Morning Wire XX
[0] As housing prices continue to soar, homebuyers are abandoning big cities and seeking out affordable homes in unlikely places.
[1] We're seeing an accelerating trend of first -time homebuyers looking at more affordable markets as opposed to the traditional larger gateway markets.
[2] We'll take a look at the factors driving America's Great Migration.
[3] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[4] It's Thursday, April 28th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] The issue of schools and gender identity hits the courts in Massachusetts.
[6] Multiple families in the state are suing one school district, claiming that school staff actively encouraged their kids to transition.
[7] And as the dust settles after Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, we talked to a business expert about what a new era of pro -free speech policies could look like online.
[8] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[9] Stay tuned.
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[22] As real estate prices continue to soar nationwide, new home buyers have flooded out of large cities in search of affordable housing and more space elsewhere.
[23] Here with the details on which housing markets are growing fastest, and what the shift means for real estate markets moving forward is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
[24] So Cabot, first, let's start with some of the cities seeing the largest influx of new buyers.
[25] What can you tell us there?
[26] Yeah, the Wall Street Journal and Realtor .com.
[27] publish an emerging housing markets index each quarter that tracks which cities have the largest increase in new homebuyers and overall economic opportunity.
[28] And this quarter, the list was dominated by smaller cities in states like Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Indiana.
[29] And the number one market on their emerging markets list was actually Rapid City in South Dakota.
[30] So not exactly a place where people think of a real estate boom happening.
[31] Traditionally, these lists are dominated by larger cities on the west and east coasts.
[32] But this quarter, 10 of the top 15 emerging markets are in landlock states, particularly in the Midwest and Southeast.
[33] And what do we know about the driving factors behind this shift?
[34] So there are a few main elements here.
[35] First is the impact of COVID lockdowns, because we had basically a year -long period where a few, if any new houses were being built, that left the supply incredibly low, especially in larger cities and metro areas.
[36] That left homebuyers scrambling to other markets with more inventory.
[37] And the other element here, is just the shift towards remote work that we've seen happening, even though COVID lockdowns have ended, and most businesses are operating fully once again, a lot of companies are still allowing employees to stay remote.
[38] That means they're no longer tied to big cities where a lot of these places are based, and people can now seek out affordable housing in areas with more space if they choose.
[39] Now, how does this also relate to the recent increase in mortgage rates?
[40] Yeah, you bring up a good point.
[41] That's definitely playing a role here as well.
[42] In 2020, you'll remember the Fed dropped interest rates to near zero, which meant people could qualify for more expensive houses and cities they traditionally might not have been able to afford living in.
[43] But now with mortgage rates climbing back towards 6%, new homebuyers are really having to be stingier, and that's playing a role in forcing them into some of these smaller, more affordable cities.
[44] On that note, I talked to Mitch Rochelle, who founded MacroTrens Advisors, a real estate investment firm.
[45] Affordability remains the largest issue impacting first -time homebuyers and higher mortgage prices is making it even more difficult these days to buy a home.
[46] We're seeing this trend of first -time homebuyers looking in more affordable, smaller markets as opposed to the larger ones that traditionally have been way more expensive and out of reach.
[47] And keep in mind, all of this is happening as inflation continues to hit levels that we haven't seen in decades, which cuts down even more on purchasing power.
[48] So a lot of the traditionally strong housing markets are just too expensive for a lot of Americans these days.
[49] Right.
[50] We've also talked quite a bit on this show about how people are fleeing big cities for other reasons.
[51] So what can you tell us there?
[52] Yeah, thanks to new data, we're finally getting a picture of just how dramatic the shift away from big cities has been in the last year.
[53] According to the Census Bureau, the population of America's 50 largest cities dropped by 0 .16 % in 2021.
[54] Now, 0 .1%.
[55] That might not sound like much, but it's actually the first time on record that there's been a decline in population in America's largest cities.
[56] And it wasn't just a few outlier cities leading the way.
[57] 42 of the country's 56 major metro areas saw their lowest growth or.
[58] greatest decline in population in over a decade.
[59] For context, in 2011, there were just two cities that had a population decline.
[60] Wow.
[61] So big turnaround here.
