President Biden has said that we are seeing the “beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine” as Putin has moved troops into two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. In response to that, President Biden announced a round of sanctions against Russian banks and oligarchs to keep them from conducting financial transactions with the West. Mariana Alfaro, reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for what to know about the sanctions and how it could affect gas prices here in the U.S.

Next, in this unrelenting U.S. housing market, renting a home could be harder than buying a home. With a high demand and continuing low supply we have seen rental prices for single-family homes rise 7.8% last year. With people being priced out of owning a home, many resort to renting, only to find the same problems… a rental listing pops up, and an immediate flood of applications for that property. Allison McNeely, personal finance reporter at Bloomberg News, joins us for more.

Finally, get ready to start hearing the term megadrought more often when talking about the American Southwest. A new study shows that the past two decades have been the driest in 1,200 years. The study also illustrates the role that temperature plays, more so than precipitation, when it comes to fueling these megadroughts. Henry Fountain, climate reporter at the NY Times, joins us for how we could be in store for this for possibly another ten years.

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