RDU On the Rise: Ballots, and houses, and leaked Supreme Court opinions ... Oh, my!

Hellooo, Risers! (Yes, I totally just made that a thing.) Laura Brache here — that’s BRAH-chey, like bracket and change, since I know you’re wondering. I’m the diverse communities reporter at The News & Observer by way of Report for America, a national journalism service program. Tomorrow is actually my 11th ”month-versary” at The N&O! *Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” plays in the background*

On a more serious note, this week has been jam-packed with local and national news that could very well play a key role in how you go about your day-to-day. But don’t fear — the RDU On the Rise newsletter is here. Let’s catch up!

I kicked the week off at my local early voting site. That makes me one of 160,000+ North Carolina voters who have already turned out at the polls since early voting started last week. In the first three days, more than 66,000 ballots had been cast. That’s 50% more than there were in the 2018 primary in that same time frame.

Depending on where you live, you’ll be able to vote for candidates running for Congress, the N.C. General Assembly, and local government office, like sheriffs and county commissioners. Our politics and local government teams prepared voters guides for Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham and Johnston counties. Fair warning — there are lots of candidates. But we’ve got you covered with our candidate questionnaires.

An issue everyone has their eyes on: abortion rights. This is something you’ll be reading a lot more about and for a while because a U.S. Supreme Court draft ruling on Roe v. Wade leaked earlier this week. It would completely overturn the landmark abortion case and create further restrictions on abortion in our state and the rest of the country. Politics reporter Will Doran dives into what abortion rights might look like in NC if Roe v. Wade is overturned. A lot of North Carolinians are taking to the streets in protest of the likely outcome. Our Editorial Board had a lot to say, as did reporter Avi Bajpai, who covered this rally in Raleigh.

Speaking of our politics team, I’ll be working on their Under The Dome podcast in addition to my reporting on our area’s diverse communities. I helped produce this week’s episode, hosted by the oh-so brilliant Dawn Vaughan. She and former NC Insider editor Brian Murphy talked about what’s at stake this election season and growth in Southern Wake County.

It’s not just the eligible electorate that’s booming in our area. The number of North Carolina homes owned by Wall Street is too. As The N&O’s Tyler Dukes and The Charlotte Observer’s Payton Guion explain in a jaw-dropping series, there are 40,000 homes across the state owned by big corporate firms disguised as smaller companies.

In this hot — no, blistering real estate market, these companies are outbidding regular homebuyers with hard-to-beat cash offers way over the listing price and turning them into rentals. Homebuyers like my parents, who started house-hunting last fall. Behind Charlotte and Raleigh, Winston-Salem is one of the cities Tyler and Payton highlighted as most affected in the series. It’s my hometown and where my parents have been renting for a decade since we moved to the U.S. in 2011. After a disheartening seven months, they finally went under contract Wednesday. (ANJBWVEUVDHBANOAJIOJA!!!)

If Raleigh could do anything to protect homebuyers, it should, said Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Stewart in a city council meeting Tuesday. As Anna Johnson reports, Stewart praised the Security for Sale series and urged fellow council members to act by getting investor home data to address housing affordability.

Housing affordability was also a big talking point in Durham City Council this week. Four finalists made their case for being the best candidate to fill an at large seat vacated in March. Council members voted for their pick Thursday and the winner is NCCU assistant professor Dr. Monique Holsey-Hyman.

In sports, a little less victorious were three former NC State women’s hoops players. One day after Elissa Cunane and Raina Perez were waived by the Seattle Storm, Kayla Jones was one of six players waived by the Minnesota Lynx, Jonas Pope wrote. And PNC Arena, home of the Carolina Hurricanes, NC State men’s basketball, concerts and more, could finally be seeing some upgrades soon.

*Phew!* That was a lot. Let’s move on to some lighter stuff.

Things I’m looking forward to this weekend:

#gradszn is upon us! Kate Murphy breaks down the details for graduations from some of our biggest schools in the Triangle to help you plan for busy traffic and crowded restaurants. You can find me at former N&O intern Angelica Edwards’ graduation cookout on Saturday chowing down on some hot dogs and burgers.

But once I get home, you’ll catch me on my couch watching the first three episodes of the HBO Max limited series “The Staircase.” The name might sound familiar. That’s because it’s based on the 13-part Netflix documentary series of the same name about the death of Kathleen Peterson and the Durham murder trial of her husband, Michael Peterson.

Mother’s Day is Sunday and, at least for my mom, brunch is a must. These North Carolina brunch spots are among the best in the nation, according to OpenTable. I can attest that Green Valley Grill’s is superb.

At some point, I will also have to fold and put away all the laundry I did this earlier this week. See if you can spot my cat Izzy in this pile :)

That’s it for me, y’all. If you’ve made it this far, thank you! I hope you’ll read RDU on the Rise again next Friday hosted the lovely Kimberly Cataudella, one of our service journalism reporters. Have a wonderful weekend.

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