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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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Touch, based on Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson's best-selling novel, is a love story that spans decades, continents and cultures. NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Kormákur and his son Pálmi, who stars in the film.
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Pop singer Remi Wolf says the single "Cinderella" describes mood swings and a transient lifestyle at the time she wrote it. NPR's Leila Fadel asks Wolf about her sophomore album “Big Ideas.”
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NATO allies are gathering for a summit in Washington on the alliance's 75th anniversary. It faces some of its biggest challenges yet as it looks ahead to political uncertainty in some countries.
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The RNC's Platform Committee has adopted former President Donald Trump’s platform, a document that leans into his preferred “America First” stances and steers away from traditional GOP social issues.
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A report shows America's poorest counties are having their best economic period in decades. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to John Lettieri of the Economic Innovation Group, about their study.
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The GOP platform for 2024 is public. NATO countries gather in Washington to mark the alliance's 75 years of history. Transplant surgeons are using a new, controversial procedure to retrieve organs.
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In results that defied polls, France’s far-right national rally party was relegated to third place in legislative elections, routed by a diverse leftist coalition cobbled together only weeks ago.
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Romantic comedies: they’re corny, sometimes swoon-worthy and if you pay attention to movies, they’re everywhere lately. After a long dry spell, the romantic comedy seems to be coming back into favor.
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Beryl is bringing heavy rains and flooding to Texas on Monday. The long-lived tropical system first walloped the Windward Islands, Jamaica, and Mexico before threatening the United States.
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Four senior House Democrats in private call said President Biden should step aside. French left coalition finishes election on top. Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud in deal with prosecutors.