Word: scheme
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...Blagojevich to be charged with a felony was the last governor Illinois had before Blagojevich, George Ryan. Prior to taking office, the cigar-chomping wheeler-dealer served two terms as secretary of state, from 1991-1999. In 1994, a fatal truck accident outside Ryan's office inadvertently exposed a scheme to trade truck operators' licenses for political contributions. The subsequent investigation, called Operation Safe Road, took years to complete; when it was done, 79 people were charged, including Ryan. The former governor was found guilty on 18 felony counts, including racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, tax fraud and lying...
...about the 20-20-20 plan. Last week Germany successfully persuaded fellow governments to agree to a later deadline for a separate deal on car-emission levels. Along with Italy, Germany is also battling efforts to make industries pay for permits to pollute through the E.U.'s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Berlin and Rome are backed by BusinessEurope, a club of industrial associations, which claims that whole swaths of Europe's manufacturing sector will move their production out of the E.U. if auctioning of emission permits is introduced...
...more than one occasion during his stunning press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama's now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians, it's never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance them from a front-page scandal. And indeed, there are enough connections between the worlds of Blagojevich and Obama that the whole thing...
...Senate-seat scheme is only one of the allegations lodged against the two-term governor, whose administration has been under investigation for alleged "pay to play" patronage practices for years. The complaint claims that Blagojevich tried to extort the owners of the Tribune Company to fire editors at the Chicago Tribune and withhold $8 million of state funds for a children's hospital in hopes of extracting a $50,000 campaign contribution from one of its executives. Blagojevich, who came into office in 2002 with promises to clean up the state's culture of graft, made no comment Tuesday during...
...First dose of negative attention came after fundraiser and adviser Tony Rezko was convicted in 2006 on corruption charges for using his influence in Blagojevich's administration to help set up a $7 million kickback scheme from companies looking to do business with the state...