Weekly Program Highlights
Friday 4/17
1:00 – 2:00 PM
Science Friday… This week on Science Friday, astronauts on moon missions have a lot to worry about, including how their families are doing back at home, but the children of astronauts have a very different view of their parents’ job.
2:00 – 3:00 PM
Hidden Brain… This week on Hidden Brain, does power truly flow from the barrel of a gun? A political scientist who studied more than 100 years of revolutions and insurrections says the answer is counterintuitive.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Fresh Air… This week on Fresh Air, celebrate the 80th birthday of the filmmaker and writer known as the “Pope of Trash” and the “Prince of Puke:” John Waters. He spent a career violating taboos. His films include the cult classic Pink Flamingos and the relatively mainstream Hairspray, which was adapted into a hit Broadway musical.
6:30 – 7:30 PM
The Club McKenzie… Left Out: Wilbur Coleman Sweatman was an American ragtime and traditional jazz composer, bandleader, clarinetist and one of the first African American musicians to have fans nationwide; he was a trailblazer in the racial integration of musical groups. Sweatman was the first African American musician to be offered a long-term recording contract, and he dazzled listeners with jazz clarinet solos. His first release with Columbia sold 140,000 copies at a time when selling a third of that was considered a huge hit. Sweatman's songs sold over a million copies in 1919 alone. Yet, he gets left out of the history of jazz, despite his extraordinary career arc.
Saturday 4/18
10:00 – 11:00 AM
Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me!… This week on Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, the panelists are Dulcé Sloan, Adam Burke, and Alonzo Bodden. And Phil Pritchard, known as the Keeper of the Stanley Cup, talks hockey and plays Not My Job.
11:00 – NOON
Radiolab… Could anyone have survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvias? If they did, could they have survived what came after that: earthquakes, tsunamis, and pumice stones hurtling like missiles from the sky? If someone did survive, what happened to them after that?! To find out Radiolab tries to think, feel and possibly even eat like Ancient Romans.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
American Routes… This week on American Routes, celebrate the cultural minglings in New Orleans with a visit to the 2019 French Quarter Festival: a free, homegrown, four-day annual event featuring a vast array of local music presented on stages throughout the city’s oldest neighborhood. Hear from soul queen Irma Thomas, the late piano patriarch Ellis Marsalis, and the Preservation Hall Brass Band. Also, catch the French-Creole jazz of Don Vappie and Evan Christopher, Cajun dance music from Bruce Daigrepont, vaudeville and gospel from Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony, Klezmer funk fusion from the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, and traditional jazz from Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band.
Sunday 4/19
10:00 – 11:00 AM
Reveal… This week on Reveal, a team of reporters exposes a global surveillance company that marketed a tool used to track the cellphones of thousands of people around the globe. The targets of the spying included heads of state, Silicon Valley executives, activists, and journalists.
11:00 – NOON
This American Life… This week on This American Life, stories of cheating, cheaters and the cheated. Writer James Braly shares a story about temptation, Dani Shapiro on being the mistress, and more.
NOON – 3:00 PM
Sunday Baroque… The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, organized and promoted as a “national teach-in on the environment.” One year later, President Nixon celebrated Earth Day's first anniversary with a proclamation establishing the first Earth Week, launching the annual Earth Day that we still celebrate. This week, Sunday Baroque is getting into the spirit with music inspired by nature, including charming brass dances through the pretty woods, and a concerto for a chorus of frogs.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Code Switch & Life Kit… This week on Code Switch, a show about genocide in Sudan. Then on Life Kit, a show about fingernails, which aren’t just for decoration.
6:00 – 7:00 PM
The Moth Radio Hour… This week on The Moth Radio Hour, four storytellers square up to the truth.
Monday 4/20
1:00 – 2:00 PM
Issues and Ideas… This week on Issues and Ideas, hear the next installment in a series of interviews with San Luis Obispo County Supervisor candidates. KCBX News sat down with Michael Erin Woody, who’s running for the District 2 Supervisor’s seat. And later in the show, “BookWaves” producer Brian Reynolds speaks with award-winning author and creative writing professor Susan Straight to talk about her latest book, Sacrament. It’s the 2026 Annual Book of the Year selected by Cuesta College and San Luis Obispo County Public Libraries.
2:00 – 3:00 PM
The Splendid Table… This week, The Splendid Table host Francis Lam is taking listeners’ cooking and eating questions with Daniel Holzman and Matt Rodbard, authors of Food IQ: 100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts. And then, head into the kitchen with J. Kenji López-Alt for a lesson from his new book The Wok: Recipes and Techniques.
Tuesday 4/21
1:00 – 2:00 PM
TED Radio Hour… How do we lead a good life? And what role does philosophy play in learning to manage our modern woes? This week on TED Radio Hour, host Manoush Zomorodi and philosopher Meghan Sullivan show how ancient questions can help us through the current chaotic moment.
2:00 – 3:00 PM
The Reluctant Therapist… This week, tune in for a conversation with Starhawk — an activist, author, and a leading voice in ecofeminism and earth-based spirituality. Starhawk is the founder of Earth Activist Training and author of thirteen books, including the seminal The Spiral Dance. She shares her unique practice of permaculture design grounded in collaborative action.
Wednesday 4/22
1:00 – 1:30 PM
Bioneers… This week on Bioneers, Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center share their semi-aquatic journey to becoming Beaver Believers. They are part of a passionate global movement to bring back our rodent relatives who show us how to heal nature by working with nature.
1:30 – 2:00 PM
California Report Magazine… This week on California Report Magazine, join host Vanessa Rancaño as she wakes up at 3:00 a.m. to get a behind-the-scenes peek at a produce market in Oakland that’s survived for more than a century.
2:00 – 3:00 PM
Freakonomics Radio… This week on Freakonomics Radio, a show all about bees. How do beekeepers make a living? Why is there so much honey fraud? And why did billions of bees suddenly disappear? To find out, guest host Steve Levitt activates his hive mind.
Thursday 4/23
1:00 – 2:00 PM
Central Coast Voices… This week on Central Coast Voices, celebrate National Poetry Month with local poets. The Academy of American Poets declared April National Poetry Month in 1996. To celebrate its 30th Anniversary, host Lata Murti speaks with guests who share their poetry and upcoming poetry events. Hear from San Luis Obispo County Poet Laureate Caleb Nichols; Viviana Hall, poet and Coastal Dunes’ California Writers Club’s acting president and vice president; and Sharaya Olmeda, librarian and advisor of Allan Hancock College’s Poetry and Prose Club
2:00 – 3:00 PM
Latino USA… For many in Cuba, days of long blackouts, shortages of food and water, and limited access to basic goods means money isn't enough to survive as families now depend on packages of food, medicine, and basic goods from the U.S. Now, with Trump eying the island, Latino USA reports in Miami to understand what has changed and what comes next. Later in the show, a conversation with Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijada, co-creators and stars of the off-Broadway hit show Mexodus. Get into the history of the underground railroad, from the South to Mexico.
Friday 4/24
6:30 – 7:30 PM
The Club McKenzie… Jazz Unbound, part I - The Seed: Jazz stands apart from virtually every other musical tradition. It isn't interpreting someone else's creation — it’s composing in real time, under pressure, in front of an audience. Every performance is genuinely unrepeatable, and it all depends on how the performers wish their musical expressions to be heard and felt. The deepest foundation of jazz music is African musical culture, but the magic of jazz happened when musicians started improvising collectively, swinging the rhythm instead of playing it straight, and making their instruments growl and bend.