The drumbeat of warnings over the dangers of artificial intelligence is reaching a new level of intensity. While AI researchers have long worried that AI could push people out of jobs, manipulate them with fake video, and help hackers steal money and data, some increasingly are warning the technology could take over humanity itself. 

In April, leading tech figures published an open letter urging all AI labs to stop training their most powerful systems for at least six months. Last month, hundreds of AI researchers and others signed onto a statement suggesting humanity should approach the “risk of extinction” at the hands of the technology with the same priority it now gives to nuclear war and pandemics.

“The idea that this stuff will get smarter than us and might actually replace us, I only got worried about a few months ago,” AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on June 11. “I assumed the brain is better and that we were just trying to sort of catch up with the brain. I suddenly realized maybe the algorithm we’ve got is actually better than the brain already. And when we scale it up, we’ll get things smarter than us.”

Mr. Hinton quit his job at Google in May, he says, so he could talk freely about such dangers. 

Noah Berger/AP/File

Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather of artificial intelligence,” poses at Google in Mountain View, California, in 2015. He resigned from Google in 2023 to warn about unchecked AI.

Other scientists pooh-pooh such doomsday talk. The real danger, they say, is not that humanity accidentally builds machines that are too smart, but that it begins to trust computers that aren’t smart enough. Despite the big advances the technology has made and potential benefits it offers, it still makes too many mistakes to trust implicitly, they add. 

Yet the lines between these scenarios are blurry – especially as AI-driven computers grow rapidly more capable without having the moral-reasoning abilities of humans. The common denominator is questions of trust – how much of it do machines deserve? How vulnerable are humans to misplaced trust in machines?

In fact, the systems are so complex that not even the scientists who build them know for sure why they come up with the answers they do, which are often amazing and, sometimes, completely fake.

“It’s practically impossible to actually figure out why it is producing that string of text,” says Derek Leben, a business ethicist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and author of “Ethics for Robots: How To Design a Moral Algorithm.”

“That’s the biggest issue,” says Yilun Du, a Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working on intelligent robots. “As a researcher in that area, I know that I definitely cannot trust anything like that. [But] it’s very easy for people to be deceived.” 

Already, examples are piling up of AI systems deceiving people:

• A lawyer who filed an affidavit citing six bogus court cases, with made-up names like Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, told a New York judge at a sanctions hearing on June 8 that he was duped by the AI system he relied on.
• A Georgia radio host has sued OpenAI, the company that makes the popular ChatGPT, claiming that the AI system created out of thin air a legal complaint accusing him of embezzlement.
• Suspicious that his students were using ChatGPT to write their essays, a professor at Texas A&M University-Commerce ran their papers through the same system and gave a zero to those the AI system said it wrote. But the system can’t reliably recognize what it has written. The university intervened, ensuring that none of the students failed the class or were barred from graduation.

These are just hints of the risks in store, AI scientists warn. Throw away the sci-fi visions of Terminator-type robots taking over the world – those are still far-fetched with today’s technology – and the risks of human extinction don’t disappear. Scientists point to the possibility of the technology allowing bad actors to create bioweapons, or boosting the lethality of warfare waged by nation-states. It could also enable unscrupulous political actors to use deepfake images and disinformation so effectively that a nation’s social cohesion – vital to navigating environmental and political challenges – breaks down. 

Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 16, 2023. He urged regulatory oversight of artificial intelligence.

The manipulation of voters and the spreading of disinformation are some of the biggest worries, especially with the approach of next year’s U.S. elections, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told a Senate panel last month. “Regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models.”

OpenAI is the creator of ChatGPT, which has fueled much of the AI hype – both positive and negative – ever since its release to the public late last year. It has raised hopes that workers could become much more productive, researchers could make quicker discoveries, and the pace of progress generally would increase. In a survey of CEOs last week, 42% said AI could potentially destroy humanity in 10 or even five years, while 58% said that could never happen and they are “not worried.”

Legislators on both sides of the Atlantic are eager to set up guardrails for the burgeoning technology. The European Union seized the lead last week by agreeing to the draft of an act that would rate AI technologies from “minimal” to “unacceptable” risk. AI deemed unacceptable would be banned and “high risk” applications would be tightly regulated. Many of the leading AI technologies today would likely be considered high or unacceptable risk.

