In a cavernous federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, the air was thick with the weight of history and the quiet hum of anticipation. Nicolas Maduro, once the undisputed strongman of Venezuela, shuffled into the room with a gait made awkward by the cold, heavy shackles clamped around his ankles. Beside him, his wife, Cilia Flores, moved with the same constrained steps, her face a mask of weary defiance. The couple, who had been plucked from their Caracas home in a dramatic nighttime raid by U.S. military forces just months earlier, were about to confront the latest chapter in their legal…

It started with a quiet posting on the Food and Drug Administration’s website—the kind of notice that rarely makes headlines, and the kind that can easily slip through the cracks of an overwhelmed news cycle. But for the people affected, the stakes were anything but quiet. More than 13 million pregnancy tests have been recalled around the world, including in the United States. These are not the over-the-counter sticks you buy at a pharmacy and pee on in the privacy of your own bathroom. These are professional-grade tests used in hospitals and clinics, handled by doctors, nurses, and lab technicians.…