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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Frank DeAngelis was principal at Columbine High School in Colorado when 12 students and a teacher were killed there. He helps lead a group that offers aid and a sounding board after each fresh attack. -
In an interview with Morning Edition's Leila Fadel, the fast-rising artist talks about a life path as winding and varied as his music. -
1982 is a love story set against the backdrop of war, when Israel invaded Lebanon 40 years ago. Lebanese filmmaker Oualid Mouaness, inspired by his own memories, wrote the and directed the film. -
More than a thousand soldiers were evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant, and Russia is consolidating control of Mariupol. It is making plans to annex the southwestern parts of the country. -
The pop star has spent a life on the go, so the pandemic offered him a rare chance for reflection, to separate the person from the pop star. Also, of course, to record a new album. -
Naheed Phiroze Patel's debut novel Mirror Made of Rain is out in the U.S. this week. -
Tank and the Bangas' third studio album, Red Balloon, celebrates Black life and reckons with America's ills. NPR's Leila Fadel talks to lead singer Tarriona "Tank" Ball. -
Talib Kweli discusses the return of Black Star after 24 years, including a return to some of the duo's foundational themes — black excellence, unity, Pan-Africanism and the raising of consciousness. -
U.S. combat veteran Bryan Stern runs a nonprofit called Project Dynamo that extracts people from hostile places. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the organization has rescued more than 400 people. -
NPR's Leila Fadel talks to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about Ukraine's renewed request for weaponry, and the latest predictions on how Russian forces will fight the war in the future.
