CHICAGO – A federal judge refused Tuesday to lighten Rod Blagojevich’s original 14-year prison sentence for corruption, rejecting pleas for lenience by the now white-haired former Illinois governor who attended the resentencing hearing by video from a Colorado prison a thousand miles away.
Blagojevich, 59, was eligible for resentencing after an appeals court last year threw out several convictions related to his alleged attempt to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat.
Zagel said that even though the appeals court threw out five of the 18 counts against the former governor, the remaining ones still justified the original sentence.
BANGKOK – Thailand’s junta leader said Tuesday he will hold elections in November 2017 under a newly approved constitution that ensures the military’s control over the next government.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the army chief who took power in a coup in 2014, has said before that he would hold elections in 2017 but had not specified a month. He only said he had a roadmap to democracy under which power would be returned to a civilian government.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, he dismissed a journalist’s suggestion that the polls could be postponed to 2018.
“Let’s count today as Day 1 on the roadmap schedule. If you follow the roadmap, it would put us at November 2017 when the whole process is complete. So why would the elections be held in 2018?” he said.
CARACAS, Venezuela – Electoral officials on Tuesday set a timetable for a recall drive against President Nicolas Maduro that makes it unlikely Venezuela will have an early presidential election that could put the opposition in power.
National Elections Council President Tibisay Lucena said critics of the socialist administration will probably be authorized in late October to try to collect petition signatures from the 20 percent of the country’s voters, or 4 million people, needed to force a recall.
Election officials would then have 29 days to confirm the signatures and then 90 days to hold a referendum. That means the vote to recall Maduro probably would not happen until January or February, although there would be a small chance for it to be held in December.
Associated Press
