  Measurements of the CKM parameter $\sin(2 \beta)$ have established $CP$
violation in the $B^0$ meson system arising from the interference between
mixing and decay. However, direct CP violation, arising from the interference
among different terms in the decay amplitude, had not been observed so far. We
report a first observation of direct CP violation in $B^{0} \to K^{+} \pi^{-}$
decays with the BaBar detector. Other selected results based on the search for
direct CP violation in several other B decays are also presented.
