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 speaks with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ahead of a possible partial government shutdown Friday.
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Senate scrambles to keep funding flowing and avert partial shutdown, border czar says he may withdraw some immigration agents from Minnesota, FBI seizes 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia.
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A Minnesota-based rapper who performs as Nur-D shares what it was like to be tackled and detained by federal troops at a protest site in Minneapolis on Saturday.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts about the FBI seizure of 2020 election ballots earlier this week.
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Democrats are demanding changes to a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The fight over spending could cause a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.
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Democrats are demanding changes to DHS funding as partial shutdown looms, lawyers say ICE is denying detainees legal access with relocations, the Fed votes to hold interest rates steady.
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Two members of Congress were attacked in recent days, and U.S. Capitol Police say threats against lawmakers have increased. NPR's Leila Fadel speaks to former Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger.
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President Trump has been pressing the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates more aggressively, but the central bank voted to hold rates steady for now, as it tries to bring down inflation.
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The film "Atropia" is a dark comedy set at a U.S. military facility in California designed to simulate battle conditions in Iraq. NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with actor Alia Shawkat.
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Minnesota officials are demanding to have a role in the investigation into Alex Pretti's killing by federal agents as videos and eyewitnesses contradict the Trump administration's account.