Venezuela orders arrest of exiled lawmakers fighting Maduro

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s socialist government has ordered the arrest of three exiled former lawmakers at the forefront of renewed efforts to unseat President Nicolas Maduro. Dinorah Figuera leads an all-female team selected last week by fellow opposition politicians to lead the National Assembly that was voted into office in 2015. That opposition-controlled assembly is widely considered Venezuela’s last democratically elected institution. It functions as a symbolic shadow to Maduro’s rubber-stamping National Assembly. Maduro’s Attorney General announced Monday that prosecutors had ordered the arrest of Figuera and her two deputies on charges of treason, money laundering and impersonating public officials. All three live outside Venezuela.