Fresh Air

From Virginia to Kansas, the battle over data centers has reached the ballot box this midterm election. Communities are voting on whether to limit or ban the massive facilities being built to power AI – and the fight crosses party lines. Both Democrats and Republicans are accusing their opponents of being too eager to welcome billions of dollars in tech investment without considering the costs. Darrell West, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, has been studying the backlash. He says it's become something much bigger. "The data center fight is no longer just about data centers. It's about AI and its possible impact on people." Communities want to know what they'll have to give up, and who gets to decide.

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Jordan Neely, a Black unhoused man in crisis, was frightening fellow passengers on the New York City Subway. A white former Marine named Daniel Penny put Neely into a chokehold, killing him. Journalist Anand Giridharadas investigates the incident, and what it reveals about American society in Man in the Mirror. He spoke with Tonya Mosley. 

John Powers reviews the Thomas Mann film Fatherland.

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Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi — known as "Los Javis" — have turned four pages of an unfinished play by Federico García Lorca into a sweeping epic about three generations of gay men in Spain. They spoke with Tonya Mosley about making La Bola Negra, their creative partnership, and art as a weapon against fascism. 

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New Yorker cartoonists Roz Chast and Jason Adam Katzenstein confess to the horrors lurking behind their kitchen cabinets and refrigerator doors – and the comedy they find in their anxiety. They spoke with Terry Gross about their new book, The Two Saddest Kitchens. Katzenstein also talks about his graphic memoir about living with OCD.

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Singer, songwriter, and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello helped define the sound of neo-soul, blending funk, jazz, and R&B into music that was unmistakably her own. Now, on her new album, Synonym, she's taking familiar duets and turning them into something unexpected.  

In the hit horror/comedy series Widow's Bay, Betty Gilpin plays a new bride in 1700s New England who finds herself caught in a terrifying satanic curse. She talks about why she’s drawn to weird "anti-algorithm" projects.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews some newly released recordings by Stevie Wonder for the 50th anniversary of Songs in the Key of Life.

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