In the United States, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has created an AI risk-management framework. But many in Congress want to go further, especially in light of the perceived failure to regulate social media in a timely manner. 

“A lot of the senators [at last month’s hearing] were explicitly saying, ‘We don’t want to make the same mistakes with AI,’” says Mr. Leben of Carnegie Mellon. They said, “‘We want to be proactive about it,’ which is the right attitude to have.”

How to regulate the industry is still an unknown. Many policymakers are looking for more transparency from the companies about how they build their AI systems, a requirement in the proposed EU law. Another idea being floated is the creation of a regulatory agency that would oversee the companies developing the technology and mitigate the risks.

“We as a society are neglecting all of these risks,” Jacy Reese Anthis, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago and co-founder of the Sentience Institute, writes in an email. “We use training and reinforcement to grow a system that is extremely powerful but still a ‘black box’ to even its designers. That means we can’t reliably align it with our goals, whether that’s the goal of fairness in criminal justice or of not causing extinction.”

Ammar Awad/Reuters

A person holds a placard as people protest a wave of gun violence in Israeli Arab towns, in Nazareth, northern Israel, June 9, 2023.

It was on a recent Thursday afternoon that two cars pulled up to the heavy metal gate of a car wash in Jaffa of Nazareth, a small Arab town in northern Israel adjacent to its better-known ancient neighbor.

A 15-year-old youth, Rami Marjeyeh, opened the gate and let in one of the cars, while the second vehicle idled on the quiet residential street outside.

Minutes later, two gunmen stepped out and opened fire, shattering the weekend calm before speeding away. Rami and four men, including Rami’s cousin Naim Marjeyeh, the owner of the business, were killed instantly. 

“It was a massacre,” Wajih Marjeyeh, Rami’s father and Naim’s uncle, says while sitting last week in the family compound overlooking the car wash turned murder scene. “How did this thing happen to us? ... We really don’t know; we have no problems with anyone.”

Neri Zilber

Wajih Marjeyeh, in Jaffa of Nazareth on June 15, says he's at a loss for an explanation after losing his 15-year-old son, Rami, and nephew, Naim, in the shooting at his nephew's car wash.

The bloodbath this month shocked an Israeli public seemingly inured to the spiraling death toll from violent crime among its Arab citizens. According to police figures, nearly 100 Arab Israelis have been killed already this year, mostly from gun violence, triple the number by the same time last year. Other sources put the toll even higher.

Arab citizens make up some 20% of the Israeli population. But last year, 116 Arab Israelis accounted for three-quarters of all the Israelis killed by violent crime, according to the nonprofit Abraham Initiatives. Local officials say gun ownership has ballooned, with an estimated 400,000 illegal weapons distributed among an Arab Israeli population of 2 million.

Arab Israeli officials and analysts say the violence is almost entirely due to increasingly brazen Arab criminal organizations that in recent years have stepped up their operations, including extortion, drugs, and illegal weapons. And the rise in crime, they say, correlates directly to a lack of opportunity for young Arab men.

But those same officials and analysts attribute much of the blame for the violence to an absence of state attention, and especially to the current far-right Israeli government, which is either unable or unwilling to act. Most problematic in their minds is National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a Jewish ultranationalist convicted in the past of anti-Arab incitement who is now responsible for the Israel Police.

Ammar Awad/Reuters

Israeli Border Police officers and local residents gather at the car wash where five people were killed in one of the deadliest crime-related shootings in Israel's recent history, in Jaffa of Nazareth, June 8, 2023.

“He doesn’t understand the meaning of ‘national’ or ‘security,’” says Bashar Nakhash, an educator and activist in Jaffa of Nazareth who heckled the minister when he came to the town after the killings. “For him, it’s perfect when Arabs are killing Arabs; this is the idea of Ben-Gvir.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week for the first time convened a ministerial committee to address the gun violence, which was described by Mr. Netanyahu’s chief aide as “an emergency situation ... of community-wide terrorism in the Arab towns.”

