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China’s “National Team” Dumped ETFs In Q1 To Cool Overheating Market

China’s “National Team” Dumped ETFs In Q1 To Cool Overheating Market

For years, and especially after the local stock bubble burst in spectacular fashion a little over a decade ago, China’s “National Team” – a polite euphemism for the country’s Plunge Protection Team – could be relied upon to step in and provide a lending hand – or rather buying hand – to stabilize stocks in the nick of time. Well, it may be time to rename it to the Surge Protection Team

According to Bloomberg, China’s “national team” has stepped back from its dominant role in the country’s biggest stock ETFs, pointing to efforts to rein in an overheated rally earlier this year.

Central Huijin Investment Ltd – a core unit of China’s sovereign wealth fund that traditionally led a group of state-backed investors used to stabilize markets – cut its ownership in several key exchange‑traded funds to below the 20% disclosure threshold, according to first‑quarter filings. Its current stake is unclear and won’t be reported until sometime in the summer. 

The disclosures, according to Bloomberg, offer the clearest confirmation yet that the national team cut a substantial portion of its ETF holdings in January, as turnover hit a record and the rally turned increasingly speculative, particularly in parts of the technology sector. They also indicate Beijing is no longer just propping up the market, but is willing to drain speculative excess — a break from past rescue playbooks.

Central Huijin and its asset management arm may have reduced their holdings by at least half in flagship products such as the 200 billion yuan ($29.3 billion) Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 ETF. The two entities held 42.6% and 40% respectively as of the end of last year.

Even smaller funds such as the HuaAn SSE 180 ETF, previously 92% owned by the national team, reported no single shareholder above the 20% threshold, indicating the stakes were cut across the board. 

Quarterly ETF filings only require disclosure of investors with holdings of 20% or more, a threshold Central Huijin had consistently met until local stocks erupted higher in Q1.

While ownership levels can fluctuate as others trade, the sharp decline in total ETF units outstanding during the period suggests the market’s dominant buyer until recently played a decisive role in the outflows.

Remarkably, some of the National Team sales might have locked in gains of around 50%, based on the rise of the CSI 300 Index from early‑2024 lows, when the national team began aggressively buying ETFs to stem a market meltdown, through January this year, when the selling likely took place. The exact returns would depend on the specific ETFs and the timing of those purchases.

The scale of the stake reductions may become clearer with first-half filings due in the third quarter, when the identities and holdings of the top 10 investors are revealed.

Morgan Stanley estimates the national team sold about $80 billion of positions in January and February. Analysts including Laura Wang expect the money to be used for investing in longer-term, more “strategic and thematic” ETFs.

“The fact that they have relinquished this dominant position in ETFs implies that they have much more potential to create upside in the market going forward, sitting on cash, while their power to create downside is now diminished,” said Cheng Hao, fund manager at Zhejiang Feiluo Assets Management.

And now that the National Team is mostly in cash, local stocks can drop again and the government will be there to prop them up again. Rinse. Repeat. 

Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/22/2026 – 19:15

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Injunction Against Publicly Identifying Pseudonymous Litigants Is Content-Based Prior Restraint,

Today’s decision by Fourth Circuit Judge Julius Richardson, joined by Chief Judge Albert Diaz, in Doe v. Mast involved a gag order on defendants: The order barred the defendants from “disclosing any information that directly or indirectly identifies Plaintiffs or their family members to any person … unless that person first executes a non-disclosure agreement.”

The court ultimately upheld the order, because of national security concerns that are only very rarely present in such pseudonymous claims (see this post for more, including more on the factual background). But in the process, the court held three things that will be significant in many more cases.

1. Such gag orders are content-based prior restraints on speech:

“Content-based restrictions target ‘particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed.'” Distinctions drawn “based on the message a speaker conveys,” whether they regulate speech “by particular subject matter” or “by its function or purpose,” are facially content based and presumptively unconstitutional….

[A]n order prohibiting “any extrajudicial statement … to any person or persons associated with any public communications media … relating to the trial, the parties or issues in th[e] case which could interfere with a fair trial or prejudice any plaintiff, the defendant, or the administration of justice” constituted a content-based restriction…. [I]n a similar way, the protective order at issue here is a content-based restriction on speech, because it facially singles out and restricts the Masts’ ability to speak extrajudicially “to any person” if their message functions to “directly or indirectly” reveal the Does’ or their family members’ identities.

