fraud. The amount in Canadian dollars is more than $51,000.

Equipment used: Pentax K-30 body, Pentax-DA 35mm Macro Limited lens. Sunset picture taken with a Pentax-DA 18-55mm lens. Photos taken at Merijärvi and Kalajoki, Finland.

Finland's government on Thursday proposed increasing capital gains tax and income tax on high earners to help pay for a 10-fold increase in refugees expected to arrive this year, its finance minister said. The EU migrant crisis proposes a political as well as a financial challenge for the coalition, whose foreign minister, Timo Soini, heads the Eurosceptic party, The Finns, which campaigned for tighter controls on immigration.

Hundreds of predominantly Iraqi migrants who have travelled through Europe to reach Finland are turning back, saying they don't want to stay in the sparsely-populated country on Europe's northern frontier because it's too cold and boring. Migrants have in recent weeks been crossing back into Sweden at the Haparanda-Tornio border just an hour's drive south of the Arctic Circle, and Finnish authorities have...

The Finnish Social Insurance Institution is to begin drawing up plans for a citizens' basic income model. The preparation's director Olli Kangas says that full-fledged basic income would net Finns some 800 euros a month.

Basic income — the concept of giving people money with no strings attached— is having anything but a basic year. Three months ago, the Dutch city of Utrecht announced it would launch a program to give people on welfare unconditional free money. The plan was so popular that it has spread to more than two dozen Dutch towns. Now Finland wants in on the action. The big difference: the country wants to give money to everybody, not just people on welfare.

The Finnish Social Insurance Institution (KELA) has given some preliminary elements concerning Finland’s plan to experiment and then generalize the implementation of a basic income in the country. In its final version, the basic income would replace other benefits people currently receive, and would therefore be rather high, as indicated by Kela’s Research Department Director Olli Kangas. It is considered that all Finnish citizens would be paid an untaxed benefit sum free of charge by...

Imagine this: as you're worried about how to pay bills and make your rent, you get a check from the government for $876. Every month. That's what Finland is doing. The Nordic nation is getting closer this month to finalizing a solution to poverty: paying each of its 5.4 million people $876 tax-free a month — and in return, it will do away with welfare benefits, unemployment lines, and the other bureaucracy of its extensive social safety net.

The police in Finland arrested Iraqi twin brothers on Tuesday suspected of being members of the Islamic State and of shooting 11 unarmed prisoners in Iraq in June 2014, Finnish news reports said Thursday. Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday that the men had arrived in Finland in September and were arrested following an investigation. News reports said they did not resist arrest.

A Facebook campaign has been launched for Norway to give their flat Finnish neighbour a mountain that would become its new highest peak as a gift for the centenary of its independence. The campaign, “Halti as an anniversary gift” has won the support of the head of the Norwegian Mapping Authority, and been warmly received in Finland where one commentator claimed the gesture "would be remembered for a thousand years”.

If you're on the lookout for magical reindeer this year, don't bother gazing skyward... By Cara Giaimo.

In a tense and thrilling climax to the 2016 World Juniors, Kasperi Kapanen's overtime winner at 1:33 gave host Finland a 4-3 gold medal victory over Russia.