Your customized headlines for Fri, Mar 30, 2012

Of all the phrases bestowed to us by the Founding Fathers, few come up more than "pursuit of happiness." Yet who knows where the nation really stands on that score?

Now an answer may be forthcoming. Amid a wave of research on the subject, the federal government is seeking ways to measure what some have called gross national happiness.

President Obama on Thursday called on Congress to end tax breaks for oil companies in a populist speech that sought to turn the blame for gas prices nearing $4 a gallon back onto his Republican critics.

Three days of oral arguments at the Supreme Court have given Republicans reason for optimism that President Obama's health-care law could be heading for a legal defeat in a few months. But would such a victory for the GOP this summer mean political success for the party in November and beyond?

The District has selected six companies to grow marijuana and supply medical cannabis to users — clearing the way for growers to start producing hundreds of plants in as little as a month.

The Health Department is expected to announce Friday that it has selected the winning bidders for cultivating plants that will feed the dispensaries city officials hope to approve by the summer. All the growers will be in Northeast, including a company partly owned by celebrity talk show host Montel Williams.

The union representing workers at Safeway and Giant Food said Thursday it reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract two days before the current one was set to expire.

Mark Federici, secretary and treasurer of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400, said after more than a month of bargaining the two sides came to deal that could be presented to his 17,000 members. He declined to give details of the agreement until union members reviewed it, but said that health care, wages and pensions were among the key issues.

—Jonathan Gruber has eight parrots, and other fun facts about the individual mandate's intellectual godfather.

—How reading poetry is like psychotherapy.

—How your brain is like Manhattan

—SO INTENSE: Reader photos of Washington D.C.'s double rainbow late Wednesday.

It's one of the biggest misconceptions about the housing crisis: the belief that the government's policies to promote affordable housing — particularly through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — fanned the flames of the subprime mortgage market, ultimately bringing down the entire economy.

There's been a lot of attention paid to the wave of abortion restrictions that states passed in 2011, more than any year in three decades. What's gotten less attention is that in 2012, a lot of very similar restrictions have had trouble gaining traction. Here's more from Abby Rapoport: