"We hold that such a complaint should be dismissed," Justice David Souter wrote for the court majority.

At issue is a class action lawsuit against Bell Atlantic, which contends that lack of competition for local telephone service and "parallel conduct" of the regional Bells were evidence of an antitrust conspiracy.

More than a decade after the court-ordered breakup of AT&T into seven regional Bells, Congress passed a landmark legislation in 1996 designed to foster competition among carriers. It required regional Bells such as Verizon to make their networks available to rivals in exchange for gaining access to the lucrative long-distance voice and data markets.

The case was dismissed by a district court judge, who said the plaintiffs could not sue based only on a "bare-bones" allegation of conspiracy.

But that decision was reversed by a federal appeals court in New York, which ruled the case should not be dismissed unless the charges were implausible.

The U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division has sided with the telephone companies, arguing that "parallel action and inaction" alone was not enough to provide a basis for an antitrust lawsuit.

The Supreme Court's majority opinion agreed, ruling that an allegation of parallel conduct and a bare assertion of conspiracy is not enough. There must be enough facts to suggest an agreement was made, Souter said.

The three pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy involving submission of $716,677 in false debris hauling tickets.

Kitto submitted the tickets, while Robertson signed them, in most instances at her home, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Miller collected and submitted the slips for reimbursement.

Prosecutors said Kitto admitted he tried to conceal the conspiracy by depositing the money in a bank account opened under an employee's name.

Miller paid Robertson for signing the slip and also offered her extra "hush money," prosecutors said.

Meanwhile, W.C. Blackmon of Canton pleaded guilty Friday in federal court in Jackson to filing a false FEMA claim for Katrina disaster assistance funds.

U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton said FEMA mailed $14,470 to an address in Biloxi, based on a false statement from Blackmon claiming hurricane damage to items there.

Blackmon will be sentenced July 27. He faces a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Hoping to pounce on Gonzales's sagging support among Senate Republicans, Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said they will offer the no-confidence resolution on the Senate floor as early as next week.

The resolution would have no force of law, but Democrats hope it would raise the political stakes for Gonzales and for Republicans who vote to support him.

"Any faith that he can run or manage the department is gone," Schumer said. "It's going to be very surprising if we get fewer than 60 votes."

Gonzales continued to lose backing yesterday among GOP lawmakers as Norm Coleman (Minn.) became the sixth Senate Republican to call for his resignation. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) predicted Gonzales will resign once Congress completes an inquiry into the firings because he is "unable to perform his duties."

"I have a sense that when we finish our investigation, we may have a conclusion of the tenure of the attorney general," Specter said.

Gonzales has been under siege for four months because of Justice's shifting explanations for the prosecutor dismissals last year. Documents released by the department showed the effort was based in part on their loyalty to the Bush administration and its policies.

The attorney general was further damaged by testimony Tuesday from former deputy attorney general James B. Comey, who described how Gonzales, then the White House counsel, attempted to persuade then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft to reauthorize a terrorism surveillance program while Ashcroft was in intensive care recovering from surgery.

The Justice Department had deemed the secret warrantless program illegal, and Comey, as acting attorney general, refused to renew it. Comey, Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and others threatened to resign before President Bush intervened, Comey testified.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said Bush "should obviously seriously consider" firing Gonzales over the 2004 incident.

Bush, who has strongly supported Gonzales, declined to comment yesterday on whether he ordered Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then Bush's chief of staff, to make the hospital visit.

In another challenge to Gonzales yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and subcommittee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) called on the Justice Department to widen the circle of lawmakers briefed on the surveillance program.

In a joint letter, they said that if the administration refuses to share information on the eavesdropping program with the Judiciary Committee, it would be "impossible" for the panel to consider any changes the administration is seeking in the wiretap law.

The Washington Post yesterday identified 26 U.S. attorneys included on firing lists compiled from February 2005 to December 2006 by D. Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales's chief of staff, and his colleagues.

Sources yesterday identified four other current or former U.S. attorneys included on a Jan. 1 list that grouped a dozen prosecutors into three tiers. They include current U.S. Attorneys Matthew Mead of Wyoming and Eric Melgren of Kansas and former prosecutors James K. Vines of Nashville and Michael G. Heavican of Nebraska.

None responded to requests for comment yesterday. The four names did not reappear on any of Sampson's other lists, according to the sources, who are familiar with the documents, which have been withheld from the public.

The same Jan. 1 list includes U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie of New Jersey, who also appears on a Nov. 1 list, sources said.

Several prosecutors considered for termination said in interviews that they had received no complaints about their performance and did not know why Sampson included them. His attorney declined to comment.

U.S. Attorney Gregory Miller of Tallahassee, who appeared on three lists between February 2005 and November 2006, said he has 17 years as a career prosecutor.

"I have no idea why Kyle put me there," Miller said. "I would note that, although I am on his list, Kyle is no longer with the department and I still am."

Two U.S. attorneys placed on a Nov. 1 list said yesterday that they received apologetic telephone calls in March from the official who assembled it, Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to the deputy attorney general. On Wednesday, Christie described a similar call.

Colm F. Connolly, the chief federal prosecutor in Delaware, said Elston called "to inform me that there was an e-mail that was going to be turned over to Congress and, although it was not to be disclosed publicly, often times Congress would leak things and this could be public at some point."

