A court on Wednesday upheld a corruption conviction against former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was released from prison earlier this month.

A three-judge panel in Porto Alegre also ruled that da Silva’s prison sentence should be raised by four years to 17 years.

Da Silva remains free for now. He was released Nov. 8 after 19 months in jail when the Supreme Court ruled a person can be imprisoned only after all appeals have been exhausted.

Da Silva, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, denies wrongdoing and says corruption cases against him are politically motivated.

The judges in Porto Alegre were ruling on a case in which da Silva allegedly benefited from upgrades that the Odebrecht and OAS firms made to a Sao Paulo farm.

Former Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock is scheduled to appear in court for the first time since the U.S. Supreme Court declined to get involved in his corruption case.

A federal judge in Chicago set a Wednesday hearing for the 37-year-old, who once was a rising star of the Republican Party.

Schock resigned from Congress in 2015 amid scrutiny of his spending, including redecorating his office in the style of the "Downton Abbey" TV series. He was indicted in 2016 on 22 counts, i ncluding wire fraud and falsification of election commission filings.

Schock has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys argued the case should be dismissed, saying his prosecution violated separation-of-powers clauses. The Supreme Court declined last month to consider it.

The case was originally filed in central Illinois. The Justice Department transferred it to prosecutors in Chicago last year.

Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn will be detained at least through Jan. 11, the Tokyo District Court said Monday, as the once revered auto industry figure faces allegations that have marked a stunning downfall.

Ghosn, who led Nissan Motor Co. for two decades and helped save the Japanese automaker from near bankruptcy, was arrested Nov. 19 on suspicion of falsifying financial reports. He also faces a breach of trust allegation, for which his detention had been approved previously through Jan. 1.

The Tokyo District Court said in a statement that it had approved prosecutors' request for a 10-day extension.

Ghosn has been charged in the first set of allegations, about under-reporting Ghosn's pay by about 5 billion yen ($44 million) in 2011-2015.

Those close to Ghosn and his family say he is asserting his innocence as the alleged underreported amount of money was never really decided or paid, and Nissan never suffered any monetary losses from the alleged breach of trust.

It is unclear when Ghosn may be released on bail. Tokyo prosecutors consider Ghosn, a Brazilian-born Frenchman of Lebanese ancestry, a flight risk.

In Japan, formal charges can mean a suspect will get detained for months, sometimes until the trial starts, because of fears of tampered evidence.

Another Nissan executive, Greg Kelly, was arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Ghosn on the under-reporting of income and was freed Dec. 25 on 70 million yen ($635,600) bail after more than a month of detention.

Kelly said in a statement released through his lawyers he had suffered while in detention because of his neck ailment and hoped to get medical treatment. He also said he was innocent and hoped to regain his reputation.

"I expect that the trial will start soon. I have not been involved in alleged false entry. I believe my innocence will be revealed in the trial," Kelly said.

Falsifying financial reporting is a serious crime in Japan, with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a 10 million yen ($89,000) fine, or both. But some experts are puzzled that the allegations against Kelly and Ghosn are about underreporting income from Nissan. Nissan is in charge of filing such financial reports, not individual executives.

Past cases of companies and officials getting charged in Japan with falsifying such reports tend to be about misrepresenting company profits or other numbers that relate to the overall operations of the business, not executive compensation.

A New York judge on Thursday mothballed a lawsuit over President Donald Trump's charitable foundation until a higher court rules in an unrelated case whether a sitting president can be sued in state court.

State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla commented after hearing arguments from a Trump attorney who wants her to dismiss the lawsuit brought by New York state's Democratic attorney general.

She said she'll wait to decide whether the lawsuit proceeds after an intermediate state appeals court rules whether Trump must face a defamation lawsuit brought by a 2006 contestant on "The Apprentice."

Supreme Court Appellate Division justices did not immediately rule after hearing arguments last week on claims by ex-contestant Summer Zervos, a California restaurateur, who says Trump defamed her when he called her a liar for accusing him of unwanted kissing and groping in two 2007 incidents.

Trump's lawyers, seeking to dismiss the lawsuit or delay it until he is no longer in office, say a sitting president can't be sued in state court over conduct outside official duties.

A key question will be whether a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court ruling forcing then-President Bill Clinton to face a federal sexual harassment lawsuit concerning an alleged encounter with an Arkansas state employee while he was governor applies to state courts as well.

Scarpulla said that if the state appeals judges decide that the Clinton ruling is "good law, then I think this case will continue."

The lawsuit alleged Trump and his foundation used his charity's money to settle business disputes and to boost his 2016 presidential campaign.

Brought against Trump and three of his children who serve as the foundation's directors, the lawsuit seeks $2.8 million in restitution and the dissolution of the foundation.

On Thursday, Scarpulla seemed sympathetic to some of the New York state arguments, but she repeatedly said she was required at this stage of the litigation to accept its claims as true.

Attorney Yael Fuchs, arguing for New York state, said the foundation "broke some of the most basic laws that apply" to charitable foundations when it took actions in 2016 at the direction and for the benefit of the Trump presidential campaign.

Representing Trump and his children, attorney Alan Futerfas said the state's claims were exaggerated and distorted. He suggested that even magnanimous steps taken by Trump for charitable purposes were being recast in a negative light.

The Supreme Court is siding with a financial adviser known for his "Buckets of Money" retirement strategy who challenged the appointment of the administrative law judge who ruled against him in a fraud case.

The justices ruled Thursday that Raymond Lucia of California is entitled to a new hearing because the judge in his case was not properly appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 6-3 decision could affect administrative law judges in other federal agencies.

But the court declined to address a larger issue raised by the Trump administration. It wanted the justices to rule that the president has broad authority to fire certain officials.

The SEC already has changed the way it appoints its judges by requiring a vote by commissioners, instead of relying on staff members.

North Carolina legislative districts are back in court again as federal judges must decide whether to accept proposed alterations by their appointed third-party expert.

A three-judge panel scheduled a hearing Friday in Greensboro to listen to why a Stanford University law professor they hired redrew boundaries the way he did. House and Senate districts drawn by Republican legislators have been in courts since 2011.

The same judicial panel previously struck down 28 districts as illegal racial gerrymanders, ultimately leading GOP legislators last summer to retool their maps. But the judges said there seemed to be lingering problems with race and constitutional violations and brought in a special master.

GOP lawyers already have said they expect to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the judicial panel approves the professor's proposal.

A German court has ended the trial of the former chief executive of Hypo Real Estate, a commercial property lender that was nationalized after it ran into trouble in 2008, in exchange for an 18,000-euro ($21,200) payment.

Georg Funke went on trial in March, accused of manipulating the bank's balance sheets in 2007 and 2008. He denied the accusation.

News agency dpa reported that the Munich state court closed the trial Friday, finding that it had been impossible to clear up the accusations sufficiently. The statute of limitations expires next year.

It said the case would be closed in exchange for a payment to good causes. German law allows such an arrangement, meaning that the court delivers no formal verdict and the defendant effectively wins a legal stamp of innocence.