Final orders on complaints about judges will be posted on appeals court Web sites and, in most cases, judges will be named if they have been sanctioned.

The changes were adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States, a 27-judge body led by Chief Justice John Roberts that met Tuesday at the Supreme Court. The new rules take effect in 30 days.

Only a handful of the complaints that are filed annually against federal judges advance beyond a preliminary review. Five of the 841 complaints filed in the government spending year that ended Sept. 30 resulted in the formation of special investigative committees of judges to look into allegations against a colleague.

In one recent case, judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said there was evidence to support impeachment of U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. for misconduct, including lying in bankruptcy court and accepting gifts from lawyers with cases before him.

The Judicial Conference will decide by September whether to recommend that the House consider impeaching Porteous, said Chief Judge Thomas Hogan of U.S. District Court in Washington, the chairman of the conference's executive committee.

The increased attention to allegations of improprieties by judges grew out of a report released in 2006 by a committee headed by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. The report found problems in the way judges have handled high-profile complaints against their colleagues.

On a separate matter, Hogan said judges oppose legislation that would tie a pay raise to a ban on most paid seminars for judges. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., attached the travel restrictions to the pay raise bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in January.

"The way it's written is far too broad," said Hogan, noting that one commentator has remarked that under the proposal, "the Supreme Court could travel to Europe but not come back."

A court ruling that California parents "do not have a constitutional right" to home-school their children has touched off anger and bewilderment throughout America's home-schooling community and prompted a denunciation from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For a movement that has gained greater accommodation in recent years, a state appellate court decision last month is a setback that, if not overturned on appeal, could force some 166,000 home-schooled students in California to enroll in conventional schools. It may also prod California and other states with vague or nonexistent laws on home schooling to be more specific about what is allowed and what is required of home-schoolers.

California's education statutes, for instance, do not mention "home schooling," but officials have allowed the practice for decades. The appellate court, however, found that the state's laws have not been changed to allow home schooling since a case back in 1953 erected a major roadblock to the practice.

Governor Schwarzenegger said Friday he would go to the legislature if the ruling is not overturned.

"I could see this ruling being a real strong impetus for home-schoolers in California to get the legislature to change their laws.... Or I could see it being perhaps the beginning of other states wanting to look more closely both at their laws and current enforcement," says Kimberly Yuracko, a professor at Northwestern University's Law School in Chicago.

The number of students nationwide who are home-schooled is not known because 10 states are so hands-off they require no reporting at all, nor do parents always comply with reporting requirements. Estimates range from 1.1 million to 2.5 million home-schooled students, and the numbers are rising.

About half the states require more than simple notification from parents or guardians, such as testing, curriculum approval, or home visits. But such rules are dwindling – either explicitly or by lax enforcement, say experts. Home-school advocates worry the California case could bring more regulation or enforcement, or both.

The immediate impact of the ruling was not clear. Attorneys for the state Department of Education were reviewing the ruling, and home schooling organizations were lining up against it.

"Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey wrote in a Feb. 28 opinion for the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

Noncompliance could lead to criminal complaints against the parents, Croskey said.

An estimated 166,000 students in California are home schooled, but it was not known how many of them are taught solely by an uncredentialed parent.

To earn a five-year preliminary teaching credential in California, a person must obtain a bachelor's degree and complete multiple examinations.

Until now, California allowed home schooling if parents filed paperwork to establish themselves as small, private schools; hired a credentialed tutor; or enrolled their child in an independent study program run by an established school while teaching the child at home.

The ruling stems from a case involving a Los Angeles-area couple whose eldest child reported "physical and emotional mistreatment" by the father, court papers said.

The father, Phillip Long, vowed to take the case to the state Supreme Court.

"I have sincerely held religious beliefs," he told the Los Angeles Times. "Public schools conflict with that. I have to go with what my conscience requires me."

But Mamdouh Habib almost certainly was mistreated during his three years of detention without trial in four countries after being arrested in Pakistan in late 2001, during which he suffered extreme stress and trauma, the judge found.

The findings came in a judgment in Habib's case against Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper in which he claimed that the paper defamed him by implying he lied about being tortured.

A jury in 2006 found in Habib's favor, but the paper's publisher, Rupert Murdoch's Nationwide News Pty. Ltd., sought to knock down the case by proving that there was some truth to its article.

On Friday, Justice Peter McClellan of the New South Wales state Supreme Court upheld News' case, and ruled Habib would get no payout. Habib vowed to appeal.

Habib, an Egyptian-born Muslim immigrant, was arrested in late 2001 in Pakistan, where he says he was held for 28 days and interrogated by Americans before he was transferred to Egypt, then six months later to the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan and then to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Habib told the court he had been beaten and electrocuted by his captors while he was in Pakistan and Egypt, kept drugged and shackled, had his fingers broken, and was sexually molested.

He claimed that Australian officials were present during parts of his ordeal.

Habib said that while at Guantanamo he was regularly beaten before interrogation sessions, kept shackled and often naked, and had his cell sprayed with pepper spray.

In his ruling, McClellan said he could not accept a lot of Habib's evidence because it was inconsistent with previous statements he had made. The judge also found Habib was "prone to exaggerate," and "evasive" when pressed on details.

"I have no difficulty in accepting that the experiences which Mr. Habib suffered were traumatic" and were an "extraordinarily stressful experience," McClellan said.

"I also have little doubt that from time to time he was mistreated," he said, citing electric shocks, kicks and the use of hot and cold water as included in the likely abuse.

"However, the evidence he gave was disjointed and on many occasions he failed to respond to a question," the judge said. "I have ultimately concluded that I cannot accept the allegations of mistreatment in the detail which he gave the evidence in this court."

"That does not mean that I have concluded that these events did not happen but merely that I cannot be satisfied that they did happen," he said.

On the way home from work in Rochester, Patricia Martinez stopped at a liquor store and bought a small bottle of Champagne to celebrate her marriage to another woman. The wedding took place in Canada nearly four years ago, but it wasn’t until Feb. 1 that a New York appellate court declared it valid in the state.

Last week in Manhattan, a State Supreme Court justice, ruling in a divorce proceeding, recognized the Canadian marriage of two New York City women, known publicly as Beth R. and Donna M. - or Mom and Mommy to the two young children they had been raising together.

Less than two years after New York’s highest court refused to legalize gay marriage, leaving it up to a divided Legislature, courts in Rochester and Manhattan, as well as state and local officials, have begun to carry out what some say is the de facto legalization of gay marriage - and gay divorce - in New York for the price of, say, a ticket to Toronto.

Advocates for same-sex marriage say the two court decisions last month granting reciprocity in New York to gay marriages in other jurisdictions simply underline what most people would consider common sense.