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.
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NPR's Leila Fadel discusses the issues and influences that defined Tuesday's election wins and losses with University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato.
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Democrat Abigail Spanberger will be Virginia's next governor, defeating her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. She joins NPR to talk about becoming Virginia's first woman governor.
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Democrats win gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City, California voters approve a new congressional map.
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Among the first statewide votes since President Trump returned for a second term, two Democrats have won the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia.
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Rep. Suzan DelBene, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, talks about California voters approving a new congressional map and what it means for Democratic redistricting efforts.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks to Tareq Baconi, a Palestinian scholar. His memoir, "Fire in Every Direction," explores queer identity, family history, and political awakening.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Nite Yun, who was born in a refugee camp and went on to become an acclaimed chef, about her debut cookbook, "My Cambodia."
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Federal food assistance could be cut off Saturday because of the shutdown. But a federal judge could decide to take steps to ensure federal food assistance keeps flowing.
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A judge will decide whether access to SNAP benefits can be cut off, pressure increases for lawmakers to end the shutdown, what the U.S. resuming nuclear testing would mean for the country.
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The dispute over extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies is at the center of the shutdown fight, and it's put America's healthcare system at centerstage. So what solutions are lawmakers proposing?