Trimming the Times: Taking Tripoli; World's Oldest Fossils

A guide to what's in The New York Times for those worried about hitting its pay wall

Now that The New York Times pay wall is live, you only get 20 free clicks a month. For those worried about hitting their limit, we're taking a look through the paper each morning to find the stories that can make your clicks count.

The lead story on the home page is the Libyan rebels' movement into Tripoli, including some great photos and maps. The Lede blog, positioned high on the page for the breaking news, is updating as things develop there. Also prominently placed Monday is the news, following up on the weekend's coverage, that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is planning to drop the charges in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn prosecution. And don't miss the Science section report on the apparent discovery of the world's oldest-known fossils.

World: Aside from the big news from Libya, the stories to read here include the report on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's refusal to step down following Western calls to do so. And there's some fascinating analysis of the meaning behind North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's visit to Russia, for which he departed Sunday.

U.S.: The report from Mississippi on a Baptist minister preaching a healthy diet to a region that frequently prefers the deep-fried is well worth a read. The report on the San Francisco Giants' slump lending malaise to the region seems a little stretched, until you read the other story about a shooting at a San Francisco 49ers football game, which sort of shows how seriously people take their sports around there.

New York: There's not a ton of hard news after the weekend, so check out the feature on Motorola's "identity crisis" after its sale to Google. Another good bit of reporting is a story on the pressure New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman faces to sign off on a state settlement with banks over foreclosures.

Science: The story on a team that thinks it found the oldest known fossils--of 3.4-billion-year-old single-cell organisms--is simply fascinating.

Sports: Skip the game stories and read the lengthy feature on how Newark's sparkling new, and frequently empty, minor league baseball stadium may have been a mistake for the city.

Opinion: In the lead op-ed, law professor Joel Bakan argues that children face a new set of risks as the targets of large-scale corporate marketing campaigns.

Arts: The report--not exactly a review--of Jim Whitaker's Sept. 11 documentary Rebirth previews a very moving-sounding film with beautiful-looking images.