Good morning. In this edition:

• 🌿 Trump marijuana order
• 🇺🇸 America’s time-traveling desires
• 📲 TikTok signs US divestment deal

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.13-minute read (1,099 words).

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“When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself.”

–Earl Nightingale (1921-1989)

Yesterday, President Trump officially signed an executive order that will relax federal restrictions on marijuana and instruct agencies to reclassify it as a less dangerous drug.

Somewhere, Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg are sharing a celebratory joint.

How we(ed) got here

Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule I substance, alongside other drugs considered to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use (like heroin, LSD, and ecstasy). But in 2022, the US government began considering whether to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III substance instead.

As part of that review, FDA researchers investigated the existing scientific and medical evidence regarding marijuana, and found three main data points to support the drug’s reclassification:

1. Marijuana doesn’t seem to elicit serious outcomes compared to other Schedule I drugs, even in products with high levels of THC (the main psychoactive ingredient).
2. “Some credible level of scientific support” exists for using marijuana as a therapeutic treatment.
3. Marijuana withdrawal is less serious than other hard drugs or alcohol, and more similar to that of tobacco.

The potential impact

While reclassifying marijuana to Schedule III wouldn’t affect the drug’s illegal status on a federal level, doing so would open up a wide range of new opportunities for businesses across America.

• Marijuana companies could write off normal business expenses, saving the industry hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
• The marijuana industry could finally have access to banking services and institutional investment, instead of being banned due to Schedule I status.
• US scientists could study the effects of marijuana on human patients, expanding on current—but incomplete—research that indicates risks like anxiety and dependence alongside some potential health benefits.

Zoom out: Nearly two-thirds of US adults (64%) currently believe using cannabis should be legal, down slightly from a record-high 70% in 2023, per a Gallup poll published last month. 

Nationwide, marijuana has been approved for recreational use in 24 states plus Washington, D.C., while another 23 states allow marijuana use for certain medical purposes, per the CDC.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should using cannabis be legal or not?

• Legal for everyone
• Medical use only
• Not legal for everyone
• Unsure/other

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

🪙 The final batch of US pennies—a collection of 232 three-cent sets—sold for a collective $16.8 million at auction late last week, including an $800,000 sum for the last three pennies ever made.

📆 If given the opportunity to travel through time to any possible point, 45% of US adults choose living in the past, 40% choose staying in the present, and just 14% choose going to the future.

✍️ President Trump has issued 221 executive orders since taking office in January for his second term. It’s the highest mark for any US presidential term since Jimmy Carter (1977-81).

🌐 There are 2,778 new data centers under construction or planned across the US, adding to the 4,149 already in operation, per a new analysis. Virginia leads the way in both existing (663) and planned (595) data centers.

🏌️ World #1 golfer Scottie Scheffler was named the PGA Tour Player of the Year for a fourth consecutive time, the longest streak since Tiger Woods won a record five times in a row from 1999-2003.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 Consumer Price Index rose 2.7% in November compared to a year earlier, down from 3.0% in September; core annual inflation (excluding volatile food and energy costs) stood at 2.6% last month, lower than economists’ expectations; report had been delayed by recent gov’t shutdown.
• 📲 TikTok signs deal to divest its US entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors, per multiple reports; Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will collectively own 45% of the US entity, while ~30% will be held by existing ByteDance investors, and ~20% will be retained by ByteDance; deal is expected to close on January 22.
• 🏢 OpenAI reportedly aims to raise up to $100 billion at a valuation of up to $830 billion to fund ambitious growth plans. | Trump Media is merging with Alphabet-backed TAE Technologies, a nuclear fusion firm, in all-stock deal valued at $6+ billion.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 College Football Playoffs kick off tonight with #8 Oklahoma hosting #9 Alabama (7 pm CT), followed by a full slate of three playoff games on Saturday.
• 🙏 Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, 55, and his family were among seven people killed in a plane crash Thursday in Statesville, North Carolina.
• 🏛️ White House says John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts will be renamed the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” after the center’s board of trustees—who were appointed by President Trump—“voted unanimously” on the change; reports say it’s not immediately clear whether the board has authority to change the name.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌌💥 Astronomers capture first direct images showing collisions between large objects in a planetary system beyond our own.
• 🐝 New study of fossilized bones from the Caribbean island of Hispaniola provides first direct evidence of bees using bones to nest and lay eggs,
• 🧪 Science in 2026: The journal Nature published a list of the top scientific events to watch for next year, including missions to explore the moons of Earth and Mars, and a massive ocean-floor drill.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🚨 Law enforcement identifies a possible suspect in connection with this weekend’s mass shooting at Brown University, and are looking into whether the shooter is linked to the murder of an award-winning MIT nuclear scientist 50 miles away, per multiple reports.
• 🗣️ President Trump gave a prime-time address to the nation late Wednesday, highlighting his administration's work on the economy, health care, and immigration; Trump also announced a $1,776 dividend to every US soldier. Watch the address here.
• 🏛️ House votes 216–211 to approve a package of Republican-proposed healthcare provisions framed as an alternative to extending ACA subsidies; the GOP bill includes funds for cost-sharing reductions, pharmacy benefit manager industry reforms, and expanded association health plans.

☝️ Astronomers recently discovered a bizarre, lemon-shaped planet in part of what's called a “black widow” system. The planet, which orbits around a tiny and rapidly spinning pulsar, has been distorted into an oblong shape due to the intense gravitational pull of its star.

🤔 Did you know? Hibernating animals don’t dream. Hibernation is a different state that’s far less physiologically active than sleep, and requires animals to substantially reduce all activities—including the brain functions that control dreaming—to conserve energy for long periods of time.

📰 Worth a read: Disney was in distress during the late 1940s. Then Cinderella came to the rescue

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• Top baby name trends that’ll be everywhere in 2026
• The best chocolate chip cookie recipe, according to science
• 45 terrific slang terms from the last century

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

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1. A code uses two different digits from 1–9. How many codes are possible?
2. Solve for X in this equation: 4X + 6 = 2X + 18
3. A number is squared and then decreased by 11. The final result is 70. What was the original number?

🎄 A 63-year-old man recently took holiday spirit to an extreme, belting out 684 Christmas songs over 42 straight hours to claim a world record. The rules allowed five-minute breaks every hour, and just 20 seconds between songs.

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