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Weekend Edition Saturday
Saturday from 8 to 10am on RADIO IQ.

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.

  • Xena: Warrior Princess, the popular action-adventure show starring Lucy Lawless as the fierce -- but repentent -- warrior princess is ending after six years. The show was enormously popular because of its strong, sympathetic female characters, its humor, its fight scenes, and its creative risk-taking. Scott Simon talks with Lucy Lawless; Rob Tapert, the creator and executive producer of the series; and Sharon Delaney, editor of the official Xena fan club about the popularity and controversies surrounding the show.
  • Scott talks with country singer Merle Haggard about his new album If I Could Only Fly and his various conspiracy theories.
  • Scott visits the London Underground. After more than a century of service, the Tube is falling apart. Stations are crowded, equipment is breaking and transit workers have been on strike. Now, the Underground has a new boss. Bob Kiley is an American who fixed Boston's "T" in the 1970s and the New York City Subway in the 1980s. His first challenge in London is to find a good bagel. (In Glorious Stereo.)
  • Scott talks to writer Hampton Sides about his new book Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission. It tells of the perilous rescue of American and British Prisoners of War held at the Cabanatuan camp in the Philippines following the Bataan Death March. (11:45) The book is published by Doubleday.
  • Scott talks with Lucinda Williams about her new CD, Essence (Lost Highway, 088 170 197-2). This is Ms. Williams' sixth major label recording. Her last release, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, won a Grammy in 1998 for Best Folk Album.
  • Melinda speaks with Olu Dara, trumpet player, composer, choreographer and singer, about his new release, Neighborhoods.
  • Scott talks with Lee Sullivan, the Mayor of Panama City Beach Florida. Reporters, posing as representatives of Prince William, tried to convince the Mayor that the Prince was coming for a spring break visit. Fortunately Mr Sullivan discovered the ploy -- and turned the joke around.
  • NPR's Danny Zwerdling goes to Guatemala to trace coffee's passage to coffee houses in this country. Coffee prices are high, but farmers in places such as Guatemala get very little of what consumers pay out. This inequity, however, may be changing soon.
  • Scott with some thoughts about former Senator Bob Kerrey's admission this week that he may have been responsible for the death of civilians while fighting in Vietnam.
  • Eric Engleman reports on the first trial of a high-ranking Russian officer for a war-related crime against a Chechen. While there have been hundreds of reported human rights abuses in the Russian war on Chechnya, most haven't been prosecuted.