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Andrea Seabrook

Andrea Seabrook covers Capitol Hill as NPR's Congressional Correspondent.

In each report, Seabrook explains the daily complexities of legislation and the longer trends in American politics. She delivers critical, insightful reporting – from the last Republican Majority, through the speakership of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats' control of the House, to the GOP landslide of 2010. She and NPR's Peter Overby won the prestigious Joan S. Barone award for their Dollar Politics series, which exposed the intense lobbying effort around President Obama's Health Care legislation. Seabrook and Overby's most recent collaboration, this time on the flow of money during the 2010 midterm elections, was widely lauded and drew a huge audience spike on NPR.org.

An authority on the comings and goings of daily life on Capitol Hill, Seabrook has covered Congress for NPR since January 2003 She took a year-and-a-half break, in 2006 and 2007, to host the weekend edition of NPR's newsmagazine, All Things Considered. In that role, Seabrook covered a wide range of topics, from the uptick in violence in the Iraq war, to the history of video game music.

A frequent guest host of NPR programs, including Weekend Edition and Talk of the Nation, Seabrook has also anchored NPR's live coverage of national party conventions and election night in 2006 and 2008.

Seabrook joined NPR in 1998 as an editorial assistant for the music program, Anthem. After serving in a variety of editorial and production positions, she moved to NPR's Mexico Bureau to work as a producer and translator, providing fill-in coverage of Mexico and Central America. She returned to NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1999 and worked on NPR's Science Desk and the NPR/National Geographic series, "Radio Expeditions." Later she moved to NPR's Morning Edition, starting as an editorial assistant and then moving up to Assistant Editor. She then began her on-air career as a weekend general assignment reporter for all NPR programs.

Before coming to NPR, Seabrook lived, studied and worked in Mexico City, Mexico. She ran audio for movies and television, and even had a bit part in a Mexican soap opera.

Seabrook earned her bachelor's degree in biology from Earlham College and studied Latin American literature at UNAM - La Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. While in college she worked at WECI, the student-run public radio station at Earlham College.

  • Military officials in Pakistan say the country's army is preparing for a massive assault on Islamist militants in the Swat Valley, 100 miles north of the capital, Islamabad.
  • Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' autobiography hits bookstores Oct. 1, coinciding with the court's new term. He received a $1.5 million advance for the memoir. He offers vivid, and at times, seething details about events surrounding his nomination.
  • The Democratic Congress promised to work with the White House. But after four months, the rhetoric and the political atmosphere remain contentious. The latest example: the impasse over funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • Al Gore takes his climate-change crusade to Congress, calling for an immediate freeze on greenhouse gases in order to fight global warming. Speaking to the House Energy Committee and the Senate Environment Committee, the former vice president said, "The planet has a fever."
  • The House is officially on record as opposing President Bush's plan to increase troop strength in Iraq. Friday's vote followed four days of often emotional rhetoric on the House floor.
  • The White House is defending House Speaker Nancy Pelosi against Republican criticism that her desire to travel in a long-distance Air Force plane is an extravagance. Republicans have taken issue with the size of the plane in which Pelosi would need to fly to reach her hometown of San Francisco without refueling.
  • The House votes to expand federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell research. Last year, President Bush cast the only veto of his tenure to keep a similar measure from being enacted. The Congress, then controlled by Republicans, failed to override it.
  • Many cultures incorporate the guitar into their musical heritages, but the instrument is unheard of in traditional Indian music. Guitarist Sanjay Mishra demonstrates how he coaxes Eastern sounds from a Western instrument.
  • In 1918, Robert Frost inscribed a handwritten poem in the cover of a friend's book. It remained hidden from the world for 88 years, until a graduate student at the University of Virginia recently discovered it. It appears this week in the Virginia Quarterly Review.
  • The House passes a bill spending $5.5 billion to increase security at U.S. seaports. The spotty inspection of cargo arriving by sea has long been a weakness in anti-terror efforts, but the issue gained urgency earlier this year, when an Arab-owned firm tried to purchase operating rights at six U.S. ports.