As the order prohibits speech before it is expressed, it is also a prior restraint. {Even though the threatened sanction is not imposed until after the speech has occurred, practically, the protective order operates as an immediate restraint on the Masts’ speech.} “The term prior restraint is used ‘to describe administrative and judicial orders forbidding certain communications when issued in advance of the time that such communications are to occur.'” “[C]ourt orders that actually forbid speech activities are classic examples of prior restraints.”

2. Though courts have broad authority to limit the dissemination of what litigants learn through coercive court-ordered discovery, that authority can’t justify restricting litigants from saying what they learned independently:

[T]he order does not merely restrict the dissemination of information obtained through court-sanctioned discovery; it prevents the Masts from sharing information learned independently of this litigation. That distinction matters.

In Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart (1984), the Supreme Court held that an order limiting dissemination of information gained through discovery “is not the kind of classic prior restraint that requires exacting First Amendment scrutiny,” because the restricted party would never have possessed that information if not for the court’s coercion-backed processes. But “injunctions against parties revealing information that they already knew before filing the case” are classic prior restraints. Here, the Masts knew the Does’ true identities before this lawsuit was filed, so this knowledge was not “gained through the pretrial discovery process.” … So Seattle Times‘s more deferential “good cause” standard does not apply.

3. A court’s power to let litigants proceed pseudonymously in court doesn’t necessarily imply a power to gag their adversaries outside court:

The district court’s attempt to distinguish the order from a prior restraint by characterizing it as a necessary “corollary” to enforce the pseudonym order conflates two distinct inquiries, each designed to protect different rights….

[The test for when parties can proceed pseudonymously] balances a plaintiff’s privacy interests against the public’s right of access to judicial proceedings and a defendant’s right to fair process. It is not—and was never intended to be—a test for justifying a prior restraint on a party’s distinct First Amendment right to free speech outside the courthouse…. [The] test determines whether a plaintiff can shield their identity in the litigation; it does not grant the court license to censor the defendant’s right to speak about that identity in the public sphere.

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Fourth Circuit Upholds Injunction Against Disclosing Names of Perceived Afghan Collaborators

From Fourth Circuit Judge Julius Richardson, joined by Chief Judge Albert Diaz, in today’s Doe v. Mast:

To protect Plaintiffs and their family members living in Afghanistan, the district court issued a protective order that prohibited Defendants and their lawyers from “disclosing any information that directly or indirectly identifies Plaintiffs or their family members to any person … unless that person first executes a non-disclosure agreement.” …

Although the order constitutes a content-based prior restraint, it fits into one of the narrow exceptions in which prior restraints can be permissible, subject to strict scrutiny. And the order satisfies strict scrutiny: It is narrowly tailored to safeguard the government’s compelling interest in ensuring our Nation’s security, which often depends on ensuring the safety of foreign nationals who ally themselves with United States military and diplomatic efforts abroad.

Indeed, if such foreign nationals cannot rely on the United States’ assurances of their protection, our Nation’s ability to cultivate essential human assets abroad would be seriously undermined. In this case, the narrow protective order is the least restrictive means to safeguard this interest. Therefore, we affirm the district court’s protective order….

“The Government has a compelling interest in protecting” not only “the secrecy of information important to our national security” but also “the appearance of confidentiality so essential to the effective operation of our foreign intelligence service.” Snepp v. U.S. (1980). That includes protecting the identity of potential foreign collaborators…. [T]he government’s ability to provide credible assurances to potential collaborators that they and their family members will not be endangered by aiding the United States is directly tied to its compelling interest in ensuring the Nation’s security.

This interest necessarily encompasses protecting the confidentiality of those who are perceived as collaborators, regardless of whether they are actual collaborators. That’s because the government’s ability to credibly ensure the confidentiality of collaborators, and thus its ability to recruit and retain them, depends in part on avoiding publicly marking those seen as having assisted the U.S. government….

As the district court noted, the Does were evacuated from Afghanistan to the United States in late August 2021 and then housed at United States military bases. During this time, Operation Allies Refuge—as the name suggests—sought to support Afghans who worked alongside the United States in Afghanistan by bringing them to the United States. The circumstances and timing of the Does’ evacuation and resettlement would predictably (even if mistakenly) lead an outside observer as well as the Taliban to perceive the Does as American collaborators.

Indeed, “evidence readily showed the grave safety risks that … [the Does’] families in Afghanistan would face if [the Does’] identities became public.” The Taliban would likely “carry out violence against the Does’ families remaining in Afghanistan.” Nor is this mere conjecture, as the district court found that the “threat” to their families, if the Does’ “identities become known, is anything but speculative.” …

[And the] protective order—prohibiting “disclosing any information that directly or indirectly identifies Plaintiffs and their family members to any person … unless that person first executes a non-disclosure agreement”—is sufficiently narrowly tailored. It is limited to the Masts as participants in the litigation…. [And it] does not purport to control the Masts’ ability to speak generally about the litigation, about the Does’ claims, or about their own defenses….

More on the unusual factual and procedural background:

In September 2019, an Afghan infant (Baby Doe) was injured and orphaned during a joint U.S.-Afghan military operation in Afghanistan. U.S. Army Rangers then took Baby Doe to a U.S. military hospital for emergency care. Soon thereafter, Major Joshua Mast, who was serving in Afghanistan as a Marine Corps Judge Advocate, learned about Baby Doe. Mast and his wife, Stephanie Mast, began custody proceedings in Virginia. They obtained an interlocutory adoption order in November 2019, which was finalized in December 2020.

This led to a dispute over child custody with the Does, who were Baby Doe’s cousin and his wife; eventually the Virginia Supreme Court rejected the Does’ challenge.

In September 2022, the Does brought this federal suit against the Masts, Joshua’s brother Richard, and others who assisted the Masts. Along with their original complaint, the Does moved for a protective order that would prohibit Defendants from publicly disclosing the Does’ identities.

In support, John Doe submitted a sealed declaration explaining that he and Jane Doe would fear for their own safety—and that of their family in Afghanistan—if their presence in the United States or the circumstances surrounding their departure from Afghanistan were revealed. He expressed concern that if their location were revealed, then the Taliban would learn of it and harm their family members based on the false perception that Doe was a U.S. cooperator or spy. This fear is even more acute because the Does came to the United States during the evacuation of Afghanistan—at the same time as many genuine cooperators. He further explained that their family would be put at risk even if only their hometowns were publicly disclosed.

The district court agreed, issuing the gag order described in the opening paragraph above. The court held that “the protective order constitutes a content-based prior restraint,” because it enjoined the publication of specific information. But the court held that this was the “exceptional case[]” in which a content-based prior restraint is constitutionally permissible, because it’s narrowly tailored to the compelling government interest in national security:

Judge Robert King dissented on narrow appellate procedure grounds.

Kevin S. Elliker (Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP) argued the case on behalf of the Does.

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Voting Rights Groups Sue To Stop DOJ From Collecting State Voter Lists

Voting Rights Groups Sue To Stop DOJ From Collecting State Voter Lists

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Voting rights groups filed a lawsuit on April 21 seeking to block the Department of Justice (DOJ) from collecting, compiling, and analyzing state voter registration lists.

As of April 1, the DOJ has sued 30 states, including Washington, for failing to turn over voter rolls. The department has said the U.S. attorney general has congressional authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to seek election records from states to check for improper voter registrations.

The groups filed a complaint on April 21, accusing the DOJ of seeking to use the sensitive data to build what they described as a “sprawling new voter surveillance and purging apparatus” without congressional authorization.

The complaint alleges that the department attempted to usurp states’ authority to oversee election administration and impose its own “secretive ’verification procedures’” to identify ineligible voters.

“Never before has a federal agency centralized this volume of Americans’ voting data in a single system of records,” it stated.

“And in doing so, DOJ has flouted statutory safeguards designed to ensure transparency and public participation in the federal government’s collection of Americans’ personal information.”

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by advocacy group Common Cause and four individual members of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The data requested by the DOJ includes voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, political party affiliations, and voter participation history, according to the filing.

