WASHINGTON -- A federal judge yesterday ruled against the Bush administration in a court battle over the White House's problem-plagued e-mail system.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ruled that two private groups may pursue their case as they press the government to recover millions of possibly missing electronic messages.

CREW and the National Security Archive want a court order directing the archivist of the United States to initiate action through the attorney general to restore deleted e-mails. The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating to 2003.

CREW argued that the Bush administration is harming the private organization's efforts to gain future access to important historical documents that would shed light on the conduct of public officials.

CAMDEN, N.J. -- The government's star witness in the case against five men accused of plotting an attack on soldiers at the Army's Fort Dix said two of the men "had nothing to do" with the scheme.

Mahmoud Omar, a paid FBI informant who made hundreds of secret recordings of the men over more than a year, told jurors yesterday that one defendant said all five were on board with the alleged plot.

But two -- brothers Dritan "Tony" Duka and Shain "Shaheen" Duka -- knew nothing about it when Omar later asked them during an August 2006 fishing trip with them, he testified under cross-examination.

The five men, all in their 20s at the time of the arrests in May 2007, are charged with conspiracy to kill military personnel, attempted murder and weapons offenses in a case prosecutors have presented as one of the most frightening examples of homegrown terrorism. If convicted, the men could face life in prison.

WASHINGTON -- An environmental watchdog group asked the Department of Justice's inspector general yesterday to investigate whether the department had prematurely halted a criminal prosecution of BP for a 2006 oil spill in Alaska.

BP, one of the world's largest energy companies, agreed in October 2007 to plead guilty to the federal misdemeanor and pay $20 million in criminal penalties for two Prudhoe Bay spills. The company was charged with a misdemeanor.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility asked the inspector general to determine whether the investigation was shut down prematurely and whether the fine was too low.

Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility charged in a statement that the BP oil-spill settlement was part of a pattern of "lowball" public-safety and pollution settlements between corporations and the Justice Department under President Bush.

YONKERS, N.Y. -- A bigger, brighter Waterford crystal ball will usher in 2009 above Times Square, then remain in place all year to celebrate other holidays, organizers said yesterday.

The new ball, which was being assembled at a studio in Yonkers, is 12 feet in diameter and weighs nearly 6 tons. Last year's ball was 6 feet across and less than a ton.

The flagpole that was used for previous balls wasn't considered sturdy enough, so a new shaft was built, and steel bracing was added to the building beneath it, 1 Times Square.

The ball is a geodesic dome built of 2,468 Waterford crystal triangles, each etched with a stylized starburst or a stylized angel, Waterford spokesman Peter Cheyney said.