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.
-
The U.S. wants people to enter the country legally — or not at all. A pier off Gaza for aid is expected to be installed soon. Haiti aims to make progress stabilizing its leadership and security.
-
The U.S. will stop shipments of bombs or artillery shells if Israel presses its offensive against Hamas into the crowded city of Rafah in southern Gaza, President Biden said.
-
President Biden would halt weapons shipments if Israel invades Rafah. House Speaker Johnson survives leadership threat. GOP lawmakers grill leaders of three public school districts about antisemitism.
-
During a Senate hearing Wednesday on antisemitism in K-12 schools, superintendents were unapologetic as they faced tough questions about discipline and accountability.
-
NPR's Leila Fadel talks to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza.
-
As cease-fire negotiators talk, soldiers and militants keep fighting. Israeli warplanes pound Gaza's southernmost city Rafah, where some 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge.
-
TikTok is taking the Biden administration to court over the new law that would force a sale of the social media giant.
-
The adult film actress testified Tuesday in Donald Trump's criminal trial, with details about an alleged sexual encounter that prompted the ex-president's lawyers to ask for a mistrial. It was denied.
-
Humanitarian groups warn of a potential catastrophe in Rafah. Stormy Daniels begins testifying in Donald Trump's N.Y. criminal trial. TikTok challenges U.S. ban in court, calling it unconstitutional.
-
Chef Joseph Yoon plans to transform dual emerging cicada broods into edible delicacies.
-
Prosecutors say former President Donald Trump conspired to alter the outcome of the 2016 election by paying hush money to bury negative stories, and then covered it up by falsifying business records.
-
Protesters at Columbia University have begun occupying a campus building. Four law enforcement officers were killed while serving a warrant in North Carolina. Ukraine desperately needs more soldiers.