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.
-
"If there is to be college sports in the fall, we need to get a much better handle on the pandemic," said NCAA President Mark Emmert. -
Navigating the pandemic's challenges is especially stressful if you're pregnant, expectant mothers say. OB-GYNs offer practical advice on minimizing risks of infection while still leaving the house. -
The city aims to provide relief for working parents who either can't afford to stay home or can't find child care for the days that students aren't in school. -
Gov. Kevin Stitt is the first governor known to have tested positive for the virus. Oklahoma saw its largest one-day increase of cases on Wednesday. -
Robert Speker wanted to keep spirits up while visitors and outside entertainment were banned due to COVID-19. His ingenious idea: cast the residents as rock stars.
-
"The mayor was very clear that the information was preliminary and subject to change," a spokesperson for the city tells NPR. -
The state's largest teachers union says educators want schools to reopen, but the plan lacks detail on safety measures. "There's a lot of angst from teachers across the state," a union official says. -
Among the young, the numbers shot up: 9% of adults 18-29 have moved due to the coronavirus. Some people moved to avoid catching the virus, while others were forced by the closing of college campuses. -
The Security Council has struggled for months to pass a resolution related to COVID-19 because of tussling between the U.S. and China over a reference to the World Health Organization. -
Gov. Greg Abbott said the temporary measure will help the state "corral the spread" of COVID-19 in Texas, which has seen a sharp rise in cases and hospitalizations in recent weeks.
