Good morning. In this edition:

• 🇺🇸 Belief in the American Dream
• 📝 New Epstein files
• 🦕 Massive new dino species

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.65-minute read (971 words).

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"The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook."

–William James (1842-1910)

Uncle Sam’s economic ladder is missing more than a few rungs.

That’s according to the WSJ-NORC’s latest survey of Americans’ economic sentiment, published this week, which reveals record-low optimism about improving living standards across the US.

What they found:

• Just 25% of Americans say they have a good chance of improving their standard of living, an all-time low in surveys dating to 1987.
• Nearly 70% of people believe the American Dream—or the idea that hard work pays off—no longer holds true or never did, the highest level in nearly 15 years.
• 17% say the US economy stands above all others in the world, while 39% say other nations have better economies (a 15-point rise from 2021).
• 78% aren’t confident that life for the next generation will be better than their own.

The main wake-up call

Recent polling identifies the time period immediately following the Covid pandemic as when Americans’ opinions on economic mobility took a turn for the worse.

• From 1986-2020, the share of US adults who said they have a good chance of improving their standard of living was solidly above 50%.
• But ever since a 1.5-year break in data collection that ended in mid-2022, that share has consistently hovered around 25%.

On a similar note: A trio of Stanford researchers found that US economic sentiment moved largely in tandem with economic metrics from 2005 until Covid—then diverged, with sentiment turning more negative than predicted by traditional economic measures.

“Key” economic data vs. reality

The survey marks the latest evidence of a disparity between fairly promising economic data, and what many Americans are experiencing in their day-to-day lives.

• For example: While the stock market has reached dozens of new record-highs this year, participation is skewed towards the richest 10%, who own ~90% of all public equity wealth.

Big picture: The issue of growing inequality is leading voters in the US and other Western nations to increasingly turn to autocratic leaders, according to Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. Dalio this week said he thinks “what is happening now politically and socially is analogous to what happened around the world in the 1930-40 period.”

📊 Flash poll: Do you think the American Dream—that if you work hard you'll get ahead—still holds true, never held true, or once held true but doesn’t anymore?

• Still holds true
• Never held true
• Once held true, but doesn’t anymore

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🏢 Kraft Heinz to split back into two companies and reverse much of its blockbuster $46 billion merger from a decade ago; shares fell 7% on the day. | Activist investor Elliott has built a ~$4 billion stake in PepsiCo and is pushing for changes to turn around slumping share price. | Constellation Brands, owner of Modelo and Corona beers in the US, lowered full-year sales and profit outlook; move in large part due to falling demand among Hispanic customers.
• 👑 Gold prices rose above $3,500/ounce yesterday, surpassing April’s all-time peaks.
• 🧑‍⚖️ Google avoids harsh penalties for antitrust violations in US search market, sending shares up ~8% in after-hours trading; new federal judge ruling bars Google from entering into exclusive deals, but rejects forced spinoff of Chrome and other major penalties sought by DOJ.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with PensionBee

• 🍿 The domestic box office grossed $3.67 billion this summer—from May 1 through Labor Day—roughly even with last year; Disney ($1.02 billion) narrowly outpaced Warner Bros. ($980 million) for the lead.
• 🏈 Ohio State leads new AP Top-25 college football poll, followed by #2 Penn State, #3 LSU, #4 Georgia, and #5 Miami.
• 📰 Chloe Malle named new editorial chief at Vogue; it marks the first new leader at one of fashion’s most influential publications in 37 years.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚀 US Space Command will move from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama (aka “Rocket City”), President Trump announced yesterday. | Ancient black hole believed to have been created in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang discovered by NASA’s James Webb telescope.
• 🌏 US gov’t revokes Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC)’s authorization to ship key chipmaking equipment to China; starting Dec. 31, such shipments will require US export licenses.
• 🤖 Anthropic closes $13 billion funding round at a $183 billion valuation; it's ~3x what the AI startup was worth in March during its last raise.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🏛️ Federal judge rules President Trump’s June deployment of National Guard and Marine troops to Los Angeles was unlawful; decision cites 19th-century law prohibiting the use of federal forces for domestic law enforcement. | House committee releases 30,000+ pages of files it received from the DOJ regarding the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
• 🪙 Trump family’s flagship crypto venture began publicly trading its WLFI digital currency; move officially adds $5 billion in paper wealth to Trump and his relatives.
• 🌎 US military conducts airstrike against suspected drug vessel leaving Venezuela amid military build-up in the region; Venezuelan President Maduro—who’s accused by the Trump admin of leading a drug cartel—claims the US is seeking regime change via military threat.

☝️ Paleontologists in China recently unearthed Huashanosaurus qini, a brand-new species of early sauropod dino. The Jurassic-era giant stretched ~39 feet long—basically the size of four parked SUVs in a row.

🤔 Did you know? The world’s very first skyscraper, the 10-story Home Insurance Building, was built in Chicago in 1885. It was also the first tall building to be supported both inside and outside by a steel frame. At the time, some people were nervous about the idea and called its construction unsafe.

📰 Worth a read: Chinese money launderers are moving billions through US banks

🖱️ Clickbait: Ranking America's 25 best pizzerias

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How it works: We provide an incorrect stat. Your challenge is to guess whether the actual number is over or under the given value.

1. 🏈 65 yards: Longest NFL field goal ever made (preseason doesn’t count)
2. 🗣️ 20,000: Average words spoken by a person each day
3. 🍎 500: Varieties of apples grown worldwide

🚑 76-year-old Ed Levien has responded to 3,300+ emergency calls, and worked 13,000+ unpaid hours as a Maryland EMT. Read his story here. 

1. 🏈 Over; Justin Tucker kicked a 66-yard field goal in 2021
2. 🗣️ Under; 16,000 words
3. 🍎 Over; at least 7,500 varieties