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.
-
Dea Kulumbegashvili embedded for a year inside a maternity clinic for her new film, April, about an obstetrician in rural Georgia, as the country faces increased abortion restrictions. -
People in Vietnam are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War on Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon.
-
Speaking to NPR in his first media interview since his detention, lawful permanent U.S. resident Mohsen Mahdawi finds peace in meditation and hopes "America will fulfill its promise." -
NPR asks Sen. Jack Reed, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, why he wants an investigation into whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared classified intelligence in a Signal chat. -
Official tells NPR search is underway to replace Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Catholics mourn Pope Francis' death, Supreme Court weighs who should decide public school curriculum.
-
Villanova University theology professor and papacy expert Massimo Faggioli breaks down why it's so hard to predict who the next pope will be and what direction he'll take the Catholic Church. -
Is President Trump threatening the independence of the Federal Reserve when he attacks Fed Chair Jerome Powell over interest rates? NPR asks Wharton School associate professor Peter Conti-Brown.
-
The Trump administration maintains that HIV meds have survived foreign aid cuts. In Zambia, as in other countries, people are struggling to find pills and risk getting sick without medication.
-
NPR speaks with Ramzi Kassem, a member of the legal team for Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, about her detention and arguments in her immigration hearing. -
El Salvador's president says he will not return wrongly deported man, whistleblower describes DOGE actions at NLRB, Trump administration freezes more than $2.2 billion after Harvard rejects demands.
