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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The Southern Poverty Law Center says many groups are driven by white supremacist ideology and the "hysteria over losing a white-majority nation." Critics accuse the group of overblowing the threat. -
Monday, Nevada's Legislature becomes the first in U.S. history to have a majority of female lawmakers. In Colorado, also a first, women hold the majority in the House of Representatives. -
Nearly 14 percent of federal workers make less than $50,000 per year. Those who are furloughed during the partial government shutdown are making hard choices after missing their first payday.
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The U.S. Army is looking for recruits in new places like Instagram and e-sports tournaments. NPR's Leila Fadel asked Gen. Frank Muth, head of the Army Recruiting Command, about the new strategies. -
In the past year, NPR's Leila Fadel has had to report on the mass shooting in Las Vegas, and last week's shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif., that left 13 dead, including the gunman. -
More and more sitcoms and dramas on TV and online feature Muslim characters and storylines. That is due, in part, to a new crop of Muslim writers, comedians and actors creating the shows themselves. -
In 2016, Nevada flipped the statehouse from red to blue and sent the nation's first Latina senator to D.C. Now, the state could elect its first Democratic governor in 20 years. -
He was best known as a legal pimp whose business was profiled on a reality TV show that aired on HBO. He had recently turned to politics, running for state assembly in Nevada. -
A young man, shot in the lung, hid under a dead body and survived. A police officer who had never before fired his gun on active duty, now trains others. -
Brothel owner Dennis Hof is running for Nevada state legislature. He says President Trump broke the mold and made someone like him, an "anti-establishment" candidate, palatable to voters.
