A 10-year analysis of prosecutions under a law meant to punish artifact looters shows most people convicted never go to prison.

Archaeologist and former academic Robert Palmer has found in his review of cases from 1996 to 2005 that of the 83 people found guilty, 20 went to prison and 13 of those received sentences of a year or less. Another study found only 14 percent of artifact looting cases are ever solved.

Jeanne and Jericca Redd were given probation after pleading guilty to several felonies related to a sweeping federal investigation into grave robbing and artifact trapping in the Southwest.

Read Street was a lively place for commenters last week, in the wake of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. And "lively" is an understatement. The comments were unusually vitriolic and polarized for this blog. They put me in the unusual role of censor, so I thought I should explain my thinking on the topic.

Comments must be approved by me or Nancy before they're posted on Read Street, and I'm usually pretty light-handed, killing only those that are obscene or slanderous. And the bounds of fair comment are broad when a political figure is the target. So I posted many harsh comments, even though there was obvious irony in those that said Obama's Nobel was premature, while skewering him for a host of political sins that he could not possibly have had time to commit in less than a year in office.

I admit to censoring one comment though. It was from a Holocaust denier. That, to me, was in its own way, obscene and slanderous to the memory of all who died, and all who remember them today.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee plans to conduct a hearing next month on the case of two professional football players whose suspensions were blocked by a federal appeals court.

Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is concerned that the legal issues raised in the case "could result in weaker performance-enhancing drugs policies for professional sports," the committee said in a statement issued to The Associated Press Thursday.

The committee provided the statement after the AP reported the hearing, citing two people with knowledge of the committee plans. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity because the hearing had not yet been announced.

The NFL had attempted to suspend Minnesota Vikings Pat Williams and Kevin Williams four games each for violating the league's anti-doping policy.

But the players sued, arguing that the NFL's testing violated state workplace laws. A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the order, which was upheld last month by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The decision troubled the NFL and professional sports leagues, which expressed concern about players being subjected to different standards depending on their state. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said after the ruling that the NFL was considering its next step, which could include an appeal, a trial in state court, or taking the issue to Congress. Subsequently, the league was granted more time to file documents asking the court to reconsider the suspensions.

"It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead," Scalia said of the cross that the Veterans of Foreign Wars built 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve. "What would you have them erect?...Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Muslim half moon and star?"

Peter Eliasberg, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer arguing the case, explained that the cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity and commonly used at Christian grave sites, not that the devoutly Catholic Scalia needed to be told that.

Germany's highest court says it has received an appeal from John Demjanjuk's lawyer seeking to block the 89-year-old's trial.

However, the Federal Constitutional Court did not say Monday when it might rule on the request to halt the trial, which is scheduled to open in Munich on Nov. 30.

Prosecutors have charged the retired auto worker with being an accessory to the murder of thousands at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Lawyer Ulrich Busch said last week he would seek to halt the trial. He has cited health concerns among other issues.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was deported from the United States in May. He maintains that he was a Red Army soldier who was held as a prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.

A Dublin man has pleaded not guilty to murdering an Estonian man who died following an attack in a lay-by near Dublin Airport.

Twenty-eight-year-old Ian Daly, of Moatview Drive, Priorswood, Dublin 17, today entered his not guilty pleas to murdering Valeri Ranert and to the unlawful seizure of the man's car in 2007.

Mr Ranert was attacked by a group of people who approached his car in a lay-by near Dublin Airport in the early hours of the morning on April 30th, 2007.

He was left lying on the roadside and his car was driven away.

It was later found burned out at a disused halting site in north Dublin.

Ian Daly was charged with his murder and, today, he appeared before Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.

He replied not guilty when two charges, one of murdering Mr Ranert and one of the unlawful seizure of his car, were put to him in open court.

A jury of three women and nine men was sworn in for the trial, which is to get underway tomorrow morning and is due to last six days.