What happened
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon yesterday blocked the Pentagon from penalizing Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) over his involvement in a video reminding military officials of their obligation to refuse illegal orders. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed for the senator and former Navy fighter pilot to be formally censured and demoted for the video, which also involved five other congressional Democrats with military or intelligence backgrounds.  

Who said what
“This court has all it needs to conclude that defendants have trampled on Sen. Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees,” Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in his 29-page opinion. “To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their government, and our Constitution demands they receive it!” 

Kelly’s lawsuit against Hegseth and other Pentagon officials is “just one front in a broader dispute that has spiraled between the group of Democratic lawmakers and the Trump administration since they posted the video,” The Associated Press said. Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office tried to get a grand jury to indict the six Democrats for seditious conspiracy, but failed to “convince a single juror that they had met the threshold to bring charges,” NBC News said.

What next?
Leon’s ruling bars the Pentagon from acting against Kelly while his lawsuit plays out. Hegseth said he would appeal. “Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain,’” he wrote on social media. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) “has been told the Justice Department could seek a new indictment” as soon as today against her, Kelly and the four other Democrats in the video, the AP said. “This might not be over yet,” Kelly said on social media, “because this president and this administration do not know how to admit when they’re wrong.”

What happened
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, one of the South Asian nation’s two entrenched political factions, claimed a decisive victory this morning in Bangladesh’s first election since the 2024 student-led uprising that ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party, came in second. Hasina’s Awami League, traditionally the BNP’s main rival, was barred from contesting yesterday’s election after its exiled leader was sentenced to death in November for her role in the deaths of 1,400 protesters.

Who said what
The BNP won more than two-thirds of 299 contested seats in the Jatiya Sangsad, or parliament, while Jamaat secured at least 76 seats, according to the BBC. Congratulatory messages for BNP leader Tarique Rahman, expected to become the next prime minister, poured in from India, Pakistan, the U.S., China and other nations. 

Rahman, 60, “returned to Bangladesh in December after living in exile in Britain for nearly two decades,” The New York Times said. He “had a ringside seat to the growing pains of Bangladesh, a nation founded in 1971 partly by his father and run for years by his mother,” and during his short campaign he “promised to address the demands of the protest movement.” Along with electing a new government, voters approved democratic reforms, including term limits for prime ministers and stronger judicial independence, in a referendum.

What next?
The BNP’s victory was seen as representing a “desire for stability after months of political turmoil, even if it meant voting for the old guard,” The Wall Street Journal said. “The next few years will be crucial,” though, and if Rahman’s party “reverts back to the old system of patronage and cronyism, little will change despite Hasina’s downfall.”