By LARRY NEUMEISTER and JOSHUA GOODMAN

NEW YORK (AP) — The lawyer for deposed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro asked a judge on Thursday to toss out the indictment against his client on the grounds that the United States has unconstitutionally violated his rights to defend himself by blocking Venezuelan funds to pay his legal costs.

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Attorney Barry Pollack filed papers in Manhattan federal court, saying the U.S. government has violated his client’s due process rights by blocking funds to defend him that should come from the Venezuelan government.

“Mr. Maduro, as Venezuela’s head of state, has both a right and an expectation to have legal fees associated with these charges funded by the government of Venezuela,” Pollack wrote.

The court submission included a declaration from Maduro in which he said he understood that under the laws and practices of Venezuela, “I am entitled to have the government of Venezuela pay for my legal defense.”

“I have relied on this expectation and cannot afford to pay for my own legal defense,” he said.

Maduro added that he has “been working” with Pollack on his legal defense and that he “is my counsel of choice.” The declaration was signed “President Nicolas Maduro Moros.”

Maduro and his wife have been in custody in New York since they were seized from their Venezuelan home in early January in a stealth nighttime U.S. military operation. They’ve pleaded not guilty.

A 25-page indictment against Maduro accused him and others of working with drug cartels and members of the military to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. If convicted, both he and his wife face life in prison.

As part of the purported conspiracy, Maduro and his wife allegedly ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money, according to the indictment. It said that included the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas.

Pollack told a Manhattan judge in an email last week that the U.S. Treasury Department had blocked the authorization of legal fees that the government of Venezuela is required to pay for Maduro, though it has allowed fees to be paid for the defense of first lady Cilia Flores.

Pollack said that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers sanctions against Venezuela, had granted permission on Jan. 9 approving the payment of legal fees by the Venezuelan government. He said the department rescinded the authorization “without explanation” less than three hours later.

“The conduct of the United States government not only undermines Mr. Maduro’s rights but also this Court’s mandate to provide a fair trial to all defendants who come before it in accordance with the protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution,” Pollack wrote in court papers submitted Thursday.

“The United States government, even while authorizing myriad commercial transactions with Venezuela, is prohibiting counsel from receiving untainted funds from the government of Venezuela, despite Venezuela’s obligation to fund Mr. Maduro’s defense. Any trial that proceeds under these circumstances will be constitutionally defective and cannot result in a verdict that will withstand later challenge,” he added.

The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a message left by The Associated Press seeking comment.

If the judge leaves the charges against Maduro in place, Pollack said he wants to resign so the court can appoint other counsel to represent Maduro.

The dispute over Maduro’s legal fees is intimately linked to U.S. foreign policy. The first Trump administration cut ties with Maduro in 2019, recognizing the then- opposition head of the National Assembly as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. The Biden administration hewed closely to the same policy.

Goodman reported from Miami.

By BRIAN WITTE

Novartis has settled a lawsuit by the estate of Henrietta Lacks that alleged the pharmaceutical giant unjustly profited off her cells, which were taken from her tumor without her knowledge in 1951 and reproduced in labs to enable major medical advancements, including the polio vaccine.

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Details of the agreement, which was finalized in federal court in Maryland this month, aren’t public.

The Lacks family and Swiss-based Novartis said in a joint statement that they are “pleased they were able to find a way to resolve this matter filed by Henrietta Lacks’ Estate outside of court” but aren’t commenting further.

It’s the second settlement in lawsuits filed by the estate that accused biomedical businesses of reaping rewards from a racist medical system that took advantage of Black patients like Lacks. The settlement ends litigation between Novartis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, and the estate of Lacks, a mother who died of cervical cancer at age 31 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

The 2024 lawsuit had sought from Novartis “the full amount of its net profits obtained by commercializing the HeLa cell line,” which the complaint said had been cultivated from “stolen cells.”

Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took Lacks’ cervical cells in 1951 without her knowledge, and the tissue taken from her tumor before she died became the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in lab dishes. HeLa cells became a cornerstone of modern medicine, enabling countless scientific and medical innovations, including the development of genetic mapping and even COVID-19 vaccines, but the Lacks family wasn’t compensated along the way despite that incalculable impact on science and medicine.

Johns Hopkins said it never sold or profited from the cell lines, but many companies have patented ways of using them.

In 2023, Lacks’ estate reached an undisclosed settlement with the biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Lawyers for the family argued in that case that the company continued to commercialize the results long after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known and unjustly enriched itself off Lacks’ cells.

There are other pending lawsuits by the Lacks estate. Just over a week after the estate settled the case with Thermo Fisher Scientific, attorneys for the estate filed a lawsuit against Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical in Baltimore federal court, the same venue as the previously settled case. Litigation with Ultragenyx as well as Viatris, a pharmaceutical company, remain active.

Attorneys for the family have indicated there could be additional complaints filed.

