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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For eight decades, a chocolate factory filled a Chicago neighborhood with a delicious aroma, and jobs. Now it's leaving town.
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NPR's Tamara Keith plays the puzzle with KQED listener Craig Hamiliton of Mountain View, Calif., and Weekend Edition puzzlemaster Will Shortz.
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President Biden makes an address today during commencement ceremonies at Morehouse College in Atlanta at a time when protests over his handling of the war in Gaza are rocking U.S. college campuses.
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The contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump looks tight and each candidate hopes upcoming debates will shift the campaign in their favor.
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NPR's Tamara Keith speaks with Sudanese musician Ahmed Gallab, who performs as Sinkane, about his new album, "We Belong."
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NPR's Tamara Keith speaks with Palestinian-Ukrainian refugee Zoya El-Miari, who grew up in a Lebanese refugee camp only to move to Ukraine right before the Russian invasion and flee to Switzerland.
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Plant-forward restaurants Sweetgreen and Sage Vegan are adding beef to their menus from farms with "regenerative farming" practices. Does the climate math of regenerative farming add up?
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Since the pandemic, chronic absenteeism in the nation's K-12 schools has skyrocketed. These teens are working to get their attendance back on track.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks to Bryan J. Cook, director of higher education policy at the Urban Institute Center on Education Data and Policy, about how complications with FAFSA affect Black students.
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We hear from NPR listeners on what they'd like to thank their mothers for on this Mother's Day.