[62] And at the same time, the data shows that non -metropolitan counties saw their highest annual growth rate in a decade.
[63] So the contrast here really could not be more stark.
[64] So beyond the rise of remote work, what else is driving the shift away from these big cities?
[65] Yeah, there are definitely other factors beyond just remote working.
[66] First is the rising cost of living.
[67] In the past year alone, as we've talked about on the show a good bit, rents rose in major cities exponentially, 12 % in Chicago, 16 % in Los Angeles, and 33 % in New York City.
[68] And that trend was seen in major cities across the country, and it's on top of the rising costs of other basic necessities that were already more expensive in cities to begin with.
[69] And crime is also playing a role here, too.
[70] It's harder to quantify, but rising rates of violent crime in most major cities have made the quality of living just go down for most residents, and clearly it made them look elsewhere to live.
[71] Right.
[72] And for variety of cultural reasons.
[73] I think some people think a small town life might sound good right about now.
[74] It's a pretty good life.
[75] All right.
[76] Well, Cabot, thanks so much for reporting.
[77] Anytime.
[78] That's Daily Wires, Cabot Phillips.
[79] Coming up, parents sue after they say their school district hid their children's gender identity changes.
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[84] The debate over parental rights versus the rights of LGBT students heats up.
[85] A group of parents in Massachusetts are suing a group of teachers and school administrators for intentionally concealing their children's gender identity changes at school.
[86] The parents say the district violated their rights as parents by encouraging their children to begin gender transition.
[87] Daily Wire investigative reporter Marade Allorty is here with the details for us.
[88] So Marade, tell us about this lawsuit.
[89] Sure, so this is two pairs of parents who are upset that their children were allegedly encouraged to change their gender identities in the Ludlow, Massachusetts school district near Springfield.
[90] In their lawsuit against the Ludlow School Committee, the parents say school staff acted with reckless disregard for their parental rights over their children.
[91] The plaintiffs are Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri, who have two.
[92] children at Baird Middle School and another couple, Jonathan Feliciano and Sandra Salmaron, who also have two children in the district.
[93] The lawsuit was filed earlier this month in federal court by two conservative groups, the Massachusetts Family Institute and the Child and Parental Rights Campaign.
[94] Okay, so this is two families each with two children who both change genders at school.
[95] Well, for now, we know the most details about Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri.
[96] In their case, both of their children were involved.
[97] So what's their case?
[98] How did the teachers allegedly conceal this information about the kids?
[99] So the parents claim the teachers encouraged the kids who were both minors at the time to start using new names and pronouns without the consent of their parents.
[100] This includes school staff having private conversations with the kids explicitly about their gender identity.
[101] The students were also given permission by staff to use the bathroom and locker room of their preferred gender identity.
[102] The parents claimed that all of this occurred without their knowledge.
[103] The parents also claim that one staff member, school counselor Marie Claire Funk, allegedly told some of the children that they were non -binary and asked the children if she could refer to them with non -binary pronouns.
[104] Funk also allegedly told students to refer to each other with gender neutral pronouns.
[105] According to the lawsuit, Funk also allegedly encouraged students to, quote, experiment with alternate gender identities.
[106] Also, according to the lawsuit, one of these middle school students sent an email to several teachers announcing that they were now genderqueer and requesting to use a new name, as well as the pronouns, she her, he him, they them, fei -ferre air, v, v. Ver, Xe -Sem, Xe -Ser.
[107] The guidance counselor on the email allegedly replied to the thread, advising all the adults on the thread to keep the information confidential from the child's parents.
[108] The parents did eventually learn about this, at which time they contacted the school and requested that the issue be handled as a family matter.
[109] They also requested that staff stop having private conversations about gender with their child.
[110] The school allegedly did not comply with their request.
[111] So what is the specific legal claim these parents are making?
[112] Is the school in violation of a specific law in their view?
[113] Well, the parents claim that the district's policy of affirming children's gender identities violates both state and federal law.
[114] The lawsuit argues that the Massachusetts Education Department's guidance on transgender students states that teachers should speak with students before discussing their gender identity with their parents in order to screen for safety concerns.
