Vanessa Romo
Vanessa Romo is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She covers breaking news on a wide range of topics, weighing in daily on everything from immigration and the treatment of migrant children, to a war-crimes trial where a witness claimed he was the actual killer, to an alleged sex cult. She has also covered the occasional cat-clinging-to-the-hood-of-a-car story.
Before her stint on the News Desk, Romo spent the early months of the Trump Administration on the Washington Desk covering stories about culture and politics – the voting habits of the post-millennial generation, the rise of Maxine Waters as a septuagenarian pop culture icon and DACA quinceañeras as Trump protests.
In 2016, she was at the core of the team that launched and produced The New York Times' first political podcast, The Run-Up with Michael Barbaro. Prior to that, Romo was a Spencer Education Fellow at Columbia University's School of Journalism where she began working on a radio documentary about a pilot program in Los Angeles teaching black and Latino students to code switch.
Romo has also traveled extensively through the Member station world in California and Washington. As the education reporter at Southern California Public Radio, she covered the region's K-12 school districts and higher education institutions and won the Education Writers Association first place award as well as a Regional Edward R. Murrow for Hard News Reporting.
Before that, she covered business and labor for Member station KNKX, keeping an eye on global companies including Amazon, Boeing, Starbucks and Microsoft.
A Los Angeles native, she is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, where she received a degree in history. She also earned a master's degree in Journalism from NYU. She loves all things camaron-based.
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Three football players were killed on a bus late Sunday after returning to the University of Virginia from a field trip. Police arrested the suspected gunman after a 12-hour manhunt. -
Scientists wanted to learn whether bees, like humans and other mammals, had any interest in playing for fun's sake. They say they have evidence that bees do, and that could change how we view insects. -
Historians say up to 300 Black people were killed in the 1921 attack and the days that followed. Nearly all are believed to have been buried in mass graves approved by white authorities of the time. -
Doctors say they are seeing an unprecedented number of cases. How concerned should parents be? Why are young children so vulnerable? What's causing this year's outbreak? We offer some answers. -
Two customers who bought $6 worth of Barilla pasta say they were duped. They thought they were buying products made in Italy. What they got was made in Iowa and New York. -
They're among three lawmakers who were recorded talking in racist terms. And though they've been stripped of assignments and haven't been attending meetings, they're still collecting hefty paychecks.
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The latest spike is months early and it's pushing care facilities to capacity. Children under the age of 5 are most vulnerable. -
![A new audit of autopsies conducted under David Fowler's tenue "will determine whether independent experts agree or disagree with the [the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner's] determination of cause and manner of death, whether such experts believe the OCME's determinations were based on adequate investigations," the panel's said.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/98fa61c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1593x888+0+153/resize/280x156!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2022%2F10%2F19%2Fap21104716151191-ba6ffb86ec64cea6c60ef62b087abb08dfd64b2e.jpg)
The review follows an audit of police-involved deaths under the tenure of former Chief Medical Officer David Fowler, who testified that George Floyd's death was caused by heart disease and drug use. -
The resignation comes hours after protesters disrupted a scheduled Wednesday city council meeting inside Los Angeles City Hall. -
People calling for the repatriation of the ancient tablet and other items say the continued display of the objects in European institutions ignores a history of colonialist looting and exploitation.
![A new audit of autopsies conducted under David Fowler's tenue "will determine whether independent experts agree or disagree with the [the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner's] determination of cause and manner of death, whether such experts believe the OCME's determinations were based on adequate investigations," the panel's said.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/062782e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1593x888+0+153/resize/560x312!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2022%2F10%2F19%2Fap21104716151191-ba6ffb86ec64cea6c60ef62b087abb08dfd64b2e.jpg)
