NEW YORK — Toppled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty on Monday to narcotics charges after President Donald J. Trump’s stunning capture of him rattled world leaders and left officials in Caracas scrambling to regroup.

“I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country,” Mr. Maduro, 63, said through an interpreter, before being cut off by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court.

Mr. Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores also pleaded not guilty. The next court date was set for March 17.

Dozens of protesters, both pro- and anti-Maduro, gathered outside the courthouse before the half-hour hearing.

Inside, as he stood shackled at the ankles and wearing orange and beige prison garb, Mr. Maduro declared he had been “kidnapped” and remained president of Venezuela. He listened to an interpreter through headphones as Mr. Hellerstein summarized the charges.

Mr. Maduro is accused of overseeing a cocaine-trafficking network with international drug cartels and faces four criminal counts: narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.

Mr. Maduro has long denied the allegations, saying they were a mask for imperialist designs on Venezuela’s rich oil reserves.

Mr. Maduro’s defense lawyer Barry Pollack said he anticipated voluminous and complex litigation over what he called his client’s “military abduction.”

SUCCESSOR SWORN IN
Hours later in Caracas, Mr. Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodriguez, was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president with words of support for Mr. Maduro but no indication she would fight the US move.

A recent US intelligence assessment determined Ms. Rodriguez would be best positioned to lead a temporary government in Mr. Maduro’s absence, finding that opposition figures such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado or one-time presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez would struggle to gain legitimacy, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the classified report.

Asked by Reuters about the report, White House Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, “The President and his national security team are making realistic decisions to finally ensure Venezuela aligns with the interests of the United States.”

While many anti-Maduro activists had assumed this would be their moment, Mr. Trump appeared to have sidelined the Venezuelan opposition for now. Instead, he has suggested Ms. Rodriguez was willing to work with Washington.

Ms. Leavitt told Fox News that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in “constant correspondence” with the remaining Maduro government, and that Washington maintained “leverage” over Caracas.

In Caracas, senior officials from Mr. Maduro’s 13-year-old government remained in charge of the South American oil producer of 30 million people, alternating between angry defiance and possible cooperation with the Trump administration.

The intelligence assessment concluded that Ms. Rodriguez was among the few Venezuelan leaders capable of maintaining order, along with the interior and defense ministers, in a government dominated by ideological opponents of the US, the Wall Street Journal said.

Mr. Trump told NBC News the US was not at war with Venezuela but rather, “we’re at war with the people that sell drugs.”

The US would need to help address the South American country’s problems before any new elections, Mr. Trump said, calling a 30-day timeline for a vote unrealistic.

“We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,” Mr. Trump told NBC.

QUESTION OF LEGALITY
The US has considered Mr. Maduro an illegitimate dictator since he declared victory in a 2018 election marred by allegations of massive irregularities.

At the same time experts in international law have questioned the legality of the raid, with some condemning Mr. Trump’s actions as a repudiation of a rules-based international order.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Mr. Trump’s criminal defense lawyer while in private practice, told NBC News the Trump administration “did everything within the law,” and that the United States has an “absolute legal right to go and arrest people charged with horrible crimes.”

As world leaders and US politicians grappled with the extraordinary seizure of a head of state, the United Nations Security Council debated the implications of the raid, which was condemned by Russia, China and leftist allies of Venezuela.

The future governance of Venezuela also remained uncertain, after Mr. Trump asserted on Sunday that “we are in charge.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller reiterated to CNN on Monday that “the United States of America is running Venezuela.”

“We set the terms and conditions. We have a complete embargo on all of their oil. So for them to do commerce, they need our permission,” Mr. Miller said.

Mr. Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other top administration officials spent more than two hours briefing congressional leaders and the heads of national security committees about the Venezuela operation on Monday evening.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate’s Democratic leader, told reporters the briefing was extensive but posed more questions than it answered. “Their plan for the US running Venezuela is vague, based on wishful thinking, and was unsatisfying,” Mr. Schumer said, adding that Trump officials would not rule out similar interventions in other countries.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has made no secret of wanting to share in Venezuela’s oil riches, telling reporters on Air Force One on Sunday that American oil companies will return to Venezuela and rebuild the sector’s infrastructure.

He told NBC News on Monday that the US may subsidize the rebuilding of the country’s oil infrastructure by US companies, a project he said could be completed in less than 18 months.

CBS News, citing two unnamed sources, said representatives of oil majors Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp. would meet with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Thursday. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — The United States ended on Monday its longstanding guidance that all children receive vaccines against flu and three other diseases, a sweeping change that advances one of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s long-term goals.

Public health experts warn the latest rollback could lead to preventable hospitalizations and deaths.

The action, which removes the recommendation for rotavirus, influenza, meningococcal disease and hepatitis A, and states that parents should consult healthcare providers under what it calls shared clinical-decision-making, was approved by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Acting Director Jim O’Neill without the agency’s usual outside expert review. It advances Mr. Kennedy’s campaign to pare back childhood vaccinations.

