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John Powers, Fresh Air critic at large, weighs in on the trends of 2007: political campaigns, Iraq movies failing at the box office, HBO's The Sopranos, stories about hitting the road, the TMZing of America, jocks gone wild, hip sentimentality, the nightly ideological news, atheist chic and the writers strike.

Robert Siegel sits down with a group of students from Tel Aviv University for a conversation about their expectations for the future. The students are politically divided, but they agree that their main concern, even more than security, is the Israeli economy.

Ten albums released this year that you absolutely, positively won't want to miss — from marquee artists like Cecilia Bartoli and Michael Tilson Thomas to fresh discoveries, including American composer Michael Harrison, Denmark's Vagn Holmboe and a forgotten Baroque man of mystery.

In the liner notes to his 2012 trio album Accelerando, the pianist and composer Vijay Iyer wrote: "[T]his album is in the lineage of American creative music based on dance rhythms." Dancing in rhythm and exemplifying creativity, here are 10 records which belong to that great lineage.

The Communist Party chooses 59-year-old Hu Jintao as its new general secretary, in effect taking the helm of the world's most populous nation. Hu is not expected to stray far from the path of outgoing President Jiang Zemin, who has pushed economic but not political reform. Hear more from NPR's Rob Gifford.

After a record-setting Christmas, Hollywood wraps up the year with more than $9 billion in the till -- the second biggest box office total in its history. Film critic NPR's Bob Mondello says a large part of that money was well-earned: some of 2003's most popular movies were also among the year's best. He offers a list of his top movie picks for the year.

To kick off summer, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe and Felix Contreras, host of Alt.Latino, discuss an album by Cuba musician X Alfonso.

In a huge comeback, Nathan Chen spun around four times in the air during six jumps on the second and final day of the men's singles figure skating competition.

The U.S. military admitted for the first time last week that one of the prisoners held without charges for more than two years at the base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (also known as Gitmo), was never an al Qaeda or Taliban fighter and should be immediately released. Commentator Connie Rice has been monitoring the tribunal, and she's come up with another of her Top 10 lists -- this time: Top 10 Signs You Might Not Get a Fair Trial in Guantanamo.

For the first time, the Church of England has named a woman as its top leader. Sarah Mullally is the new Archbishop of Canterbury, leading 85 million Anglicans around the world.