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In an environmental initiative, California will force coal-burning plants selling power in the state to install eco-friendlier technology. In Illinois, music groups that misrepresent themselves as the original artists will face fines of up to $50,000. The new law requires live acts to make it clear in their advertising that they are a salute or a tribute band, rather than the real thing.

Dealing with imigration issues on its own, South Carolina will require nurses from other countries to have English-language proficiency to practice in the state. Illinois has delved into the area of eminent domain by requiring local governments to pay more and meet a higher legal threshold before seizing private property. North Carolina and Pennsylvania have set stricter campaign finance rules.

Alaska and South Carolina have passed legislation aimed at preventing harassment in schools. Alaska will provide training to help school systems prevent bullying, while South Carolina will require school districts to adopt policies banning harrassment and intimidation.

Wisconsin seeks to protect the rights of the wrongfully convicted by passing a law requiring law-enforcement agencies to record all interrogations of felony suspects, with either video or audio.

Alabama and West Virginia cut taxes on its poorest wage earners, while North Carolina lowered taxes on those in its highest tax bracket. New York and Oklahoma eliminated the marriage penalty that imposed higher taxes on married couples than on single people. South Dakota and Texas raised taxes on cigarettes.

Massachusetts' new health-care law hits a new milestone, allowing those earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level to buy into subsidized plans. (Those at or below the poverty level are already being signed up for virtually free health care.)

Texas smokers will pay considerably more for cigarettes beginning today as a new excise tax takes effect.

The state Legislature approved the measure in May in an effort to pressure smokers to quit and to allow a break on property taxes. The tax will increase $1 from a moderate 41 cents to $1.41 a pack, placing Texas among the 15 states with the highest cigarette levies. New Jersey has the highest tax, at $2.58 a pack. The increase will push the price of a single pack of cigarettes in Texas to about $4.50.

The state comptroller's office has estimated the tax increase will generate $700 million a year, enabling a reduction in property taxes.

Meanwhile the New York Times cited anonymous American officials as being "privately incensed" at how Saddam's hanging had been rushed forward in the dead of night early Saturday local time at the insistence of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other top officials. The US officials indicated that they had been concerned with the legal process leading up to the execution, in particular the status of the constitutional requirement that a death warrant be approved by Iraq's president and vice-president, which created a problem as President Jalal Talabani, an opponent of the death penalty, refused to sign any warrant himself. A panel of Iraqi judges ultimately ruled that the constitutional provision was void in the context of the law governing the sentence handed down by the Iraqi High Tribunal, but the process was rushed. American officials also told the Times they had been concerned about the timing of the execution at the beginning of the Eid holiday.

The Times said that although the Americans had acknowledged that the execution of Saddam was an Iraqi matter, their reticence about the whole process was only heightened by the eventual video revelations of the confused and undignified manner in which it was finally conducted.

Britain is raising the legal age to purchase tobacco from 16 to 18 years, the government announced Monday.

The new age limit is aimed at helping retailers to spot underage smokers, and making it more difficult for young people to begin smoking, the government said.

"Buying cigarettes has been too easy for under-16s, and this is partly due to retailers' selling tobacco to those under the legal age," public health minister Caroline Flint said. "The law change demonstrates our determination to stop this and to reduce the number of teenagers who smoke."

The law will come into effect in October in England and Wales, the government said. The U.S., Canada, Ireland and New Zealand have similar laws.

In a ruling that could boost federal efforts to prosecute athletes who used steroids, a US appeals court said yesterday that lower courts had wrongly blocked the US government from access to confidential Major League Baseball drug tests.

At issue are subpoenas involving more than 100 baseball players in tests by two laboratories. Prosecutors continue to investigate whether players such as Barry Bonds, who holds the record for home runs in a single season, lied to a federal grand jury in San Francisco about steroid use.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a lower-court judge who had overseen cases involving Balco, a San Francisco-area lab that illegally distributed steroids to athletes, had abused her discretion.

“The subpoenas were not unreasonable and did not constitute harassment,” Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote for the panel. The drug tests could provide key evidence in showing which players used steroids, drugs many observers see as behind an explosion of home runs in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Amid growing scrutiny in recent years, Major League Baseball started unannounced steroid testing of players in 2003.

Michael Rains, criminal attorney for Bonds, said the tests did not incriminate his client, who could become the major leagues’ all-time home-run king next season.

“If what the government saw and got in April of 2004 was harmful to Barry Bonds, you can darn well bet that would have been leaked by now,” he said in an interview. “There is nothing at all about those tests that is harmful to Barry Bonds.”

“The government’s quest to get these — initially I’m sure just to target Barry — has been just another of a goose egg for them in their continuing efforts to both target, harass, indict and prosecute Barry Bonds.” US Attorney Kevin Ryan said in a statement, “We are pleased that the majority of the 9th Circuit panel found that the government’s seizures and use of grand jury subpoenas were reasonable.”

“We will continue to review the ... opinion to determine what the next investigative step may be,” Ryan said.

Investigators initially obtained a subpoena in 2003 to receive the anonymous drug testing results for 11 baseball players, and then sought to get the results from two firms that did the work, Quest Diagnostics in New Jersey and Comprehensive Diagnostic Testing, or CDT, in Long Beach, California.

A legal fight ensued and federal agents in April 2004 searched CDT, finding positive drug test results for eight players, with possible positive results for 26 others, according to the court ruling.

The government sought further records amid opposition from the labs and the Major League Baseball Players Association. A different judge in Nevada ordered the return of specimens and notes. That ruling was also wrong, the 9th Circuit said.

In a partial dissent in the 115-page ruling, Judge Sidney Thomas expressed concern the ruling would ease the way for prosecutors to seize confidential medical records.

“There is no question that the baseball players who participated in the random testing had a justified expectation of privacy in the test results,” Thomas wrote.

“The scope of the majority’s new holding in the digital age could not be greater; it removes confidential electronic records from the protections of the Fourth Amendment.”

A spokesman for Major League Baseball declined comment, saying lawyers had not yet reviewed the decision.