Lacks was a poor tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who married and moved with her husband to Turner Station, a historically Black community outside Baltimore. They were raising five children when doctors discovered a tumor in Lacks’ cervix and saved a sample of her cancer cells collected during a biopsy.

While most cell samples died shortly after being removed from the body, her cells survived and thrived in laboratories. They became known as the first immortalized human cell line because scientists could cultivate them indefinitely, meaning researchers anywhere could reproduce studies using identical cells.

The remarkable science involved — and the impact on the Lacks family, some of whom had chronic illnesses and no health insurance — were documented in a bestselling book by Rebecca Skloot, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” which was published in 2010. Oprah Winfrey portrayed her daughter in an HBO movie about the story.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Election-year legislation to impose strict new proof-of-citizenship requirements on voting appears stalled in the Senate, for now, despite President Donald Trump’s call in his State of the Union speech that Republicans in Congress pass the bill “before anything else.”

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Trump’s push for the bill, backed by House conservatives and his most loyal supporters ahead of the midterm elections, has put new pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune as he tries to navigate an effort from inside and outside Congress to bypass normal Senate procedure. Thune has said he supports the legislation and that his GOP conference is still discussing how to pass it.

Senate Republicans “aren’t unified on an approach,” Thune said on Wednesday after Trump’s speech.

In an effort to get around Democratic opposition, Trump and others have pushed a so-called “talking filibuster,” which would bring the Senate back to the days of the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” when senators talked indefinitely to block legislation. Today, the Senate mostly skips the speeches and votes to end debate, which takes 60 votes in the Senate where Republicans have a 53-47 majority.

Republicans wouldn’t have to change the rules to force a talkathon. They could simply keep the Senate open and make Democrats deliver speeches for days or weeks to delay taking up the legislation. But Thune would still need enough support from his caucus to move forward with that approach, and he said this week that “we aren’t there yet.”

The tension has put the affable, well-liked Thune in a tough spot with Trump and many of his voters who argue that the legislation is necessary for a GOP victory in the midterm elections. Trump has already made clear that he will blame Democrats, and potentially Thune, if they lose their majorities in Congress in November — even though Republicans won control of Congress and the White House in 2024 without the bill’s requirements.

Democrats oppose the bill because “they want to cheat,” Trump claimed in his speech on Tuesday.

“We have to stop it, John,” Trump said, calling out Thune by name.

Election Voting Official Debra Mikell, left, and Patricia Ocon check touchscreen voting machine at New Chicago Voter Supersite in Chicago, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Complicated and risky maneuver

Trump and his supporters, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, say the talking filibuster would allow them to pass the legislation — called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act — without any Democratic votes. But the maneuver could end up creating more problems for Republicans.

Under a talking filibuster, Democrats would have to stay on the floor and give speeches for an indefinite amount of time to block the bill. Each senator is only allowed two speeches on a particular piece of legislation, so the idea is that Democrats would eventually run out of speeches or quit due to exhaustion, allowing Republicans to proceed with a simple majority vote.

“We won’t pass the SAVE America Act unless we start by making filibustering senators speak,” Lee said on social media. “This will take time and effort, but we’d be crazy not to give it the effort it deserves.”

The reality on the floor would be more complicated. Democrats would be able to throw up procedural roadblocks, including restarting the clock for speeches if enough Republicans weren’t also present on the floor. That means nearly all 53 Republicans would need to remain close to the Senate during the filibuster, while only one Democrat would have to keep speaking. The process could last for weeks, given that there are 47 Democrats in the Senate.

Even if Republicans managed to break the first filibuster, Democrats could then offer an unlimited number of amendments on anything they wish, forcing Republicans to take hard votes in an election year and potentially adding some of their own priorities to the legislation if they have some bipartisan support. Each amendment would bring a new round of speeches as well.

“We’d have to have 50 to defeat every amendment,” Thune said. “And that’s not a where we are right now.”

Republican concerns

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., joined at left by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the GOP whip, reflects on President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address as he meets with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

As Thune has discussed the possibility with his conference in recent weeks, some Republicans have expressed worry that the process could lead to rules changes that could lead the Senate to “go nuclear” and eventually vote to erode the legislative filibuster.

Most Senate Republicans have said they do not want to lower the 60-vote threshold for ending debate on legislation, even though it has been lowered for presidential and judicial nominations.

“I agree with the SAVE Act,” Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said after Trump’s speech. “But I’m not going to nuke the filibuster.”

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, said that “the reason or method doesn’t matter — it’s breaking the filibuster.”

Other Republicans could also block the process. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has said she opposes the SAVE Act, and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former GOP majority leader, has opposed similar legislation in the past.

GOP senators who support the maneuver were also realistic about the difficulty of the talking filibuster approach.

“You’d have to have a deep commitment among almost all of our members,” said Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, who supports it.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., called it “hard but doable.”

