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.
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Flimsy boats, EU policies and an increase in migrants attempting the crossing are some of the factors converging to make this year an especially deadly one. -
The state is moving quickly to destroy the snails before the snails destroy Florida's crops. The snails contain both male and female reproductive organs and lay up to 500 eggs at a time. -
A new report finds Google makes millions of dollars in ad buys from anti-abortion "pregnancy centers" that aim to divert women who are seeking abortion care. -
Makers of products like Children's Tylenol say they're trying to keep up with big demand as RSV, flu, and COVID spread. But medical experts note that kids' fevers don't always call for medicine. -
Can a network like Hive Social or Mastodon foster the communities and conversations that thrived on the bird app's good days? It's too soon to know for sure, but many hope the answer is yes. -
"Olivia put together the most complete walk-on tryout I have seen from a player," said Brown University baseball coach Grant Achilles. Taking the field will fulfill a long-held dream for Pichardo, 18. -
This seasonal Spam includes additional "fig and orange flavors, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and all spice." As ever, it is shelf stable in case of the apocalypse. -
The launch is a milestone in India's effort to foster a private space industry. The rocket, made by Hyderabad-based Skyroot, was aloft for about five minutes and reached peak altitude of 55 miles. -
The tournament will make an exception to its strict all-white clothing rules, after female players described altering their menstrual cycles to not stress about leaking onto their tennis whites. -
The ball was used in the infamous quarterfinal match between Argentina and England at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City. It's expected to sell for as much as $3.6 million.
