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Weekend Edition Saturday

Saturday, 7am - 9am
Scott Simon

Whether revealing events in small-town America or overseas, or profiling notable personalities, Weekend Edition from NPR News appreciates the extraordinary details that make up every story.  This two-hour morning newsmagazine covers hard news, a wide variety of newsmakers, and cultural stories with care, accuracy, and a wink of humor.  On Saturdays, host Scott Simon's award-winning commentaries sum up an idea or event related to the week's news.  There are fresh reports from a cross-section of NPR correspondents on topics from religion to health to food to politics.  Simon's interviews with key artists, authors, performers and personalities are always memorable.

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News/Talk
Composer ID: 
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Titanic: Voyage To The Past
5:01 am
Sat April 14, 2012

History Lost And Found: A Letter From Titanic

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Credit Courtesy of Kate Dornan
Surviving officers of the Titanic recalled ship's doctor John Edward Simpson as perfectly calm in the face of death, even giving his pocket flashlight to one of the lifeboat captains.
Credit Courtesy of Kate Dornan
Simpson wrote this letter to his mother in Belfast while aboard the Titanic. The letter made it home. Simpson did not.
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Originally published on Sat April 14, 2012 1:36 pm

Many famous names went down with the Titanic, like the American millionaire John Jacob Astor IV, the wealthiest person on the ship, and Macy's department store owner Isidor Straus.

But you may not know about one of the ship's doctors — John Edward Simpson. Aboard the Titanic, Simpson wrote a letter to his mother back home in Belfast. It was mailed from the great ship's last port of call before it made its disastrous turn across the North Atlantic.

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Monkey See
11:01 pm
Fri April 13, 2012

The Fourth Stooge: Memories Of 'Uncle Shemp'

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This weekend, the Farrelly Brothers' version of The Three Stooges arrives in theaters. You'll see plenty of Larry, Moe and Curly. But who won't you see? Shemp. Or, as NPR's Sue Goodwin calls him, "Uncle Shemp."

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Music Interviews
4:04 pm
Fri April 13, 2012

The Magnetic Fields: 'Out Late At A Bar, Writing A Song'

Credit Marcelo Krasilcic
Stephin Merritt (far left) has led The Magnetic Fields since the early 1990s, with a songwriting style that ranges from sincere to bitter to ironic.
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For more than 20 years, the indie-pop group The Magnetic Fields has been singing songs about love, though not always in the traditional sense. With a style that ranges from bitter to sincere to ironic, Stephin Merritt — the group's frontman, writer and producer — has created a growing cast of characters surviving love's vicissitudes.

In his characteristic deadpan, Merritt tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer that he owes the inspiration for many of those characters to a particular ritual of his.

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Simon Says
7:43 am
Sat April 7, 2012

The World Looked Away

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Credit Amel Emric / AP
Red chairs fill a main street in Sarajevo on Friday as the city marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian war. Officials lined up 11,541 chairs in 825 rows to represent the 11,541 Sarajevans who were killed during the siege.
Credit Sulejman Omerbasic / AP
The city lined up 11,541 red chairs in 825 rows representing the 11,541 Sarajevans who were killed during the siege of Sarajevo.
Credit Amel Emric / AP
Sarajevans placed toys and flowers on the chairs, which remained empty through memorial ceremonies.
Credit Amel Emric / AP
Red chairs fill a main street in Sarajevo on April 6, 2012, as the city marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian war.
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Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 9:53 am

I think that one of the great works of humankind runs below an airport runway in Sarajevo.

Sixty-six feet of a 3,000-foot-long tunnel built during the Siege of Sarajevo have been restored. Twenty years ago this weekend, the city was surrounded by Serb armies, who rained down mortar, rockets and sniper fire.

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NPR Story
7:00 am
Sat April 7, 2012

Unemployment Fell, But More Ended Job Hunt

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Just when it seemed to be gaining steam, the U.S. job market pretty much stalled in March. Employers added a net 120,000 jobs during the month, defying the higher expectations of a lot of economists. And though the unemployment rate fell, it did so for the wrong reasons.

Over the past few months, the economy has been adding jobs at a good, if not spectacular, pace, and all the signs suggested that trend had continued through March. As it happened, jobs increased at a rate that barely keeps up with population growth.

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