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In perhaps the best-known recent example, the chief executive of Massey Coal Co. spent $3 million to help elect a West Virginia high-court judge, who then participated in a case overturning a $50 million verdict against the company. The case led to a landmark ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that excessive campaign contributions can create an unconstitutional threat to a fair trial.

A study released this week of the four biggest newspapers in the United States said that in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, there was “a dramatic shift in coverage away from nearly a century of practice recognizing waterboarding as torture.”

“Public perception has been radically impacted by a short campaign’’ by climate skeptics, said Grubb, who is also chairman of the advisory group Climate Strategies at the University of Cambridge. “That is deeply troubling if you want a sensible long-term solution to climate change.’’

KABUL, Afghanistan — The American military released a scathing report Saturday on the deaths of 23 Afghan civilians earlier this year, saying that “inaccurate and unprofessional” reporting by a team of Predator drone operators helped lead to an inadvertent missile strike on a group of innocent men, women and children.

The result, the report found, was regulation that often looked less than rigorous. One confidential source, it said, told investigators that service inspectors let the oil and gas companies fill out their own inspection forms -- in pencil. Then an inspector would trace over their writing in ink.

WASHINGTON — In its most comprehensive study so far, the nation’s leading scientific body declared on Wednesday that climate change is a reality and is driven mostly by human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

WASHINGTON — Social Security faces a $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years, but a new congressional report says the massive gap could be erased with only modest changes to payroll taxes and benefits.

In contrast to the methodology of that study, the only way to determine charter school success is to compare the achievement of students in a charter school with the achievement of students in the public school they would have otherwise attended.

But for all their support and cultural cachet, the majority of the 5,000 or so charter schools nationwide appear to be no better, and in many cases worse, than local public schools when measured by achievement on standardized tests, according to experts citing years of research. Last year one of the most comprehensive studies, by researchers from Stanford University, found that fewer than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local schools, almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were “significantly worse.”

According to the Pew survey, Americans have negative views of many large institutions -- banks and financial firms, Congress, large corporations, the national news media, federal agencies, the entertainment industry, labor unions. The nation still has a positive view of colleges and universities, churches, small businesses and technology companies. Respondents were evenly divided on the Obama administration, with 45 percent being positive and 45 percent negative. Given the current climate, the president might be tempted to claim a moral victory.