Mr. Netanyahu insisted that “ours is a government of all Israeli citizens – Jews and Arabs alike.”

Yet Arab Israelis are skeptical, with local officials citing inequities that point to decades of neglect by the central government: minimal budgetary support for things like infrastructure development and new schools and playgrounds; unequal land distribution and a lack of housing permits; and an ineffective police presence and communities awash in guns.

The neglect compounds the problem, they say, of a growing and restless youth demographic – especially young men.

“Unfortunately we see no vision for the future, no hope, no education or work for the younger generation,” says Maher Khaliliah, the mayor of Jaffa of Nazareth. And that, he says, makes it harder for young men to accomplish what he calls their main priority: buying a home.

Neri Zilber

Maher Khaliliah, the mayor of Jaffa of Nazareth, says high unemployment and other economic barriers for young Arab men are contributing to a rise in crime.

While most of their Jewish age cohort enlist in the military after high school, young Arab men (who are exempt from service) are left with no structure and few prospects. The Arab youth unemployment rate, according to analysts, stands at some 30%; banks are often reluctant to provide them loans. It is these individuals across Arab Israeli society who, according to Mr. Khaliliah, either take out exorbitant black-market loans from criminal groups that they’re then unable to pay back, or go work as foot soldiers.

“They do the dirty work – collecting protection money [from businesses], intimidation, shootings,” the mayor says, citing the “fast and easy” cash on offer.

The massacre at the local car wash, he says, may have been connected to an escalating “war” between two such prominent groups. “They couldn’t reach their direct target directly, so they went after the relatives [of the target],” he adds. “They wanted to send a message: ‘We can reach everyone, everywhere.’”

Across several interviews around town, no one could say for certain who among the five killed was the actual target, even tangentially – or if they did know, they were reluctant to say. This lack of local Arab cooperation with the authorities is often held up by Jewish Israeli officials as a major impediment to crime-solving, although in recent years the Arab Israeli public has demanded more – not less – police involvement in their communities.

“The claim that Arabs don’t cooperate with the police is not because we don’t want to but because we’re afraid. Everyone thinks, ‘Maybe I’ll be the next target,’” says Imran Kinana, a former mayor of Jaffa of Nazareth. “Jews pay taxes to the government for services and security. Arabs pay protection money to gangsters just to be safe and protected.” 

Older forms of conflict mediation, where the writ of sheikhs and tribal elders was obeyed, have broken down, Mr. Kinana adds. “Arab Israeli society is not traditional like it used to be,” he says. “We’re now part of modern economic society; there are no authorities anymore.”

So far this year, only a handful of the 100 killings in the Arab community have been solved, according to official figures.

Ammar Awad/Reuters

People attend a protest following the deadly shooting attack at a nearby car wash, in Nazareth, Israel, June 9, 2023.

Into this breach, Mr. Netanyahu has said he wants to increase the role of the vaunted Shin Bet internal security service to go after the Arab organized crime groups, a controversial move that legal authorities (and the Shin Bet itself) oppose.

Local Arab officials point to the success the previous, short-lived Israeli government had in slightly decreasing the Arab Israeli murder rate last year. According to analysts and former officials, a “whole-of-government” approach was implemented by Yoav Segalovich, the deputy minister for internal security, who coordinated across multiple agencies, including the police, intelligence services, and tax authorities. More than anything, Arab officials maintain, it was made a high-priority issue.

“I’m confident the Israel Police has all the tools to crack down [on the criminal gangs], but they don’t have the political will,” says Youssef Jabareen, a former parliamentarian. “Look at the quick reaction, within hours, to any nationalist crimes committed against Jews. Israel can find weapons in Sudan and Iran, but they don’t see it here inside Israel?”

Tellingly, Mr. Segalovich was the only official who came to pay his condolences to the Marjeyeh family for its loss.

“Not one police official came to speak with us, not one government minister, not even one Arab politician. Only Segalovich. It’s like we don’t even live in the state of Israel,” says Hany Marjeyeh, an uncle of the two victims. (The Israel Police did not deny the account, saying only that they took the killings “with utmost seriousness” and were committed to “bring[ing] the perpetrators to justice.”)

