Conceived as a cross between a Sunday newspaper and CBS' Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt, 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 the fall of 2011, NPR National Desk Reporter Audie Cornish began hosting the show. During 2012, Audie took an assignment filling in for Michele Norris as host of All Things Consideredalongside Robert Siegel and Melissa Block. National Security Correspondent Rachel Martin is hosting in the interim.
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.
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The UK's two-party system is fracturing. Anti-establishment parties trounced the traditional parties, Labour and Conservative, in local elections. There are calls for the prime minister to step down.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe looks ahead to President Trump's visit this week to China with Patricia Kim of The Brookings Institution.
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Under the Trump administration, the State Department is seeing an exodus of diplomats. Among the reasons: a newly aggressive politicization of U.S. foreign policy.
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Nearly every state in the country has one or more cowboy churches. The theology might not be different from other churches but the worship music is often bluegrass or gospel with a twang.
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Two months ago, a gunman drove through the preschool at Temple Israel, the largest synagogue in Michigan. Every child and teacher survived, but the community is still displaced and navigating the trauma of the attack. -
The White House waits for Iran's response to the latest deal to end the war, as President Trump prepares for a meeting in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jingping later this week.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks to Patrick Harker, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's tenure at the central bank, which ends this week.
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A French aristocrat moves to Kansas and founds a silk-making socialist utopia. Then things get weird. The story of the founding of Silkville, Kansas, in 1870.
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The Savannah Bananas began when one couple emptied their bank accounts for a dream: to add joy, fun and ultimately singing and dancing to baseball. 11 years later, it's an entertainment juggernaut.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks to "Today" show co-host Sheinelle Jones about her new book, "Through Mom's Eyes: Simple Wisdom from Mothers Who Raised Extraordinary Humans."
