Weekend Edition Sunday features interviews with newsmakers, artists, scientists, politicians, musicians, writers, theologians and historians. The program has covered news events from Nelson Mandela's 1990 release from a South African prison to the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Weekend Edition Sunday debuted on January 18, 1987, with host Susan Stamberg. Two years later, Liane Hansen took over the host chair, a position she held for 22 years. In that time, Hansen interviewed movers and shakers in politics, science, business and the arts. Her reporting travels took her from the slums of Cairo to the iron mines of Michigan's Upper Peninsula; from the oyster beds on the bayou in Houma, La., to Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park; and from the kitchens of Colonial Williamsburg, Va., to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.
In January 2012, Rachel Martin began hosting the program. Previously she served as NPR National Security Correspondent and was part of the team that launched NPR's experimental morning news show, The Bryant Park Project. She has also been the NPR religion correspondent and foreign correspondent based in Berlin.
Every week listeners tune in to hear a unique blend of news, features and the regularly scheduled puzzle segment with Puzzlemaster Will Shortz, the crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times.
Weekend Edition Sunday is heard on NPR Member stations across the United States and around the globe via NPR Worldwide. The conversation between the audience and the program staff continues throughout the social media world.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe asks Simone St. James about her new book, "Murder Road," and about weaving the supernatural into her fiction.
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Iranian filmmakers produced a movie about Tehran's crackdown on the 2022 women's protest movement in Iran. They have fled to Turkey but still find it hard to get their message out.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks with interior designer and social media content creator Imani Keal about DIY, renter-friendly apartment renovations.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with actor Christina Elmore about the new show "The Girls on the Bus," a breezy drama following four political reporters on the 2016 campaign trail.
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Electric vehicles may account for more than half of new cars by 2032. Consumers have many questions and concerns about them and the environment.
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How troubled is Boeing? NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks to aviation expert William McGee about the challenges facing the aerospace giant.
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Congress passed and President Biden has signed spending measures necessary to operate the government. It is a basic function but one that has become the object of Republican brinksmanship.
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West Virginia's legislature has approved a bill that would allow individuals to distill up to five gallons of moonshine as a way to celebrate Appalachian history and heritage.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Palestinian American Yasmeen Mjalli, owner of the online boutique Nol Collective, about trying to evacuate her colleagues and their families from Gaza.
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Gaza, Haiti, and Sudan are all at risk of famine. NPR's Ayesha speaks to Paul Howe of Tufts University about the role of conflict in causing hunger.