Charter fisher Cliff Fleming has spent most of his adult life here on the southern tip of Texas, making his living off the area’s abundant natural resources.

But now he has a lucrative side business: taking tourists out for fishing and a clear view of SpaceX rocket launches. He calls it a “blast and cast.”

Having a space company next door hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. Last April, a cloud of concrete dust blanketed his boat – the result of a postlaunch “rapid unscheduled disassembly” (in laypeople’s terms, an explosion).

Still, Captain Fleming says that he loves having SpaceX as a neighbor.

On Sunday, the private space company owned by billionaire Elon Musk conducted the latest flight test of its Starship rocket here in Boca Chica. For some residents like Captain Fleming, there has never been a more exciting time to live here.

SpaceX is now seeking permission starting next year to conduct up to 25 launches – and landings – of the Starship/Super Heavy, a mammoth rocket system designed to reach Mars.

But the company’s plans have been disrupted by a series of lawsuits and regulatory issues, particularly around potential environmental damage. Starbase is surrounded by a protected wildlife habitat that attracts hundreds of millions of dollars annually in ecotourism as a popular waypoint for migratory birds and home to dolphins, pelicans, and endangered sea turtles.

The test on Sunday included the milestone achievement of safely returning the Super Heavy rocket to the launchpad. It had been repeatedly delayed due to a variety of lawsuits by environmental groups and others against the company claiming that launches have spilled toxic wastewater into nearby waterways.

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

Cliff Fleming poses on his boat, Gabina, in Port Isabel, Texas, Aug. 15. A charter fisher, he has benefited from the tourism boost that SpaceX rocket launches have provided. But he also voiced concerns about potential environmental impacts.

Still, while some voice concerns about what a more active SpaceX presence could mean for local communities, objections are largely eclipsed by excitement about the company’s potential.

Residents living in Starbase’s shadow say they feel like they’re in the middle of something incredible and at the start of something historic. Private companies like SpaceX are becoming integral to space exploration, they say, and this area – and Texas as a whole – could become central to the growing commercial space industry.

“I’m just a small part of that, but everybody benefits from it,” says Captain Fleming.

“Maybe it is a long-term problem,” he adds, referring to the potential environmental damages. But “Everybody benefits when those things take off.”

Martian-mania – for some

Ten years after setting up at the end of Highway 4 in Boca Chica, SpaceX is visible everywhere you look in coastal towns near the border city of Brownsville, Texas. Miniature metal Starships stand outside stores on South Padre Island. At a Port Isabel restaurant, you can order an “Occupy Mars omelet.” A local school district changed its mascot last year to the Rockets.

But along with the enthusiasm has come doubt, especially among residents concerned about collateral damage caused by this immense scientific endeavor. Clouds of dust and grime settled over Port Isabel after two previous Starship launches. A 2022 rocket engine test sparked a 68-acre fire in a neighboring wildlife refuge, home to nesting white-winged doves, egrets, and the threatened snowy plover.

There are also worries that a water deluge system under the launchpad, which sprays over 200,000 gallons of water during a launch to suppress the heat and noise of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 engines, is polluting waterways used by native turtles and dolphins, as well as fish that people catch and eat.

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

A model rocket ship welcomes drivers traveling toward the SpaceX Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Local communities have embraced the company's work, saying its success could lead to South Texas becoming a hub for the commercial space industry.

Critics also argue that the Starship rocket with its Super Heavy booster has never, in fact, been properly permitted.

When the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) first approved the Starbase site in 2013, it studied potential environmental impacts from launches of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets “and a variety of reusable suborbital launch vehicles.”

Then, in 2018, Mr. Musk announced that the site would be dedicated to launches of the much larger Starship. Big enough for a Falcon 9 to fit inside it, the Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built.

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SpaceX, NASA

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Yet the FAA hasn’t completed an environmental impact statement since 2013, agreeing with SpaceX that shorter and more limited assessments before each launch test are sufficient.

But since the agency required a more in-depth study of the potential impacts of launching the 1,566-ton Falcon Heavy rocket, critics say they should do the same for the more than 4,000-ton Starship-Super Heavy.

Every Starship launch “represent[s] a rocket being fired here that was never, ever meant to be fired here, and has not been assessed to be fired here,” says Ken Saxon, a board member of Save RGV, an environmental group opposing industrial development in the Rio Grande Valley.

Permits, penalties, and potential impacts

This is particularly important, critics add, when SpaceX keeps adding new features to its launches. The water deluge system only came in last year, and the fifth Starship launch tested, for the first time, the launch tower’s ability to “catch” the Super Heavy as the booster returned to Earth seven minutes after launch.

