Weekend Edition Saturday

Five years after the pandemic, have Broadway audiences come back? And what musicals and plays are opening, in the weeks ahead, that might draw in crowds?

NPR's Scott Simon considers the stenciled messages in the end zones of the Super Bowl — "CHOOSE LOVE" and "IT TAKES ALL OF US" — and imagines how players could take those messages to heart.

An air ambulance with six people aboard crashed and then exploded on Friday evening in Philadelphia. The medical transport plane was returning a patient and her mother to Mexico. Several houses caught on fire close to the crash site. Six people on the ground were taken to the hospital with injuries.

With a sudden freeze of funding, two scientists find their livelihoods and futures upended.

NPR's Scott Simon asks Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, the Congolese minister for foreign affairs, about gains made by rebels backed by Rwanda.

President Trump is back and filling the airwaves with a constant churn of comments on just about everything, in contrast to the much quieter Biden administration.

NPR's Scott Simon asks ESPN's Michele Steele about the Super Bowl and the expansion of the WNBA.

NPR's Scott Simon talks with Patrick Patterson and Steve Scipio of the British funk band Cymande about their new album and about reconstituting the band after decades.

In Ali Smith's latest novel, "Gliff," a brother and sister befriend a horse in a dystopian future. NPR's Scott Simon explores the issue of authoritarianism with the novelist and playwright.

President Trump is imposing steep new tariffs today on some of America's biggest trading partners. The move could affect the cost of everything from tequila to two-by-fours.