Marketplace All-in-One

Home prices? Up. Mortgage rates? Also up. Demand for mortgages? Not so much. Today, we check in with a Los Angeles-based mortgage broker for a deep dive into the cooling of the housing market. Also on the program: Demand for coal sees a (likely temporary) boost, April wildfires underscore the growing costs of the climate crisis and the Pell Grant program is expanded for incarcerated students.

More people will soon have access to Pfizer’s Paxlovid COVID treatment. After initial supply limits, the Biden administration says the country now has plenty available and that it wants more locations to offer the drug. We talk to Marketplace’s Nova Safo about how the drug may soon become widely available in pharmacies. Blackstone, one of the country’s largest investors, will purchase a massive office complex called PS Business Parks, signaling a shift back toward office work after the pandemic drove people to work at home. The negligent homicide case involving a nurse is being closely monitored by medical professionals who worry it could set a precedent of criminalizing medical mistakes.

Few industries have been impacted by pandemic-driven disruptions quite like the construction business. Whether it’s a lack of building materials or a shortage of workers, construction companies have been wading through one challenge after another for years. For more on this, we take the “Economic Pulse” with Maurice Rahming, president of O’Neill Construction Group in Portland, Oregon. Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has raised questions about what the tech billionaire is trying to accomplish — we speak to Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, about the deal.

From the BBC World Service: What to do about the besieged city of Mariupol is expected to be top of the list of subjects the U.N.’s Antonio Guterres and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin are expected to focus on. Plus, is Beijing next for a citywide lockdown as China sticks to its zero COVID strategy? And, why U.K. drugstores are reporting shortages of hormone replacement therapy.

Twitter officially accepted a buyout offer from Elon Musk on Monday valued at $44 billion. Musk is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, the richest person in the world and has been described as something of a memelord on Twitter. He’s praised the platform as a bastion of free speech but he has some ideas to make it … more free: more transparency about the algorithm, maybe an edit button and less content moderation. What he’s not after, he’s said, is making money. Then he’s in the right place, says Amy Webb, a futurist and founder of the Future Today Institute.

Plenty of things to make us go huh on this Monday edition of Make Me Smart. Of course, there’s the news surrounding billionaire Elon Musk, who’s very real offer to purchase Twitter was accepted by the company’s board of directors today. We’ll get to that after we talk about a dip in global oil demand following the wave of lockdowns across China as that country deals with new COVID-19 outbreaks. We’ll end the show with a couple of Make Me Smiles, including one about a small town jumping through hoops for recognition.

Here’s everything we talked about on the show today:

Have a question or comment about something you heard on the show?  Email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at 508-827-6278 or 508-U-B-SMART.

Mere days after announcing he wanted to purchase the social network, Elon Musk has reached a deal with Twitter ⁠— a $44 billion buyout. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, wants to take the company private and change how it moderates content. Is there more to this deal than free speech? We’ll dig in. Plus: Why rising prices impact everyone differently and how companies came to serve shareholders first.

CNN reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars on developing CNN+ before canceling it last week. Warner Bros. Discovery’s shuttering of the service could affect other companies in the video news industry, which may be less willing to invest in that type of news streaming service going forward. Markets in Asia are reacting to rising COVID-19 cases in Beijing, which some may say could lead to a city-wide lockdown as seen in Shanghai. Girl Scouts added an online story to sell cookies to during the pandemic: online stores, but some parents are concerned it isn’t the same when it comes to developing crucial skills.

The war in Ukraine is worsening debt risk in developing countries. Rising commodity prices, higher borrowing rates, and other factors are making the economic situation harder for countries like Sri Lanka. For more, we spoke with William Jackson, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics. Elon Musk and Twitter are reportedly in talks for the social media platform to be acquired by the SpaceX and Tesla billionaire. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues convenes in New York City for a week of discussion on issues like indigenous rights related to business and the economy.

From the BBC World Service: EU leaders breathed a sigh of relief as France’s centrist incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, warded off the challenge of far-right challenger Marine Le Pen to be re-elected as French president. Also today, panic-buying in Beijing over fears of a fresh lockdown, and English soccer is set to get a new regulator.