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.
-
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says his order ensures "that all businesses and families in Texas have the freedom to determine their own destiny." Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted: "It is time!" -
"I didn't see the report myself even until after the 6th, but the way in which it [was] handled ... strikes me as consistent with our normal process," said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
-
The group that suffered the largest drop in life expectancy was Black males — a decline of three years. Hispanic males also saw a large decrease, with a decline of 2.4 years.
-
The administration says there will only be a few million doses of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine available to distribute right away, assuming the company gets FDA authorization in the next few weeks.
-
"The very fact that we're constantly trying to build that more perfect union is an acknowledgement of our imperfection," Antony Blinken told NPR. "It's in the striving that you really make progress."
-
The move follows an executive order by President Biden to expand protections for LGBTQ people in health care, housing and education.
-
New research found that wearing a cloth mask over a medical mask significantly boosts protection against droplets that can transmit the virus. Knotting the ear loops of surgical masks also helps.
-
The bulletin did not cite any specific threat but said that the risk of violence will persist for weeks. It warned that some extremists may be "emboldened" by the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
-
"This is a national emergency. Four hundred thousand people have died. Everything is on the table across the whole supply chain," said Jeffrey Zients, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator.
-
Press secretary Jen Psaki said it's important that "our money ... reflect the history and diversity of our country." The effort to redesign the $20 bill foundered during the Trump administration.
-
Despite days of widespread incitement on social media in advance of the insurrection encouraging extremist Trump supporters to assault the U.S. Capitol, law enforcement was unprepared and overwhelmed.
-
The groundwork for the attack on the U.S. Capitol was laid five years ago, say experts on extremism and social media — but one was surprised when this time, the rhetoric turned into real violence.
