Laurel Wamsley
Laurel Wamsley is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She reports breaking news for NPR's digital coverage, newscasts, and news magazines, as well as occasional features. She was also the lead reporter for NPR's coverage of the 2019 Women's World Cup in France.
Wamsley got her start at NPR as an intern for Weekend Edition Saturday in January 2007 and stayed on as a production assistant for NPR's flagship news programs, before joining the Washington Desk for the 2008 election.
She then left NPR, doing freelance writing and editing in Austin, Texas, and then working in various marketing roles for technology companies in Austin and Chicago.
In November 2015, Wamsley returned to NPR as an associate producer for the National Desk, where she covered stories including Hurricane Matthew in coastal Georgia. She became a Newsdesk reporter in March 2017, and has since covered subjects including climate change, possibilities for social networks beyond Facebook, the sex lives of Neanderthals, and joke theft.
In 2010, Wamsley was a Journalism and Women Symposium Fellow and participated in the German-American Fulbright Commission's Berlin Capital Program, and was a 2016 Voqal Foundation Fellow. She will spend two months reporting from Germany as a 2019 Arthur F. Burns Fellow, a program of the International Center for Journalists.
Wamsley earned a B.A. with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar. Wamsley holds a master's degree from Ohio University, where she was a Public Media Fellow and worked at NPR Member station WOUB. A native of Athens, Ohio, she now lives and bikes in Washington, DC.
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The Port of Baltimore, normally one of the country's busiest, is in limbo due to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. For those who work on the water, business is far from usual. -
The Key Bridge collapse is upending life for countless people in the Chesapeake region. Residents say it's not just infrastructure — it's their identity as people who live close to the water. -
As Americans struggle to find affordable housing, cities are realizing their own rules have made it too hard and expensive to build the homes they need. Now, some cities are trying to change that. -
Around the country, cities are throwing out their own parking requirements, hoping to end up with less parking – and more affordable housing, better transit, and walkable neighborhoods. -
Massive crowds descended on downtown Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Protesters' messaging at the event centered on calls to end U.S. aid to Israel and for a cease-fire. -
The week's turmoil on Capitol Hill was one for the history books — and that has made for some very timely discussions in high school civics classes. -
The two tickets match the marks of what's thought to be the only other used ticket from the night John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865. -
Taking it all in one last time while wearing the U.S. Soccer crest, Rapinoe reflected on how she and her generation had changed the game during her 17 years on the team. -
The beermaker says it will end the practice known as tail docking after it came under pressure by animal rights group PETA. -
Denmark's Kunsten Museum loaned artist Jens Haaning about $76,400 to create two pieces of modern art. Instead, he submitted two blank canvases and titled the work Take the Money and Run.