Critical to making the Starship system reusable and efficient, the catch maneuver raises new potential regulatory questions, including the effects of deceleration engine burns and sonic booms, thunderlike noises created when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound.

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NASA, SpaceX

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

In mid-August, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality sanctioned the company over its water deluge system. The commission’s case alleged that thousands of gallons of water runoff from the system, containing pollutants like cyanide, copper, and chromium, have spilled into sensitive local waterways, according to government documents obtained by NPR. Months earlier, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had told the company the same system was operating in violation of federal law.

There are also at least five ongoing lawsuits against SpaceX operations in Boca Chica. Meanwhile, the company just filed its own lawsuit against California, accusing a state agency of being opposed to Mr. Musk’s politics rather than having substantive reasons for rejecting an increase in launches there.

Federal regulators, for their part, say the company’s desire for fast-paced testing and design changes makes it difficult for them to evaluate potential impacts and issue new permits.

Nevertheless, the FAA sped up its processes to ensure the fifth Starship test could go ahead on Sunday in Texas. It’s still unclear, however, if the agency will approve up to 25 launches and landings in the state starting next year.

Frequent tests and design changes are central to the company’s philosophy, and with NASA hoping to use Starship as part of its mission to return humans to the moon in 2026, the company needs to perfect the system as soon as possible.

SpaceX did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but in a lengthy statement released in September, the company said it has always had government permission to continue operating.

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

Ken Saxon stands in Boca Chica State Park, with SpaceX's Starbase launch pad behind him, Aug. 14. He is a member of Save RGV, an environmental group opposing the spaceflight company's expansion that says SpaceX launches are damaging unique wildlife habitat in the area.

The two agency actions “are entirely tied to disagreements over paperwork,” the company said. “The narrative that we operate free of, or in defiance of, environmental regulation is demonstrably false.”

The private space boom

The delays are as frustrating for some locals – even those who’ve had disputes with the company – as they are for the company.

Maria Pointer retired here with her husband in 2015. Moving into the last house at the end of Highway 4, the Alaska native fell in love with what she calls her “wilderness.”

Then SpaceX moved in next door, and within a few years, the company started expanding and wanted their property. In 2020, after some reportedly tense negotiations, SpaceX bought out the Pointers.

They still live in the area, and Mrs. Pointer has built a popular YouTube channel documenting rocket tests. While it was challenging, she believes their move will be for the greater good.

“It sadden[s] me to think so many people [can’t] be happy for the future that’s coming,” she says. “If we’re going to hold back the space industry, we’re going to hold back the world.”

Indeed, commercial space companies are becoming central to a modern-day space race.

As it’s become cheaper to build and launch satellites, it’s become more profitable selling satellite and data services that come with launching things into orbit. As a result, private companies like SpaceX, Boeing, and Blue Origin – created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – are finding new and innovative ways to access low Earth orbit, a region just above the planet’s atmosphere.

From public to private space ventures

SpaceX and Boeing have contracted with NASA since 2014 to shuttle crews to the International Space Station. Mr. Musk’s company is also helping the agency with its Artemis program to return humans to the moon and is developing a spacecraft to deorbit (and thus decommission) the space station. At least a half-dozen private companies plan to launch their own space stations in the coming decades.

The space industry is projected to be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035, according to the World Economic Forum. Companies are thinking not just about the services they could provide, like deploying satellites and shuttling crews to and from Earth. They also see long-term profit in space tourism, research, and manufacturing in low Earth orbit, and asteroid mining, among other possibilities.

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

A viewing area is near the SpaceX Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, Aug. 13. The company has been using its South Texas launch site to test its mammoth Starship/Super Heavy, a launch vehicle it hopes will one day travel to Mars.

Issues remain, as evidenced by Boeing’s Starliner stranding two astronauts on the space station this year.

But the private sector is on the right track, according to Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs.

“They’re innovating and working fast in a way you haven’t seen since the early days of Apollo,” says Dr. Pace. “Going deeper into space, operating on the lunar surface and beyond, are the next stages.”

Looking for sonic – and economic – booms

Texas wants to be at the forefront of this private sector boom.

The Lone Star State has been a leading player in U.S. spaceflight for decades, and it has nurtured the growing private space industry as well. Starbase is one of four spaceports in the state – only Florida, with six, has more – and is home to 18 of the 20 largest aerospace manufacturing companies in the world, according to Texas 2036, a nonpartisan public policy think tank.

