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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Quiara Alegría Hudes' novel was inspired by Siddhartha and other classic tales of men seeking enlightenment. It's about a mother in Philadelphia who buys a bus ticket, leaving her daughter behind. -
Originally published under a pseudonym, Banville's Quirke mystery series follows a troubled Dublin coroner who dwells in the basement morgue of a hospital. -
As protestors clash with some 3,000 federal immigration agents in the Twin Cities, we look at the legal issues with law professor Emmanuel Mauleón and Brennan Center for Justice's Elizabeth Goitein.
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On the day Griffiths married author Salman Rushdie, her longtime best friend died unexpectedly. Eleven months later, Rushdie was stabbed multiple times while being interviewed on stage. -
Heather McGhee, author of 2021's The Sum of Us, discusses the economic cost of racism, the importance of community organizing and the "zero-sum lie" that progress for some means loss for others.
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Foster was 12 years old when she starred in Taxi Driver. Fifty years later, she looks back on the role. Hedda star Thompson explains why she has the words "yes" and "no" tattooed on opposite arms. -
Viewers without any Star Trek expertise can enjoy the new adventures out of context. But there are echoes and Easter eggs throughout this Paramount+ series, for those who catch them.
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Kilgore, who died Jan. 7, was a talented interpreter of American popular song. We'll remember her by listening back to her in-studio concerts with pianist Dave Frishberg from 1995 and 1999.
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Weir was 16 in 1963 when he ran into Jerry Garcia at a music store in Palo Alto. They decided to start a band, which evolved into the Grateful Dead. Weir died Jan. 10. Originally broadcast in 2016.
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Part memoir and part fiction, Barnes' hybrid novel publishes the day after his 80th birthday. He's been living with a rare form of blood cancer for six years.
