American speedskater Jordan Stolz secured his second gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, winning the men's 500-meter race on Saturday, while the U.S. military conducted airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria in retaliation for a December ambush. Meanwhile, the Trump administration faced legal challenges regarding its actions in both the Caribbean and Washington, D.C.
Stolz's victory followed his win in the 1,000-meter race, putting him in a strong position to potentially win four gold medals at the games. He joined Eric Heiden as the only skaters to win both the 500 and 1,000-meter races. The U.S. military's strikes in Syria, reported on Saturday, targeted more than 30 Islamic State targets between February 3 and Thursday, hitting weapons storage facilities and other infrastructure, according to U.S. Central Command. These strikes were in response to an ambush in December that killed two U.S. soldiers and one American civilian interpreter.
The Trump administration's actions also drew scrutiny. The U.S. military's presence in the Caribbean, where it was reported that the administration had captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, was costing billions of dollars. Bloomberg calculations showed the operational price tag of the ships deployed there hit more than $20 million a day at its peak from mid-November until mid-January, according to Fortune.
In Washington, D.C., two golfers sued the federal government to prevent the Trump administration from overhauling a public golf course, alleging violations of environmental laws and damage to a historic site. This lawsuit was one in a series of legal battles challenging the administration's efforts to alter public spaces in the nation's capital. Another lawsuit sought to prevent the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom, a project estimated to cost $400 million, according to Fortune.
In other news, four members of NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission docked at the International Space Station on Saturday afternoon. The crew, including two NASA astronauts, Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russia's Andrei Fedyaev, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Friday morning.
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