Last month, President Donald J. Trump urged the US to “align with other developed nations” by reducing the number of shots for children.

Mr. Trump said the new schedule was “rooted in the Gold Standard of Science” and aligns the United States with other developed nations. In a post on his Truth Social platform, the president congratulated Mr. Kennedy and other health officials on the change.

“Many Americans, especially the ‘MAHA Moms,’ have been praying for these COMMON SENSE reforms for many years. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he wrote, referring to Mr. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.

Mr. Kennedy, a prominent vaccine critic, has previously led efforts to drop universal recommendations for COVID-19 and hepatitis B shots for children, citing links to autism that scientists have repeatedly debunked.

AMERICAN CHILDREN AT RISK
Vaccine experts decried the changes they said put American children at risk.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said there should have been public discussion on the risks and benefits of the potential impact of dropping the recommendations.

Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said other developed countries face different disease risks and have different healthcare systems than the United States. Unlike the US, which depends on private healthcare, most countries provide basic universal healthcare that is paid for by the government.

“Any decision about the US childhood vaccination schedule should be grounded in evidence, transparency and established scientific processes, not comparisons that overlook critical differences between countries or health systems,” he said.

IMMUNIZATION POLICY OF 20 NATIONS CONSIDERED
For the change in policy, two leading officials of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Martin Kulldorff and Tracy Beth Hoeg, reviewed vaccine protocols in 20 other developed countries — all of which have universal healthcare — and made the recommendations to change the US schedule, the agency said.

In a report, HHS wrote that the level of risk varies by disease and child.

The vaccine schedules of the 20 reviewed countries show that the flu shot is recommended universally in four countries and a shot against hepatitis A is universal only in Greece. The rotavirus shot is recommended for all children in 17 of the 20 countries and shots against meningococcal disease are recommended in 16.

Each of the four vaccines prevents diseases that once caused unnecessary hospitalizations and death in children, said Dr. Jesse Goodman, a Georgetown University professor and former US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief scientist.

Flu shots can help prevent pediatric deaths from flu, which killed 288 children in the 2024-25 season, according to the CDC. Hepatitis A, which infects the liver, usually resolves on its own but can lead to hospitalization and lifelong liver damage.

Rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhea and dehydration, used to send tens of thousands of children to the hospital each year, but vaccines have made this extremely rare, Mr. Goodman said.

While meningitis, a bacterial infection of the brain, is rare in children, some 15% of those infected do not respond to antibiotics and die, he said. “If you can safely prevent it, it makes total sense.”

The updated recommendations maintain immunizations for 11 diseases, including measles, mumps, and varicella, while categorizing others as either targeted for high-risk groups or subject to the shared-decision-making category, HHS said.

Insurance providers will continue covering immunization costs regardless of the category, senior HHS officials told reporters on a call.

The new schedule also recommends US children receive a single dose of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, rather than a two-dose course. Recent studies have concluded that a single dose is not inferior to the longer course and noted the World Health Organization also backs a single-dose schedule.

Merck, which makes Gardasil, the only US-approved HPV vaccine, was not immediately available for comment. The drugmaker has said that since there is not sufficient data for the US FDA to license the shot as a single-dose regimen, the CDC’s recommendations should be in line with the agency’s approval.

Merck recorded $2.4 billion in US Gardasil sales in 2024. — Reuters

JAKARTA — At least 14 people were killed after being swept away by flash floods in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi, an official said on Tuesday, as the search for the missing continued.

Heavy rain early on Monday triggered flash floods on the island of Siau, located in the region of Siau Tagulandang Biaro, said Nuriadin Gumeleng, a spokesperson for the local rescue agency.

Sixteen rescuers have been deployed to search for four people who remain missing on Tuesday, Mr. Gumeleng told Reuters, adding that 18 people had been injured so far.

“We continue to collect data from local residents in case there are more missing people,” he said.

As of Tuesday, main roads in the affected areas were still covered by rocks, debris and thick mud, Mr. Gumeleng said.

At least 444 people have been evacuated to local schools and churches after the flash floods, the country’s disaster mitigation agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said in a statement.

Authorities have deployed excavators to clear roads that have been blocked by the debris and mud, he said.

The floods also destroyed hundreds of houses and government buildings, North Sulawesi Governor Yulius Selvanus said.

The flash floods took place in the peak of the wet season in Sulawesi island, as forecast by Indonesia’s weather agency.

The islands of Java, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Papua are expected to experience their peak wet seasons over January and February this year, bringing more risks of floods, the weather agency had said.

Rain in other parts of Indonesia like Sumatra and Borneo reached its peak in November and December last year.

Last November, cyclone-induced floods and landslides killed more than 1,000 people in Sumatra, with hundreds still missing. Green groups say deforestation linked to mining and logging exacerbated the impact of the floods. — Reuters