Leila Fadel
Leila Fadel is a national correspondent for NPR based in Los Angeles, covering issues of culture, diversity, and race.
Most recently, she was NPR's international correspondent based in Cairo and covered the wave of revolts in the Middle East and their aftermaths in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond. Her stories brought us to the heart of a state-ordered massacre of pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters in Cairo in 2013 when police shot into crowds of people to clear them and killed between 1,000 and 2,000 people. She told us the tales of a coup in Egypt and what it is like for a country to go through a military overthrow of an elected government. She covered the fall of Mosul to ISIS in 2014 and documented the harrowing tales of the Yazidi women who were kidnapped and enslaved by the group. Her coverage also included stories of human smugglers in Egypt and the Syrian families desperate and willing to pay to risk their lives and cross a turbulent ocean for Europe.
She was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club for her coverage of the 2013 coup in Egypt and the toll it took on the country and Egyptian families. In 2017 she earned a Gracie award for the story of a single mother in Tunisia whose two eldest daughters were brainwashed and joined ISIS. The mother was fighting to make sure it didn't happen to her younger girls.
Before joining NPR, she covered the Middle East for The Washington Post as the Cairo Bureau Chief. Prior to her position as Cairo Bureau Chief for the Post, she covered the Iraq war for nearly five years with Knight Ridder, McClatchy Newspapers, and later the Washington Post. Her foreign coverage of the devastating human toll of the Iraq war earned her the George. R. Polk award in 2007. In 2016 she was the Council on Foreign Relations Edward R. Murrow fellow.
Leila Fadel is a Lebanese-American journalist who speaks conversational Arabic and was raised in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
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It's been a week of turmoil at the CDC, and now there's a new person tapped to be acting director of the agency.
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Anne Schuchat, former Principal Deputy Director of the CDC, says she's worried about vaccine access, as experienced leaders leave the agency in protest. -
Authorities identified a suspect and now they are working to figure out why a 23 year old shot and killed 2 school children and wounded 17 other people at a Catholic school and church in Minneapolis.
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After deadly Minneapolis mass shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison push for federal, state and local gun reform. -
The FDA has approved updated COVID-19 vaccines, but is restricting eligibility to those at risk for serious complications. That includes anyone age 65 and older and younger people with other health issues. The new limitations could make it much harder for many people to get vaccinated.
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"Maybe I have become a kind of symbol of hope": Ukrainian woman survives nine-story fall in Russian drone strike. -
NPR's Leila Fadel speaks to Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier, a Democrat who slept in the Texas House chamber after refusing Republicans' demand that Democrats leave only with police escort. -
Texas state Rep. Mihaela Plesa says Democrats' two-week walkout created a "nationwide movement," but she's ready to make a legal case against redistricting. -
Former national security adviser Jake Sullivan says President Trump will "put all the pressure on Zelenskyy" to make a peace deal with Russia, during their meeting in Washington, D.C. today. -
The Committee to Protect Journalists says it is pressing Israel to provide answers about why prominent Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and others journalists were killed in an airstrike.
