Laurel Wamsley
Laurel Wamsley is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She reports breaking news for NPR's digital coverage, newscasts, and news magazines, as well as occasional features. She was also the lead reporter for NPR's coverage of the 2019 Women's World Cup in France.
Wamsley got her start at NPR as an intern for Weekend Edition Saturday in January 2007 and stayed on as a production assistant for NPR's flagship news programs, before joining the Washington Desk for the 2008 election.
She then left NPR, doing freelance writing and editing in Austin, Texas, and then working in various marketing roles for technology companies in Austin and Chicago.
In November 2015, Wamsley returned to NPR as an associate producer for the National Desk, where she covered stories including Hurricane Matthew in coastal Georgia. She became a Newsdesk reporter in March 2017, and has since covered subjects including climate change, possibilities for social networks beyond Facebook, the sex lives of Neanderthals, and joke theft.
In 2010, Wamsley was a Journalism and Women Symposium Fellow and participated in the German-American Fulbright Commission's Berlin Capital Program, and was a 2016 Voqal Foundation Fellow. She will spend two months reporting from Germany as a 2019 Arthur F. Burns Fellow, a program of the International Center for Journalists.
Wamsley earned a B.A. with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar. Wamsley holds a master's degree from Ohio University, where she was a Public Media Fellow and worked at NPR Member station WOUB. A native of Athens, Ohio, she now lives and bikes in Washington, DC.
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Amazon has begun mass layoffs, following job cuts at Meta, Twitter and several other tech companies.
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Some animals like birds and frogs are famous for the sounds they make. But have you ever heard a turtle? Most turtles were thought to not make sounds at all — until researchers went deep.
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At an old-school amusement park in Rehoboth Beach, Del., called Funland, a generation of thrillseekers who grew up screaming in the park's Haunted Mansion now brings their kids to do the same. -
Following the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, counselors are helping people deal with grief and anger. Uvalde counselors and their counterparts in Newtown, Conn., talk about the mental health journey ahead.
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A few yards from the central memorial for the shooting victims, a clown hands out snow cones and toys for free to all. She says it's her way to give back — and she wants the gun violence to stop.
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Lucio is scheduled to be executed for the death of her 2-year-old daughter. Her supporters say she was forced into a false "confession" and that new evidence exists that proves her innocence.
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More than a dozen historically Black colleges received bomb threats on Tuesday, the first day of Black History Month, following a number of bomb threats at HBCUs on Monday. Several went on lockdown.
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The deadly fire in a Bronx high-rise earlier this month has cast attention on fire safety requirements for apartment buildings. Seventeen residents died from smoke inhalation.
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After the deadly fire in a Bronx apartment building, hundreds of people are living in hotel rooms. But finding housing in another affordable building like Twin Parks may not be easy.
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Fast-rising home prices are creating opportunities for some longtime Black homeowners. Those high valuations can also raise big questions about the best way to tap into that wealth.
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All 17 of the missionaries kidnapped in Haiti two months ago have now been freed. Violence and kidnapping have spiked in Haiti following the assassination of its president in July.
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Low-income people are especially affected by inflation, economists say. While some are struggling with the rising prices of gas, food and rent, the pay for some low-wage jobs is rising.
