Sen. Arlen Specter accused the National Football League and the Philadelphia Eagles of treating Terrell Owens unfairly and said he might refer the matter to the antitrust subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs.

Specter said at a news conference Monday in Harrisburg it was "vindictive and inappropriate" for the league and the Eagles to forbid the all-pro wide receiver from playing and prevent other teams from talking to him.

"It's a restraint of trade for them to do that, and the thought crosses my mind, it might be a violation of antitrust laws," Specter said, though some other legal experts disagreed.

Sen. John McCain is leading the charge against so-called "torture" techniques allegedly used by U.S. interrogators, insisting that practices like sleep deprivation and withholding medical attention are not only brutal - they simply don't work to persuade terrorist suspects to give accurate information.

Nearly forty years ago, however - when McCain was held captive in a North Vietnamese prison camp - some of the same techniques were used on him. And - as McCain has publicly admitted at least twice - the torture worked!

After snubs that drove Black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne to dismiss the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame vote as “totally irrelevant,” the heavy-metal pioneers are finally in, joined by Miles Davis, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Sex Pistols and Blondie.

Ozzy’s 1970s group was first nominated in 1996. But until Monday, the panel of musicians, industry professionals and journalists who vote on inductees kept the door barred. Except for Led Zeppelin, the hall has largely ignored metal since the organization was founded in 1987.

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham will plead guilty to tax violations, a person close to the investigation of the California Republican has told The Associated Press.

Cunningham has been under investigation since his sale of his home to a defense contractor at an apparently inflated price in 2003 attracted the attention of federal investigators.

"If the provisional government asks us to leave we will leave," Bremer said, referring to an Iraqi administration due to take power June 30. "I don't think that will happen, but obviously we don't stay in countries where we're not welcome."

Iraqi leaders, meeting at a reconciliation conference in Cairo, urged an end to violence in the country and demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq. In a final statement, read by Arab League chief Amre Moussa, host of the three-day summit, they called for "the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces.'' No date was specified.

"This year we will spend three times paying the interest on the national debt what we will invest in education at the federal level. That shortsightedness is an example of misplaced priorities. I strongly believe that if we spend billions of dollars to build schools and other infrastructure in Iraq, which I voted for, we can find a few dollars to invest in important priorities like schools here at home..."

Mothers and grandmother have long warned that chilling the surface of the body, through wet clothes, feet and hair, causes common cold symptoms to develop.

But much previous research has dismissed any link between chilling and viral infection as having no scientific basis.

Now researchers in Cardiff, Wales, say they can prove drops in temperature to the body really can cause a cold to develop.

Vernon Robinson set to lose council post

Vernon Robinson, a hard-nose GOP voice on the Winston-Salem City Council for eight years, was headed to a sound election defeat yesterday to Democrat Molly Leight.

The election of Molly Leight, a political newcomer, would give the Democrats a 7-1 advantage on the council. With 11 of the 13 South Ward precincts reporting, Leight had about twice as many votes as Robinson.

"Jesse Helms is back! This time he is black."

"I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al-Qaeda," insisted the secretary of state, who now says he regrets voicing many of the charges contained in that speech.

President Bush has ordered White House staff to attend mandatory briefings beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe.

According to a memo sent to aides yesterday, Bush expects all White House staff to adhere to the "spirit as well as the letter" of all ethics laws and rules. As a result, "the White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations next week that will provide refresher lectures on general ethics rules, including the rules of governing the protection of classified information," according to the memo, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post by a senior White House aide.

President Bush's approval rating in North Carolina continues to decline, according to a poll released Friday by Elon University.

The poll found that 41 percent of those questioned approve of Bush's handling of the job of president. That is down from 45 percent in a poll Elon did in April and 52 percent from a poll the university did in March.

Rich, live in Vallejo, California, Moderate Conservative and I've left the Republican party to become a cynic.