The United States has pulled off a daring rescue of two aviators whose fighter jet was shot down by Iran. After plucking the pilot from behind enemy lines, it launched a complicated extraction of the second service member hiding deep in the mountains as Tehran called for Iranians to help capture him. The CIA looked to throw off Iran’s government before the crew member was found, launching a deception campaign to spread word he had already been located. Rescuers also faced major obstacles, including two Black Hawk helicopters coming under fire and problems with two transport planes that forced the U.S. military to blow them up.

The Trump administration is arguing that a judge’s order to halt construction of a $400 million ballroom creates a security risk for the president. It is asking a federal appeals court to pause the ruling. In an emergency motion filed Friday, National Park Service lawyers say that order to suspend construction of the new facility was “threatening grave national-security harms to the White House, the President and his family, and the President’s staff.” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington last week ordered that unless Congress approves the project, which has included demolishing the East Wing of the White House, it must be put on pause.

A federal judge has halted efforts by the Trump administration to collect data that proves higher education institutions aren’t considering race in admissions. The ruling granting the preliminary injunction follows a lawsuit filed last month by a coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general. President Donald Trump ordered the new policy in August after he raised concerns that colleges and universities were using personal statements and other proxies to consider race. The states argue the data collection effort threats student privacy and could lead to baseless investigations of colleges and universities. The federal judge said the federal government likely has the authority to collect the data, but the demand was rolled out to universities in a “rushed and chaotic” manner.

The Trump administration has revoked the green cards or U.S. visas of at least four Iranian nationals connected to the current or former Iranian government, including two who have been detained by immigration authorities and are to be deported. The arrests came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined they were no longer eligible for either lawful permanent resident status, or to enter the United States. In a statement the State Department said the niece and grand-niece of former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike near the Baghdad airport in 2020, had been arrested late Friday by immigration agents

For generations, human beings have wondered: What would alien life from another planet be like? But we rarely ask the opposite: What would they think of us? Theoretical physicist Avi Loeb says that due to how humans treat one another, visitors from other planets might be disappointed at what they find here. The debate on whether little green men or UFOs are among us heated up in February when former President Barack Obama responding to podcaster’s question, said aliens are “real,” but he ”hasn’t seen them” and “they’re not being kept at Area 51.” Not to be outdone, President Donald Trump later announced on social media that he was directing release of government files because of “tremendous interest.”