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.
-
Instagram and Facebook are under scrutiny after being accused of harmful body-image messages. We hear from teenagers who say Instagram can be a stresser — but it's hard to quit.
-
As religious exemptions are now being sought in droves, their use raises concerns that they pose a serious public health risk. But some say vaccine mandates are too much, too soon. -
US Soccer says it's offering the men's and women's national teams "identical" contracts. The union for the women's team players is calling the announcement a PR stunt.
-
Stimulus payments moved 11.7 million people from poverty in 2020, according to new Census Bureau data.
-
In Memphis, evictions have resumed. But there's a concerted effort to keep people in their homes, using innovative strategies to get federal rental assistance to those who need it.
-
At eviction court in Columbus, Ohio, much of the work happens in the hallway just outside the courtroom. That's where tenants find lawyers to represent them, cases are mediated, and deals are struck.
-
COVID-19 has upended many people's lives. The latest federal eviction moratorium issued by the CDC is meant to last 60 days, and also give people better access to nearly $50 billion in aid.
-
The Amazon founder became the second billionaire this month to reach the edge of space — following Richard Branson, who rocketed there aboard a vessel made by his company Virgin Galactic.
-
Rescue teams search for any survivors within the sudden mountain of debris. "That's not an old building," said Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett. "That kind of thing should not be happening."
-
Chauvin "treated Mr. Floyd without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings," wrote Judge Peter Cahill, adding an additional 10 years to Chauvin's presumptive sentence.
-
This is the first new drug approved for Alzheimer's disease since 2003. It's the first to show significant progress against the sticky brain plaques that are the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.
-
Magawa is credited with saving lives. The African giant pouched rat has found 71 land mines and 38 items of unexploded ordnance. Now, he has reached retirement age after five years of service.