GOP election strategy

FILE – A Vote Here sign is posted amongst political signs as people arrive to vote at the Rutherford County Annex Building, an early voting site, Oct. 17, 2024, in Rutherfordton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek, File)

The voting bill would require Americans to prove they are citizens when they register to vote, mostly through a valid U.S. passport or birth certificate. It would also require a valid photo identification before voters can cast ballots, which some states already demand. The House approved it earlier this month on a mostly party-line vote, 218-213.

Republicans said the legislation is needed to prevent voter fraud, but Democrats warn it will disenfranchise millions of Americans by making it harder to vote. Voting experts have warned that more than 20 million U.S. citizens of voting age do not have proof of their citizenship readily available, and almost half of Americans do not have a U.S. passport. Critics also said the bill’s enactment could cause chaos in this year’s elections and confuse voters because some of it would take effect immediately.

Federal law already requires that voters in national elections be U.S. citizens, but there’s no requirement to provide documentary proof when registering, though they do affirm under oath at the risk of prosecution that they are eligible.

Experts said voter fraud is extremely rare, and very few noncitizens ever slip through the cracks. About one in 10 Americans doesn’t have readily available paperwork proving they are citizens.

The legislation also would require states to share their voter information with the Department of Homeland Security as a way to verify the citizenship of the names on the voter rolls. That has drawn pushback from elections officials as potentially intrusive on people’s privacy.

Trump said in his speech on Tuesday that the bill would be “country-saving.”

Echoing his false claims of voter fraud when he lost the 2020 election, Trump said that Democrats “want to cheat, they have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat.”

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Matt Brown in Washington contributed to this report.

By JOSH FUNK

The head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it’s misleading for members of the House to say their package of aviation safety reforms would address the recommendations that her agency made in January to prevent another midair collision like the one last year near Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.

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NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said the House bill’s “watered-down” requirements wouldn’t do enough to prevent a future tragedy, and wouldn’t be nearly as effective as a Senate bill that came up just one vote short of passing in the House earlier this week. The full NTSB followed up Thursday afternoon with a formal letter to the two key House committees, saying that they can’t support the bill right now

“We can have disagreements over policy all day. But when something is sold as these are the NTSB recommendations and that is not factually accurate, we have a problem with that. Because now you’re using the NTSB and you’re using people who lost loved ones in terrible tragedies,” Homendy said. “You’re using their pain to move your agenda forward.”

The key concern of Homendy and the families of the people who died in the crash on Jan. 29, 2005, is that they believe all aircraft should be required to have key locator systems that the NTSB has been recommending since 2008, which would allow the pilots to know more precisely where the traffic around them is flying. The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Out systems that broadcast an aircraft’s location are already required around busy airports. It’s the ADS-B In systems that can receive data about the locations of other aircraft that isn’t yet standard. But Homendy said the bill is weak in other areas, such as limits on when the military will be able to turn those locator systems off.

The leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee declined to respond to Homendy’s criticism Thursday, but Reps. Sam Graves and Rick Larsen have said they believe the ALERT bill they crafted effectively addresses the 50 recommendations that NTSB made at the conclusion of their investigation into the collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter.

They defended their bill and pledged to work with the families, the Senate and the industry to develop the best solution as soon as possible. The committee will likely markup the bill within the next few weeks.

“From the beginning, we have stressed the importance of getting this right, and we are confident that we will achieve that goal,” Larsen and Graves said. House Speaker Mike Johnson also said he is committed to getting the bill done.

The NTSB released a side-by-side comparison of its recommendations and the House bill to highlight all the ways the bill falls short of fully addressing the needed changes.

Doug Lane, a family member of those who were killed in the midair collision near Washington Reagan National Airport, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Doug Lane, who lost his wife and son in the crash, and many of the other victims’ families said the House bill “is not really a serious attempt to address the NTSB recommendations.” He said the introduction of this bill just a few days before the vote on the ROTOR Act, which the Senate unanimously approved, seemed designed to “scuttle” that bill and send the ADS-B In recommendation into limbo to be considered in a lengthy rulemaking process.

Matt Collins, who lost his younger brother Chris in the disaster, said that the bill must require ADS-B In to be acceptable to the families.

“As far as the ALERT act — the way it’s written now, I can’t endorse the way its written now. It needs to include ADS-B In,” Collins said. “It’s non-negotiable for us as family members, extremely non-negotiable.”

The NTSB cited systemic weaknesses and years of ignored warnings as the main causes of the crash, but Homendy has said that if both the plane and the Black Hawk had been equipped with ADS-B In and the systems had been turned on, the collision would have been prevented. The Army’s policy at the time of the crash mandated that its helicopters fly without that system on to conceal their locations, although the helicopter involved in this crash was on a training flight, not a sensitive mission.

But Homendy said the House seemed to pick and choose what they wanted to include from the NTSB recommendations.

“We were very explicit of what needed to occur,” Homendy said. “When we issue a recommendation, those recommendations are aimed at preventing a tragedy from happening again. And if you’re just going to give us half a loaf, it’s not going to do it. We’re not gonna save lives.”