Weekend Edition Sunday is NPR's Sunday morning news magazine, carried by 794 public radio stations nationwide. Every week, the show 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 crisis in Ukraine.
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. Recent hosts include Audie Cornish (2011–2012), Rachel Martin (2012–2016) and Lulu Garcia-Navarro (2017–2021.)
In 2022, Ayesha Rascoe was named the host of Weekend Edition Sunday, and she will transition to that role March 27. Rascoe is currently a White House correspondent for NPR. She is covering her third presidential administration. Her White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast.
Prior to joining NPR, Rascoe covered the White House for Reuters, chronicling Obama's final year in office and the early days of the Trump administration. Rascoe began her reporting career at Reuters, covering energy and environmental policy news, such as the 2010 BP oil spill and the U.S. response to the Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011. She also spent a year covering energy legal issues and court cases. She graduated from Howard University in 2007 with a B.A. in journalism.
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Activists in Iran say the government there is cracking down in an effort to undo infiltration by Israeli intelligence.
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The Kremlin is using the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum to showcase remaining allies and address questions of recession.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks with Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, about how U.S. strikes on Iran could impact nuclear proliferation globally.
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After six weeks of testimony, prosecutors and defense attorneys delivered their closing arguments in the federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean Combs last week. While the jury deliberates his judicial fate, one verdict we don't have to wait for is the one coming from the court of public opinion. NPR Music's Isabella Gomez Sarmiento and Rodney Carmichael explain why discussion of the trial within an ecosystem of podcast and YouTube hosts have made it loud and clear that we're in a post-MeToo era.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks to R.T. Thorne about "40 Acres," his post-apocalyptic directorial debut.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe asks Cato Institute immigration expert David Bier how much the Trump administration's mass deportation program could cost.
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The huge tax and spending bill currently before the Senate is likely to pass into law. It may prove controversial enough to be a drag on Republican candidates.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks to C.J. Chenier and Joel Savoy about the new album celebrating Clifton Chenier, "A Tribute to the King of Zydeco."
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In 2021, an Afghan man who helped the U.S. military narrowly escaped Afghanistan with his family, but was forced to leave several children behind. He struggled to reunite his family in the U.S.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe asks SEAD Consulting's Erin Williams, whose company tests seafood, how often U.S. restaurants use farmed and imported shrimp rather than local and wild-caught shrimp.