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Video game producer Ellen Hobbs had a problem with an amazon.com order, but could not find a customer-service phone number on the Web site. So she combed the Internet for a number and posted it on her own site. In December alone, more than 23,000 people visited her site to find the telephone number. Hobbs tells NPR's Scott Simon that sometimes customers with problems simply want to talk to a human being.

On Jan. 4, Milwaukee Democrat Gwen Moore made history by becoming Wisconsin's first African-American member of Congress. A former welfare recipient, Moore spent 16 years in the Wisconsin Legislature before winning the Fourth District seat.

The Senate Judiciary committee votes 10-8 along party lines to send Alberto Gonzales's nomination as attorney general to the full Senate. The Senate is expected to confirm the Gonzales.

Commentator Sandip Roy was a boy in India when a gas leak in Bhopal killed thousands of men, women and children. He collected pictures of the victims for his scrapbook, and found the photo of one little girl particularly harrowing. On the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, Roy, now an editor with New California Media in San Francisco, recalls the image.

A U.S. military transport helicopter crashes in the desert of western Iraq Wednesday, killing 31 U.S. Marines. The helicopter was about 220 miles west of Baghdad, carrying personnel from the First Marine Division. A U.S. military spokesman says there were no survivors and that the cause is still being investigated.

CBS and NBC refuse to air a TV commercial for the United Church of Christ, saying the ad is too controversial. The commercial shows two bouncers standing in front of a church refusing to let some people in, including a gay couple. NPR's Lynn Neary reports.

President Bush formally announces the selection of former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik to succeed Tom Ridge as head of the Department of Homeland Security. Kerik would be the second person to head the two-year-old agency. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.

A new anthology of fiction was published on World AIDS Day in response to the global epidemic. Conceived and edited by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Nadine Gordimer, Telling Talesfeatures stories from 21 distinguished authors. All profits will go to medical and advocacy programs on AIDS. NPR's Jennifer Ludden speaks with Gordimer.

North Carolina is home to some 4,000 Vietnamese Montagnard refugees. For most of the recent arrivals, this Christmas will be their first chance to celebrate openly. Hear reporter Jessica Jones of member station WUNC.

Amid new and often confusing revelations about painkillers currently on the market, the Food and Drug Administration issues an interim advisory while it compares data on pain relievers. NPR's Joanne Silberner reports.