Earlier this year, the state Legislature established the Texas Space Commission to boost the state’s commercial space industry. One hope is that it will benefit poor, isolated communities like Boca Chica, many of which have seen populations decline and poverty increase over the past decade.

Spaceflight by necessity operates in remote areas. The Blue Origin spaceport, for example, is in Van Horn, a West Texas town with about 2,000 people, just larger than the staff of an Amazon fulfillment center. While SpaceX has brought more jobs to surrounding Cameron County, locals say many new workers have come in from elsewhere. Fewer than 1 in 4 residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to Census Bureau data.

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

A model Starship stands outside a candy store in South Padre Island, Texas, Aug. 15. Communities in South Texas say they are excited to have SpaceX in the area.

“I would like to see the valley be more than just a tourist destination,” says Teviet Creighton, a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in nearby Brownsville. “Being the next major technological innovation region is what we aspire to; that’s the dream.”

Can industry, science and nature coexist?

Driving down Highway 4, Mr. Saxon points out lomas – small hills of brush and trees that form over centuries in wetlands – off the side of the road. This stretch of road is one of only three places in the world where lomas can still be found. Other rare sightings here include migratory birds and sea turtles nest.

While launching rockets is exciting, and the possibility of human travel to Mars may inspire, the unique ecosystem in this corner of South Texas is just as captivating, he says.

“It’s a flaw that we have not got people interested [in] what this nature offers them,” he says. “People are taking pleasure in SpaceX ... but all of that is in nature a million times over.”

Some supporters believe that SpaceX’s growth here can coexist with the unique ecosystem.

They point to another launch site: Cape Canaveral, on Florida’s Atlantic coast. The NASA-operated complex is the most active spaceport in the United States, and it borders the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Established along with the space center in the early 1960s, the wildlife refuge hosts over 1,500 species of plants and animals, including 15 threatened and endangered species.

“In some sense, having [SpaceX] anchored there actually provides some protection,” says Dr. Creighton of the Texas hub. “No one else is going to build a subdivision or a factory within a few miles of a launch site.”

There are also the intangible benefits of space travel to consider. The Apollo missions inspired a generation to believe it could touch the stars. As profitable as the private space industry may become, the transcendent appeal of cosmos may be its most valuable asset.

“No one is thinking about partisan politics or polarization when a Starship lifts off,” says Dr. Pace. “Space is something that can unite people, bring us together. It’s something to feel positive about, and I think we need that.”

Editor's note: This article was updated on Oct. 16 to add a sentence on a new lawsuit over SpaceX launch plans in California.

Israel’s multilayered missile defense system, which has been adept at intercepting many of the rockets and missiles fired at population centers throughout this multifront war, is facing a new threat: nimble, slower, and often small drones.

No air raid sirens blared in Israel Sunday, when a drone launched by Hezbollah forces in Lebanon entered Israeli airspace, eventually crashing through the roof of an army base dining hall deep inside the country. The explosion killed four recruits having dinner after a day of training and wounded dozens of others, some of them seriously.

“The drones ... are one of the biggest challenges facing us in the past year,” says Zvika Haimovitz, a retired brigadier general and former commander of Israel’s air defense corps.

“We are dealing with a multidirectional threat ... and the Iranian proxies recognize the potential and the gaps” in Israel’s defenses, he adds.

Sunday’s fatal drone, one of three launched simultaneously by Hezbollah, was originally detected, and then lost for 30 minutes, during which it flew roughly 60 miles until its GPS-driven warhead hit its target. The other two were intercepted, one by Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome air defense system, and the other by the navy.

Friday night, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish year, a Hezbollah drone struck a building in Herzliya, in central Israel, but air raid sirens had alerted people to seek shelter and there were no injuries.

In July, the Houthi militia in Yemen, like Hezbollah a member of the Iran-funded and -cultivated “Axis of Resistance,” fired a drone that flew hundreds of miles before hitting an apartment building in Tel Aviv, killing a man sleeping in his bed.

Drones have also been fired into Israel by Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq and during the first-ever direct Iranian attack on Israel in April. The region is currently bracing for Israel’s response to a ballistic missile barrage from Iran in late September and, in turn, a possible counterstrike from Iran.

Itay Cohen/Reuters

Israeli soldiers walk near the scene where a drone from Lebanon hit an Israeli military base, in Binyamina, Israel, Oct. 13, 2024.

The retaliatory cycle could potentially plunge the Middle East even further into chaos.

On Tuesday the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system had arrived in Israel, as had the U.S. soldiers who will be operating it in the event of a ballistic missile attack by Iran.

