Rare-earth elements help power our everyday electrical devices, and that’s because most batteries are made with minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite. As of now, China has the largest reserve of these minerals. But some mining companies are eyeing the deep sea’s floor, says Marketplace contributor Dan Ackerman, because such rare earths form organically way down there. Plus, the ethical concerns that come with this deep-sea mining.
How is CPS Energy getting ready to respond to the energy needs of the community moving into the future? Massive data centers are moving into the area. Household affordability for energy remains an issue. Tapping into green renewable power is yet another concern. And getting ready for the worst weather of the winter remains a worry. We’re joined by CPS President & CEO, Rudy Garza.array(3) {
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In a wide-ranging interview with the Politico news website, President Trump said "decaying" European countries had failed to control migration or take decisive action to end Ukraine's war with Russia, accusing them of letting Kyiv fight "until they drop". We hear from a German parliamentarian and envoy.
Also in the programme: A revolutionary gene therapy has successfully treated patients with previously incurable blood cancers; and we look at the life of pioneering zoologist and elephant conservationist Iain Douglas-Hamilton.
(Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump attends a roundtable discussion on the day he announced an aid package for farmers, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 8, 2025. Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
After discussing the Council of Neo-Nicaea — but like, what if Jesus was an AI? — we then discuss an incredibly harrowing story of abusive practices at Alpha School, charter schools structured around AI authoritarianism where personalized learning software enact a cruel regimes of punishing metrics, where any humanity is replaced by the cold logic of optimization, where kids are indoctrinated early into the harsh reality of a control society.
••• Parents Fell in Love With Alpha School’s Promise. Then They Wanted Out https://www.wired.com/story/ai-teacher-inside-alpha-school/
••• Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html
Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
Venezuela dominates the headlines, but very little attention is paid to what life is like inside the country.
In September, the Trump administration began a series of strikes targeting what U.S. officials call "narcoterrorists" in small vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
Those strikes are ongoing and have killed more than 80 people. Then, in October, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
She's been in hiding since last year, when Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in an election widely seen as fraudulent.
Machado is expected to receive her award on Wednesday, in Oslo. And if she does, she might not be let back into her country.
Machado, who supports the Trump administration’s campaign in the region, says the end of the Maduro regime is imminent.
While the world is focused on Oslo and María Corina Machado's Nobel Peace Prize. We wanted to get the view from inside her country. We speak with a journalist in Venezuela about what daily life is like.
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.
This episode was produced by Karen Zamora & Matt Ozug with audio engineering by Ted Mebane. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
In an era of World War II revisionism, it’s worth remembering what really led to Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor 84 years ago on Dec. 7, 1941.
Victor Davis Hanson breaks down the real context behind the attack, why Japan miscalculated so badly, the myths that still distort this history, and how Pearl Harbor became the beginning of Japan’s greatest strategic blunder on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”
“Why did they attack? They said that they did not want to attack. They were in the process of negotiating a peace settlement. They said that we had cut off their oil exports. And we had because we had no other mechanism to convince them to get out of China, it was not their territory, to get out of Korea, to get out of Southeast Asia, and to not absorb the Dutch East Indies.
“They had refused on all of those accounts and said, yet, we will find a peaceful solution, as they planned the attack. The attack happened at seven in the morning, deliberately, on a Sunday morning when people were either at church or still asleep from Saturday night partying. And they came out of the rising sun. Two waves. And they destroyed four battleships and injured, or just—I don't wanna say injured, they were inanimate objects. But they disabled four that sunk to the shallow bottom of Pearl Harbor.”
A decline in JPMorgan’s stock weighs on the Dow. Plus, CVS Health shares gain on an improved outlook. And Ares Management gets a boost on news it’s joining the S&P 500. Danny Lewis hosts.
An artificial-intelligence tool assisted in the making of this episode by creating summaries that were based on Wall Street Journal reporting and reviewed and adapted by an editor.
Are our elections more secure today than they were a year ago? Join the Federalist Elections Team, including Elle Purnell, Shawn Fleetwood, Brianna Lyman, Beth Brelje, Maisey Jefferson, and Federalist Radio Hour Host Matt Kittle, as they review the most consequential election integrity news of 2025 and examine the rising threats to the safety and security of the 2026 midterms.
You can find more Federalist election integrity coverage here.
The Federalist is a nonprofit, and we depend entirely on our listeners and readers — not corporations. If you value fearless, independent journalism, please consider a tax-deductible gift today at TheFederalist.com/donate. Your support keeps us going.
P.M. Edition for Dec. 9. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a “code red” last week to prioritize the company’s ChatGPT chatbot after a competitive threat from Google. WSJ reporter Sam Schechner explains what drove that decision and the implications it could have for ChatGPT, the world’s dominant chatbot. Plus, what investors expect as the Federal Reserve kicks off its last meeting of the year ahead of tomorrow’s rate decision. And why is it so hard to get a clear picture of the economic health of U.S. consumers? WSJ’s Telis Demos says one reason is the rise of a lending alternative: private credit. Alex Ossola hosts.
$70 billion can get a lot… but in the case of Netflix, it can’t buy anything better than Warner Bros Discovery. Host Emily Flippen is joined by Jason Hall and Dan Caplinger to break down what it means for investors, streamers, and how to evaluate mega-mergers to determine when they’re accretive or dilutive.
They cover:
- What Netflix is actually buying - and why Warner Bros said “yes” to Netflix over Paramount and Comcast.
- Whether or not this smart capital allocation or peak hubris on the part of Netflix
- A framework for judging mega-mergers in your own portfolio and how to evaluate when they do (or don’t!) make sense
Companies discussed: WBD, NFLX, DIS, PARA, CMCSA
Host: Emily Flippen, Dan Caplinger, Jason Hall
Producer: Anand Chokkavelu
Engineer: Dan Boyd
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