BEST ATTEMPT TO HIDE NEWS ON A FRIDAY: There was no shortage of nominees for this category, which produced the year's major upset. The committee had several worthy contestants from which to choose, including:

President Bush's sneaky recess appointments of controversial judges William Pryor and Charles Pickering to seats on the federal bench.

The Justice Department's approval of the controversial redistricting plan initiated by Texas Republicans.

The Commerce Department's announcement that household incomes had declined for three years in a row and 1.7 million people had fallen into poverty.

The administration's announcement that it planned to relax anti-pollution requirements for coal-fueled power plants.


Finally, a headline in Saturday's Washington Post provided a late-breaking winner: "Bush Ejects Two From Bioethics Council."

This past Friday, the administration attempted to quietly jettison two members of the Council on Bioethics who supported research on human embryo cells. They were replaced by three new members, all of whom hold positions more in line with those endorsed by the White House: one has called for more religion in public discourse, another has attacked human embryo research, and the last has written on the immorality of abortion.