Underscoring the urgency of such assistance, a report in the British newspaper The Financial Times said Israel’s missile defenses are short of interceptors.

Touring the army base south of Haifa that was hit Sunday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the soldiers Monday that the military was investigating what went wrong and was developing new methods to address the drone threat.

Daniel Hagari, the army spokesperson, was more blunt on Sunday: “We must bring a better defense.”

Mr. Haimovitz notes that over 1,200 drones had been launched toward Israel since Hamas invaded southern Israel a year ago. Most were identified and intercepted, but 221 slipped through.

“It will never be a 100% success, but we need to fill the gaps and do much better than an 82% success rate,” he says.

Why are they such a wily weapon?

The challenges that drones pose are many, although they are a relatively low-tech weapon. First, they are slower and smaller, and fly lower than missiles, making it harder for radar systems to detect them. They can easily be confused with Israeli planes or even birds. They are built to be light, often using radar-absorbing carbon materials instead of radar-reflecting metal.

Staff Sgt. Cory D. Payne/U.S. Air Force/AP/File

A launching station for the the U.S. Army's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system is loaded onto a C-17 Globemaster III at Fort Bliss, Texas, Feb. 23, 2019.

“They are also very maneuverable, able to perform complex and sharp movements in the air and go up and down and below the sight of detection systems,” says Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior researcher at the Institute of National Security Studies.

“One of the complexities of [Israel’s defense] mission is to build a picture of what one is really seeing in the sky,” Mr. Haimovitz says. “We are talking about a chaotic picture with a lot of objects and targets to decipher – helicopters, jets, interceptors, enemy rockets, and birds. And in real time you need to build situational awareness in a very busy picture.”

Intercepting a drone can also be tricky, Dr. Kalisky says, because fighter planes fly four times faster than drones, and because drones launched into Israel from as close as Lebanon leave little time for interception.

In recent years, Israel prioritized developing air defense systems, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow 3 missiles, rather than defenses against low-flying aircraft and drones. Another vulnerability: The air base targeted and hit by Hezbollah Sunday, and details about it including its dining hall, were easy to find online.

Among the new tier of systems Israel is working on that could boost its drone defenses is a powerful laser being developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an arms manufacturer owned by Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

Another solution being touted is more old-fashioned: a modern version of the Gatling gun called the M61 Vulcan, which was developed decades ago. It can shoot 6,000 rounds per minute and is radar-guided.

“We have to have a new outlook in the battlefield and accept the fact that our enemies are using relatively low-tech weapons in an effort to defeat us,” says Dr. Kalisky. “So we may have to look back and adopt the old methods.”

Reed Saxon/AP/File

The University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, is one of the private, nonprofit California schools affected by the state's new ban on legacy admissions.

Should college applicants get preferential treatment if they are related to wealthy alumni or donors?

States are increasingly saying “No,” with California being the fifth and largest to do so, on Sept. 30. Public schools in that state had dropped the practice decades earlier. The new law bars it at private, nonprofit colleges and universities.

The Golden State joins Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, and Colorado, all of which have done away with legacy admissions at either all schools or at public institutions. Massachusetts and other states are considering similar action – and members of Congress have also embraced the idea. For some institutions, it could mean the loss of a consistent revenue source, and, some argue, an important part of school culture and community. But opponents say the recent laws go a long way to support equal access to education.

“This is terrific news,” says James Murphy, director of career pathways and post-secondary policy at the nonprofit Education Reform Now. “Not only because it’s California and that’s a big and influential state, but also because it’s only the second state to abandon legacies in private universities.”

What’s driving states to ban legacy admissions?

The push to ban legacy admissions became more public after the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that did away with affirmative action, deeming it unconstitutional to consider race in admissions. In that decision, the high court also commented on other practices. Legacy admissions “while race-neutral on their face,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch in his concurring opinion, ”undoubtedly benefit white and wealthy applicants the most.”

Steve Helber/AP/File

Virginia state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, seen here speaking to supporters in 2023, sponsored a Senate bill banning public universities from using legacy admissions. It was signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in March 2024.

State bans are fairly recent. Colorado was the first to bar legacy admissions, at public schools, in 2021. Earlier this year, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore made his state the first to include private, nonprofit colleges and universities – as well as their public counterparts – in a ban. This year, Illinois and Virginia also passed laws banning legacy admissions at public institutions.

After the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision, advocacy groups filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education asking for an investigation into legacy admissions at schools like Harvard. The University of Pennsylvania is currently being investigated after a separate complaint. A 2019 study showed that 43% of white students admitted to Harvard were legacies, athletes, or children of parents or relatives who donated to the university. It also showed that 70% of the school’s legacy students were white.