The groups are seeking a court order requiring the DOJ to delete any voter rolls it has obtained from states and to bar the department from compiling or disclosing voter data.

Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said on April 1 that the department has a duty to ensure state compliance with election laws.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington on Sept. 29, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“The Justice Department will continue to fulfill its oversight role dutifully, neutrally, and transparently wherever Americans vote in federal elections,” Dhillon said in a statement

“Many state election officials, however, are choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work. We will continue to verify that all States are carrying out critical election integrity legal duties.”

Dhillon added that the Civil Rights Act allows the attorney general to “demand the production, inspection, and analysis of statewide voter registration lists that can be cross-checked effectively.”

In an April 21 statement, Common Cause CEO Virginia Kase Solomon said the DOJ’s efforts to collect voter rolls amount to “a blatant, partisan power grab.”

“By attempting to interrogate and exploit voter data for political purposes, President Trump’s DOJ isn’t just threatening the privacy of every American—they are building a system designed to imprison the ballot box and silence millions of eligible voters,” Solomon said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the DOJ for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/22/2026 – 18:50

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Aaaand It’s Gone… PE Shop Thoma Bravo Writes Off Over $5BN From 2021 SaaS Firm Acquisition

Aaaand It’s Gone… PE Shop Thoma Bravo Writes Off Over $5BN From 2021 SaaS Firm Acquisition

Not a great night for SaaS…

Given the eight straight days of gains for Software stocks, one could argue that the death of code-base companies was greatly exaggerated (cough -dead-cat bounce – cough), but not every boat is being lifted by this massive short-squeeze rebound

JPMorgan Trader Brian Heavey said earlier that it “seems we are moving from ‘SAAS is dead’ to ‘maybe they can co-exist'”, but it appears one software firm is indeed ‘no more’.

In July 2021, Thoma Bravo took customer-experience (CX) software leader Medallia private in a $6.4 billion all-cash leveraged buyout.

Thoma Bravo and its co-investors contributed roughly $5 billion of equity, while Blackstone and other private-credit lenders provided $1.8 billion of debt.

The deal reflected the era’s sky-high software valuations and Thoma Bravo’s aggressive playbook of buying mature SaaS platforms with heavy leverage.

But…

By 2026, the investment had become one of private equity’s most visible busts.

Medallia’s growth stalled in a crowded CX market where survey-based platforms faced commoditization and slower enterprise spending.

PE Insights reported two weeks ago that debt servicing costs ballooned to nearly $300 million (carrying around $3 billion in total debt).

Annual earnings hovered around just $200 million – insufficient to cover interest – leaving the company struggling to deleverage.

Around a month ago, Barron’s reported that lenders were under serious pressure as Blackstone, the lead creditor, repeatedly marked down its large loan position: from par to the high 80s in mid-2025, then to roughly 70 cents on the dollar by February 2026, with further declines reported into the 60s.

Other lenders including Apollo and KKR followed suit.

All of which brings us to today…

Reuters reports that, according to two people familiar with the matter, Thoma ​Bravo is nearing an agreement to hand over software ‌firm Medallia to its lenders, wrapping up months of restructuring negotiations.

The move will wipe out $5.1 billion ​in equity for Thoma Bravo and its co-investors.

Medallia provides software that collects and analyzes customer and employee feedback for companies, and has like other software/SaaS companies, seen its valuation ​hit in recent months over concerns that its services will eventually ‌be ⁠supplanted by artificial intelligence.

Will this prompt markdowns across other SaaS firms in PE books? We suspect it might force some hands to admit the painful truth.

With a literal tsunami of supply on its way this year – most notably Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX all pushing to IPO in 2026 at massive valuations – some investors may see parallels to the classic 2021-vintage risks exposed by Medallia today: overpayment at peak multiples, excessive leverage, and sector headwinds that private ownership could not fix.

For Thoma Bravo and other large-scale investors, it stands as a cautionary tale of how quickly high-priced software bets can sour when growth assumptions prove overly optimistic.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/22/2026 – 18:25

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Harvard Creates Robot Ants That Work Like Real Insects To Build And Dismantle Complex Structures

Harvard Creates Robot Ants That Work Like Real Insects To Build And Dismantle Complex Structures

Authored by Mrigakshi Dixit via Interesting Engineering,

Researchers at Harvard have developed a fleet of robotic ants that mimic the self-organizing behavior of social insects to build and dismantle structures without blueprints or central leadership.

