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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It took women working year round full-time jobs 74 extra days to earn what men did in 2021. And the data is worse for women of color, who are disproportionately employed in low-wage jobs. -
Building on SB 8 in Texas, some Republican lawmakers are trying a new strategy: pushing bills that would attempt to limit what residents can and can't do even beyond state lines. -
The lawsuit says at least one family is already under investigation for providing their child with medically necessary gender-affirming care. -
New research out of New York found the protection of the vaccine against infection in kids who got the lowest dose dropped from 68% to 12%. -
"Covid will not suddenly disappear," Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Monday, adding that "restrictions pose a heavy toll on our economy, our society, our mental well-being." -
Some retailers are starting to get the first wave of the 400 million free masks being distributed by the federal government. Every person is allowed to receive up to three masks. -
The $10 billion telescope is nearly ready to begin capturing images that scientists hope will help uncover the mysteries of the universe — and scope out other possible habitable planets. -
The project, a first of its kind, aims to study the social and cultural dimensions of living in space and how people adapt their behavior when they're living in a completely new environment. -
Thousands of flights have been canceled, leaving travelers scrambling to figure out how book new seats and get reimbursements for added expenses. -
The move follows an unprecedented spike in positivity rates in the Capitol and mirrors record-high infection rates throughout Washington D.C., driven by the highly contagious omicron variant. -
The British socialite was accused of procuring underage girls for financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse. After six days of deliberation, a federal jury found her guilty on five of six counts. -
New data from the CDC released on Tuesday shows that while omicron remains the dominant variant, delta — which is the more severe strain — is still a worrisome driving force behind the current surge.
