The Republican-controlled House gave approval to a three-year extension of a key U.S. surveillance program after weeks of infighting. The measure adds new oversight, including monthly reviews of FBI searches involving Americans, potential criminal penalties for misuse and a government audit of targeting practices. But it stops short of the central demand from critics: requiring a warrant to access Americans’ communications. Leaders argue the program is vital to national security, while opponents say it still allows warrantless surveillance. Even with the bill's passage Wednesday, next steps in the Senate remain uncertain.

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.

For generations, human beings have wondered: What would alien life from another planet be like? But we rarely ask the opposite: What would the…