🌊 Gen Z: Gay and Christian?

Sad news from Santa Fe…

Hollywood legend Gene Hackman, his wife, and his dog were found dead in their home yesterday afternoon. Police suspect no foul play, but an investigation is underway.

For our Gen Z and Millennial readers, Gene Hackman had one of Hollywood’s most prolific careers. The winner of two Academy Awards, Hackman starred in everything from Unforgiven and French Connection to Hoosiers and Superman. Before acting, he lied about his age to enlist in the Marines at 16. RIP to a true legend.

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Gen Z Trends

A new Gallup poll found that a record 9.3% of US adults identify as LGBTQ+, while a Pew survey found that the decline in Christianity has ended – trends both driven by Gen Z

• Gallup found that 22.7% of Gen Z adults now identify as LGBTQ+, including 31% of women and 12% of men. Most people who identify as LGBTQ+ identify as bisexual

• Pew, meanwhile, found that the share of Americans who identify as Christians has steadied at roughly 62% after over a decade of decline – a trend researchers attribute to growing rates of Christianity among Gen Z adults

Dig Deeper

• Pew’s study found that Gen Z adults appear to be defying the trend of each generation becoming less religious. The group now shows similar religious identification levels as those born in the 1990s, with notably smaller gender gaps in religious practice

• Meanwhile, atheism’s growth has slowed dramatically and nearly come to a halt

KEY STORY

UnitedHealth Under Investigation

The head of the Senate Judiciary Committee accused UnitedHealth of fraud

• UnitedHealth is the world’s largest healthcare provider and eighth-largest company by revenue

• On Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) accused United of ripping off the US government by filing fraudulent diagnoses to patients' Medicare records

• The diagnoses weren’t real or treated, but the government allegedly paid United for simply issuing them

• The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that such payments cost the government $12B+ per year

Dig Deeper

• The Judiciary Committee’s letter comes shortly after the Department of Justice launched an investigation into UnitedHealth Group’s Medicare billing practices

• The DOJ has also been probing the company for antitrust violations

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KEY STORY

WaPo Goes Right?

Jeff Bezos announced the Washington Post’s traditionally liberal opinion page will shift right

• The Washington Post – arguably the US’ third-most influential paper after the New York Times and Wall Street Journal – has been struggling, facing declining readership and financial losses

• In the last year, Bezos, who bought the paper in 2013, has apparently sought to pull the traditionally liberal publication to the center or right

• On Wednesday, Bezos went one step further, declaring that the traditionally liberal opinion page will now “be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: Personal liberties and free markets”

• He added, “Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others”

Dig Deeper 

• Bezos wrote, “There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job”

• “I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion,” he added

• He said the existing opinion editor would not be leading the revised section

• The move shifts the paper from competing with the also-liberal New York Times opinion page to competing with the Wall Street Journal’s conservative one

• It comes amid a feud within the family of Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch, some of whose children have vowed to eliminate conservative opinions when their father (93) cedes control

KEY STORY

Intel Staff Chats Exposed

100+ US intelligence staffers were fired on Tuesday after reports of sexually explicit discussions on a government chat tool intended for sensitive security matters

• On Monday, conservative journalist Christopher Rufo published an article titled “The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats.” It exposed chats on NSA servers where staffers talked about being in a “polycule” and gender reassignment surgery while calling their new boss – Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard – a “Russian agent” who is “fervently anti-queer”

• On Tuesday, Gabbard stated that over 100 intelligence officers had been fired, calling the discussions an “egregious violation of trust”

Dig Deeper

• Gabbard also sent a memo across the intelligence community asking agencies to identify all employees involved, stating, “People are stepping forward because they are all on board with the mission to clean house and refocus on our core mission of serving the American people”

• In a TV appearance, she added that she had directed officers to “clean house, root out that rot and corruption, and weaponization and politicization, so we can start to rebuild that trust in these institutions”

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

📉 Tesla's market cap has dropped below the $1T valuation mark, marking a 38% decline from its December high

🇺🇸 The Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly advanced a bill encompassing Trump's major policy priorities

📖 CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson are co-authoring a book entitled, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again”

💲 Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on the European Union, claiming the bloc "was formed to screw the United States"

🛢️ Years after announcing a major shift toward green energy, BP announced it would sharply cut clean energy investments and boost oil production

What does Roca Nation think?

🧠 Yesterday’s Question: Let’s lighten up. Tell us a fun fact about your home town (or any town you’ve lived in).

🧐 Today’s Question: Why do you think the growth in atheism has slowed and Gen Z is more religious?

Reply here with your answer!

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

✈️ Nightmare Flight: A couple was forced to sit next to a passenger who died mid-flight during a long-haul trip from Australia to Qatar

🐒 Monkey See, Monkey Pee: Japanese researchers discovered that peeing is contagious among chimpanzees, with lower-ranking chimps more likely to follow the urination of higher-status group members

🧙‍♀️ Harry Potter IRL?: A new study revealed that an alarming 14,000 social work assessments related to witchcraft accusations against children have been recorded in England since 2015, with 2,180 cases in the past year alone

📧 Jail Mail: Luigi Mangione, held in a New York City jail after being charged with killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in December, has requested that “fans” refrain from sending him more than five pictures at a time

🐤 Boneless Wing Bill: After the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that customers who order boneless chicken wings should expect bones, a lawmaker has introduced a bill aiming to hold food companies accountable for food-induced injuries

ROCA WRAP
Funeral Feast

Guizhou

Foodies in this Chinese province are posing as mourners to try a funeral home's viral noodles.

A mountainous province in southwestern China, Guizhou is known for its distinctive cuisine featuring spicy and sour flavors. The region's culinary traditions have developed from its diverse ethnic minority cultures and challenging terrain, which historically limited access to ingredients from other areas.

The latest example of this unique cuisine is available in an unlikely place: The Erlong Funeral Home, whose canteen has become an unexpected culinary hotspot after its noodle dishes, particularly those topped with minced pork and peanuts, went viral on Chinese social media. Both delicious and cheap – a bowl costs just 10 yuan ($1.38) – crowds have reportedly been coming from far and wide.

The funeral home canteen was originally intended only for mourners. Now, visitors are pretending to be relatives of the deceased to gain access. Staff have reported that queues sometimes stretch for hours, with one social media user noting that "the queue for food is longer than the queue to lay flowers for the deceased."

To manage the situation, Erlong has announced it will offer 50 free bowls of noodles daily to the general public, provided they "do not affect people's mourning." The compromise aims to satisfy food enthusiasts while maintaining respect for the facility's primary purpose.

ROCA VIDEO
How DC Became America's Richest City... By Far

ICYMI from earlier this week!

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Thank you to the person whose fun fact about their home town — New York City — is home to the Empire State Building. Folks, it’s this kind of scoop that makes RocaNews so special. If you just read Big News, you’d think New York was a quaint little seaside shanty town.

Have a great day!

–Max and Max