“As the organization that filed the federal civil rights complaint against Harvard University for its discriminatory legacy and donor preferences, we applaud California’s move. And we ask: Why is Massachusetts lagging behind on this critical civil rights issue?” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director at Lawyers for Civil Rights Boston, in a statement after California’s decision. Mr. Espinoza-Madrigal called legacy admission an unfair and undeserved preference that is harmful to applicants of color.

Michael Casey/AP/File

Students walk through a gate at Harvard University, June 2023, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's legacy admissions practices, which at least one study has shown largely benefit white students, have come under fire by opponents.

Along with members of Congress, the U.S. Department of Education and President Joe Biden have called out the practice, with Mr. Biden saying that it expands “privilege instead of opportunity.” Three-quarters of Americans say legacy should not be considered in college admissions, up from 68% in 2019, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey.

Last week, Brown University’s student paper, The Brown Daily Herald, released the results of a poll in which nearly 60% of student respondents said they somewhat or strongly opposed legacy admissions. The Ivy League school is considering whether it will continue the practice. Of the students who enrolled in the Class of 2027, for example, 8% are legacies, according to Brown.

Some 460 private, nonprofit, four-year institutions reported that they do consider legacy admissions in a survey released last year by the National Center for Education Statistics. If it does do away with the practice, Brown will join the selective schools who don’t use it, including Johns Hopkins University, Amherst College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The California law will affect schools such as Stanford University, the University of Southern California, and Santa Clara University, all places where legacy admissions have accounted for double-digit percentages of admitted students.

“In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work. The California Dream shouldn’t be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we’re opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

The new legislation will not take effect until next September. Starting in 2026, all private schools in the state must submit an annual report to show that they are following the law. Schools that violate the law will appear on a published list by the California Department of Justice, and they will also have to disclose the overall number and certain information about legacy students who were admitted.

Private schools get federal and state dollars for research, financial aid, and tax exemptions – which means the state and federal governments can ask them to comply with laws. So far, the University of Southern California has said it will follow the law. Stanford has said that it will continue to review its admissions policies.

What colleges say about legacy admissions

Elite schools, including Harvard, have argued that the practice helps build community, and that it is part of their fundraising process. A committee at Brown looking at admissions practices wrote in a report released in February that is is considering “whether it is fair to end legacy preferences at the moment when the applicant pool is beginning to reflect the more diverse population of Brown alumni and alumnae, many of whom attended the University at a time when it was less inclusive and welcoming.”

But the group’s report also noted that “removing legacy preferences could lead to somewhat more diversity in the group of admitted students.”

“That’s the bottom line,” says Stanford Law School Professor Ralph Richard Banks. “[Legacy admissions] are unfair in the sense that you’re giving one student an advantage over another because of who their parent is. That’s not the way things work in the United States of America, but it’s also the case that the universities have developed a business model that relies on that sort of preference. That’s what drives the fundraising.”

Mr. Banks says he doesn’t know if legacy admissions bans will curtail a significant portion of those donations, but that the schools don’t want to find out.

“It’s important to say that it is possible that these institutions might lose some donations,” says Mr. Murphy from Education Reform Now. But he adds, “Most people that give donations to colleges give very small amounts, and if a college can only get money from their alumni by essentially setting up a quid pro quo, ‘You send us money, we’ll help your kid out,’ that’s a pretty bad sign for how that college has built community.”

Universities have spent money to defend their positions by lobbying behind closed doors, Mr. Banks says. The California law, for example, initially called for schools to be fined if they violated the law, which saw backlash from lawmakers and schools. But when that language was taken out, it received bipartisan approval. He thinks that will be the case with schools nationally.

Even so, some are still hoping the tides have turned.

“I firmly believe that in like 5 – maybe 10 – years, people are going to be like, ’Oh my God. Can you believe that colleges used to have legacy preferences?’” says Mr. Murphy. He adds that though the practice is nowhere near as heinous, he equates legacy admissions to people having segregated pools in the country. “That’s embarrassing that anybody ever thought that that was OK.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the portion of Americans in the Pew survey who say legacy should not be included in college admissions. 

Evan Vucci/AP/File

Joe Biden signs an executive order on artificial intelligence at the White House, Oct. 30, 2023, in Washington, while Vice President Kamala Harris looks on.

With more than 60 countries – accounting for nearly half the world’s population – holding elections, 2024 is turning out to be a record year for voting. Artificial intelligence threatens to undermine this democratic wave with audio and images that may look realistic, but are fake.

