Christianity is starting to make a comeback in the U.S. and other Western countries, led by young people, Axios' Erica Pandey reports.

• Why it matters: A decades-long decline has stalled, shaping the future of Gen Z, the drivers of the religious revival.

💡 "We've seen the plateau of non-religion in America," says Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University. "Gen Z is not that much less religious than their parents, and that's a big deal."

By the numbers: Data from Pew shows that, for decades, each age group has been less Christian than the one before it.

• Americans born in the 1970s are 63% Christian. 1980s babies are 53% Christian, and 1990s babies are 46% Christian.
• But there was no decline from the 1990s to the 2000s. Americans born in the 2000s are also 46% Christian.

⛪ Stunning stat: Gen Z-ers — especially Gen Z men — are actually more likely to attend weekly religious services than millennials and even some younger Gen X-ers, Burge's analysis shows.

Between the lines: Young men are leading the resurgence.

• Within older generations, there's a consistent gender gap among Christians, with women more likely to be religious than men.
• Within Gen Z, the gap has closed, as young men join the church and young women leave it. If the current trajectory sticks, the gender gap will flip.

🔎 Zoom in: Many young people have turned to religion to find community and connection after the isolating years of the pandemic, which hit Gen Z harder than most.

• In some ways, this trend mirrors men's shift to the political right. "Religion is coded right, and coded more traditionalist" for young people, Derek Rishmawy, who leads a ministry at UC Irvine, told The New York Times.
• For some young men, Christianity is seen as "one institution that isn't initially and formally skeptical of them as a class," Rishmawy told the Times.

🌍 Zoom out: The resurgence is global.

• "In France, the Catholic Church has baptized more than 17,000 people, the highest yearly number of entrants in over 20 years," New York Times columnist David Brooks writes.
• The share of British people 18-24 who attend church at least monthly jumped from 4% in 2018 to 16% today, including a 21% gain among young men, according to research from the Bible Society.

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A federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked the White House from firing hundreds of thousands of government employees in a ruling late last night, Axios' Emily Peck reports.

Why it matters: It's the latest and broadest setback for President Trump's and DOGE's chainsaw efforts to radically slash and burn the federal government.

• The ruling pauses for two weeks firings that would block critical services for millions of Americans, including Social Security help, occupational safety and pre-school for poor children.

📖 State of play: In her 42-page ruling, Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee, explained that the president does have the right to change the executive branch, but must do so lawfully, and with the cooperation of Congress.

• "Federal courts should not micromanage the vast federal workforce, but courts must sometimes act to preserve the proper checks and balances between the three branches of government."

🔎 The ruling cites examples from the plaintiffs' sworn declarations to illustrate the stakes, like the termination of critical services that had been authorized by Congress, including:

• The order to fire 221 of 222 employees at The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, who research health hazards faced by mineworkers.
• A threat to cut 7,000 employees from the Social Security administration, which is already seeing long wait times, problems with its website and difficulty making in-person appointments.

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Powerful foundations from across the spectrum — including the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation — are discussing ways to protect their tax-exempt status from any incursion by President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• Why it matters: "The Trump administration hasn't explicitly pledged to revoke foundations' tax-exempt status, though it is exploring ways to challenge the tax-exempt status of nonprofits," The Journal notes.

🔭 Community, corporate and faith-based foundations from nearly all 50 states are part of the effort, The Journal found.

• Some call it a coalition. Others say it's less defined.

"Many of the foundations have discussed whether to seek legal representation as a class or individually should their tax status come under fire," The Journal reports.

• Some of the foundations "have been covering part of the legal and communications expenses behind the effort."

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The number of people with full-time equivalent jobs as digital creators in the U.S. jumped from 200,000 in 2020 to 1.5 million in 2024, Axios' Kerry Flynn and Sara Fischer report.

• Why it matters: Creators — or influencers — are now the largest and fastest-growing segment of the 28.4 million internet-dependent jobs in the U.S.

By the numbers: The study, from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and written in conjunction with Harvard Business School professor emeritus John Deighton, found creator jobs have grown 7.5x since 2020.

• Creator media revenue is growing five times the rate of the traditional media sector, the researchers found.

The big picture: The internet-supported economy of $4.9 trillion accounts for 18% of U.S. GDP and is the leading driver of growth.

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As people moved across America for work in the late 20th century, our regional accents started to disappear. Now, we sound more and more the same.

• A series of research papers published in December documented the diminishment of the Southern accent among Black residents of the Atlanta area, white working-class people in the New Orleans area, and people who grew up in Raleigh, AP reports.

🌴 The intrigue: Southern twang has been replaced among the youngest speakers in the 21st century with a dialect that was first noticed in California in the late 1980s, according to recent research from linguists at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Brigham Young University.

• That dialect, which was also detected in Canada, has become a pan-regional accent as it has spread to other parts of the U.S., including Boston, New York and Michigan, contributing to the diminishment of their regional accents.

President Trump and Vice President Vance are publicly criticizing Russian leader Vladimir Putin in starker terms than in the past.

• But the MAGA base isn't piling on — and remains as skeptical of Ukraine as ever, Axios' Tal Axelrod reports.

Why it matters: Big voices in the base still say they trust the White House as it tries to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine — they just aren't shedding their longstanding skepticism of Kyiv as talks continue.

• Jack Posobiec, a top MAGA podcaster, told us: "In general, the MAGA base is not on board with extending or expanding the war, and trust Trump when he is in negotiation mode. But I don't think extra payments [to Ukraine] will go over well."

⚡ Catch up quick: Trump and Vance — who had an Oval Office altercation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — have recently been name-checking Putin more.

• After Russia shot missiles at civilian areas in Ukraine last month, Trump said of Putin: "It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through 'Banking' or 'Secondary Sanctions?'"
• Vance this week said that Russia was "asking for too much," later clarifying that Putin was seeking to control Ukrainian territory Moscow doesn't even occupy as part of a peace deal.

Still, after months of hearing about Zelensky as the chief obstacle to a ceasefire deal over his repeated requests for aid, the base has built up animosity toward the Ukrainian leader.

• Sean Spicer — Trump's first White House press secretary, who now hosts his own podcast — told Axios: "Two things can be true at once. Russia has overplayed its hand and missed President Trump's offer for a lasting peace. Ukraine is still an issue for most in MAGA world."

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The first American pope's papal name is very on trend, at least here in the U.S., Axios' Asher Price reports.

• Since bottoming out at No. 486 in 1995, it's been gaining popularity at a dizzying clip — reaching a new height of No. 18 in 2023.

Trends aside, the new pope is said to have chosen his name as a nod to Pope Leo XIII, elected in 1878, who was committed to the social teaching of the church.

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The internet's latest obsession is a wild hypothetical: 100 unarmed men versus one gorilla, who wins?

• Nothing brings people together like a wacky online debate. So we asked the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium's expert to weigh in, Axios Columbus' Alissa Widman Neese writes.

Gorillas are "gentle giants," making the scenario of a fight even more unimaginable, says zoo vice president of animal care and conservation Jan Ramer. There has never been a documented instance of a gorilla killing a human.

• "They'll shove and punch or make a big display if their family is threatened, but we'd do the same," says Ramer, a gorilla keeper for many years who worked in Africa with the Gorilla Doctors conservation group.

🤔 So, back to the original question: Who would win? Well, it depends on the competition.

• "If it's a chess match, the human wins. If it's surviving alone in a forest for 10 years, the gorilla wins. If it's tug-of-war, I think the 100 men are probably going to win," Ramer says.

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