An illustration of how the collective, decentralized behavior of ants has inspired experiments with cooperative robots that can complete tasks without central control.

Dubbed “RAnts”, these robotic ants have been designed by researchers from the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). 

These are simple, decentralized robots that can spontaneously organize to build — and just as easily destroy — complex structures.

Instead of chemical pheromones, these robots use light fields (photormones) to communicate.

“Our new study shows how simple, local rules can lead to the emergence of complex task completion that is self-organized and thus robust and adaptive,” said Professor L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Physics at SEAS and FAS.

“We also introduce the concept of exbodied intelligence, where collective cognition arises not solely from individual agents, but from their ongoing interaction with an evolving environment,” Mahadevan added.

Digital pheromones

Ants prove that you don’t need a big brain to be a great builder. All that is needed is a great team. Without blueprints or supervisors, these tiny creatures construct some of nature’s most complex habitats.

And now, experts are taking this cue. In recent years, AI development has obsessed over faster chips and bigger digital brains. 

But Professor L. Mahadevan and his team looked elsewhere, particularly exbodied intelligence.

In this model, the smart systems aren’t located inside the robot’s hardware. Rather, the intelligence emerges from the interaction between the robot and its surroundings. 

This study demonstrates that decentralized agents can achieve complex goals by following minimal physical rules and responding to environmental cues.

In the wild, ants communicate via pheromones — chemical breadcrumbs that signal where to walk or where to dig. To replicate this, the Harvard team used photormones.

Using a biological concept called stigmergy, in which individuals respond to environmental changes made by others, the team created “RAnts” that communicate through light fields known as photormones. 

These digital signals act as a substitute for natural pheromones, allowing the robots to coordinate their actions by sensing and modifying their surroundings in a continuous feedback loop.

Diverse use

Following simple gradients in a “photormone” light field, these robots create a feedback loop that coordinates the entire swarm. 

These operate on just a few basic rules, like tracking signals, transporting blocks, and depositing them at specific thresholds. 

The beauty of the system lies in its simplicity. Interestingly, the swarm can switch roles instantly by adjusting just two parameters: the intensity of the light-following behavior and the setting for dropping or picking up blocks.

One minute, the robots are a construction crew, and the next, a demolition team.

This development offers a new model for autonomous robotics, proving that sophisticated, large-scale tasks can be managed through simple, self-organizing interactions.

It suggests that collective intelligence isn’t just in the robots’ brains, but arises from the constant interaction between the agents and their evolving environment.

These findings pave the way for diverse applications, ranging from autonomous construction in hazardous zones and planetary exploration to the creation of advanced experimental models for analyzing animal behavior.

The study findings were detailed in the journal PRX Life.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/22/2026 – 18:00

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Injunction Against Publicly Identifying Pseudonymous Litigants Is Content-Based Prior Restraint,

Today’s decision by Fourth Circuit Judge Julius Richardson, joined by Chief Judge Albert Diaz, in Doe v. Mast involved a gag order on defendants: The order barred the defendants from “disclosing any information that directly or indirectly identifies Plaintiffs or their family members to any person … unless that person first executes a non-disclosure agreement.”

The court ultimately upheld the order, because of national security concerns that are only very rarely present in such pseudonymous claims (see this post for more, including more on the factual background). But in the process, the court held three things that will be significant in many more cases.

1. Such gag orders are content-based prior restraints on speech:

“Content-based restrictions target ‘particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed.'” Distinctions drawn “based on the message a speaker conveys,” whether they regulate speech “by particular subject matter” or “by its function or purpose,” are facially content based and presumptively unconstitutional….

[A]n order prohibiting “any extrajudicial statement … to any person or persons associated with any public communications media … relating to the trial, the parties or issues in th[e] case which could interfere with a fair trial or prejudice any plaintiff, the defendant, or the administration of justice” constituted a content-based restriction…. [I]n a similar way, the protective order at issue here is a content-based restriction on speech, because it facially singles out and restricts the Masts’ ability to speak extrajudicially “to any person” if their message functions to “directly or indirectly” reveal the Does’ or their family members’ identities.

