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.

The White House and top Democrats, intensifying their push to build support for their party's health overhaul proposals, are increasingly targeting women, a politically crucial group with strong opinions on health care that polls suggest has yet to be sold on the changes.

In speeches, news conferences and even an all-female talk-in on the Senate floor Thursday, Democrats have been pounding away daily on the message that their ideas — along the lines of what President Barack Obama has called for — are especially good for women. The campaign reflects a concern among Democrats that women, who typically make most of a family's health care decisions, are not yet on board with the sweeping changes Obama and his congressional allies are advocating.

That's despite the fact that women have historically been more concerned about health care, and more likely to support changes, than men.

A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that women, like the public overall, are generally split on the health care legislation. Although younger women — those under 55 who many opinion experts consider crucial in any health care debate — slightly favor the proposals, nearly one-third of them are on the fence, saying they are neither supportive nor opposed.

"What we're seeing is that the administration and the Congress still has to make the case to women," said pollster Mark Mellman, who has advised Democrats and liberal groups on public attitudes on the health care overhaul. "The volume has to be turned up on the communication, and the communication has to be directed to a large degree toward this group."

A British man accused of hacking into American military computers has failed in his latest bid to avoid extradition to the U.S., his lawyer said Friday.

Gary McKinnon is charged with breaking into dozens of computers belonging to NASA, the U.S. Defense Department and several branches of the U.S. military soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. U.S. prosecutors have spent seven years seeking his extradition.

The 43-year-old claims he was searching for evidence of alien life, although prosecutors say he left a message on an Army computer criticizing U.S. foreign policy.

The High Court decision denies McKinnon the possibility of taking his case to the country's new Supreme Court — the latest in a series of blows to his campaign to remain in Britain.

Lord Justice Stanley Burnton said that extradition was "a lawful and proportionate response" to McKinnon's alleged crimes and that the legal issues raised by the case were not important enough to be considered by the nation's highest court.