The New York Times

A federal judge in Vermont gave the first legal endorsement today to laws in California and 14 other states that aim to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles and light trucks. By Felicity Barringer

Festivalgoers in Venice and Toronto who attended the premieres this weekend of "The Shock Doctrine," a six-minute film written by the author Naomi Klein and the director Alfonso Cuarón, saw images of electroshock treatments from the 1950s, animated pages from a C.I.A.

IN one sense we know much less about Earth than we do about Mars. The vast majority of life forms on our planet are still undiscovered, and their significance for our own species remains unknown.

Water levels in the three upper Great Lakes are wavering far below normal, and experts expect Lake Superior, the northernmost lake, to reach a record low in the next two months, according to data from the international bodies that monitor the Great Lakes, the world's largest freshwater reservoir.

DESPITE four years of high prices and warnings about climate change, a new report predicts world oil demand will rise faster than previously expected over the next five years while production slips, threatening a supply crisis. By James Kanter

Northern Alabama has become acre after acre of shriveled cornstalks, cracked red dirt for miles and days of unrelenting white heat. The region's most severe drought in over a century has farmers here averting their gaze from a future that looks as bleak as their fields. By Adam Nossiter

HERE'S one popular vision for saving the planet: Roll out from under the sumptuous hemp-fiber sheets on your bed in the morning and pull on a pair of $245 organic cotton Levi's and an Armani biodegradable knit shirt. By Alex Williams

We — the human species — have arrived at a moment of decision. It is unprecedented and even laughable for us to imagine that we could actually make a conscious choice as a species, but that is nevertheless the challenge that is before us. By Al Gore

Before Al Gore became synonymous with global warming, Barry Commoner was warning the public about the delicate condition of planet Earth. By Thomas Vinciguerra

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq's declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report. By James Glanz

A committee of World Bank directors has formally notified Paul D. Wolfowitz that they found him to be guilty of a conflict of interest in arranging for a pay raise and promotion for Shaha Ali Riza, his companion, in 2005. By Steven R. Weisman

Quick, true or false: Solar energy systems work only on hot, cloudless days. Rooftop systems come in one configuration — big and ugly. And if you generate more energy than you use, there is no way you can sell it elsewhere. By Claudia H. Deutsch

Tens of thousands of people filled the central streets of Turkey's capital on Saturday to protest what they see as an increasingly Islamic tint to their government. By Sabrina Tavernise

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews

The president has been told countless times, by a secretary of state, by members of Congress, by heads of friendly governments — and by the American public — that the Guantánamo Bay detention camp has profoundly damaged this nation's credibility as a champion of justice and human rights.

With this week's release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters. By David C. Iglesias

A House committee released documents Monday that showed hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role. By Andrew C.

Carol Lam, the former United States attorney for San Diego, is smart and tireless and was very good at her job. Her investigation of Representative Randy Cunningham resulted in a guilty plea for taking more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors and a sentence of more than eight years.

Frustrated by the inability of Democrats in Congress to pass a resolution opposing President Bush's policies in Iraq, state legislators across the country, led by Democrats and under pressure from liberal advocacy groups, are pushing forward with their own resolutions. By Jennifer Steinhauer

You, or someone you love, may die because of a gene patent that should never have been granted in the first place. Sound far-fetched? Unfortunately, it's only too real. By Michael Crichton

Tens of thousands of protesters converged on the National Mall on Saturday to oppose President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq in what organizers hoped would be one of the largest shows of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the war began. By Ian Urbina

The Bush administration is eager to start work on a new nuclear warhead with all sorts of admirable qualities: sturdy, reliable and secure from terrorists.

Hundreds of tourists and locals packed the ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Center yesterday, pretending that it really was a cold, snowy day in early January as they circled the ice beneath the giant Christmas tree.

The decision to invade Iraq may go down in history as the most self-defeating ever made by an American president. By Stephen Kinzer

The Kurdish security contractor placed the black plastic box on the table. Inside was a new Glock 19, one of the 9-millimeter pistols that the United States issued by the tens of thousands to the Iraqi Army and police. By C. J. Chivers

The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a cla

People with ruptured disks in their lower backs usually recover whether or not they have surgery, researchers are reporting today. The study, a large trial, found that surgery appeared to relieve pain more quickly but that most people recovered eventually and that there was no harm in waiting. By

The archaic human species that dominated Europe until 30,000 years ago is about to emerge from the shadows. With the help of a new DNA sequencing machine that operates with firefly light, the bones of the Neanderthals have begun to tell their story to geneticists. By NICHOLAS WADE

Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday put the blame for global warming on "a frightening lack of leadership," saying the poorest people in the world, who do not even create much pollution, bear the brunt of rising temperatures. By Jeffrey Gettleman

A large and growing number of countries are reversing the longstanding trend toward destruction of their forests, a surprising new analysis has found. By Elisabeth Rosenthal