As the order prohibits speech before it is expressed, it is also a prior restraint. {Even though the threatened sanction is not imposed until after the speech has occurred, practically, the protective order operates as an immediate restraint on the Masts’ speech.} “The term prior restraint is used ‘to describe administrative and judicial orders forbidding certain communications when issued in advance of the time that such communications are to occur.'” “[C]ourt orders that actually forbid speech activities are classic examples of prior restraints.”

2. Though courts have broad authority to limit the dissemination of what litigants learn through coercive court-ordered discovery, that authority can’t justify restricting litigants from saying what they learned independently:

[T]he order does not merely restrict the dissemination of information obtained through court-sanctioned discovery; it prevents the Masts from sharing information learned independently of this litigation. That distinction matters.

In Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart (1984), the Supreme Court held that an order limiting dissemination of information gained through discovery “is not the kind of classic prior restraint that requires exacting First Amendment scrutiny,” because the restricted party would never have possessed that information if not for the court’s coercion-backed processes. But “injunctions against parties revealing information that they already knew before filing the case” are classic prior restraints. Here, the Masts knew the Does’ true identities before this lawsuit was filed, so this knowledge was not “gained through the pretrial discovery process.” … So Seattle Times‘s more deferential “good cause” standard does not apply.

3. A court’s power to let litigants proceed pseudonymously in court doesn’t necessarily imply a power to gag their adversaries outside court:

The district court’s attempt to distinguish the order from a prior restraint by characterizing it as a necessary “corollary” to enforce the pseudonym order conflates two distinct inquiries, each designed to protect different rights….

[The test for when parties can proceed pseudonymously] balances a plaintiff’s privacy interests against the public’s right of access to judicial proceedings and a defendant’s right to fair process. It is not—and was never intended to be—a test for justifying a prior restraint on a party’s distinct First Amendment right to free speech outside the courthouse…. [The] test determines whether a plaintiff can shield their identity in the litigation; it does not grant the court license to censor the defendant’s right to speak about that identity in the public sphere.

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Fourth Circuit Upholds Injunction Against Disclosing Names of Perceived Afghan Collaborators

From Fourth Circuit Judge Julius Richardson, joined by Chief Judge Albert Diaz, in today’s Doe v. Mast:

To protect Plaintiffs and their family members living in Afghanistan, the district court issued a protective order that prohibited Defendants and their lawyers from “disclosing any information that directly or indirectly identifies Plaintiffs or their family members to any person … unless that person first executes a non-disclosure agreement.” …

Although the order constitutes a content-based prior restraint, it fits into one of the narrow exceptions in which prior restraints can be permissible, subject to strict scrutiny. And the order satisfies strict scrutiny: It is narrowly tailored to safeguard the government’s compelling interest in ensuring our Nation’s security, which often depends on ensuring the safety of foreign nationals who ally themselves with United States military and diplomatic efforts abroad.

Indeed, if such foreign nationals cannot rely on the United States’ assurances of their protection, our Nation’s ability to cultivate essential human assets abroad would be seriously undermined. In this case, the narrow protective order is the least restrictive means to safeguard this interest. Therefore, we affirm the district court’s protective order….

“The Government has a compelling interest in protecting” not only “the secrecy of information important to our national security” but also “the appearance of confidentiality so essential to the effective operation of our foreign intelligence service.” Snepp v. U.S. (1980). That includes protecting the identity of potential foreign collaborators…. [T]he government’s ability to provide credible assurances to potential collaborators that they and their family members will not be endangered by aiding the United States is directly tied to its compelling interest in ensuring the Nation’s security.

This interest necessarily encompasses protecting the confidentiality of those who are perceived as collaborators, regardless of whether they are actual collaborators. That’s because the government’s ability to credibly ensure the confidentiality of collaborators, and thus its ability to recruit and retain them, depends in part on avoiding publicly marking those seen as having assisted the U.S. government….

