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.

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.

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.

The Supreme Court appeared divided between conservatives and liberals Wednesday over whether a cross on federal park land in California violates the Constitution.

Several conservative justices seemed open to the Obama administration's argument that Congress' decision to transfer to private ownership the land on which the cross sits in the Mojave National Preserve should take care of any constitutional questions.

"Isn't that a sensible interpretation" of a court order prohibiting the cross' display on government property? Justice Samuel Alito asked.

The liberal justices, on the other hand, indicated that they agree with a federal appeals court that ruled that the land transfer was a sort of end run around the First Amendment prohibition against government endorsement of religion.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the decisive vote in these cases, said nothing to tip his hand.

The tenor of the discussion suggested that the justices might resolve this case narrowly, rather than use it to make an important statement about their view of the separation of church and state.

The cross, on an outcrop known as Sunrise Rock, has been covered in plywood for the past several years following federal court rulings that it violates the First Amendment prohibition. Court papers describe the cross as being 5 feet to 8 feet tall.

A former National Park Service employee, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued to have the cross removed or covered after the agency refused to allow erection of a Buddhist memorial nearby. Frank Buono describes himself as a practicing Catholic who has no objection to religious symbols, but he took issue with the government's decision to allow the display of only the Christian symbol.

A year ago, amid the near-meltdown in the financial system, some senior bankers at Wall Street securities firms quit their jobs. They weren’t laid off or pushed. They simply decided that with the markets in the doldrums and regulation around the corner it simply wasn’t worth their while to stay, Anita Raghavan of Forbes reported.

Now a few are trickling back to Wall Street–a signal that the financial services industry, seen as a wasteland just a year ago, is regaining its luster. Among the notable returnees are Lewis Steinberg who left UBS in May to join the British law firm Linklaters as co-head of its American operation and head of its United States tax practice.

When he quit the Swiss bank, Mr. Steinberg was blunt about the reasons for his departure. “Four or five years ago, I felt a bank was an environment [in which] I could provide skills in an efficient way for my clients, and, to be frank, be well compensated for it,” Mr. Steinberg told Am Law Daily. “Now it’s no longer a friendly environment to do it. And I can actually give my clients better service [at a law firm]… I can be adequately compensated and perhaps better compensated.”

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