Renee Montagne
Renee Montagne, one of the best-known names in public radio, is a special correspondent and host for NPR News.
Montagne's most recent assignment was a yearlong collaboration with ProPublica reporter Nina Martin, investigating the alarming rate of maternal mortality in the U.S., as compared to other developed countries. The series, called "Lost Mothers," was recognized with more than a dozen awards in American journalism, including a Peabody Award, a George Polk Award, and Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism. The series was also named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.
From 2004 to 2016, Montagne co-hosted NPR's Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news program in the United States. Her first experience as host of an NPR newsmagazine came in 1987, when she, along with Robert Siegel, were named the new hosts of All Things Considered.
After leaving All Things Considered, Montagne traveled to South Africa in early 1990, arriving to report from there on the day Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison. In 1994, she and a small team of NPR reporters were awarded an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for their coverage of South Africa's historic elections that led to Mandela becoming that country's first black president.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Montagne has made 10 extended reporting trips to Afghanistan. She has traveled to every major city, from Kabul to Kandahar, to peaceful villages, and to places where conflict raged. She has profiled Afghanistan's presidents and power brokers, but focused on the stories of Afghans at the heart of that complex country: school girls, farmers, mullahs, poll workers, midwives, and warlords. Her coverage has been honored by the Overseas Press Club, and, for stories on Afghan women in particular, by the Gracie Awards.
One of her most cherished honors dates to her days as a freelance reporter in the 1980s, when Montagne and her collaborator, the writer Thulani Davis, were awarded "First Place in Radio" by the National Association of Black Journalists for their series "Fanfare for the Warriors." It told the story of African-American musicians in the military bands from WW1 to Vietnam.
Montagne began her career in radio pretty much by accident, when she joined a band of friends, mostly poets and musicians, who were creating their own shows at a new, scrappy little San Francisco community station called KPOO. Her show was called Women's Voices.
Montagne graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley. Her career includes teaching broadcast writing at New York University's Graduate Department of Journalism (now the Carter Institute).
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Political leaders in Pakistan are looking for a new president. Pervez Musharraf stepped down Monday to avoid being impeached. The Bush administration — which saw Musharraf as an important ally — is watching the search for a replacement closely. On the streets of Pakistan's cities, though, reaction to his departure is mixed.
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi with the goal of getting Russian combat forces out of the former Soviet country. Rice is carrying a draft cease-fire that requires Russia to withdraw combat troops and allows peacekeepers to remain in the flash-point separatist region.
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Russia say tens of thousands of people have been displaced from South Ossetia, where the conflict erupted a week ago. Fighting has largely stopped in the area, but reports of looting and banditry continue.
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The truce between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway territory of South Ossetia remains precarious. Russian troops are still inside the former Soviet republic. The United States is standing strong with Georgia.
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The FBI released documents Wednesday, including e-mails written by Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist who killed himself after learning he was the prime suspect in the anthrax attacks investigation. The e-mails reflect what many call evidence of Ivins' declining grip on reality.
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A federal judge unsealed documents in the anthrax case Wednesday. FBI officials were expected to hold a public event to describe the evidence against Army scientist Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide last week before prosecutors could charge him in the anthrax mailings that killed five people in 2001.
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Polls open in Zimbabwe on Friday for the disputed one-man presidential runoff. Opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the race citing concerns for his supporters' lives. That leaves President Robert Mugabe as the only candidate on the ballot. International leaders have condemned the election.
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In a 5-4 vote Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court declared for the first time that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of individual Americans to keep and bear arms. The court said gun ownership is an individual right, not connected with military service, and that it can be regulated in some ways.
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The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees an individual right to bear arms. That's a huge shift in constitutional law; it's been almost 70 years since the high court ruled on the amendment. The decision came in a challenge to Washington, D.C.'s gun ban.
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North Korea on Thursday submitted its long-awaited declaration detailing its nuclear weapons activities. In turn, the Bush administration said it will lift some trade sanctions against the country, and move to take it off the U.S. terrorism blacklist.