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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The legislation bans abortions as soon as a heartbeat can be detected, which typically occurs about six weeks into a pregnancy. The controversial law is expected to trigger a lengthy legal battle. -
The current prison system fails to protect inmates from killing themselves, a federal court ruled. The decision comes after 15 state inmates died by suicide in 15 months. -
The options available to the Venezuelan opposition leader include, "diplomatic options, political options" and "ultimately a set of options that would involve use of U.S. military," Pompeo said. -
Violence stretches into a third day amid mounting casualties and fatalities, with no immediate end in sight. Three Israeli men and nine Palestinians have been killed thus far. -
López had escaped house arrest after two years and has been living at the Spanish embassy in Caracas. President Nicolás Maduro's military forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators -
An 18-day probe into the women's basketball program found the Hall of Fame coach is not racist but did make "racially insensitive" remarks. She also pressured players to play through serious injuries. -
The ruling by the attorney general is the latest step by the Trump administration designed to discourage asylum-seekers from coming to the U.S. -
The French president set a goal of completing the work in five years. Hundreds of millions of dollars were raised toward the effort one day after a fire at the cathedral. -
With the help of heavy construction equipment and a van with an ATM-size hole cut out of its roof, thieves are clawing entire cash boxes out of local businesses and disappearing into the night. -
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg acknowledged that there was a software error in this and in an earlier deadly crash of the 737 Max aircraft and said the company knows how to "eliminate the risk." -
Lightfoot, the city's first black female mayor, told NPR that Chicago's police department has "left many people feeling like the police are an illegitimate occupying force." -
Scientists infected the cats with toxoplasmosis and later killed them. Bipartisan members of Congress complained about the practice, and the agency ended the program.