[115] However, for, quote, young students, the guidance says that parents should always be informed about the child's gender identity.
[116] The issue is that the guidance does not define what young students means.
[117] And has the school district responded at all to these allegations?
[118] Yes, but they didn't offer a lot of specifics.
[119] Ludlow School committee chair James Harrington called it a slippery slope and said, we want to support our students the best we can, but we should bring parents to the table and hope they respond in a loving and supportive way as well.
[120] Well, we've seen similar cases in California, Florida, and Wisconsin, so I guess we can add Massachusetts to the list.
[121] Marade, thanks for reporting.
[122] Thanks, Georgia.
[123] That's Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allorty.
[124] Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter has users and employees alike, wondering what the billionaire has planned for the company, particularly when it comes to protecting free speech on the platform.
[125] Joining us to discuss is best -selling author and entrepreneur Vivek Ramoswamy.
[126] So Vivek, Twitter, accepted this week Elon Musk's offer, which I was actually really surprised about.
[127] I was actually surprised.
[128] So what comes next?
[129] So the part that comes down, well, literally what comes next is they still have to closely.
[130] deal.
[131] So any big acquisition of this kind is still subject to FTC review.
[132] There's all kinds of governmental reviews.
[133] There's closing conditions that need to be met.
[134] Very few deals break apart.
[135] Certainly in the way this deal came together with respect to its public prominence and an all -cash offer, financing is not contingent.
[136] I fully expect it to close.
[137] My guess, three months, give or take, that would be kind of a reasonable time frame.
[138] All right.
[139] So if this goes through, what does Musk do first?
[140] A couple things that are basic table stakes here, right?
[141] He said he wants to make this a free speech platform, that is going to be easier said than done.
[142] Okay.
[143] The reason it's easier said than done is that Elon himself, correctly, in my opinion, wants to make sure that we remove and clean up a lot of the spam bot driven content.
[144] But how do you do that in a way that also turns Twitter into a free speech platform when part of what you want to get better at is removing certain kinds of constitutionally protected speech?
[145] I think here's a couple basic principles here.
[146] First principle, do not do anything for the government that the government could not do directly.
[147] That's what these platforms do day in and day out today.
[148] They're serving as the Censorship Bureau of the government.
[149] That practice should, and I predict will end under Elon Musk.
[150] Okay.
[151] Second thing, no viewpoint -based discrimination.
[152] And you argue in your piece for the journal that the best way to do that is democratically by allowing users to opt in to filters.
[153] What do you mean by that?
[154] Give the choice to the user.
[155] For example, let's say you don't like certain images and you flagged that as an image you don't want to see.
[156] It won't show you similar images in the future.
[157] future.
[158] That technology already exists.
[159] And the funny thing is, Elon, I think, could hopefully even rightly poke fun at the rest of big tech for taking this centralized censorship model, which is a relic of broadcast media, and say that, look, the technology exists today to do this in a decentralized way driven by AI.
[160] Let's do that.
[161] Okay, final question.
[162] Musk's purchase of Twitter is being billed by some as one of the most significant political moves in the last few decades.
[163] How big of a deal is this?
[164] A time will tell.
[165] I think it's an important outcome for capitalism in its own two terms, by the way, where a large shareholder was able to bring a different voice to the table that defected from the otherwise the cartel that runs the asset management industry that governs our capital markets.
[166] That was a big deal, just in terms of capitalism alone.
[167] In terms of implications for a democracy, I think this could be big to, depending on whether he actually delivers on a product that is both usable and financially sustainable included, while also sticking to the most important free speech principle of no viewpoint -based discrimination.
[168] I think if he does that, it could end up becoming one of the more important political moves of our time, especially if it has the effect of creating consumer demand and user demand for other big tech platforms to behave in the same way.
[169] Well, the world is certainly watching.
[170] So thanks for your time.
[171] Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
[172] That was entrepreneur and best -selling author Vivek Ramoswamy.
[173] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[174] Former U .S. Marine Trevor Reed has been released from a Russian prison in exchange for a convicted Russian drug trafficker.
[175] Reid was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2020 for endangering Russian law enforcement officers after a night out in Moscow.
[176] He denied the allegations.
[177] Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
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