Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe now.

Good morning,

It’s almost game time 🏀. March Madness brackets are here.

• Click here for the men’s bracket and the NCAA women’s here.

  • Top seeds for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament are UCONN, Houston, Purdue and North Carolina.

  • While NCAA women’s basketball #1 seeds are South Carolina, Iowa (with Caitlin Clark), University of Southern California and Texas.

The Women’s tourney begins Wednesday and the Men’s tourney begins on Thursday. Let the games— and absolutely no work— begin!

Mosheh, Jill, & Lauren

✓ Access the private Instagram page with weekend news coverage, issue deep dives, AMAs and video Q&A’s with Mosh
✓ Listen to the member-only podcast for exclusive and BTS episodes
✓ Support Mo News and help us provide independent, non-partisan news coverage

🏠 HOME PRICES MIGHT DROP WITH NEW REALTOR RULES

Americans might see a drop in the cost of buying or selling a home starting this summer. The National Association of Realtors (NAR), which represents 1.5 million real estate agents, agreed on Friday that it will stop requiring that home sellers pay both their broker and a buyer's broker.

The NAR also agreed to pay $418 million in damages for what some homeowners alleged was conspiring to keep agent commissions artificially high. The group denies any wrongdoing, however.

CONSCIOUS DECOUPLING
Under the current model, a home seller pays BOTH their own and the buyer’s agents—usually around 5% or 6% of the sale price, equally split. They have to do this to get their home listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

• All types of trouble arose with this model, as Doug Miller, an attorney and real estate consumer advocate, said, "You're paying someone to negotiate against you” because both agents benefit from a higher sale price. Critics have likened it to a cartel.

• Under the new policy, commissions would be “decoupled” so that buyers and sellers would pay their own agent and they could negotiate how much that is for. Some estimates say this could lower brokers fees by 25-50%—with the hope that will then help decrease the home list price. It is still too early to say.

• At same time, brokers argue that buyers benefit from representation, and if they must pay agents out of their own pockets, many will opt not to use one — to their detriment.

The rules could go into effect as soon as July, but a judge first needs to approve the settlement.

HOW WE GOT HERE
The agreement comes after years of legal battles from homeowners across the country and probes from the antitrust division of the Department of Justice—which is investigating NAR’s oversight of the MLS databases, and if their rules allowed price-fixed commissions. In October, a jury awarded a group of Missouri home sellers $1.8 billion for inflating commissions.

REAL ESTATE’S FUTURE
Online listing sites, like Zillow and Redfin, allow potential home buyers to search for homes while sellers can easily list. Some groups have already shifted from the 6% commission structure and say they’ve had mixed results.

• Los Angeles brokerage Arrivva represents buyers for a flat fee of $9,750 while DeLeon Realty in Palo Alto recently allowed sellers to list their homes for a total commission of 3.5% or less, which would include 3% for the listing agent. For Arrivva, buyers have to do some things agents typically would—like finding the home.

  • One of their listings sold for $2.7 million and had a $10,000 set rate for the buyer’s agent. Without that ability to negotiate, a more typical buyer’s agent commission for the area would have been around $67,500.

🗳 RFK JR. 2024 THIRD PARTY BID’S UPHILL PUSH & VP PICK

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s independent presidential campaign is set to announce his vice presidential pick as soon as this week, as he pushes to get his name on the ballot in all 50 states—an expensive and difficult process.

BALLOT ACCESS
As an independent candidate, Kennedy isn't automatically entitled to a spot on any state ballot, thus requiring signatures—(e.g. a minimum of 219,403 in California or 7,500 in Georgia) —to qualify.

• So far, it appears that RFK Jr.’s campaign has enough signatures to get him on the ballot in Utah, New Hampshire, Nevada and Hawaii. His campaign is gathering signatures in Texas, while American Values 2024, a pro-Kennedy super PAC, said they have enough in Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and South Carolina.

• A way around this: Joining an established party. For example, Kennedy could earn a place on a majority of ballots if he joined the Libertarian Party, which is reportedly talking to Kennedy’s camp. Although this is still unlikely.

This effort is going to cost big bucks: Kennedy’s campaign estimates the process will require about $15 million. It had $4.8 million on hand as of the end of January. And more, Kennedy's nomination papers must include a VP candidate in at least 26 states. Enter, his suspected VP selection.

WHAT HAPPENED TO AARON RODGERS?
After some initial reports, NFL QB Aaron Rodgers is apparently now out of the running. The frontrunner for his VP pick is now Nicole Shanahan, a California-based attorney and entrepreneur. She is the ex-wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brinn.

