Leila Fadel
Leila Fadel is a host of Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.
As a national correspondent, Fadel consistently reported on the fault lines of this divided nation. She flew to Minneapolis in the midst of the pandemic as the city erupted in grief and anger over the killing of George Floyd. She's reported on policing and race, on American Muslim communities and on the jarring inequities the coronavirus laid bare in the healthcare system. Her "Muslims in America: A New Generation" series, in collaboration with National Geographic, won the prestigious Goldziher Prize in 2019.
Previously, 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 listeners 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 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, Fadel 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.
Fadel is a Lebanese-American journalist who speaks conversational Arabic and was raised in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
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Olivia Rodrigo is thinking about joy, falling madly in love and what pop music can do when the world feels overwhelming. -
U.S. military strikes rock Iran for a second day in a row, Trump attempts to combat rising gas prices as midterm approaches, Sen. Ed Markey wins Massachusetts' Democratic primary.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with journalist and author Rozina Ali about her new book, "Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America."
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The most high-profile races in Massachusetts mirrored other recent Democratic primaries nationwide, with match ups between progressives and moderates, and questions about the future of the party.
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Georgetown Law professor Stephen Vladeck explains the separation-of-powers questions raised by the Supreme Court's decision on the White House ballroom. -
NPR's Leila Fadel asks former Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer about U.S. efforts to cultivate global support to economically isolate and pressure Iran.
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Trump says U.S. struck a deal to take control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, U.S. and Iran resume exchanging strikes, funding at the top of the agenda as House reconvenes.
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China and Nepal continue to grapple with the devastation left by catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border, as rescuers search for the missing and assess widespread destruction.
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Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday in the trial of Tupac Shakur's killing. The rap icon was gunned down in 1996 near the Las Vegas Strip in a gang-related altercation.
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A war that was supposed to last weeks and end Iran's Islamic regime has now been underway for six months. People inside Iran who were initially hopeful have grown increasingly disillusioned.
