With the rise of artificial intelligence, utilities are trying to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for new sources of electricity. Part of the answer may be deep underneath our feet. Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd visits New Mexico, where scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians from both parties are trying to harness the endless supply of heat generated below the surface of the Earth. Then, Virginia's climate law requires 100% renewable energy by 2050. The commonwealth is also known as the data center capital of the world. Can those ambitions coexist? University of Virginia professor William Shobe weighs in.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The White House has promised to quadruple nuclear power by 2050. To get there, some closed nuclear plants are coming back online, including one near the site of a reactor that partially melted down more than 45 years ago. Here & Now’s Chris Bentley visits two of them: the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan and the Crane Clean Energy Center on Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island.And, we talk with Katy Huff, associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, about what it will take to increase the role of nuclear in the country's future energy mix.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Democrats are criticizing President Trump's affordability speech for not focusing that much on affordability. We learn more from The Washington Post's Matt Viser, who attended the president's rally. Then, it's not just affordability that's becoming a problem; so is inequality. Now, California is debating one potential solution: a tax on the wealth held by that state's billionaires. North Carolina State University professor Christina Lewellen discusses the pros and cons of a wealth tax.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump will allow technology giant Nvidia to sell its second-best artificial intelligence chips to China. The move reverses years of policy restrictions and could help push China farther along in the AI race. "Chip War" author Chris Miller shares more.Then, Paramount launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery after Warner Bros. agreed last week to sell its streaming and studio businesses to Netflix. David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, bought Paramount this summer. The Ellisons have strong ties to Trump. And a firm run by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner would help finance Paramount's bid. NPR’s David Folkenflik explains what this could mean for U.S. consumers.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Supreme Court is considering whether to allow President Trump to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, not for cause, but because she doesn't fit in with the agenda. Law professor and former assistant U.S. attorney Kim Wehle weighs in.Then, the Department of Homeland Security has arrested dozens of people in New Orleans since the Trump administration expanded its crackdown to the city. Bobbi-Jeanne Misick, immigration reporter at Verite News, explains how immigrant communities in the city are preparing for possible raids. And, Frank Gehry, whose designs helped redefine modern architecture, died Friday at the age of 96. Design critic Alexandra Lange talks about his legacy.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, discusses how local police departments are caught between following federal immigration directives and maintaining community trust. And, President Trump has been denigrating the community of more than 80,000 Somali migrants living in Minnesota. Khalid Omar, an organizer with the Minnesota interfaith group Isaiah, explains the impact on his community. Then, if raccoons are wild animals, why are they so darn cute? There may be a scientific reason: Urban raccoons are showing early signs of domestication. Raffaela Lesch, a researcher at the University of Arkansas, shares more.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine have continued this week, but Russia expert Fiona Hill said she doesn’t see any big changes on the immediate horizon. Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served in the first Trump administration as a Russia expert, explains more and talks about why Russia and China are keeping an eye on President Trump’s boat strikes in the Caribbean.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump made inflammatory comments about Somali immigrants living in the U.S on Tuesday, calling them "garbage." His comments come amid reports that the administration is planning to launch an ICE operation in Minnesota to target primarily undocumented Somali migrants. The Minnesota Reformer's Madison McVan joins us. Then, a planned meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a U.S. delegation led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner is off after talks in Russia earlier this week ended with no breakthrough. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley tells us more. And, Michael and Susan Dell announced on Wednesday that they'll give $250 to 25 million children, in investment accounts. Wailin Wong, host of Planet Money's the Indicator, explains.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The White House is contradicting earlier reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a verbal order to conduct a secondary strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in September. The strike, which killed two remaining survivors from the first offense, has drawn scrutiny from both sides of the aisle. NPR's Tom Bowman joins us. Then, Elliott Abrams, a former special representative for Venezuela in the first Trump administration, talks about why he thinks regime change in Venezuela is “the only way forward.”Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump wants to pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of trafficking drugs into the United States. At the same time, his administration is blowing up what they call drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Juan Sebastián González of the Georgetown Americas Institute explains more about Trump’s actions in Latin America.And, bipartisan support is growing for congressional review of those strikes after multiple reports have raised questions about whether at least one of the strikes amounts to a war crime. Franco Ordoñez, a White House correspondent for NPR, joins us.Then, for the first time since 1988, the United States will not commemorate World AIDS Day. Dr. Monica Gandhi of the University of California, San Francisco, explains what the move says about the Trump administration’s policy to fight HIV and AIDS.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy