The week in review

Best April Fool’s joke: Brooke Shealy, MIX 107.5 morning host and Channel 29 weekend weather woman, announces she’s taking a job with the Today show in New York, complete with limousine and a shoe allowance. Weatherman Robert Van Winkle backs up her story on the air.
Worst theory for why Charlottesville High teens assaulted UVA students: Because three of the alleged assailants attend the Reverend Alvin Edwards’ Mt. Zion Baptist Church. That’s from the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, which wants copies of his sermons from September through January, according to Cvillenews.com. “We would like to know exactly what he is telling his congregation,” says EURO’s Virginia head, Ron Doggett, in a press release.
Worst blow to hate-crime advocates: Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman does not charge the nine CHS students under Virginia’s hate-crime statutes.
Best letter to the editor: Abdalmuhssin El-Yacoubi, the UVA student who wrote a letter that raised suspicions that his brother and a friend were terrorists, writes to the Cavalier Daily denying that he himself is a terrorist and compares his plight to that of accused and exonerated Richard Jewell and Wen Ho Lee. El-Yacoubi has since left UVA.
Best court ruling for wine connoisseurs: A federal judge has declared Virginia’s ban on direct shipments of out-of-state wines unconstitutional.
Best implications of the wine ruling: Virginia’s monopoly of liquor sales (the ABC stores) may also be unconstitutional.
Worst first: Charlottesville has its first homicide of the year on March 30.
Best way to hack off the Albemarle County School Board:  Board member Gary Grant once again draws the ire of fellow board members when he publishes names of teachers whose contracts were not renewed. 
Worst time to need detox: After July 1, when the Mohr Center, Charlottesville’s only provider of indigent drug and alcohol detoxification, will stop offering that service, thanks to state budget cuts.
Best actions by dog walkers: Ronald “Skip” Plaisance and Amanda Mickles-Washington jump into the Rivanna River on March 25 to save a woman attempting suicide.
Best warmongering by a U.S. senator: John Warner tells Larry Sabato’s American government class that the United States may have to invade Iraq, according to Bob Gibson in the Daily Progress.
Worst theme for a party: UVA Architecture School students’ “Medallion Party” draws charges of racism and results in a reconciliation forum.
Worst— or maybe best— result of the petition to elect Charlottesville’s school board: The spotlight falls on inequities in the number of registered voters in the city’s four wards, reports Kate Andrews in the Progress.
Best public nuisance petition: A Lynchburg man’s petition requesting a special grand jury to investigate delays in building the 29 bypass is thrown out of court by Albemarle Circuit Judge Paul M. Peatross.
Worst reason to smash a Hook box: A woman spotted bashing a Hook box on West Main Street March 28 claims she’s upset because she’s missed the free trolley twice— and then she escapes after a low-speed chase.