cascading queries

Hello all, and thanks for the great view module, especially to merlinofchaos.

I did some research and did not find a thing even remotely connected to this so I'll try to explain the problem and the few solutions I have in mind, hoping the experts here will be able to guide me toward means to realize them or advice me. Or plug my nose on a "fucking manual 'RTFM' way".
I thought this http://drupaleasy.com/blogs/ryanprice/2008/06/using-views-2-drupal-6-cre... and this thread http://groups.drupal.org/node/37414 could be related but I think my case is more general. Slap me if I am wrong. ;)

The problem :

Let's imagine we have a newspaper-like publication.
You have a top story, on top of the page, and then fixed topics (about cats, dogs, new news, old stories, whatever).
Every story is "tagged" in taxonomy, and can belong to several ones...
Of course, on the front page you want :
- the most recent story in the top story panel
- the most recent story in every topic in the fixed panel dedicated to that topic, but one that is NOT the top story and NOT already a frontage story for another topic (not already the most recent story for a "previously rendered" topic that is not the "top story")

Said more simply : a "story" should appear once and only once on the frontpage being as the top story or the featured story in a topic.