As the district court noted, the Does were evacuated from Afghanistan to the United States in late August 2021 and then housed at United States military bases. During this time, Operation Allies Refuge—as the name suggests—sought to support Afghans who worked alongside the United States in Afghanistan by bringing them to the United States. The circumstances and timing of the Does’ evacuation and resettlement would predictably (even if mistakenly) lead an outside observer as well as the Taliban to perceive the Does as American collaborators.

Indeed, “evidence readily showed the grave safety risks that … [the Does’] families in Afghanistan would face if [the Does’] identities became public.” The Taliban would likely “carry out violence against the Does’ families remaining in Afghanistan.” Nor is this mere conjecture, as the district court found that the “threat” to their families, if the Does’ “identities become known, is anything but speculative.” …

[And the] protective order—prohibiting “disclosing any information that directly or indirectly identifies Plaintiffs and their family members to any person … unless that person first executes a non-disclosure agreement”—is sufficiently narrowly tailored. It is limited to the Masts as participants in the litigation…. [And it] does not purport to control the Masts’ ability to speak generally about the litigation, about the Does’ claims, or about their own defenses….

More on the unusual factual and procedural background:

In September 2019, an Afghan infant (Baby Doe) was injured and orphaned during a joint U.S.-Afghan military operation in Afghanistan. U.S. Army Rangers then took Baby Doe to a U.S. military hospital for emergency care. Soon thereafter, Major Joshua Mast, who was serving in Afghanistan as a Marine Corps Judge Advocate, learned about Baby Doe. Mast and his wife, Stephanie Mast, began custody proceedings in Virginia. They obtained an interlocutory adoption order in November 2019, which was finalized in December 2020.

This led to a dispute over child custody with the Does, who were Baby Doe’s cousin and his wife; eventually the Virginia Supreme Court rejected the Does’ challenge.

In September 2022, the Does brought this federal suit against the Masts, Joshua’s brother Richard, and others who assisted the Masts. Along with their original complaint, the Does moved for a protective order that would prohibit Defendants from publicly disclosing the Does’ identities.

In support, John Doe submitted a sealed declaration explaining that he and Jane Doe would fear for their own safety—and that of their family in Afghanistan—if their presence in the United States or the circumstances surrounding their departure from Afghanistan were revealed. He expressed concern that if their location were revealed, then the Taliban would learn of it and harm their family members based on the false perception that Doe was a U.S. cooperator or spy. This fear is even more acute because the Does came to the United States during the evacuation of Afghanistan—at the same time as many genuine cooperators. He further explained that their family would be put at risk even if only their hometowns were publicly disclosed.

The district court agreed, issuing the gag order described in the opening paragraph above. The court held that “the protective order constitutes a content-based prior restraint,” because it enjoined the publication of specific information. But the court held that this was the “exceptional case[]” in which a content-based prior restraint is constitutionally permissible, because it’s narrowly tailored to the compelling government interest in national security:

Judge Robert King dissented on narrow appellate procedure grounds.

Kevin S. Elliker (Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP) argued the case on behalf of the Does.

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Embassy Tells Americans Still In Lebanon Depart Now While Flights Available As Ceasefire Collapsing

Embassy Tells Americans Still In Lebanon Depart Now While Flights Available As Ceasefire Collapsing

The US-mediated Lebanon ceasefire is unraveling fast amid intensified fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Thursday.

This has resulted in the US embassy in Beirut issuing an urgent renewed security alert, urging US citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial flight options are still available.

via AFP

The statement explained the security situation “remains complex and can change quickly.” It further said that those who don’t or cannot leave must be prepared to encounter emergency situations, and also warned of unexploded ordnance which has resulted in the recent war.

A 10-day ceasefire is still technically in effect – which began about six days ago after it was brokered between Lebanese and Israel officials in Washington D.C.

However, Hezbollah did not sign on, while also Israel said it would continue going after the Iran-allied paramilitary group, chiefly in the south of the country, where it has its main outposts.

At this point about 2,300 Lebanese have been killed since fighting intensified, including civilians, according to Beirut officials – and on the Israeli side, at least 13 soldiers and two civilians have died.

As part of the latest:

Lebanese media reported Wednesday that two journalists, Amal Khalil and Zeinab Faraj, were wounded in an Israel airstrike in the village of A-Tiri in southern Lebanon. According to the reports, Red Cross teams were dispatched to evacuate them. Later reports said two bodies and Faraj were recovered, while Khalil remained trapped, with Lebanese officials blaming Israel for difficulties in reaching her.

Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, said he was following developments and instructed the Red Cross to continue rescue efforts. A senior Lebanese army official told Reuters that an Israeli drone dropped a grenade near rescue teams, adding that Lebanon had appealed to Israel through the United States to allow access to the area.

And Israel has charged Hezbollah with breaching the ceasefire by sending drones and rockets into Israel lately.

While the Lebanon ceasefire is separate from the US-Israel-Iran ceasefire, it certainly is parallel, and typically when Iran and Israel are locked in direct battle, so is Hezbollah.

Israeli officials are now warning the ceasefire in Lebanon could collapse “at any moment” – and precautions are also being taken in northern Israel.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/22/2026 – 17:40

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/R3oFd7D Tyler Durden

Here’s How Trump Can Nuke Virginia’s New Gerrymandered Map…

Here’s How Trump Can Nuke Virginia’s New Gerrymandered Map…

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

Virginia used to be a model of fair redistricting. That reputation is now gone.

On Tuesday, Virginia Democrats passed a redistricting plan that transforms one of the most fairly apportioned states in the country into one of the most blatantly gerrymandered.

Keep in mind that Virginia only narrowly backed Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in 2024 by roughly five points. Virginia is, in every way, a battleground state. Yet under the new map, nearly half the state’s voters effectively lose their voice. The new lines snake from densely packed, heavily Democratic suburbs deep into rural territory. There is nothing democratic about it.

And the endgame is obvious. If these maps survive a court challenge, Democrats will have a much easier path to stacking Congress against President Donald Trump — setting up yet another sham impeachment attempt over nothing.

Democrats aren’t even hiding what they’re doing anymore. Why would they? Republicans have spent years playing nice while the left plays to win, and they play dirty.

That has to stop. And there may be a remarkable way to stop it right now.

Chad R. Mizelle — former chief of staff to the U.S. Attorney General, former acting general counsel of DHS, former chief of staff at DHS, and former associate counsel to President Trump — has floated a counter-move.

He’s calling it a form of “re-Districting,” and it could nuke the Democrats’ new gerrymandered map.

Here’s the history. In 1790, both Virginia and Maryland ceded territory to create the new national capital. Virginia’s portion — what is now Arlington County and the city of Alexandria — remained part of the District of Columbia until 1847, when Congress returned it to Virginia. The reason? To protect slavery. The District had abolished it, and Virginia slaveholders didn’t want to give up their slaves. Democrats love to talk about the legacy of slavery to justify tearing down statues, renaming buildings, etc. — to be consistent, they should give that piece of land back to the District.

The legal questions over this retrocession have never gone away.

President William Howard Taft and others argued that it was unconstitutional and pushed to reclaim the land for D.C. However, the Supreme Court has never definitively settled the matter.

Mizelle’s proposal is for Trump to issue an executive order declaring that slavery-motivated retrocession unconstitutional.

That order wouldn’t need to resolve everything on its own — it would immediately trigger litigation and force federal courts to finally answer the question: Do Arlington and Alexandria legally belong to Virginia or to the District of Columbia?

The legal footing here is rock solid, but the cultural argument is just as strong.

Obviously, Arlington and Alexandria are among the bluest jurisdictions in the country, packed with federal employees and D.C.-oriented professionals whose political and economic lives are already aligned with the capital.

As Mizelle notes, those residents would “feel right at home” as part of the District. Their removal from Virginia’s congressional map would substantially shift the partisan balance across the rest of the commonwealth, restoring a voice to the rural and small-town voters currently being drowned out.

This isn’t a mirror-image power grab. It targets a historically tainted decision, seeks legitimate judicial clarity, and corrects a gerrymander that disenfranchises nearly half a state. There’s more detailed legal analysis available over at The American Capital Project, and the constitutional case for returning that slice of Virginia to D.C. is solid.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Republicans have to stop playing nice. This is exactly the kind of response that shows Democrats the era of one-sided hardball is over.

Do it, President Trump. Do it.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/22/2026 – 17:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/DdkQ5mU Tyler Durden