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.
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Coppola, who died April 12, was an assistant art director on the 1963 film Dementia 13 when she met, and soon married, its director, Francis Ford Coppola. Originally broadcast in 1992.
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During his decades-long career, MacNeil reported on the Kennedy assassination, the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the Berlin Wall. He died April 12. Originally broadcast in 1986 and 1995.
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The Jinx ended with Robert Durst, a wealthy man suspected of multiple murders, making self-incriminating statements on a hot mic. Part Two picks up where the original left off: arrest and conviction.
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Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser says mergers and acquisitions have created food oligopolies that are inefficient, barely regulated and sometimes dangerous. His new documentary is Food, Inc. 2.
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This wildly original adaptation of the Henry James novella The Beast in the Jungle follows human alienation and anxiety, asking why, in every era, we disengage from life and the people around us.
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Ringgold, who died April 12, portrayed themes of Black life and culture through her quilts, paintings, dolls and books. Her work was exhibited in many major museums. Originally broadcast in 1991.
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Alua Arthur helps people plan for death. A big part of her work is helping them reconcile the lives they lived with the lives they might have wanted. Her memoir is called Briefly Perfectly Human.
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Rushdie was onstage at a literary event in 2022 when he was attacked by a man in the audience: "Dying in the company of strangers — that was what was going through my mind." His new book is Knife.
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Growing up, when Diarra Kilpatrick watched murder mystery shows with her grandmother, she never saw Black women driving the narrative. She seeks to change that in her new new BET+ series.
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Scott plays con man Tom Ripley in the Netflix adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Maureen Corrigan reviews Lionel Shriver's Mania. Nancy Nichols is the author of Women Behind the Wheel.