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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NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks to music professor David Rothenberg about the music of the Brood X cicadas and what it's like making music with them.
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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro plays the puzzle with listeners Haneef Pasha and his son Jachobi of Lawrenceville, GA, and puzzlemaster Will Shortz. -
Cricket matches continued in India amid the world's biggest COVID-19 wave. Some called it unethical, while fans say it kept them sane. But now some players have tested positive.
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A majority win by Scotland's pro-independence parties energizes the push for a referendum on leaving the U.K.
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Bay Area couple Shonnece Hill and Elizabeth Cheeves created a song for their newborn through The Lullaby Project, a Carnegie Hall initiative that connects underserved communities with musicians.
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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro asks Tim Alberta of The Atlantic about the split in the Republican Party as former president Donald Trump continues to exercise his influence over it.
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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with author and historian Christy Pichichero about what she terms "discriminatory gaslighting."
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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with a researcher at the University of North Carolina Asheville, Rebecca Helm, about mysterious islands made of sea creatures floating on the ocean's surface.
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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with director Haifa al-Mansour about her film, The Perfect Candidate, about how a Saudi doctor ends up being the first female candidate in local municipal elections.
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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Sergio Guzman, co-founder and Director of the Colombia Risk Analysis political consultancy, about protests in Colombia.
