A close ally of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro long described by U.S. officials as the ousted leader’s frontman pleaded guilty Tuesday to a single count of money laundering tied to an alleged bribery conspiracy to win lucrative government contracts in the South American country.

As part of the plea deal, Alex Saab agreed to cooperate in continuing federal investigations, paving the way for his eventual cooperation against his former protector. He also agreed to forfeit $195 million in criminal proceeds from the corruption scheme.

Saab, 54, was deported in May by Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez to the U.S., which has been targeting the Colombian-born businessman for more than a decade.

The money laundering offense carries a maximum 20-year penalty but prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence at the low end of the recommended range and seek additional reductions should his cooperation prove substantial. Saab was previously charged during the first Trump administration in 2019 and then arrested during a refueling stop in Cape Verde on what the Venezuelan government described as a high-level humanitarian mission to Iran.

But President Joe Biden pardoned Saab in 2023 in exchange for the release of several imprisoned Americans in Venezuela. The deal, part of a failed effort by the Biden White House to lure Maduro into holding a free presidential election, was harshly criticized by Republicans and federal law enforcement officials, who immediately began investigating Saab for other alleged crimes not covered by the narrowly tailored pardon.

“This case sends a clear message: Political connections, wealth and proximity to a corrupt regime will not put anyone beyond the reach of American justice,” said Jason A. Reding Quiñones, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who attended Tuesday’s proceedings along with more than a dozen federal agents.

The new indictment centers on contracts for the so-called CLAP program set up by Maduro to provide staples — rice, corn flour, cooking oil — to poor Venezuelans at a time of rampant hyperinflation and a crumbling currency. Saab amassed a fortune through Venezuelan government contracts but became even more valuable to Maduro as U.S. sanctions forced Venezuela to conduct much of its oil sales and foreign trade outside of Western financial institutions.

The House on Wednesday passed a broad package of sanctions targeting Russian officials and key pillars of its economy as lawmakers look to deprive President Vladimir Putin of the financial resources needed to wage the war against Ukraine.

The bill is named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who spent more than a year negotiating it. The measure was approved in a 262-159 vote and now heads to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.

The legislation represents the most ambitious effort to support Ukraine since Trump's return to the White House and would break nearly two years of relative gridlock on the issue following a 2024 emergency aid package. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pushing for the bill's passage and made a direct appeal to senators shortly before they passed it last month.

The measure sanctions Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps Russian energy moving. It also directs Trump to impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas, with an exception for countries that import less than 15% of Russia's natural gas exports and have taken significant steps to reduce those imports.

“These countries have a choice to make about whether they will continue to sustain Putin's aggression,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

Supporters said the tariff provisions are aimed at deterring China and India from purchasing Russian energy, but critics of the bill said they fear Trump will use the legislation to target allies in the European Union and elsewhere. Americans, they warned, would pay the price for such tariffs through higher prices at the cash register.

“This president has always said he loves tariffs,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. “And we know the history of what he's done with reference to tariffs to our European allies, and our allies everywhere.”

Democrats were divided on the bill, despite overwhelming support in the caucus for aiding Ukraine. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told colleagues they can't control what the president does, but they can stand up and declare where they are on the war.

“If we fail to pass this bill, there will be cheers in the Kremlin and tears in Kyiv,” Hoyer said.

But Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., predicted Ukraine supporters would come to regret voting for the bill.

“Yes they will be able to say 'we stood with Ukraine' in the immediate aftermath,” Beyer said. “But when Donald Trump hits our allies with new tariffs and waives sanctions on Russia, the propaganda victory for Putin will be lasting, and the damage will be embedded in U.S. law.”

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, speaking in opposition to the bill, said Democrats would continue to support the Ukrainian people until victory is won, “but this bill does not provide a path to secure that.”

In all, 58 Democrats broke with Jeffries and voted for the bill, while 152 voted against it. Among Republicans, 203 voted yes while seven voted against it.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., celebrated the vote and highlighted the additional tariff power it provides the president.

“For too long, Putin has bankrolled this devastating war with money and resources from countries willing to look the other way, and today, that ends,” Johnson said.

Congress has struggled to ensure the flow of U.S. funding and munitions to Ukraine as Republican support for spending billions of dollars more on the effort has waned. Trump routinely derided the Ukraine aid while campaigning for the White House and insisted that, if elected, he would quickly end the war launched by Moscow's February 2022 invasion.

It took Graham essentially a full year to bring Trump on board with the Russia sanctions package. Eventually, Trump gave a nod to the bill after it included his push for a five-year extension of existing sanctions on Iran. Republicans speaking on the House floor in advance of Wednesday's vote were overwhelmingly supportive of the package.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the United States Energy Department exceeded its authority when it ordered a coal-fired power plant in the US state of Michigan to remain open beyond its planned retirement, dealing a setback to the Trump administration's effort to keep ageing coal facilities operating.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously on Friday that there was no emergency under federal law that justified keeping the 64-year-old JH Campbell Generating Plant online. Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked emergency powers last year, arguing that the plant was needed to maintain reliable electricity in the region.

President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency in an executive order in January last year, citing demand increases from artificial intelligence and data centre growth.

