David Welna
David Welna is NPR's national security correspondent.
Having previously covered Congress over a 13-year period starting in 2001, Welna reported extensively on matters related to national security. He covered the debates on Capitol Hill over authorizing the use of military force prior to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the expansion of government surveillance practices arising from Congress' approval of the USA PATRIOT Act. Welna reported on congressional probes into the use of torture by U.S. officials interrogating terrorism suspects. He also traveled with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to Afghanistan on the Pentagon chief's first overseas trip in that post.
As a national security correspondent, Welna has continued covering the overseas travel of Pentagon chiefs who've succeeded Hagel. He has also made regular trips to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to provide ongoing coverage of the detention there of alleged "foreign enemy combatants" and the slow-moving prosecution of some of them in an episodically-convened war court. In Washington, he continues to cover national security-related issues being considered by Congress.
In mid-1998, after 16 years of reporting from abroad for NPR, Welna joined NPR's Chicago bureau. During that posting, he reported on a wide range of issues: changes in Midwestern agriculture that threaten the survival of small farms, the personal impact of foreign conflicts and economic crises in the heartland, and efforts to improve public education. His background in Latin America informed his coverage of the saga of Elian Gonzalez both in Miami and in Cuba.
Welna first filed stories for NPR as a freelancer in 1982, based in Buenos Aires. From there, and subsequently from Rio de Janeiro, he covered events throughout South America. In 1995, Welna became the chief of NPR's Mexico bureau.
Additionally, he has reported for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Financial Times, and The Times of London. Welna's photography has appeared in Esquire, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Covering a wide range of stories in Latin America, Welna chronicled the wrenching 1985 trial of Argentina's former military leaders who presided over the disappearance of tens of thousands of suspected dissidents. In Brazil, he visited a town in Sao Paulo state called Americana where former slaveholders from America relocated after the Civil War. Welna covered the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, the mass exodus of Cubans who fled the island on rafts in 1994, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, and the U.S. intervention in Haiti to restore Jean Bertrand Aristide to Haiti's presidency.
Welna was honored with the 2011 Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, given by the National Press Foundation. In 1995, he was awarded an Overseas Press Club award for his coverage of Haiti. During that same year he was chosen by the Latin American Studies Association to receive their annual award for distinguished coverage of Latin America. Welna was awarded a 1997 Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. In 2002, Welna was elected by his colleagues to a two-year term as a member of the Executive Committee of the Congressional Radio-Television Correspondents' Galleries.
A native of Minnesota, Welna graduated magna cum laude from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, with a Bachelor of Arts degree and distinction in Latin American Studies. He was subsequently a Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellow. He speaks fluent Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
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Seven busts along with a statue and a plaque — all honoring Confederate leaders — are quietly ousted from Virginia's Old House Chamber on orders from the state's House of Delegates speaker.
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Defense Secretary Mark Esper doesn't actually ban the Confederate flag's display. He simply lists the flags that can be shown by the military, and the controversial banner is not on his list.
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A step-by-step manual for investigating and reporting sexual abuse cases involving clergy calls on church authorities to alert civilian officials even if not required to do so by law.
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One hundred newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 among U.S. forces on the small island that hosts about half the Americans stationed in Japan are further testing tense ties with Okinawa.
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A lower-court judge had allowed less rigorous terms for absentee voting because of the pandemic. That ruling was blocked a dozen days before a primary run-off there.
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Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified in impeachment hearings. He's been due for promotion to the rank of full colonel, but that has not happened. Sen. Tammy Duckworth wants assurances that it will.
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The sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower and cruiser San Jacinto have not set foot on land since setting sail in mid-January. The goal: avoiding coronavirus exposure.
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Officially, the tiniest state's name remains Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. But the governor jettisoned the latter phrase from state documents, with a vote on it likely to follow.
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Brett Crozier was initially recommended to retain command of an aircraft carrier after being removed for protesting the Navy's response to the virus on the ship. The Navy now says he won't go back.
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Questions about whether the political calendar in an election year holds sway over the search for a COVID-19 vaccine hung over Gen. Gustave Perna's confirmation hearing to lead that effort.
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Many law enforcement agencies in suburban Minneapolis and St. Paul that policed protests are recent entrants to a decades-old Pentagon program of transferring military gear to cops.
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After being chided by retired peers for following President Trump in a walk through a park forcibly cleared of protesters, the nation's top military officer now says he should not have been there.