By MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is set to plead guilty next week in a drug trafficking case that accuses him of ordering torture, plotting murders and flooding the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs.

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A Brooklyn federal judge on Monday scheduled an Aug. 25 change of plea hearing for Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. The development comes two weeks after federal prosecutors said they wouldn’t seek the death penalty against him.

Zambada, 77, pleaded not guilty last year to drug trafficking and related charges, including gun and money laundering offenses.

Under Zambada and co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s leadership, prosecutors allege, the Sinaloa cartel evolved from a regional player into the largest drug trafficking organization in the world.

Judge Brian M. Cogan’s order on Monday didn’t provide details about Zambada’s guilty plea and didn’t list the charges he’s expected to plead guilty to. The same judge sentenced Guzmán to life behind bars after he was convicted on drug trafficking charges in 2019.

Messages seeking comment were left for Zambada’s lawyers. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined to comment.

Zambada was arrested in Texas last year after what he has described as a kidnapping in Mexico.

Sought by U.S. law enforcement for more than two decades, he was taken into custody after arriving in a private plane at a Texas airport with Guzmán’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López. Guzmán López has pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in Chicago; his brother, Ovidio Guzmán López, pleaded guilty last month.

According to prosecutors, Zambada presided over a vast and violent operation, with an arsenal of military-grade weapons, a private security force akin to an army, and a corps of “sicarios,” or hitmen, who carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture. Just months before his arrest, he ordered the murder of his own nephew, prosecutors said.

On Aug. 5, prosecutors told Cogan in a letter that Attorney General Pam Bondi had directed them not to pursue the death penalty for Zambada.

Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Norwegian prosecutors on Monday announced that they have indicted the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess on multiple charges including rape after a lengthy investigation.

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Oslo state attorney Sturla Henriksbø said Marius Borg Høiby could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, broadcaster NRK reported. The indictment filed in Oslo district court includes 32 counts, among them rape, abuse in a close relationship against one former partner and acts of violence against another. Other charges include making death threats and traffic violations.

Høiby, the 28-year-old son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, has no royal title or official duties. He has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested last year on various allegations of wrongdoing. He is free pending trial, and Henriksbø said there is currently no reason to arrest and jail him.

Henriksbø estimates the trial could begin in mid-January and take around six weeks, NRK reported.

Defense attorney Petar Sekulic said in an emailed response to the indictment that “our client denies all charges of sexual abuse, as well as the majority of the charges regarding violence.” He added that Høiby “will present a detailed account of his version of events before the court.”

The royal palace said that it was up to the courts to handle the case and reach a decision, and it had nothing to add beyond that.

By ALEXANDRA OLSON

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld a law strengthening the rights of pregnant workers, vacating a judge’s earlier order that had stripped those protections from Texas state employees.

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The ruling was a victory for advocates of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a law that passed with bipartisan support in 2022 but quickly became embroiled in controversy over whether it covers workers seeking abortions and fertility treatments.

A federal judge last year blocked enforcement of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act for Texas state employees, ruling that its passage was unconstitutional because a majority of House members were not physically present to approve the law as part of spending package in December 2022.

In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth Circuit appeals court disagreed, finding that the law was properly passed under a COVID-19 pandemic-era Congressional rule allowing members to vote by proxy to meet the quorum requirement.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act strengthens the rights of women to receive workplace accommodation for needs related to pregnancy and childbirth, such as time off for medical appointments and exemptions from heavy lifting. Its passage came after a decades long campaign by women’s advocacy groups highlighting the struggles of pregnant workers, especially those in low-wage roles, who were routinely forced off the job after requesting accommodations.

The Texas case differed from other lawsuits that have narrowly focused on federal regulations stating that abortion, fertility treatments and birth control are medical issues requiring protection under the new law. The lawsuit, filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, instead took aim at the entirety of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, drawing opposition from Republican lawmakers including former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who defended the pandemic-era proxy voting rule.

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice has continued to fight Paxton’s lawsuit, which if successful, could help open the door to legal challenges of other pandemic-era laws passed by proxy.

Paxton’s office did not reply to emails seeking comment, and it was not clear whether he would appeal Friday’s ruling. The Justice Department declined to comment.

“This is a big win for women’s rights. We are really happy to see that the Fifth Circuit agreed with us that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was passed constitutionally and will continue to fight for the PWFA to stay legal,” said Inimai Chettiar, president of a Better Balance, an advocacy group that spearheaded the campaign for passage of the law.

Texas state employees are not immediately protected, however, because the appeals court ruling doesn’t become final for several weeks to give time for a possible appeal, Chettiar said.

Conservative officials and religious groups, meanwhile, have been largely successfully in challenging the regulations passed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which established that workers seeking abortions are entitled accommodations.

In May, a federal court struck down the abortion provisions of the EEOC regulations in response to lawsuits brought by states of Louisiana and Mississippi, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic University and two Catholic dioceses.

The Trump administration is almost certain to comply with that ruling. President Donald Trump in January fired two of the EEOC’s democratic commissioners, paving the way for him to quickly establish a Republican majority at the agency. EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, a Republican, has signaled her support for revising the regulations, arguing the agency exceeded its authority by including not only abortion but fertility treatments and birth control as medical needs covered by the law.

By DEE-ANN DURBIN

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit Monday against a ticket broker, alleging the company used illegal tactics to exceed purchasing limits for popular events and then resold tickets at significantly higher prices.

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In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Maryland, the FTC said Maryland-based ticket broker Key Investment Group has used thousands of fictitious Ticketmaster accounts and other methods to buy tickets for events, including Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

According to the FTC, Key Investment Group – which does business under brand names like Epic Seats and Totally Tix – purchased at least 379,776 tickets from Ticketmaster between Nov. 1, 2022, and Dec. 30, 2023. The company spent nearly $57 million to buy the tickets and resold them on secondary marketplaces for approximately $64 million.

For just one Taylor Swift concert, Key Investment Group allegedly used 49 different accounts to purchase 273 tickets, dramatically exceeding the Eras Tour’s 2023 six-ticket purchase limit per event, the FTC said. Fans were so frustrated by the difficulty getting tickets for Swift’s tour that the U.S. Senate wound up grilling Ticketmaster in a 2023 hearing.

In a statement released Monday, Key Investment Group said it will vigorously defend itself against the FTC’s lawsuit.

“The case threatens to dismantle the secondary ticket market for live events, further consolidating power in the hands of the industry’s largest monopoly,” the company said.

Key Investment Group said the FTC is misapplying the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, a 2016 law which it said was meant to target malicious software, not legitimate resale businesses. Key Investment Group sued the FTC in July to try to prevent the agency from using the law against it, saying it uses human employees — not bots — to buy tickets.

But the FTC said that law also prohibits anyone from circumventing security measures and other controls meant to enforce posted ticket limits.

In March, with Kid Rock by his side in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing U.S. officials to ensure ticket resellers are complying with Internal Revenue Service rules. The order also directed the FTC to ensure “price transparency at all stages of the ticket-purchase process” and to “take enforcement action to prevent unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market.”