
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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House Republicans can't agree on a stopgap government spending bill. NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Lawsuits say Baton Rouge police beat detainees.
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President Biden gives his annual address to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
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President Biden gives his annual address to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Mitski about her new album The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.
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President Biden speaks at the United Nations. Five Americans travel to the U.S. after a prisoner swap with Iran. Canada blames the Indian government for the assassination of a Sikh leader in June.
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Auto plants are shut amid a walkout against Big 3 automakers. Tens of thousands of people kick off a week of climate protests in New York. Drew Barrymore postpones show's return until strikes end.
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An update from the picket line in Wayne, Mich., as some 13,000 United Auto Workers strike at three factories after failing to reach a contract with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.
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Authorities in Pennsylvania have caught an escaped convict who had been on the run for two weeks after fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend.
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The five former Memphis police officers involved in the deadly beating of Tyre Nichols have been indicted by a federal grand jury. The men also facing criminal court charges in Shelby County, Tenn.
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Can a summer of extreme weather be linked to climate change? Ukraine is the only country that relies on nuclear power to withstand an invasion. Unemployment lingers in Maui a month after deadly fires.