The Marjeyehs, like many other families in Jaffa of Nazareth, are Christian; they have lived for generations peacefully next to their Muslim neighbors. The victims at the car wash were similarly both Christian and Muslim. And as the Hebrew-language signs over businesses all over town attest, many Israeli Jews visit, and could, according to locals, have easily been present and slain as well.

Naim Marjeyeh, the car wash owner, had no problems with the business, the family insists. They stress that theirs is a successful and educated clan, including doctors, lawyers, and university students. Acquaintances of the other victims also maintain that they had no known underworld ties. Young Rami’s only misfortune was that he had finished school for the day and wanted to help his cousin.

And yet the bloodbath at a random business on a quiet side street in a small town in northern Israel did happen. Like countless other families all across the country, the Marjeyehs have been left with only questions and a shattered home.

“They killed my son and my nephew,” says Tawfiq Marjeyeh, Naim’s father, breaking down in tears. “We have no one to protect us.”

Pakistan’s powerful military is cracking down on the party founded by ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan, weeks after his supporters took to the streets to protest the politician’s arrest. These protests snowballed into deadly riots targeting military installations across the country, and now the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party is in shambles.

Thousands of party workers and activists have been thrown in jail. More than 100 top PTI figures have defected. Rights groups decried the intimidation of sympathetic journalists last week after several overseas commentators were charged with sedition, and local media have been ordered not to mention Mr. Khan’s name on air. Islamabad and the adjoining city of Rawalpindi are smattered with posters glorifying the Pakistan army and denouncing the perpetrators of May 9 – a day the army has termed “Pakistan’s 9/11,” though commentators around the world say it bears closer resemblance to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Congress. 

Indeed, the army, which recently promised to stop meddling in the country’s political affairs, has launched an organized campaign to dismantle the very party it helped bring to power back in 2018. In spite of the dangers of speaking up against the military, journalists and politicians are questioning the fairness of persecuting ordinary supporters of Mr. Khan while the true architects of his rise – the military establishment – remain largely untouched.

“The Pakistan army has a history of reacting harshly against real or perceived attacks on its preeminence,” says Husain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States. “The May 9 attacks on military facilities and installations were larger than anything the army has faced before. ... The crackdown in response has also been disproportionate and heavy-handed.”

K.M. Chaudary/AP

Imran Khan (center) leaves after appearing in a court, in Lahore, Pakistan, on June 7, 2023. Mr. Khan faces more than 100 legal cases and has also been charged with terrorism for inciting people to violence.

Project Imran

In the early 2000s, near the end of Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s military rule, the exiled leaders of Pakistan’s two traditional ruling parties, the Pakistan Muslim League and the Pakistan People’s Party, pledged to cooperate to reestablish a civilian-led democracy. As a result of this alliance, Pakistan witnessed its first-ever peaceful transfer of power between civilian governments in 2013. Seeing its influence threatened, the army began to promote Mr. Khan and the PTI, a populist party that had seen limited success until this point.

“They decided to do whatever it took to upend that understanding between the existing political forces within the country by injecting Imran Khan into the system,” says political commentator and activist Gul Bukhari. “They had to abduct people; they had to torture people; they had to gag the media” to ensure the former cricketer’s victory in the 2018 elections.

Like virtually every political leader before him, Mr. Khan eventually fell out with his benefactors, and after his ouster last year, he began to style himself as an opponent of the army’s outsize role in politics. It was in this context that his supporters took to the streets on May 9 and attacked the army’s command center in Rawalpindi, as well as the residence of the corps commander in Lahore.

According to Ms. Bukhari – who was abducted by intelligence agencies in 2018 for her criticism of the military – the crackdown on Mr. Khan’s party will have no legitimacy unless the generals who brought him to power are also prosecuted.  “Every child knows who the real culprits are,” she says. “The puppets are important. They did play a role ... but if that’s where it stops, that’s not going to resolve our problems.” 

Her comments are echoed by Asad Ali Toor, a journalist and vlogger based in Islamabad. The real architects of Project Imran “are playing golf while the ordinary folk who believed their propaganda are rotting in prison,” he says.

Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

Imran Khan supporters block a highway during a protest against his arrest in Karachi, Pakistan, May 9, 2023.

Complicated paths to justice

Not everyone agrees, however, that prosecuting the generals is a feasible strategy. Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, a former senator, says the army’s long history of meddling has created a slippery slope.

“If prosecuting the architects of Project Imran is the right and politically correct position to take, then what about the ones who orchestrated the overthrowing of democracy in ’99?” he asks. “Why even stop there and not go further back and prosecute the architects of Project Nawaz Sharif in the ’80s to set the record straight?”

Military meddling has been a constant in Pakistani politics, he explains, but “when it benefits one section of the elite at the expense of the other, we see tantrums being thrown.”

Mr. Khokhar argues that the biggest impact of the May 9 riots has been to give the military an excuse to show its might. “When chips are down, proportionality is hardly a concern in third-world countries. It’s about establishing or reestablishing your position as the ultimate power center,” he says. “As a consequence, the space for discussion revolving around rights and freedoms has greatly shrunk. ... The concerns of prosecution turning into persecution are not unfounded.”

There are others still who question the efficacy of the media blackout on Mr. Khan and his party.

“Similar moves in the past have not produced desired results,” says journalist Absar Alam, who was shot by unknown assailants after criticizing the military during Mr. Khan’s tenure. “Ideologies can’t be defeated by silencing voices, but I doubt Imran has any ideology. He wants power at any cost, so let’s see.”

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Mary Beth Coffey (left) and Red Terry have spent almost a decade fighting the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which will run through both of their properties. The pipeline's path can be seen carving a strip down the center of the mountain in the background, in Bent Mountain, Virginia, June 5, 2023.

“Just come look,” says Mary Beth Coffey, pushing her seat back from the dining room table and dropping her fork on her plate, a bite of pork still in its prongs. She’s out the back door in seconds, pointing to the view she’s come to know so well over the past three decades. Tall grasses sway in the forefront as the summer’s orchestra of frogs, bugs, and birds crescendos. The cerulean Blue Ridge Mountains rise in the distance.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do when the bulldozers come back,” says Ms. Coffey, tears welling in her eyes, as they do almost every time she talks about the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Ms. Coffey and her husband Bruce first heard about the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) – a controversial 303-mile natural gas pipeline running from northern West Virginia through southern Virginia – in 2014, when they got a letter in their mailbox informing them that the project would go directly through their property. Since then the Coffeys, along with a coalition of neighbors, other landowners, and interstate strangers, have been trying to halt the pipeline’s construction through some of Virginia’s poorest, most rural areas. 

And they’ve been fairly successful – until now. 

The pipeline, which was originally supposed to be completed by the end of 2018, is years behind schedule and more than $3 billion over budget. Sections remain unconnected, held up by litigation. The mountain in the center of Ms. Coffey’s vista has a pale green line down its center where, after being razed in 2018, new vegetation has started to grow back. 

But in the coming weeks, construction around the Coffeys’ home will likely resume. That’s because tucked into the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 – the legislation Congress passed earlier this month to raise the debt ceiling – was a provision requiring the “timely completion” of the pipeline, which it declared in “the national interest.” The inclusion was widely seen as a sop to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat and frequent swing voter, who has been trying for years to get the pipeline built.

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

A sign opposing the Mountain Valley Pipeline can be seen on the side of a building in Newport, Virginia. Similar signs crop up throughout many small towns along the pipeline's path.

It was an unexpected twist in a nearly decadelong fight pitting longstanding arguments about energy independence and jobs against environmental concerns and questions of eminent domain. Pipeline proponents say red tape and endless litigation are making it nearly impossible to tap new domestic energy sources – pointing to the cancellation of two larger projects, the Keystone XL and Atlantic Coast pipelines. To many, the MVP seemed like it was heading for a similar fate before Congress stepped in and fast-tracked the project along with broader permitting reforms.

“It’s the only thing that can put that much energy in the market that quickly,” Senator Manchin tells the Monitor, explaining why the MVP, which he and other proponents say is roughly 94% complete, was included in the debt deal. 

