Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, opposite Estonia. Finland covers an area of 338,145 square kilometres (130,559 sq mi) and has a population of 5.6 million. Helsinki is the capital and largest city. The vast majority of the population are ethnic Finns. The official languages are Finnish and Swedish; 84.9 percent of the population speak the first as their mother tongue and 5.1 percent the latter. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to boreal in the north. The land cover is predominantly boreal forest biome, with more than 180,000 recorded lakes.
David Brooks is a Canadian-born American conservative political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times. He has worked as a film critic for The Washington Times, a reporter and later op-ed editor for The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard from its inception, a contributing editor at Newsweek, and The Atlantic Monthly, in addition to working as a commentator on NPR and the PBS NewsHour.
Beverly Atlee Cleary was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction. One of America's most successful authors, 91 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide since her first book was published in 1950. Some of her best known characters are Ramona Quimby and Beezus Quimby, Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy, and Ralph S. Mouse.
Helsingin Sanomat, abbreviated HS and colloquially known as Hesari, is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. Its name derives from that of the Finnish capital, Helsinki, where it is published. It is considered a newspaper of record for Finland.
Lionel Shriver is an American author and journalist who lives in Portugal. Her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005.
Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist and editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine. During his nine years at The Atlantic prior to becoming editor, Goldberg became known for his coverage of foreign affairs. Goldberg became moderator of the PBS program Washington Week in August 2023, while continuing as The Atlantic's editor.
The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common in the Nordic countries. This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining based on the economic foundations of social corporatism, and a commitment to private ownership within a market-based mixed economy – with Norway being a partial exception due to a large number of state-owned enterprises and state ownership in publicly listed firms.
NATO is an international military alliance consisting of 32 member states from Europe and North America. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Article 5 of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary. Article 6 of the treaty limits the scope of Article 5 to the islands north of the Tropic of Cancer, the North American and European mainlands, the entirety of Turkey, and French Algeria, the last of which has been moot since July 1962. Thus, an attack on Hawaii, Puerto Rico, French Guiana, the Falkland Islands, Ceuta or Melilla, among other places, would not trigger an Article 5 response.
Stephen Marche is a Canadian novelist, essayist, and cultural commentator. He is an alumnus of the University of King's College and City College of New York (CUNY). In 2005, he received a doctorate in early modern English drama from the University of Toronto. He taught Renaissance drama at CUNY until 2007, when he resigned in order to write full-time.
Trevor Corson is a book author, magazine journalist and essayist, editor, and teacher. He is the author of the books The Secret Life of Lobsters and The Story of Sushi. He has written about a wide range of topics for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Prospect, The Nation and other publications.
Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article on the risk of a major earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Northwest. In 2023, she won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography.
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is an author who has written on the role of women and girls in foreign policy. She has held private sector roles in emerging technology for national security as well as financial services. She serves as an adjunct senior fellow at the Women and Foreign Policy Program with the Council on Foreign Relations and has written the New York Times bestsellers The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (2011), Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield (2015) and The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice (2021). A graduate of the University of Missouri and the Harvard Business School, Lemmon has covered a variety of topics such as women's entrepreneurship, women in the military, forced and child marriage, Syria and Afghanistan. She has also served as a board member of the Mercy Corps and the International Center for Research on Women, and as a member of the Bretton Woods Committee. She speaks Spanish, German, French and is conversant in Dari and basic Kurmanji.
Sara Maria Forsberg, formerly known professionally as SAARA, Smo, Smoukahontas, or Smokahontas, is a Finnish singer, songwriter, YouTube personality, and television presenter. As a singer, Forsberg was signed to Capitol Records in 2014 and released her debut single "Ur Cool" in April 2015, which went on to become a top ten hit in her home country of Finland. She left in early 2016 after disagreements with the label and her producer. Forsberg has continued to release music as an independent artist in affiliation with Universal Music Group. As of November 2017, her YouTube channel has more than a million subscribers and over 100 million views.
Emmi Elina Itäranta is a Finnish novelist. Her debut novel Memory of Water was published by HarperCollins in 2014.
The Jyväskylä library stabbing took place on January 30, 2013, when members of the Finnish Resistance Movement, a branch of the Nordic Resistance Movement, had organized a demonstration in the city of Jyväskylä, Finland, and protesters assaulted three individuals as a group.
Jessikka Aro is a Finnish journalist working for Finland's public service broadcaster Yle and an author of a non-fiction book Putin's Trolls. In September 2014, she began to investigate pro-Russian Internet trolls, but became a victim of their activities herself. This harassment led to three people being convicted in October 2018. In 2019 she was notified that she was to receive an International Women of Courage Award from the U.S. Department of State but this was rescinded just before the ceremony.
Finland has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 4 April 2023.
Bordertown is a Finnish crime drama and Nordic noir television series created by Miikko Oikkonen and starring Ville Virtanen as detective inspector Kari Sorjonen. The first season, which consisted of eleven episodes, premiered in Finland on 16 October 2016 on Yle TV1. Season two, containing ten episodes, premiered on 7 October 2018, and season three, containing another ten episodes, premiered in December 2019.
Laura Huhtasaari is a Finnish politician and teacher. As a member of the Finns Party, she has represented Satakunta in the Parliament of Finland from April 2015 to July 2019. She was the Finns Party candidate for the 2018 Finnish presidential election. In 2019 Huhtasaari was elected to the European Parliament with 92,760 votes
Mimosa Helena Willamo is a Finnish actress. In 2015, she was awarded a Jussi Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Headfirst.