Often, these AI deepfakes are meant purely to entertain, lampooning one candidate or another. But others are intended to sway elections, deepen political divisions, and diminish trust in democracy itself. 

Here’s a look at what has happened so far, and where the technology might be headed.

How has AI been used in this election cycle?

The phenomenon first popped up in a big way in Slovakia’s elections last fall. A deepfake audio of an interview with pro-
European leader Michal Šimečka presented him supposedly bragging about rigging the election and proposing to raise the price of beer. The manipulated audio went viral, and Mr. Šimečka’s party, though leading in the polls, lost to the party led by pro-Russian Robert Fico. Since then, deepfakes have turned up in elections in Bangladesh, Nigeria, Turkey, the United Kingdom, France, India, and elsewhere.

In the United States presidential election, one of the first instances of manipulation to gain national attention was a January robocall, ostensibly from President Joe Biden, urging Democrats not to vote in the New Hampshire primary. The prank’s funder, a Democrat, said he did it as a warning that AI is a threat to elections. Since then, fake images have circulated depicting former President Donald Trump dancing with an underage girl, Vice President Kamala Harris wearing a communist uniform, and singer Taylor Swift endorsing Mr. Trump. Ms. Swift later endorsed Ms. Harris. 

How effective has the AI been? 

Not enough to sway elections, say researchers who have studied the issue, at least not yet. Even in Slovakia’s case, some recent commentary has suggested that the factors behind Mr. Fico’s victory may be broader than a simple deepfake.  

Warnings about AI aren’t new. What has changed? 

Many nations are holding their first set of elections since tech company OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in late November 2022. ChatGPT was the first widely available “chatbot” using generative AI. That’s a technology that allows computers to process human questions with such a degree of certainty that they can generate answers that sound as if they’re coming from a person. They can create not only realistic text but also audio, still images, and video.

Vadim Ghirda/AP/File

Moldovan President Maia Sandu greets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Bulboaca, Moldova, June 1, 2023. She has been a frequent subject of misinformation created with artificial intelligence.

Can computers now think? 

Not like people. Instead, they process so much material from the internet and elsewhere that they can predict the next word in a sentence with a high degree of accuracy or conjure an image that mimics human creativity, even if they’re not conscious in the way people are.

Do generative AI deepfakes differ from misinformation in previous elections?

The difference is in the speed and volume of fake content generated. Deepfake videos, in particular, used to require expensive equipment, lots of expertise, and time. With generative AI, anyone can generate a fake video within minutes. They don’t even have to film anything. They just describe what they want in words, and the computers generate a realistic video on the spot. This technological advance has led to surges of fake content around specific events.

For example, the July assassination attempt against former President Trump inspired, in three days, as much election-
related AI data as in all of May, says Emilio Ferrara, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California who is tracking the technology’s use in U.S. elections.

Has the U.S. been inundated with deepfakes designed to sway voters? 

Strangely, no. “I was worried that we’d be massively overwhelmed,” says V.S. Subrahmanian, a computer scientist at Northwestern University who, in July, set up a service to help journalists detect deepfakes. “But we’re not.” In a newly released tracker of AI manipulation in elections, the German Marshall Fund lists fewer than 30 incidents involving the current U.S. presidential race. 

Instead, many of the deepfakes that have emerged are obvious parodies. Since spreading unsubstantiated rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets and wildfowl in an Ohio community, Mr. Trump has been depicted in various poses saving cats and ducks. After President Biden dropped out of the race, doctored audio had Vice President Harris saying, “I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate. Thanks, Joe.”

That doesn’t mean a deluge of more malign deepfakes won’t occur nearer Election Day, warns Siwei Lyu, a computer science and engineering professor at the University at Buffalo. But, “It’s too early to call,” he says.

The infamous fake Slovak audio appeared two days before that country’s parliamentary election. On the eve of Pakistan’s elections in February, the main opposition candidate was falsely depicted urging his followers not to vote. Opponents of Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris may be holding their fire.

In a new report, Professor Ferrara and his colleagues charge that a small but active number of users on the social platform X are coordinating activities and promoting one another’s fake stories to attack the integrity of democratic processes.

What about threats from overseas?

Authoritarian governments such as in China, Russia, and Iran appear to have adopted a similar focus. While they may try to influence particular races, their influence campaigns, including deepfakes, aim to promote political divisiveness in the U.S. and denigrate democracy as a solution to the world’s problems. “If you undermine the credibility of the biggest democracy in the world, then you are really undermining democracy at its core,” Professor Ferrara says.