Opponents say that such fossil fuel projects are irresponsible in an age of climate change and that powerful interests are trampling the concerns of everyday citizens, some of whom are fighting to protect the only asset they have – their land. Despite the long odds, they say they’re not backing down. Just days after the debt bill was signed, hundreds gathered outside the White House to protest. 

“This has always been a region where production and destruction were the main business. First coal, now gas,” says Amy Nelson, a retired history professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, holding a hand-painted cardboard sign that reads: “We are Appalachia #NoMoreSacrificeZones.”

“Giving up is not an option,” says Ms. Nelson. “I will always stand with my community.” 

The pipeline resistance

For Maury Johnson, this month’s White House protest marked his 10th visit to Washington in less than a year. One of the de facto leaders of the “pipeline resistance,” the West Virginian has spent days at a time in the nation’s capital, where hotels aren’t exactly cheap. But Mr. Johnson recently came into some money when the MVP paid him an undisclosed amount to cross his property. With a certificate from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission comes the right of eminent domain – meaning that landowners like Mr. Johnson must settle or be sued.

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

The Mountain Valley Pipeline will travel through Maury Johnson's property in Monroe County, West Virginia. Mr. Johnson founded the Mountain Valley Watch in 2018, which is a band of local citizens that report pipeline violations.

“I’m using their own money to fight them,” he says with a chuckle, walking around the hulking pipes that have been lying in his field for years, waiting to be put in the ground.

Mr. Johnson formed the Mountain Valley Watch with others in 2018 to monitor the MVP’s construction and report violations. Most pipeline projects wind up with around 50 to 75 violations, he says. But the MVP in West Virginia alone has garnered at least 600 reports – 240 sent in by Mr. Johnson himself.

“Our work is the reason they lost their permits,” he says proudly as he drives around Monroe County, pointing out different mountains and the homes of new friends who have joined his fight. 

Snaking through the Virginias, the pipeline’s path is dotted with felled trees and little flags denoting water sources. Here and there, tall grasses grow between piles of pipes-in-waiting, where the project has been put on hold.

To build an interstate pipeline, or expand an existing one, energy companies must apply for a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, with approval contingent on a host of other permits being granted from other agencies. The joint venture behind the MVP, for example, needed permission from the Army Corps of Engineers to cross more than 1,000 streams and wetlands; permission from the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to cross the Jefferson National Forest; and Endangered Species Act approvals from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By early 2018, the MVP had secured the regulatory commission’s “Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity” and the subsequent necessary permits from all of these other agencies.  

Charles Mostoller/Reuters/File

Lengths of pipe wait to be laid in the ground near Elliston, Virginia, Sept. 29, 2019.

Companies are legally allowed to start construction at that point, as the MVP did in early 2018, but all the permits may still be subject to litigation. In the MVP’s case, environmental lawyers successfully argued that federal agencies didn’t do their due diligence in issuing the approvals – all three of which were overturned in court, resulting in expensive work delays. 

“We recognize that this decision will further delay the completion of an already mostly finished pipeline, but the Endangered Species Act’s directive to federal agencies could not be clearer: ‘halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost,’” Judge James Andrew Wynn wrote last year in the 4th Circuit’s opinion that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had erred in its assessment of the MVP’s risks to the candy darter fish. 

Pipeline opponents argue not only that the MVP is environmentally harmful, but also that its path – which winds through numerous waterways and along some of the steepest slopes in Appalachia – isn’t suitable for this kind of project. 

But while they remain hopeful they’ll be able to stop the bulldozers again, that path appears increasingly narrow. Because with the debt deal, Congress not only approved all existing permits and mandated that final stream-crossing permits be issued within 21 days – making the deadline this coming Saturday – but also dictated that “no court shall have jurisdiction to review any action” by federal or state agencies going forward. 

“They stomped the Constitution into the ground,” says Aretta Dupre, whose home in Wayside, West Virginia, is adjacent to the pipeline. “They didn’t just hurt West Virginia doing this; they hurt our nation. They just created a monster.” 

Mountain Valley Pipeline, a group of several energy companies, declined to comment.

