Good morning. In this edition:

• 🙏 Is America losing faith?
• 🎓 Harvard grade inflation
• ⚾ MLB MVPs

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.71-minute read (987 words).

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“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”

–Jim Rohn (1930-2009)

In recent years, the US has undergone a transition from a nation where religion is a key part of the day-to-day lives of most citizens, to one where it no longer holds much importance, according to new Gallup polling published yesterday.

What it found: Fewer than half of Americans (49%) say religion is currently an important part of their daily lives, the lowest level on record and down from 66% in 2015.

• That 17-point drop ranks among the largest recorded in any country over any 10-year period, dating back at least to 2007, per Gallup data from 160+ nations.
• However, the US still ranks higher than the median among the 38 OECD nations, where 36% of adults call religion important.

Driving the trend

While Gallup’s data doesn’t break down the demographics of US religion, outside experts say the ongoing exodus from organized religion is being led by Gen Z women.

They point to several factors behind the move:

• Some younger women take issue with religious gender hierarchies, the inability of women to serve in influential positions, or expectations of chastity placed upon girls.
• Others say they struggle with their church’s positions on reproductive rights and/or LGBTQ+ issues.

But, but: While Americans are increasingly placing less importance on religion, the number of people who identify as spiritual remains high. 74% of US adults called themselves spiritual in 2023-24, including half of Americans unaffiliated with any religion, per the latest Religious Landscape Study from Pew Research.

• Additionally, data from Christian research firm Barna Group pushes back against Gallup’s findings, showing that younger adults are actually driving a resurgence in church attendance and now outpace older generations in the pews.

Bottom line: The US no longer fits neatly into any global category of belief, possessing a medium-high Christian identity but only middling religiosity—a combination Gallup says is rarely seen in other nations.

📊 Flash poll: Is religion an important part of your daily life?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

🎓 At Harvard, the percentage of overall grades that are “A’s” has risen from ~25% in 2005-06 to ~60% as of 2024-25, with the median GPA now at 3.83, according to a school report.

🇺🇸 40% of women aged 15-44 say they'd like to leave the US permanently, more than twice the share of younger US men (19%), per new Gallup polling.

🛒 US holiday spending is set to top $1 trillion for the first time this year, at an average of $890.49/person, the National Retail Federation projects.

🏛️ The House of Representatives has only met for 87 voting days through October, the lowest figure on record for any year outside of 2021 (during Covid).

💰 Of the 256 signatories of Warren Buffet’s “The Giving Pledge”—a commitment he co-founded with Bill Gates in 2010 calling for billionaires to donate 50+% of their wealth to charity—just nine have followed through, per the Institute for Policy Studies.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📵 Verizon to cut ~15,000 jobs, or ~15% of its global workforce; it marks the wireless carrier’s largest job reduction in history.
• 🏘️ Foreclosure filings rose significantly again in October, following a string of historic lows in recent years, per property data firm Attom.
• 🐁 Disney reports better-than-expected earnings for last quarter, but fell below analysts’ projections on revenue; the company’s stock closed down 7.8%.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚾🏆 MLB awards: Aaron Judge (AL) and Shohei Ohtani (NL) both won MVP for the second straight year, in an MLB first; Tarik Skubal (AL) and Paul Skenes (NL) took home the Cy Young awards.
• 🃏 Peacock cancels Poker Face after two seasons; creator Rian Johnson is now looking to take the show to another outlet, with Peter Dinklage replacing Natasha Lyonne in the lead role.
• 📺 NBCUniversal to launch new cable sports channel on Monday called NBCSN, available on YouTube TV and Xfinity platforms; the channel will mostly carry sports that are also streamed on Peacock, including the NBA and Big Ten college football.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚀 Blue Origin lands booster of its New Glenn mega-rocket on a drone ship for the first time, after deploying the rocket’s first commercial payload; Jeff Bezos-led space company is the second to land a booster successfully, after SpaceX.
• 🤖 China’s state-sponsored hackers used AI tech from Anthropic to automate 80%-90% of a September hacking campaign targeting corporations and governments, the company revealed.
• ☄️ Startup TransAstra develops inflatable bag that can capture asteroids and space junk zooming through space.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🌿 Congressional bill to end the gov’t shutdown also included a clause that effectively bans most hemp products on a federal level; industry leaders say the measure threatens to wipe out ~95% of the $28 billion market.
• 🧑‍⚖️ DOJ sues to block new congressional map approved by California voters last week as part of Proposition 50, alleging an illegal racial gerrymander; CA’s move, which aims to give Democrats up to five more House seats, is framed as a response to similar new map drawn by the Texas GOP.
• 🏛️ Trump admin directs visa officers to consider chronic health conditions—including obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes—as reasons to deny foreigners from receiving US visas; new order cites potential costs of medical care to US taxpayers.

☝️ It took 40,000 hours of data to build the Milky Way’s sharpest portrait yet. Compiled by PhD student Silvia Mantovanini from two massive sky surveys, the image maps nearly 100,000 radio sources—from newborn stars to cosmic corpses—at twice the resolution, double the area, and 10x the sensitivity compared to its 2019 predecessor.

🤔 Did you know? Pink doesn’t actually exist. Unlike red, blue, or green, there’s no single wavelength of light that corresponds to the color pink. Instead, our brains invent the color by blending red and violet lights, two ends of the spectrum that don’t naturally meet.

📰 Worth a read: Is there a secret to having a ‘village’?

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• 5 road trips based on famous books and movies
• Choosing the Word of the Year is no easy feat
• The risks of giving ChatGPT more personality

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How well did you pay attention this week? Find out here.

1. A bookstore sells a set of books for $80. Tomorrow, the same set will go on sale for $60. What is the percent discount for the sale?
2. Arithmetic with Roman numerals: C + L + X = ?
3. A train departs at 7:35 AM and travels for 4 hours and 50 minutes (in the same time zone). At what time does it arrive?

🎃 Henry, a 1,200-lb polar bear, may have finally met his match: a 1,400-lb pumpkin. When a local farmer donated the gourd to Henry's habitat after Halloween, the bear promptly devoured it and slipped into a well-earned food coma. 

1. 25%
2. 160 (we’d also accept “CLX”—but you’ll earn a virtual groan)
3. 12:25 PM

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*Based on a 6-month retrospective matched case-control analysis of 723 Noom users and 723 non-Noom members based on Aetna data for a Noom Health Customer.