Is the U.S. able to counter these AI-driven efforts?

Researchers are heartened by the attention given to deepfakes in this election cycle, which should help voters become more discerning about assessing the reality of what they see and hear. The level of attention by federal and state officials has also soared. In an Oct. 7 briefing with reporters, intelligence officials warned that foreign actors would likely try to sow doubt about voting results even after the election, especially if the races are close.

“The more [officials] see the potential impact, the more they’re going to allocate resources towards countermeasures,” says Professor Lyu. “I’m cautiously optimistic.”

It took a phone call with Steven Spielberg to reassure Titus Kaphar that he was OK. While directing a scene in his debut movie, Mr. Kaphar had endured a breakdown.

“I literally said, ‘Cut’ and started sobbing,” he recalls. “I had to leave the set, locked myself in a dark room, and just lay there on the floor crying, letting these waves of heaving tears just roll over me.”

Mr. Kaphar’s drama “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” which opens in theaters Oct. 18, is inspired by his own life. He wrote the script. It’s the story of a famous painter who encounters his abusive father, a former drug addict, for the first time in 15 years. A reckoning is overdue.

André Holland’s performance as the artist unlocked something within Mr. Kaphar. As a child, he hadn’t been allowed to cry. This was new. He reached out to Mr. Spielberg, a new mentor.

“He told me, ‘I cried every day when I did my last film, “The Fabelmans.”’ It was really, really encouraging. And it gave me so much hope in the process,” says Mr. Kaphar during a video call from his Connecticut home.

Today, the filmmaker has many reasons to smile. The premiere for “Exhibiting Forgiveness” attracted attendees such as Serena Williams and Oprah Winfrey. Mr. Kaphar, a recipient of what’s often called the “genius grant” through the MacArthur Foundation, has had his paintings displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington. He also launched an exhibition of artworks from the movie at the Gagosian gallery in Beverly Hills, California.

Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Titus Kaphar, artist and writer-director of “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” attends a September red carpet event for the film.

Reexamining grievances

But critical acclaim for “Exhibiting Forgiveness” isn’t as important to the director as his filmmaking journey. It transformed him. To tell the story, Mr. Kaphar had to reexamine his interpretation of grievances he’d been holding on to. The visually sumptuous movie examines what it takes to pardon wrongdoing. 

“You can pause the film at any moment, and it would be something that you could frame on the wall,” says Alex Mallis, whose unconventional 2022 documentary about Mr. Kaphar, “Shut Up and Paint,” was also co-directed by its subject. “It’s not a surreal movie, but it has surreal emotion. ... You sort of tap into this feeling [of] empathy for who you see on-screen. And you can’t help but let a little bit of your own emotions seep in, and you see things you recognize big and small from your own life. It feels very specific and yet somehow also universal.”

Before now, the artist’s difficult childhood in a poor neighborhood of Kalamazoo, Michigan, hadn’t figured into the biography of his prodigious rise. 

Famously, Mr. Kaphar was in his mid-20s when he decided to become an artist. The spark? An art history class in junior college. Mr. Kaphar taught himself how to paint by visiting art museums. In 2001, he completed an MFA degree at Yale. He was awarded the “genius grant” in 2018. His most famous work, “Behind the Myth of Benevolence,” is a commentary on Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with the enslaved woman Sally Hemings. In response to the death of George Floyd and other Black men killed by the police, Time magazine published Mr. Kaphar’s “Analogous Colors” on its cover. It depicts a mother holding a baby. The infant’s silhouette has been cut out of the canvas, leaving a blank space with the outline of its shape. 

Yet for all the artist’s success, he was secretly having panic-attack nightmares about his father. 

“I would wake up just flailing and hitting the wall,” says Mr. Kaphar. “It scared me the moment when I woke up and put a hole in the wall. I realized how bad it really was.”

Owen Conway Courtesy Gagosian

For his film “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” Titus Kaphar created new paintings, including “So vulnerable.” An exhibition of art from the movie is on display at the Gagosian gallery in Beverly Hills, California, through Nov. 2.

Deliberate choices

Mr. Kaphar incorporated that detail into the movie. The protagonist, Tarrell Rodin, can’t shake images of his father’s drug use and violence toward his mother, Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor). The movie itself, however, depicts those flashbacks with impressionistic techniques that create an impression of an assault without actually showing it.

“I was not going to participate in the kind of gratuitous, salacious violence that I’ve seen in film after film, particularly domestic violence against women,” says the director, who has sought filmmaking advice from supporters such as Mr. Spielberg and Spike Lee. “What we ultimately use is abstraction.”

