In the long version of this Sunday's gospel, brothers James and John ask Jesus for the honor of being seated at his side when he comes into his glory. When it comes to being honored with the glory of a Nobel Prize, it has been an exceptionally strong year for the United States.

U.S. citizens--some of them immigrants with dual citizenship--account for 11 of the 13 Nobel winners. Last Friday President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Monday Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics. Ostrom was also the fifth woman recognized this year, another first.

Ostrom said it's an honor to be the first woman Nobel economics laureate--and promised she won't be the last. She said people had discouraged her from seeking a Ph.D. when she applied for graduate school, but she loved studying economics.

The choice of Obama for the Peace Prize has proven controversial; some said it came too early in his presidency to be appropriate. Reacting to the criticism, members of the Norwegian committee that awarded the Prize took the unusual move Tuesday of defending their choice.

"We simply disagree that he has done nothing," committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said. "He got the prize for what he has done." Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.

"All these things have contributed to--I wouldn't say a safer world--but a world with less tension," Jagland said. He said most world leaders were positive about the award and that most of the criticism was coming from the media and Obama's political rivals.

Source: Articles by Ian MacDougall, Karl Ritter, Jeannine Aversa, and Matt Moore for Associated Press