A plan to dig a vast copper mine in arid southern Arizona is pitting the needs of American industry — and arguably the national economy — against a coalition of local residents and environmentalists.

Gunmen fired at a helicopter carrying workers for the mining giant Freeport-McMoRan shortly after it took off Saturday from a town near the company’s huge gold and copper mine in eastern Indonesia, a police spokesman, Colonel Wachyono, said.

As the State Department weighs approving an oil pipeline stretching from Canada to Texas, experts are divided on whether the Keystone XL project would worsen global warming.