Officials are currently focusing on cleanup and housing efforts for tens of thousands of people in the wake of LA’s fires. But over the next few years, the focus will shift toward rebuilding, Yet those efforts will face shortages of skilled labor and building materials, as well as expensive construction loans. Also, we’ll discuss the fallout of President Donald Trump’s pullout of the World Health Organization and moves to shut down DEI efforts.

From the BBC World Service: For decades, the two multinational giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have been competing for Indian consumers. But now they face competition from a brand launched by Asia’s richest man. Plus, the chair of a British antitrust regulation agency is out as the United Kingdom goes for growth. And, a Dutch court has ordered the government to drastically cut nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands.

The explosion of artificial intelligence tools like chatbots has rocked the education world in the last couple years. It’s spurred efforts to prohibit, detect or otherwise build guardrails around these powerful new tools. Some educators, though are embracing them, and Colby College is doing it on an institutional level. Four years ago, before most of the public had ever heard about large language models, this private liberal arts college in Maine established a cross-disciplinary institute for AI to help educators and students integrate the technology into their curricula in an ethical way. We had the college president on back then to discuss, and today we wanted to check back in — this time with Michael Donihue, interim director of the Davis Institute for AI at Colby College.

In his inaugural address, President Donald Trump said he wanted to end chronic illnesses. The promise is part of the Make America Healthy Again campaign pushed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. It’s a powerful slogan. But experts warn that some of RFK Jr.’s proposals are based on conspiracy theories and false information instead of actions that could actually improve Americans’ health, like backing targeted reforms in the food industry. On the show today, Jessica Knurick, a registered dietitian who decodes nutrition and public health misinformation, joins the show to discuss the business of food, what processed foods actually are, how our food supply became full of them, and why chronic disease disproportionately impacts low-income communities. Plus, the policy solutions she would propose to improve Americans’ health.

Later, as the LA fires continue to burn, listeners share how they’re thinking about climate risk in their neck of the woods. Plus, a sober health journalist changes her mind about Dry January.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• “RFK Jr. faces battles in quest to change America’s food” from The Washington Post
• “What Is MAHA?” from New York magazine
• “How RFK Jr.’s Pledge To Make America Eat Healthier Clashes With Trump” from Forbes
• “A Dietitian’s Guide to the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Movement” from Public Health Dad
• “Junk food turns public villain as power shifts in Washington” from CBS News

We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question. Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email us at [email protected].

President Donald Trump’s first day back in office came with dozens of executive orders and announcements. In this episode, we dig into why some of these decisions aren’t in domestic industries’ best interests. A 25% tax on goods from Canada and Mexico could create havoc in American automakers’ spiderwebbed production chain, and plans to boost domestic oil production could actually undermine profitability. Plus: Netflix’s subscriber numbers and a steel mill byproduct is a natural form of carbon capture tech.

This morning, we’re continuing to discuss the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. Trump is set to meet with Republican Congressional leaders today as they map out his legislative agenda, and he’s already issued a wide-ranging series of executive orders. We’ll dig in and hear how bond markets are responding. Also: A new lending program helps Texans brace for extreme weather. And, can improv help facilitate healthy dialogues?

Because yesterday wasn’t the day. Today, we’ll get to President Donald Trump’s executive orders right out of the gate. We’ll talk about what was included — including a hiring freeze on federal government workers — and what wasn’t. Plus, a national emergency on energy is meant to increase energy production, global economic leaders meet in Switzerland, and consumers continue to spend a lot but with a political divide.

There’s been a lot of doom and gloom in the tech sector in recent years — the feeling that so many of the advances in internet connectivity, social media and now artificial intelligence might have caused more harm than good, increasing the need for at least caution in the industry and even, possibly, government intervention. But lately a backlash to the backlash has been brewing among techno-optimists. Their movement is called effective accelerationism, a play on the effective altruism community, and its supporters argue that unrestricted technological progress is a force for positive change. It’s received more attention since Donald Trump won the 2024 election. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Nadia Asparouhova, a writer and researcher who’s been following the rise of the effective accelerationist subculture, often shortened to e/acc.

The economic data of the last few months has reflected more than the typical turbulence. Labor strikes, natural disasters and political uncertainty have affected  consumer sentiment surveys, producer prices, mortgage rates and more. In this episode, we asked economists how they’re separating the significant from the irrelevant. Plus, Sudeep Reddy at Politico talks Trump’s economic messaging, Los Angeles wildfires intensify the region’s housing shortage and bond yields are up globally.

A new administration enters the White House this afternoon. Today, we’ll hear Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, outline his economic thesis for the four years ahead, then hear how Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan is bracing for conservative policies and viewing the role of reproductive rights in women’s economic lives. Also on the show: We’ll head to the ice, where North America’s National Hockey League is breaking records for viewers and revenue.

Donald Trump starts his second term as president today. But even if Inauguration Day events are largely relegated to Washington D.C., discussion of Trump’s second presidency — and politics more broadly — are likely to pop up just about anywhere, including at work. So how these conversations and political tensions be handled in the workplace? We’ll discuss. Then, scammers are spreading misinformation as people look to help those affected by the Los Angeles fires.