Marketplace All-in-One

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in London today, meeting British prime minister Boris Johnson. The two leaders are expected to discuss strategies for ending Europe’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels. The BBC’s Damien McGuinness in Berlin explains that, as a large consumer of Russian oil and gas, Germany finds itself in an increasingly tough position. And French voters will vote in the first round of the presidential election this Sunday. In many parts of the country, youth unemployment is a big issue for voters, so the BBC’s Theo Leggett has traveled to France to find out more about the issue.

Security researchers revealed this week that dozens of apps in the Google Play Store had secretly gathered data on tens of millions of users and sent it to a company linked to a U.S. defense contractor. Developers of Muslim prayer apps, QR code scanners and international weather apps were paid by a company called Measurement Systems to insert code that gave Measurement access to user data, without the developers fully knowing. Google says it has since banned these apps. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Byron Tau, who covered this for The Wall Street Journal.

Yesterday a listener asked about the real estate market, and we’ve still got housing on our minds. We’ll talk about fresh data that shows homes are less affordable across the country. Plus, the devastation of one Ukrainian city shows the brutality of Russian forces. Then, Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court today. Could this moment inspire change in the corporate world? Finally, some music news that made us smile.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

Join us Friday for Economics on Tap. We’ll be livestreaming on YouTube starting at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time, 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

The goal of Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes is to cool demand and curb inflation, and it turns out they’re already working. Mortgage applications and refinancing of home loans dropped last month. Meanwhile, initial jobless claims are now at their lowest point in 50 years. Is there such a thing an unemployment rate that’s too low? We dig in. And for the opening day of Major League Baseball, a breakdown of the labor dispute between players and team owners that threatened the season.

Law enforcement officials say Russia was plotting cyberattacks against critical infrastructure targets as a way to retaliate against sanctions, and that led the U.S. to undertake a secret – and successful – effort to disrupt one of Russia’s schemes. Jeffrey Cleveland discusses the outlook of the labor market with us. We finish with a story about one Tennessee woman’s arduous quest for housing after her rent rose $500.

Recent polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that in spite of relaxed mask mandates and much lower number of daily cases, many Americans still perceive they and their loved ones are at risk from COVID – and that affects how the consumer economy is recovering. What’s next in the Fed’s fight against inflation? As Major League Baseball’s opening day gets underway, we take a quick look at how the game’s stable of younger players became a facet in the labor dispute that threatened the season.

From the BBC World Service: Energy giant Shell says its decision to exit Russia after the Ukraine invasion will have an impact of as much as $2 billion more than originally thought. Plus, Russia’s currency is trading back near levels seen before the war began, but not all is as it seems. And, we take you to Peru where protests have broken out over the rising cost of food and fuel.

It’s going to be a minute before the contours of an actual collective bargaining agreement come into focus for workers at the Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York, who voted to unionize Friday. Amazon says it’s evaluating options to contest the election. But the union drive has put workplace conditions in the spotlight, including how the company uses technology to monitor its warehouse employees. Lisa Kresge, a researcher at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, said there’s a long history of unions negotiating management’s use of tech in the workplace, and Amazon warehouses use plenty of it.

Do you have a question for Whaddya Wanna Know Wednesday? Share it with us and it could be answered on the show! Send us a voice memo or email to [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART (508-827-6278)!

Today, the Federal Reserve released its March meeting minutes. While many Fed officials are keen on half a percentage point interest rate hikes going forward, the central bank is also planning to shed $95 billion worth of bonds per month. We’ll dig into its plans to turn down the temperature of the economy. Plus: Why economists care about the Case-Shiller home indexes and what temporary protection status means for Ukrainians and Afghans.