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 2017, Lulu Garcia-Navarro became host of Weekend Edition Sunday. She is infamous in the IT department at NPR for losing laptops to bullets and hurricanes. She comes to Weekend Edition Sunday from Rio de Janeiro where she was posted as NPR's international correspondent in South America. She has also been NPR's correspondent based in Mexico and spent many years in the Middle East based in Israel and Iraq. She was one of the first reporters to enter Libya after the 2011 Arab Spring began and spent months painting a deep and vivid portrait of a country at war. Her work earned her a 2011 George Foster Peabody Award, a Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club, and an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Alliance for Women and the Media's Gracie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement. She has received other awards for her work in Mexico and most recently, the Amazon in Brazil.
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.
-
All children, regardless of immigration status, have the right to a free K-12 public education. But without birthright citizenship, access to schools and colleges could get complicated. -
Protesters showed up to thousands of events across the country this weekend to air their complaints against the Trump administration.
-
The war in Iran is now in its second month. More U.S. troops are arriving in the region, even as President Trump says peace talks are ongoing.
-
NPR's Don Gonyea talks with Johnny Jones, of the American Federation of Government Employees union, about the training TSA agents get and the stress they've been under during government shutdowns.
-
NPR's Don Gonyea speaks to health researcher Mark Holmes about the Rural Health Transformation Program and the Trump administration's call to use AI to improve care across the country.
-
NPR's Don Gonyea talks with Matt Wagner, co-owner of Danish Maid Butter in Chicago, about the little Easter lambs made of butter that sell around the country this time of year.
-
The volcanologist on the island of Vanuatu who walks barefoot over cooled lava fields tells NPR's Don Gonyea how to see nature at its most primeval.
-
An obsession with making the world's largest golden egg brought down one family's storied jewelry business. NPR's Don Gonyea talks with Serena Kutchinsky about her memoir, "Kutchinsky's Egg."
-
NPR's Don Gonyea speaks with filmmakers Suzannah Herbert and Darcy McKinnon about their new film, "Natchez," about the Mississippi town's antebellum tourism industry.
-
In 1951, Bonnie Shea was the only girl in Duluth, Minnesota playing organized hockey. But when she got to high school, she couldn't play on the boys' team. Now, at age 81, Shea is still competing.