Connolly said he "expressed disappointment" and asked how the e-mail was prepared. He said Elston told him "that there was this firing process in the works at the time, and he had been asked to find out whether there were any other U.S. attorneys about whom there had been concerns."

Connolly said Elston told him that he collected names by "speaking to people" but that he "could not remember who he spoke with, and he said he could not remember what the concerns were as they related to me."

In Roanoke, U.S. Attorney John L. Brownlee issued a statement saying that he received a similar call from Elston on March 14 and "reported Mr. Elston's conduct" to Justice officials in Washington.

Another prosecutor included in Elston's e-mail, Mary Beth Buchanan of Pittsburgh, expressed astonishment and pointed to her stints in Washington running both the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and, currently, the Office on Violence Against Women.

One U.S. attorney, Frank Maxwell Wood of Macon, Ga., appeared on Elston's list shortly after his district appeared on an internal Justice Department document as having a voter-fraud problem.

Elston's attorney, Robert N. Driscoll, said in a statement yesterday that Elston assembled the list based on other officials' concerns and was not suggesting that any of those prosecutors be fired. Elston and Sampson mutually agreed that none of the five prosecutors should be removed, he said.

"To the contrary, Mike's view is that the five U.S. attorneys mentioned in the e-mail are among the department's best," Driscoll said.

A temporary guest worker program would also be implemented once the borders are declared secure, and the worker identification program is enacted. Finally, up to 1.5 million migrant farm-workers could obtain legal status through an "AgJobs" measure, supported by Senator Diana Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Larry Craig (R-ID). AgJobs would be a five year pilot program that would grant legal status to those would have worked in US farms for at least 150 days in the last two years.

The charges grew from the bribery scandal that landed former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in prison.

Foggo and Wilkes now face 30 wide-ranging counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Each faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors claimed in their earlier 11-count indictment that in fall 2003, while he was working as a logistics officer at a CIA supply hub overseas, Foggo arranged a $1.7 million contract for one of Wilkes' companies to be a middleman in supplying bottled water to the agency.

The new indictment outlines a second scheme in which Foggo is suspected of providing Wilkes with "sensitive, internal information related to our national security," including classified information, to help him prepare bids for providing undercover flights for the CIA under the guise of a civil aviation company and armored vehicles for agency operations.

Foggo, who was the agency's executive director at the time, is also charged with encouraging his CIA colleagues to hire Wilkes without disclosing that the pair were childhood friends.

Prosecutors say that in return, Wilkes offered to hire Foggo after he retired from government service and treated his friend to extravagant meals and vacations, including a trip to Scotland during which they racked up a $44,000 hotel bill and took $4,000 helicopter rides to play golf.

Wilkes was charged in a separate indictment with conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions to Cunningham in return for government contracts.

A new indictment was returned in that case last week that included new charges against another defendant, New York mortgage banker John T. Michael, who was described as a co-conspirator in Cunningham's 2005 plea agreement. Michael now faces counts of money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions in connection with wire transfers allegedly used to pay off the mortgage on Cunningham's $2.5 million mansion.

Wilkes and Michael pleaded not guilty to the new charges. All three men remain free on bail.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns set a Sept. 18 trial date for Wilkes and Michael, followed by a trial for Foggo and Wilkes starting Oct. 23. Burns denied a request by Foggo's attorneys that their client be tried separately in Virginia, where he lives.

Burns also heard arguments from defense attorneys on several key issues, including a request for an investigation into government leaks to news organizations including The Associated Press during the probe.

Wilkes' attorney, Mark Geragos, has said he believes the information was leaked to pressure Justice Department officials into approving criminal charges sought by prosecutors in San Diego before ousted U.S. Attorney Carol Lam resigned in February. The indictments were returned two days before her departure.

"It's clear - clear to me at least - that they were scrambling," Geragos said after Monday's hearing. "It sure looks to me as though something's going on in that office, and I don't know what it is."

Prosecutors have said that the timing had nothing to do with Lam's departure. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge told the judge the matter had been referred to another U.S. attorney's office as part of an internal Justice Department review.

Burns ordered that the results of the review be turned over to him and said he would require the government to disclose to defense attorneys the identities of any witnesses who had been identified as leakers.

The initial charges came 20 months after the FBI opened an investigation into Cunningham, who served on key House committees with oversight of government contracts. He pleaded guilty in November 2005 to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

Foggo and Wilkes played high school football together growing up in Chula Vista, south of San Diego. They roomed together at San Diego State University, were best men at each other's weddings and named their sons after each other.

Foggo, the former No. 3 official at the CIA, resigned from the spy agency in May 2006 after his house in suburban Virginia and office at the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters were raided by federal agents.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to reverse the Ninth Circuit's decision in the case. The majority wrote:

In cases where an applicant for federal habeas relief is not barred from obtaining an evidentiary hearing by 28 U. S. C. §2254(e)(2), the decision to grant such a hearing rests in the discretion of the district court. Here, the District Court determined that respondent could not make out a colorable claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and therefore was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing. It did so after reviewing the state-court record and expanding the record to include additional evidence offered by the respondent. The Court of Appeals held that the District Court abused its discretion in refusing to grant the hearing. We hold that it did not.

Read the Court's opinion per Justice Thomas, along with a dissent from Justice Stevens.