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Senior friends celebrating birthday together.
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the 79ers

Americans can expect to live longer than ever, per the latest CDC data

Life expectancy at birth hit 79 in the US on average, though outcomes vary across state and economic boundaries.

Tom Jones

Toward the end of last year, US entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and man who measures pretty much every aspect of his existence, Bryan Johnson, tweeted that he hopes to achieve immortality by 2039. While not everyone is as committed as Johnson to the cause of living as long as possible — what a world that would be — new data shows that Americans are certainly looking a little healthier than in previous years.

The new report released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that newborn Americans in 2024 could expect to live to 79 on average, with the life expectancy figure having fully recovered from a pandemic-era dip to hit a new high.

US life expectancy chart
Sherwood News

Improvement was seen across both males and females in the US, and the chief of the National Center for Health Statistics’ Statistical Analysis and Surveillance Branch cited “improvements coming out of the pandemic” and “declines in overdose deaths” to explain the rise. Overdose-related deaths dropped over 26% in 2024 from the year before, The Wall Street Journal noted from the data, while the report also showed that the three leading causes of death in the US (heart disease, cancer, and unintentional injuries) also dropped.

Some famous current 79-year-old Americans include: former President George Bush, Cher, Sylvester Stallone, and President Donald Trump. Of course, life expectancies change once you’ve already reached a milestone — the headline figure is always based on the expectation from birth.

Live long (if you prosper)

Though state-level data for 2024 life expectancy is not yet available, the figures, as we’ve covered here in the past, do tend to vary quite wildly across the nation, with states where personal income per capita is higher than average seeing higher levels, in some cases by several years. Experts were also keen to point out the US’s lagging life expectancy by comparison to other wealthy nations.

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The most watched soccer match in US history got less than a third of the views the Super Bowl did

Between a top-spot finish in the group stage, a sweeping performance against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, and the president’s controversial intervention, Monday evening’s USMNT game against Belgium had, to put it lightly, shaped up into a box-office clash.

And though the US players’ performance on the pitch might not have lived up to the high drama off it, American soccer fans certainly showed up. According to early estimates, the 4-1 defeat against Belgium was the most watched soccer telecast in US history, hauling some 40 million viewers on average across the coverage on Fox and Telemundo.

That may be a record tally in the US for the sport that much of the world calls some variant of “football” — besting the 36.2 million who tuned in to watch the team’s previous knock-out match — but it’s still peanuts in comparison to the sport that shares the same name in the States.

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