wheel - 1:07 pm on Aug 10, 2011 (gmt 0)

For instance, will Google flow more juice to the links that are in the first paragraph of the story than the ones that are in the page footer?

YOu've kind of asked two questions. You're asking on significance of page position (top/bottom) and incontent vs. footer.

For example, does a link in the first paragraph count more than a link in the second paragraph?

I'd say an incontent link makes more sense than a footer link, but worrying about first paragraph or second - that's a waste of time.