Judge Cornelia Pillard, writing for the three-judge panel, said the emergency provision of the Federal Power Act was intended as a "narrow, last-resort backstop." She said the authority could be used only when immediate action was required, and states or utilities could not address the problem themselves.

Pillard also described the reversal of the plant's "long and carefully planned retirement" as "disruptive".

The plant, operated by Consumers Energy, had been scheduled to close in May 2025, but the company has continued operations under energy department orders. That has cost about $259m, according to financial filings, with opponents warning that the expense could ultimately fall on families and businesses in midwestern US states.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, whose office joined counterparts in Illinois and Minnesota in challenging the orders, welcomed the ruling. She said the appeals court had "thrown out DOE's order that had zero basis in reality".

The Energy Department defended its use of emergency powers, saying the orders helped prevent blackouts and "likely saved hundreds of lives" during periods of peak demand, particularly during severe winter storms in late January and early February. The department said that during the winter storm peak, coal generation in affected areas increased by 25 percent compared to the previous year.

The Michigan case is one of several legal disputes that have emerged across the country. Secretary Wright issued another emergency order, just hours after the ruling, to a coal plant in Centralia, Washington, to remain in operation. Similar orders have been issued for plants in Indiana, Colorado and Florida, as well as an oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania.

Right-leaning legal activists along with Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company have brought sweeping challenges against a cornerstone of legal enforcement in the United States: the right of private groups, people and local governments to sue over violations of many major laws.

Their argument, supported by the Trump administration, is that the Constitution reserves tremendous power for the president and federal agencies to decide how — or whether at all — to enforce federal law. They contend Congress should never have handed that power to others through so-called citizen suits that are part of environmental, campaign finance and certain other laws.

Environmentalists say it would be devastating to lose this essential, decades-old tool that is used to impose fines and halt lawbreaking by bad actors. Citizen suits, for example, have extracted millions from heavily polluting oil and gas operations, and ensured that lead pipes in Flint, Michigan, would be removed after its water crisis.

Legal experts say four pending federal cases — one of them filed last week — are moving forward at a time when the conservative majority on the Supreme Court gives opponents of citizen suits a greater chance than ever of success. The hard part for those opponents now is winning early federal cases and creating disagreement between the country’s appeals courts, which may help convince the Supreme Court the issue is important enough for a nationwide ruling.

Back in 2000, a Supreme Court opinion opened the door for that possibility.

“Many of us who worked in this area have been waiting basically 26 years for this shoe to drop,” said Richard Lazarus, a Harvard professor with decades of experience in environmental law.

Lazarus was referring to former moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy’s comments in a Clean Water Act case that citizen suits raised “difficult and fundamental” questions about whether they improperly dilute executive power. The late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a dissenting opinion in the same case that citizen suits turn “over to private citizens the function of enforcing the law.” He avoided explicitly saying they were constitutional.

“The court is more like Scalia’s court since he died than it ever was when he was there,” said Lazarus.

He observed that those who lost cases where Scalia dissented are rushing back to today’s court hoping for a more favorable result.

The critical issue for citizen suits is who — the government or private citizens — collects fines and has control. A person filing a citizen suit must tell the government ahead of time. The government can stop the suit if it sufficiently pursues the case itself, but its options are limited and the person suing can stay involved. Citizen suits can force compliance with the law and result in fines, which go to the U.S. Treasury.

The European Union on Thursday hit Google with a fine of 890 million euros ($1 billion) after it said the technology behemoth broke digital antitrust regulations by setting up Google Play and its ubiquitous search engine to corral consumers towards its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.

It was the latest major crackdown on Big Tech by Brussels, which has led the world in reining in some of the world's largest companies from Silicon Valley to Beijing.

It has done so despite the risk of incurring the wrath of President Donald Trump, who has lashed out at the 27-nation bloc's digital regulations amid a broader campaign against Europe: imposing high tariffs, making threats to seize Greenland from Denmark by force, and rattling trust within the NATO military alliance.

In the past, Trump has threatened retaliation if American tech companies are penalized.

Google had recently lost its appeal of a $4.5 billion antitrust fine imposed by the EU for throttling competition and reducing consumer choice through the dominance of its mobile Android operating system.

The European Commission, the bloc's executive branch and highest antitrust enforcer, said it was acting in the interest of consumers after an investigation of Google.

“The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine. And European consumers have a right to be told by app developers where to sign up to the best offers, even when the app store owner does not get a cut,” said Teresa Ribera, the commission’s Executive Vice President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition.

Google’s President of Global Affairs Kent Walker blasted the fine as “product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants” that will have a negative impact on European businesses and consumers.

He said that the EU’s Digital Markets Act forces Google “to strip away real-time search features Europeans love — like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants — and dismantle safety protections on Google Play.”

The EU describes the world’s seven tech giants — Amazon, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance — as “gatekeepers” that control access for consumers.

“In the EU, businesses have the right to compete fairly. Gatekeepers have the obligation to ensure a level playing field and consumers the right to choose for cheaper alternative offers,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said. Alphabet reported $403 billion in revenue in 2025.