• Shanahan helped pay for Kennedy’s Super Bowl commercial with a $4 million donation. She donated to Biden's 2020 presidential campaign and describes herself as a “progressive through and through.”

AND THEN THERE’S ‘NO LABELS’
Last week, the centrist party, No Labels, announced a committee of 12 people which will decide who will run on their potential third-party presidential ticket. They may have an announcement as soon as this week. The party is currently on the ballot in 13 states.

• Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, who’s on the committee, says: “We want to give the American people the third choice — bipartisan, moderate — that they say they want. But if for some reason after two or three months, they say they don’t want it, we have got to be realistic and say, ‘This is not the year.’”

🇷🇺 PUTIN’S BACK FOR A FIFTH TERM

To no one’s surprise, Russian President Vladimir Putin won his fifth term in office late yesterday, claiming record-breaking voter turnout and support.

Earlier in the day, some Russians arrived at polling sites around noon to silently protest Putin—one of opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s final wishes before he died mysteriously last month.

SIX MORE YEARS
The longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Putin will be 77 when this next term ends in 2030. He will then be eligible for a 6th term according to rules he recently changes.

• In his victory speech, Putin told supporters that the “grandiose plans” he has will now “certainly be achieved.”

Putin spoke after his government reported he got 87% of the vote—he was running against two Kremlin-approved candidates. A couple anti-war candidates were barred from running.

• 🚨 Russian officials have been accused of inflating votes and falsifying results. Ukrainian and Western officials and rights groups have called the election a sham.

FORCED TO VOTE “PUTIN”
Ukrainians living in territory occupied by Russia were forced to vote over the weekend with masked and armed Russian soldiers watching them and polling workers.

• “People who love Ukraine must submit to the regime and pretend they support everything that’s going on because they’re afraid for their lives,” a former Mariupol resident said.

⏳ SPEED READ

🚨NATION

📌 Young men and women are drifting apart politically, and the US has one of the widest gaps (ECONOMIST) (see chart above)

📌 White House wants TikTok's parent company to divest: 'We don't want to see a ban' (ABC NEWS)

📌 Biden campaign slams Trump over ‘political violence’ for warning of ‘bloodbath’ when discussing auto industry (FOX NEWS)

📌 Supreme Court to hear arguments today on whether White House crosses First Amendment line on social media disinformation (CNN)

🌎 AROUND THE WORLD

📌 Israeli PM rejects Sen. Schumer’s call for new Israeli elections as ‘totally inappropriate’ (REUTERS)

📌 Iceland rocked by fourth volcano eruption in recent months, spewing fountains of lava (FOX NEWS)

📌 Egypt strikes $8 billion deal for aid from Europe as its economy struggles (AP)

📌 Six more years of Putin worry many countries, but not China (CNN)

📌 First charter flight with Americans fleeing Haiti lands in Miami (AP)

📌 Haiti healthcare system on verge of collapse as gang warfare rages on (GUARDIAN)

📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH

📌 TikTok’s American growth is already stalling (WSJ)

📌 Marriage rates are up, and divorce rates are down, new data shows (CNN)

📌 Apple’s new CarPlay becomes last hope to crack the auto industry after Apple Car was canceled (BLOOMBERG)

📌 U.S. measles milestone: 60 cases so far in 2024 — more than all of 2023 (CBS NEWS)

🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

📌 Usher, Fantasia Barrino, ‘Color Purple’ honored at 55th NAACP Image Awards (AP)

📌 Celine Dion says living with stiff person syndrome ‘has been one of the hardest experiences of my life’ (CNN)

📌 Olivia Rodrigo's team won't allow free contraceptives to be handed out on tour anymore (BUSINESS INSIDER)

📌 University of Michigan fires men’s basketball coach Juwan Howard (CNN)

📌 Broken clock, reviews mar final minutes of Lakers-Warriors (ESPN)

Mo News Podcast: A daily conversation about the news that matters.

🗓 ON THIS DAY: MARCH 18

• 1922: Mohandas Gandhi was sentenced to six years in prison for his involvement in protesting the British colonial government in India. He would serve 2 years behind bars.

• 1925: The worst tornado in US history, known as the “Tri-State Tornado,” passed through eastern Missouri, southern Illinois, and southern Indiana, killing nearly 700 people and injuring around 13,000 more.

• 1969: The Nixon administration began secretly bombing Cambodia, as part of their attempt to target Vietcong fighters and supply lines. The NY Times would break the news two months later. The 14-month bombing campaign would kill at least 150,000 civilians and destabilize Cambodia for decades.

• 2000: ‘Say My Name’ by Destiny’s Child reaches #1 on the Billboard Charts.