In the movie, Tarrell has a surprise reunion with his father La’Ron (John Earl Jelks) when he takes his wife (Andra Day) and young son to visit his mother. Joyce implores her son to talk with La’Ron. Tarrell agrees to meet his father, but only if he can video the conversation. Many of those elements, too, are based on real-life events. 

“I went to his house and I started filming him, which in fact is more or less the scene that you see in the movie,” says Mr. Kaphar. “I made [a] documentary based on those recordings and felt very dissatisfied with it because it did a very good job of telling us where we were, but not how we got there.”

Mr. Kaphar had long been promising his inquisitive children that, one day, he’d tell them the story of their grandfather. The artist began waking up each day at 5 a.m. to write for two hours. That narrative about his life became a script. Revisiting those childhood memories conjured up images that inspired him to paint canvases that became part of the movie.

Roadside Attraction

Tarrell (André Holland, left) and La’Ron (John Earl Jelks) struggle to reconcile as son and father in “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” based on the life of artist Titus Kaphar.

“The thing that was the revelation is that my father is not the villain of my narrative,” says Mr. Kaphar, who’d left home to live with relatives in California after witnessing his father commit a “heinous” act. “In my own head, I had set him up to be that.”

While completing the script, Mr. Kaphar started writing and thinking from the perspective of La’Ron, the father. Mr. Kaphar realized that there are very few true villains in this world. Thinking back on his own childhood, in which he worked grueling and dangerous handyman jobs alongside his callous father, he recognized that his dad was trying to instill a work ethic to help him succeed in life. He’s grateful for it. More importantly, Mr. Kaphar now understands that his father loved him. 

“A new compassion”

“I began to realize that my father is as much a victim as I was. My father suffered at the hands of his father and, in fact, did better than his father,” he says. “That was difficult for me to accept initially. But by the time I got finished, it was just clear. It was absolutely clear. It meant that I have developed a new compassion and sympathy for my father.”

Mr. Kaphar says that his father has begun a journey toward sobriety, but hasn’t yet reached the destination. When his mother saw “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” it deepened their relationship through new mutual understanding. Like his proxy character in the movie, Mr. Kaphar has let go of resentment toward his father. It had a healing effect.

“Since the film, I haven’t had any more of those nightmares,” says Mr. Kaphar. “I haven’t had one for almost two years now. So I feel very happy about that. My wife is very happy about that. My contractor is not so happy about that!”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct Titus Kaphar’s quote, “The thing that was the revelation is that my father is not the villain of my narrative.”

AP

A woman wades through floodwaters in Jonglei state, South Sudan.

The world’s next climate summit, which starts mid-November, will take a new twist. It aims to find both solutions for and adaptations to global warming by focusing on peacemaking. Climate change has fueled many conflicts but, in some places, has also led to peace efforts to lessen its violent effects. Of the 15 countries most vulnerable to climate change, 13 are struggling with violent conflicts.

To make the point about the summit’s theme, host country Azerbaijan is considering whether to ask countries with conflicts to suspend hostilities during the 11-day conference. Similar requests have been made during the Olympics.

One country in particular – in fact, the world’s youngest – is already trying to foster reconciliation between warring groups after record floods, heat waves, and droughts over recent years. South Sudan, which became independent from Sudan in 2011, has been in a civil conflict between two ethnic groups, with international mediators trying to resolve differences. But in addition, the adverse weather has driven clashes between farmers and nomadic cattle herders forced to migrate into each other’s lands and compete for resources. Some three-quarters of the African nation’s 11 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. In March, schools were closed for two weeks because of extreme heat.

At the local level, many governors and civil society groups are bringing feuding clans to the table to negotiate an end to cattle theft and other abuses. Many of these peace initiatives are sponsored by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan. “Despite the difficult situation, people should strive for peaceful coexistence and unity,” said Paul Ebikwo, acting head of the organization’s field office in Malakal.

Some peace efforts are creative. U.N. peacekeepers from India, for example, bring warring clans together in the Greater Upper Nile by inviting them to bring in their cattle for checkups by Indian veterinarians. “When we care for animals, we care for each other, which is a powerful catalyst for peace,” said Lt. Col. Manoj Yadav, the deputy commander of the Indian peacekeeping battalion.

The peacekeepers’ motto: “Even in the darkest of times, the simplest acts of compassion and kindness can have a profound impact.” For a global climate summit with a theme of peace, that’s also a good motto.