NPR: Story of the Day Podcast

Drummer Dinerral Shavers and filmmaker Helen Hill seemed to come from separate worlds before they were shot a year ago, but their stories are entwined in New Orleans' post-Hurricane Katrina struggle. Friends and fellow artists are still trying to make sense of their deaths.

Ministries raise millions of dollars with little oversight. One Senate lawmaker wonders whether the lavish lifestyles of the ministers violate the churches' tax-exempt status. Six megachurches have been asked to respond by Dec. 6 to questions about their spending.

Nov. 30 marks the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Chris Connelly, who first reviewed the album in Rolling Stone, recalls his first thoughts about the songs and the trajectory of Jackson's career since 1982.

Thirty-five years ago, Nolan Bushnell and his new company, Atari, released the world's first successful video arcade game: Pong. Bushnell talks to Liane Hansen about the grandfather of modern video games and how it relates to today's gaming industry.

Iceland's winters are long, dark and cold. But one of the country's favorite winter hobbies is to take a swim in outdoor heated pools or lounge in backyard hot tubs. Heat and electricity are cheap, clean and plentiful here -- and Iceland wants other countries to take notice.

The latest intelligence report on Iran seems to be an obstacle to policies of President Bush. The report's main conclusion that Iran ceased a nuclear weapons program in 2003 may raise barriers to the possibility of using military force against Iran and questions economic sanctions.

The Golden Compass is now pointed at the big screen -- an epic based on the first book of novelist Philip Pullman's trilogy. But a campaign is being waged against the movie because of its provocative take on religion.

When First Lt. Nathan Krissoff was killed in Iraq a year ago, his father, Bill, an orthopedic surgeon, searched for a way to honor his son's sacrifice. With the help of President Bush and Karl Rove, the 61-year-old enlisted in the Navy Medical Corps and hopes to be assigned to Iraq.

A computer programmer in Indiana develops FreeRice.com, a game that teaches vocabulary and helps fight hunger. The word game offers four definitions for a word, and clicking on the right definition leads to a donation of 20 grains of rice to the U.N. World Food Programme.

A Senate panel is due to hear the hotly contested issue of how many hours truckers can safely drive. The Bush administration lengthened time behind the wheel in 2004. But safety advocates sued, saying tired truckers are putting themselves and everyone else on the road at risk.