NPR News

The publishing business is not known as a hot bed of experimentation and has been slow to embrace the transition from print to e-books. But this past week in New York, the Tools of Change digital publishing conference attracted entrepreneurs and innovators who are more excited by, rather than afraid, of the future.

It was the kind of crowd where some were more inclined to say "steal my book" than to argue over what an e-book should cost. These are people who see digital publishing not as a threat, but as an opportunity.

Here's something you don't see every day: a tornado on the surface of the sun. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory posted this stunning video, which shows the sun's plasma sliding and spinning around in the star's magnetic fields for 30 hours earlier this month.

It was at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., where Whitney Houston first learned to sing, and it was there that friends and family gathered on Saturday to say goodbye to the pop superstar.

The star-studded service lasted more than three hours. Among those in attendance were Dionne Warwick, Kevin Costner and Alicia Keys.

It was one of the more surreal photo ops this week: Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, live on Iranian TV, visiting a nuclear reactor. Ahmadinejad trumpeted his country's nuclear progress, but denied, once again, that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

In Washington, officials weren't buying it.

They rushed to repeat the official U.S. line — a line President Obama himself is fond of delivering.

"Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal," he said.