When his corruption trial begins in June, Rod R. Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, wants jurors to be allowed to hear all of the audio recordings — some 500 hours’ worth — that federal authorities secretly made of his telephone conversations.

In papers filed here on Wednesday, Mr. Blagojevich asked Judge James B. Zagel of Federal District Court to allow far more than just snippets of the calls, some of which have been made public.

“Play all the tapes,” Mr. Blagojevich told reporters after a hearing. He said that he planned to testify at his trial, and that all the tapes — not just parts — would provide the full picture and prove his innocence. “Play the truth, and play the whole truth,” he said.

A lawyer for Mr. Blagojevich, Sam Adam Jr., said jurors did not necessarily have to hear all of the tapes, which were made in Mr. Blagojevich’s home and campaign offices and on cellphones in the three months leading up his arrest in December 2008 on bribery, racketeering and a host of other charges.

But, Mr. Adam said, the defense team does want to play any parts that are related to the charges against Mr. Blagojevich or that give context to any of his statements on the tapes.

That prospect, political analysts here said, was likely to cause queasiness for Illinois politicians, some of whom are thought to be heard on those audio recordings and might have hoped their comments would never become public. In a year when the state is electing a new governor and a United States senator, such an open airing of hundreds of hours of tapes — even for those who did nothing criminal — might be especially awkward.

The founder of the failed Wild West World theme park, Thomas Etheredge was found guilty on seven of nine counts of securities fraud.

Etheredge, 55, maintained that he provided enough information about his past, in publishing the book, “Real Men, Real Faith”. In 1987, Etheredge was convicted on nine counts of securities fraud.

However, the prosecution insisted that the book lulled investors into a false sense of security.

During the trial, Etheredge testified that in spite of budgeting correctly, poor weather and construction cost overruns caused the park’s failure.

The jury spent nearly two days in deliberation before reaching their verdict. The two counts where Etheredge was found not guilty involved investors that sought out Etheredge.

A court in Beijing denied an appeal by one of China’s best-known democracy advocates on Thursday and upheld his 11-year prison sentence, human rights activists said.

The Beijing Municipal Higher People’s Court upheld the conviction and unusually harsh sentence of the advocate, Liu Xiaobo. Mr. Liu, a Beijing scholar, played an important role in organizing a document called Charter 08 that called for political and legal reforms. Charter 08 was issued in December 2008; Mr. Liu was subsequently convicted of “inciting subversion of state power.”

The denial of Mr. Liu’s appeal marks the third judicial setback this week for activists in China and the latest signal that China’s leaders remain leery of tolerating greater pluralism.

Tan Zuoren, an activist who said the poor quality of the construction of public buildings contributed to the death toll in the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, was sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday for sending e-mail messages with comments about the military crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is heading to court to answer revised charges that he schemed to sell or trade President Barack Obama's old Senate seat and swap official favors for campaign money.

Marshals have warned they will not tolerate the kind of swirling crowd at Blagojevich's arraignment Wednesday that swallowed the former governor last time he was in court.

Curiosity about Blagojevich is guaranteed to bring out a heavy media contingent, but defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky says the arraignment is likely to be routine — a simple not guilty plea.

While the indictment against Blagojevich has been revised, the allegations of misconduct on his part are no different that the ones in the old version.

Last month, by a vote of 5 to 4, the U.S. Supreme Court gave carte blanche to the world's largest corporations to spend unlimited sums of money to support or oppose candidates for elected office. Big Business domination of Washington and state capitals will now intensify.

The case of Citizens United portends dire consequences for the nation's constitutional premise of "we the people," not we the corporations. Our constitution, at its origins and through all of its amendments, makes no mention of corporate entities, only human beings and their government.

For 120 years, it was not Congress but the Supreme Court that expanded the definition of "persons" to include for-profit corporations for the purposes of applying constitutional protections. For 30 years, the court has granted First Amendment speech protections to corporations as "artificial persons."

But not until last month has the court declared that the First Amendment gives corporations the right to spend unlimited money to influence elections. The court majority, self-styled believers in precedent and judicial restraint, overturned two major Supreme Court decisions and reversed decades of campaign-finance laws aimed at preventing corporations from having undo influence over local, state and national elections.

Granted, existing campaign-finance rules have been inadequate. Regular news reports document how corporate spending debases elections and elected officials. But that doesn't mean things can't get worse. The court has challenged whatever social mores are left that view no-holds-barred corporate cash register politics as unseemly.

A North Carolina court has temporarily stopped the security rules that a judge issued for the retrieval of the John Edwards sex tape.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals issued a stay on Tuesday without giving a reason. The court, however, did not halt an initial order that requires former Edwards aide Andrew Young to turn over the tape by Wednesday afternoon.

Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones last week ordered that Young's copies of the tape be turned over so they can be placed under seal. Jones has threatened Young with penalties if he doesn't hand them over.

Jones later ordered that a security official accompany Young to collect the video from a safety deposit box in Atlanta, a requirement that Young's attorneys protested.