Scott Simon hosts Saturday Edition - Saturday Edition Homepage: Click Here
Ayesha Rascoe hosts Sunday Edition - Sunday Edition Homepage: Click Here
Saturday mornings are made for Weekend Edition Saturday, the program wraps up the week's news and offers a mix of analysis and features on a wide range of topics, including arts, sports, entertainment, and human interest stories. The two-hour program is hosted by NPR's Peabody Award-winning Scott Simon.
Drawing on his experience in covering 10 wars and stories in all 50 states and seven continents, Simon brings a humorous, sophisticated and often moving perspective to each show. He is as comfortable having a conversation with a major world leader as he is talking with a Hollywood celebrity or the guy next door.
Weekend Edition Saturday has a unique and entertaining roster of other regular contributors. Marin Alsop, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, talks about music. Daniel Pinkwater, one of the biggest names in children's literature, talks about and reads stories with Simon. Financial journalist Joe Nocera follows the economy. Howard Bryant of EPSN.com and NPR's Tom Goldman chime in on sports. Keith Devlin, of Stanford University, unravels the mystery of math, and Will Grozier, a London cabbie, talks about good books that have just been released, and what well-read people leave in the back of his taxi. Simon contributes his own award-winning essays, which are sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant.
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 2022, Ayesha Rascoe was named the host of Weekend Edition Sunday. Rascoe was previously a White House correspondent for NPR. 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.
Weekend Edition is heard on NPR Member stations across the United States, and around the globe on NPR Worldwide. The conversation between the audience and the program staff continues throughout the social media world.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, about his organization's call for Black student athletes to avoid public colleges and universities in Florida.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with actor David Dastmalchian about his starring role as a 1970's late night host in the new movie "Late Night with the Devil."
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The U.S. Coast Guard has developed a new system to try to reduce the number whales hit by vessels. It's trying it out in the waters in and around Seattle.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe asks Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Jennifer Greene, and Raven Walters about the state of public health four years after COVID-19 became a national emergency.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with David Cohen, politics professor at the University of Akron, about one of the tightest races in the country: the Ohio Senate seat held by Sherrod Brown since 2007.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks with Sarah McCammon, NPR National Political Correspondent, about her religious upbringing and new book, "The Exvangelicals."
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Tom Perriello, U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, talks with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about his efforts to help broker peace talks in Sudan and the current state of affairs there.
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The California State Assembly's Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes, inspired by a blockbuster documentary, has had its first meeting. It was an event 11 years in the making.
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NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with musician Kacey Musgraves about her new album, "Deeper Well."
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Mike Pence says he will not endorse Donald Trump. Kamala Harris is being deployed by the Biden campaign to appeal to younger voters.