Weekend Edition Sunday on NCPR

May 20, 2012 — Host Rachel Martin talks with NPR's Julie McCarthy in Islamabad and Quil Lawrence in Kabul about the situation on the ground in that region of Afghanistan.

May 20, 2012 — The White House is urging war-weary NATO leaders to dig deeper into their pockets to share the commitment to get Afghanistan's forces to stand up on their own so U.S. and NATO forces can pull out in 2014. Host Rachel Martin speaks with Ben Rhodes, White House spokesperson on national security issues.

May 20, 2012 — If life is a ballgame, then NPR's Mike Pesca is the guy in the stands, carrying his own stat-sheet and searching out empirical evidence. Host Rachel Martin speaks with Pesca about what the numbers have to say about injuries.

May 20, 2012 — Host Rachel Martin talks with China scholar Perry Link about activist Chen Guangcheng's arrival in the U.S. Link has followed the lives of Chinese dissidents involved with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

May 20, 2012 — When a bookmobile broke down last winter in rural Vermont, patrons, especially preschoolers, really missed it. Then a donor, who heard an NPR story about the rolling library's demise, came up with over $100,000 for a replacement. The town can't believe its good fortune. Vermont Public Radio's Charlotte Albright reports.

May 20, 2012 — Travel writer Paul Theroux's latest novel, The Lower River, is about a former Peace Corps volunteer who returns to Malawi years later and finds the village he left much changed. Host Rachel Martin talks with author.

May 20, 2012 — World leaders are gathered in Chicago for a two-day NATO summit starting Sunday morning. This is the third time the U.S. has hosted a NATO summit since the alliance was formed, and the first time it's being held in a city other than Washington, D.C. As NPR's Jackie Northam reports, the agenda will center on a theme: Afghanistan.

May 20, 2012 — Last fall, President Abe Lincoln lost his sword. The copper blade went missing from atop Lincoln's burial site in Illinois. Authorities eventually recovered it, but in two pieces. Now, as Rachel Otwell reports, the artifact has been replaced.

May 20, 2012 — Out West Sunday, it will start getting dark earlier than normal, but just for a little while. A major solar eclipse, although not quite total, will spread across the skies in a 200-mile swath from Oregon into west Texas. Longtime Washington, D.C., meteorologist Bob Ryan has traveled the world chasing eclipses with his wife. He joins host Rachel Martin.

May 20, 2012 — When Egyptians go to the polls on May 23, many will be looking to celebrate the end of military rule that began some 50 years ago. Observers warn that it won't be easy to send a deeply entrenched military back to its barracks, and they point to Turkey's experience as an example. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports from Istanbul.

May 20, 2012 — Many Egyptians believe Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister to be corrupt. Yet Ahmed Shafiq, who is running for president in Egypt's historic elections this month, has climbed to second in opinion polls. Experts say his growing popularity highlights many Egyptians' desires for stability, which, as NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports, is something they believe the retired Air Force general can provide.

May 20, 2012 — Host Rachel Martin takes a moment to remember William Henderson Foote, a black federal agent in Mississippi in the late 1800s. He was honored this week by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

May 20, 2012 — From bumbling interviews as Borat to taking off his clothes in front of Rep. Ron Paul as Bruno, there isn't much actor Sacha Baron Cohen won't do for a laugh. The story of his latest persona, Admiral General Hafez Aladeen, might seem inspired by recent revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East, but he insists the character was in development before the Arab Spring.

May 20, 2012 — The former lead guitarist of the legendary band Guns N' Roses is a musician with a sound and look all his own. After all the success — and vice — Slash says he's still a work in progress.

May 20, 2012 — Long years of civil war, exile and displacement as refugees have disrupted South Sudan's education system. They're still catching up nearly a year after independence from — and renewed conflict with — Sudan.

May 20, 2012 — Zimbabwe suffered out-of-control inflation four years ago, and it ravaged an economy already in decline. Today, the economy has stabilized and the shops are full, though many Zimbabweans are still struggling.

May 20, 2012 — Most Greeks want to keep the euro as their currency. Most also want to cancel the eurozone-imposed austerity measures that come with the billions in international bailout loans keeping the country solvent. This dilemma has paralyzed both the country's politics and its people.

May 20, 2012 — On Sunday's Weekend Edition, a discussion about the familiar faces coming to fall television, including Matthew Perry, Connie Britton, and Vanessa Williams.

May 20, 2012 — U.S. diplomats can breathe a little easier knowing Chen Guangcheng is in the U.S. and the weeks of difficult negotiations and high drama are behind them. Chen arrived Saturday with his wife and two children in New York, where he has a fellowship to study.

May 20, 2012 — This week's on-air challenge is a twist on "Characteristic Initials." We will gives clues for some famous people, past and present. The initial letters of the clues are also the initials of the answers.