Jail, Scandal | featured news

An Italian court on Thursday sentenced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to a one-year jail term for making public the taped contents of a confidential phone call in a case related to a 2005 banking scandal.

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn spent his first night out of jail since his arrest on attempted rape charges, inside a Manhattan safe house on Saturday, well-hidden from the media gathered outside.

R. Allen Stanford, the Texas financier accused of directing a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, complained that his jail cell often lacks light and air conditioning.

For the past week, Stanford, who's in a cell in Conroe, Texas, with from eight to 10 other men, has endured heat and intermittent lack of power when outside temperatures reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) or more, his lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said yesterday in a motion asking that his client be transferred to a downtown Houston jail.