Congress has taken unilateral action to circumvent the courts on infrastructure projects before. In the case of Tennessee’s Tellico Dam, some four decades ago, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of environmental groups who argued the dam would violate the Endangered Species Act, Congress passed a law exempting the dam from the act. 

But the dam was a federal project run by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Giving privately owned companies permits without any chance of judicial review is largely unprecedented, say MVP opponents.

“It’s a horrible precedent,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia tells the Monitor. “Congress shouldn’t be in the permitting business. We assigned this to regulatory agencies in the 1930s because a) it should be done by a body with expertise, and b) bluntly, it should be [ensured that] campaign contributions can’t buy them off.”

Ahead of the Senate’s debt ceiling vote, Senator Kaine proposed an amendment to remove the MVP provision from the bill. But with the clock ticking and national default on the horizon, Mr. Kaine’s amendment, along with every other amendment introduced, failed.   

Andrew Harnik/AP

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is shown during a Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 16, 2023. He has been pushing to get the Mountain Valley Pipeline built for years.

The Manchin factor

Senator Manchin, a moderate Democrat from a deep-red state, has played an outsize role in this narrowly divided Senate, and the debt deal was no different. The MVP has been a longtime priority of his, and he reportedly only agreed to vote for the Inflation Reduction Act last August, with its many climate-related provisions that were viewed unfavorably in West Virginia, in exchange for permitting reforms and MVP support. 

“I think the White House felt like Senator Manchin cast a tough vote on the Inflation Reduction Act – which he did, thank goodness – and I think they felt like because he did that, we should do this,” says Mr. Kaine. “But there would have been ways to make permitting work better, including work better for the MVP, without doing this sweetheart deal for one project.”

Mr. Manchin’s support for the MVP strikes many observers as an effort to win over Republicans back home and improve his chances in a race where, if he decides to run for reelection, he’ll likely face popular GOP Gov. Jim Justice. In that sense, his interests very much align with the Biden administration’s – since he is widely seen as the only Democrat in West Virginia with even a chance of holding that seat. The Cook Political Report, an independent newsletter, currently rates the seat a “toss-up.”

There’s little question that the MVP is viewed more favorably among Republicans than Democrats.

“There are many benefits: increased tax revenue, energy independence,” says Trey Ewing, vice chair of the Greenbrier County Republican Party in West Virginia. “I personally support it, and I believe most local conservatives do as well.”

But Mr. Ewing also predicts the pipeline will have little impact on Mr. Manchin’s reelection prospects, saying flatly that he believes the Democrat doesn’t have “any chance” of winning statewide again. 

Many locals living near the pipeline’s path tell the Monitor they don’t know anything about it or don’t have an opinion – reflecting the area’s general political apathy. 

“I don’t have a dog in this fight,” says a farmer at his Boones Mill, Virginia, farm stand, who lives on the other side of the mountain from the pipeline and requested anonymity because he didn’t want to alienate customers.

And in his effort to win over conservative voters, the senator may have alienated some of his more left-leaning supporters. Mr. Johnson, the founder of the pipeline protest group, volunteered for Mr. Manchin’s last campaign but now says he plans to “work against him” in 2024. 

“If they can sacrifice me and my community,” he told the crowd of protestors gathered in front of the White House this month, “they’re coming for you next.”

Staff writer Christa Case Bryant contributed to this report.

1 Loot, by Tania James

Tania James’ dazzling, richly embroidered historical novel imagines the journey of a life-size automaton of a wooden tiger – and those connected with it – from late 18th-century India to France and England over 65 years. “Loot” is about the spoils and displacements of colonialism and the quest for betterment, autonomy, and love. 

2 The House of Lincoln, by Nancy Horan

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3 The First Ladies, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

The friendship between first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune enriched both women, whose efforts set the stage for the modern Civil Rights Movement. The novel captures their invincibility and conviction.

4 Much Ado About Nada, by Uzma Jalaluddin

From the author of “Ayesha at Last” and “Hana Khan Carries On,” this modern-day romance reinvents Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” into a delightful illumination of Islamic faith, community, and culture in Toronto. It’s a charming tale of great substance.

