NPR Staff

As all snowdrifts melt sometime, so too does winter end. But this playlist, built from your picks, has a thousand lives of its own — fit for cardio, cleaning and even bringing the sick back to life.

Reflecting on a career that has long synthesized old and new forms, the versatile musician says engaging with everything may be the only way left to innovate.

In 2010, just minutes after sitting in on an interview with President Obama, NPR's Madhulika Sikka got a life-changing phone call: She had breast cancer. Her new book is a guide to what happens next.

The star violinist's new multi-year project goes to the heart of a difficult and fascinating era: the 1930s, when dazzle and sorrow commingled musically.

As more states legalize pot for medical and recreational use, law enforcement and health officials want to deter driving under the influence. But the task isn't as clear cut as it is with alcohol.

Annie Clark says it's not hard for her to wring the beauty from ugly sounds: "That's what's going on in my brain."

Two men broke a record for traveling from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, on foot. They retraced the steps of a British Royal Navy officer, whose team died on the journey in 1912.

Leah Vincent grew up an ultra-Orthodox Jew. Her family cut her off when she was 16, after she was caught sending letters to a boy. Vincent shares her journey outside the faith in her memoir.

Each week, Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin brings listeners an unexpected side of the news by talking with someone personally affected by the stories making headlines.

Melissa Anelli is the author of Harry, A History, a best-selling book about Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling's famous series. And for more ...

Kinder Than Solitude, the latest novel from Chinese-American author Yiyun Li, examines the impact of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on a generation of youth. Following three friends, the novel alternates between 1990s Beijing and present-day America, where two of the friends immigrated. At the heart of the story is ...

This month, A.A. Milne's beloved bear celebrates a big birthday. Winnie-the-Pooh made his first appearance as "Edward Bear" in a short poem titled "Teddy Bear" which was published in Punch magazine on Feb. 13, 1924.

In honor of Pooh's 90th, we're listening back to a rare, 1929 recording, in which ...

Hollywood helped win World War II — and by that, we don't mean John Wayne, but five of the country's most celebrated film directors, who went to work making films for the War Department that showed Americans at war, overseas and in the skies, living, fighting, bleeding and dying. Those ...

Many people fervently consider alleged NSA leaker Edward Snowden a whistleblower who did a great service by revealing information about the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs. His release of highly classified national security documents, they argue, has sparked an important public debate that could ultimately force a needed overhaul of ...

Most people know Abraham Lincoln for his achievements as president. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation and held the nation together through the trauma of the Civil War. His Gettysburg Address is one of the best known in American history.

But what you might not know is that Lincoln cooked.

From ...

Each week, Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin brings listeners an unexpected side of the news by talking with someone personally affected by the stories making headlines.

Reed Vreeland was born with HIV, which means he has struggled for most of his 27 years deciding how and when to inform ...

Hollywood's been known to dramatize even the most dramatic of real-life narratives. So of course the real Eliot Ness wasn't nearly as dashing as Robert Stack or Kevin Costner (although maybe he was).

He wasn't a G-man; he never carried an FBI badge. Nor was he the lawman who brought ...

Abraham Lincoln may be the most biographied, analyzed, deified, second-guessed and impersonated figure in U.S. history. He's been seen as Carl Sandburg's mournful prairie genius and Gore Vidal's shrewd railroad lawyer, who knew when to play the rube.

He's been portrayed in comprehensive histories by James McPherson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, ...

Over this past month, Code Switch has been exploring the way race impacts the dating world with #xculturelove.

Can you spot the couples?

Even though more and more relationships are blurring racial and cultural boundaries, we find that many people still have preconceptions about what couples ...