"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.

Australian Guantanamo detainee David Hicks was transferred to a maximum security prison near his hometown of Adelaide South Australia Sunday to serve the remainder of his nine-month prison sentence. In March, a US military commission at Guantanamo Bay recommended sentencing Hicks to seven years in prison, but all but nine months of that were effectively suspended by a military judge under the terms of a plea agreement kept secret from the panel of military officers during its deliberations.

Hicks has spent more than five years in US custody since being captured in Afghanistan. Under the plea agreement, Hicks was required to state that he "has never been illegally treated" while being held as an enemy combatant by the United States and that his detention was lawful pursuant to the laws of armed conflict. Hicks is also prohibited from having contact with the media for a period of one year, is to not take any legal action against the United States for his treatment during his 5 year detention, and is required to turn over any profits from an eventual sale of his story to the Australian government.

At that point, all of the judges will have been appointed by President Bush except for one judge picked by Democrat President Bill Clinton and one picked by President Bush's father, the first President Bush.

Switching to part-time service are Lewis Babcock of Denver and Walker Miller of Greeley.

Babcock is a native of Rocky Ford and was a state district court judge in Otero, Bent and Crowley counties from 1978 to 1983. Babcock was picked in 1988 for the court by former Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Miller was picked in 1996 by Clinton over Pueblo District Judge Dennis Maes, who wanted the job.

Judgeships on the U.S. District Court are coveted and prestigious. The judges, paid $161,000, are entitled to hold their jobs as long as they want.

Persons significantly involved in the matter say a deal between the president and the Senate is needed. A deal would make it more likely that nominees by the lame-duck president of one party will be confirmed by the Senate controlled by another party.

Otherwise, the court will be two judges short, creating a backlog of cases and slower-than-usual disposition of them.

If the two replacement judges are not confirmed before President Bush leaves office in January 2009, it is likely to be late in 2009, at the earliest, that the vacancies, which will occur early in 2008, would be filled.

Court veterans say a significant slow-down in handling cases, detrimental to persons with cases in the court, are likely if the court becomes two judges short.

The majority Senate Democrats, hoping their party's candidate will be elected president in November, could block confirmation of Bush's choices.

The state's two U.S. senators, Republican Wayne Allard and Democrat Ken Salazar, could play a key role in getting a deal to make it more likely that replacements will be in place promptly.

Allard's chief of staff, Sean Conway, said Friday that the senators met last month with Babcock, chief judge for the past seven years, and Edward Nottingham, who becomes chief judge on June 8 for a seven-year term, to discuss the need for promptly filling the expected vacancies.

Conway said the two senators plan to work together to try to get replacement judges in office as soon as possible "once the White House makes nominations based on our recommendations and with bipartisan support."

Conway said the two senators have "a very good working relationship," but have not yet decided on what process they will use to make recommendations to the president. In the past, senators have appointed bipartisan committees to offer suggested judgeship candidates to them before deciding whom to recommend to the president.

Salazar and his staff did not make themselves available for comment.

Bush in recent years picked Marcia Kreiger of suburban Denver, Robert Blackburn, who lived in Las Animas, and Phillip Figa of suburban Denver for the court. When those three were confirmed by the Senate it was controlled by Republicans and the president was not a lame-duck, so the potential was much less for political fighting over who would become judges.

Figa is seriously ill with a brain tumor, but has been working part time while undergoing extended treatment. He hopes to return to handling a fuller caseload when his health permits.

If he is unable to do that, his position could become open.

The first President Bush picked Nottingham, then of Grand Junction, in 1989. The other judge among the seven, Wiley Daniel of Denver, was picked in 1995 by Clinton.

In addition to the seven full-time judges, known in federal court parlance as "active" judges, the court now has three part-time judges, known as senior judges. There will be five part-time judges when Miller moves to that status in March and Babcock in April.

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.

Srivastava told medics that Wilson doused her with gasoline and set her on fire during an argument at the couple's home on the Southside of Indianapolis, according to police.

Wilson, who was treated for burns to his forearms and hands, initially told firefighters he and Srivastava had been burned when he tried to light a propane grill, but police said Wilson's grill still had its plastic cover on it.

"Things are not always as they seem," said Wilson's attorney, Marvin Coffey.

"We're not disputing the fact that she had gasoline on her; we're disputing the fact that she died of that, and it is a terrible, tragic thing," he said. "Now the question remains, was it an intentional act?"

Wilson's trial was scheduled for July 30. If convicted, he could face 45 to 65 years in prison.

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.

Echols said her three children excelled in school. In fact, she had attended two awards ceremonies for two of her children days before deputies came knocking on her door.

"The very next day, May 18, I was arrested, and I sat in jail for over five hours. I had never seen the inside of a jail," said Echols.

But in closing statements, prosecutors said Echols signed legal documents seven times saying her family lived at addresses in the city when in fact the family did not.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a lie is a lie, and our law says when you lie to the government, you have committed a crime," said assistant district attorney Grady Moore.

Echols' defense attorney, however, called the 16 felony charges overkill. They asked jurors to send a message that prosecutors had gone too far.

"She wanted her children to get a good quality education in a situation where they would not be latch-key children, where they would not have to come home alone, where they would not have to have a baby sitter, where they would not have to have day care, where their family would be responsible and take care of them," said attorney Vic Reynolds.