5 Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith

This haunting novel visits an abandoned villa in Italy harboring World War II secrets. A historian arrives to spend summer with his aunts and grandmother, and discovers a female visitor claiming ownership of his cottage. Themes of loss and the burden of history are seasoned with grace and humor.

6 A Disappearance in Fiji, by Nilima Rao

Police Sgt. Akal Singh, dispirited and homesick, abhors Fiji. Reassigned to the “backwater colony” in 1914 following a career misstep in Hong Kong, the Sikh lawman drags through his days until an Indian indentured worker goes missing. Spurred to act, Akal uncovers suspects, secrets, and injustices among the sugar cane fields. Nilima Rao delivers a slow-boil, effective whodunit that exposes exploitive colonial practices.

7 Forgiving Imelda Marcos, by Nathan Go

Nathan Go’s splendid debut novel follows Lito, a Filipino chauffeur for Ferdinand Marcos-era opposition leader-turned-president Corazon Aquino. Winsome and wise, historical and original, the first-person account bounces among Lito’s childhood, his final outing with the retired Mrs. Aquino, and his contemplative present in a nursing home. The story plumbs the depths of forgiveness, and how cowardice can morph into bravery. 

8 Mozart in Motion, by Patrick Mackie

Historians and musicologists have sought to explain Mozart’s genius and enduring appeal for more than 200 years. Poet and cultural critic Patrick Mackie tackles this topic with a beautifully written and insightful series of essays that connect the biographical details of Mozart’s life with some two dozen of his musical works. 

9 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, by Peter Moore

Historian Peter Moore notes that Thomas Jefferson’s indelible phrase has had a vibrant afterlife, becoming shorthand for the American dream. But his stirring, stylishly written account focuses on its prehistory, tracing the phrase’s origins to British Enlightenment thinking.

10 Better Living Through Birding, by Christian Cooper

Christian Cooper, a Black birding enthusiast, received worldwide media attention when a video of him being falsely accused of threatening a white woman in New York’s Central Park went viral. In his delightful, edifying memoir, he extols the virtues of bird-watching and charts its decadeslong significance in his life.

Reuters

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Moldova's President Maia Sandu speak to the media in Bulboaca, Moldova, June 1.

For those following the war front in Ukraine, you may want to watch a second front, one ramped up by Moscow last year in neighboring Moldova. There the Russian weapons are not arms but lies, aimed at swaying public opinion to prevent the former Soviet republic from joining NATO or the European Union. And like Ukraine as it rolls out its military offensive, Moldova has launched its own campaign – that of truth-telling to counter the missiles of words in a Russian information war. 

The latest move from Moldova to ensure its citizens receive facts over falsehoods came last month. President Maia Sandu set up a government institution, dubbed the Patriot Center, with the primary task of disseminating “truthful information” in addition to debunking fake news from Russia. “Russia cannot attack our country through military means, so it keeps attacking us through lies, propaganda, and disinformation,” President Sandu said.

The government is trying to be preventive, not just reactive. After the invasion of Ukraine, it set up a Telegram channel to verify information on that social media platform. It has curtailed pro-Russia television stations, given that about a third of Moldova’s 2.6 million people had a pro-Russia orientation before the war in Ukraine. In June, the populist pro-Russia Sor Party was banned by the Constitutional Court.

Both the EU and the United States are supporting Moldova’s truth campaign, such as giving money for independent journalism that can uncover Russian propaganda. “Moldova is the second country after Ukraine which suffers most from the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign,” says Petru Macovei, head of the Association of Independent Press.

In March, U.S. Maj. Gen. William Hartman, commander of the Cyber National Mission Force, visited the country. This month, Austria said it will send about 40 law enforcement officers and service members to Moldova to help it fight disinformation and data breaches.

The government relies heavily on the notion that truth will prevail. “I am absolutely confident that people understand what propaganda, manipulations and disinformation mean,” says Interior Minister Ana Revenco. “If we start working on that level, this action will be quite visible.”

The result of the truth campaign may be paying off. A poll by WatchDog.MD in April found increasing support in Moldova for joining the EU and joining NATO. Democracy survives on truth-telling, and so far, Moldova seems to be winning a war for truth against Russian lies.