JUST IN: Judge in Maria Butina's case schedules a telephone conference for 11a tomorrow, with 14-hour notice. No other information is given in the docket entry. The next scheduled conference in the case was not until Dec. 19. 
This comes a week after the parties had expressed optimism that there could be "pretrial resolution of this matter" — although today's order from Judge Chutkan does not suggest tomorrow's telephone conference comes at the request of the parties.
In response to that joint motion last week, Judge Chutkan put motions in the case that had been due before the Dec. 19 status conference on hold for now, so the case was actually slowing down, in a sense, while the parties pursued (we presume) plea negotiations.
The only other issue raised in the case recently was the attempt by Butina's lawyers to have Butina moved. That was denied.
