Index Page As Category

copy your index.php page and name it home.php

then, use this:

just before the loop:

<?php
if (is_home()) {
query_posts("cat=1&order=ASC");
}
?>


settting the id number to the id of the news category and ASC or DESC (or you can remove the order=ASC part, but it seems appropriate to have the latest news FIRST)

that should do it. The key is to make home.php so that it becomes the auto loading page (like an index page) but then the query filters the posts.

HTH