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.
-
Author Nancy Nichols says that for men, cars signify adventure, power and strength. For women, they are about performing domestic duties; there was even a minivan prototype with a washer/dryer inside.
-
In 2020, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs. Journalist E. Tammy Kim explains how and why public opinion has turned.
-
Born in 1924 in Newark, N.J., Vaughan came up in the '40s, alongside bebop, a new jazz style she instantly took to. In the following decades, she proved to be one of the best singers of any genre.
-
The Philadelphia rapper and singer is known for her playful side, but she widens her subject matter on World Wide Whack, with emotions ranging from ecstatic happiness to the deepest despair.
-
ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten says millions of Americans are likely to move in the coming decades to escape wildfires, rising seas, oppressive heat and drought. His new book is On the Move.
-
Netflix's new series features one of the most complicated narratives our critic has seen on TV. But don't be thrown – things become clearer as the drama progresses and the characters pull you in.
-
Brownstein and Tucker co-founded Sleater-Kinney in Olympia, Wash., during the 1990s feminist punk scene. While they were working on their new record, Little Rope, Brownstein's mother died suddenly.
-
Catherine Coldstream spent 12 years in a Carmelite monastery. Maureen Corrigan reviews James, by Percival Everett. Mark Daley reflects on loving — and letting go of — the foster kids in his care.
-
Reporter Jake Adelstein's memoir about covering the organized crime beat in Japan is the basis of the Max series Tokyo Vice, now in its second season. Originally broadcast Nov. 9, 2009.
-
The new remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze film comes up short, caught between an unironic '80s homage and a more wised-up contemporary sensibility.