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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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass promised a "no car" Olympics when the summer games come to her city in 2028. How is her plan going to work in a city famous for large freeways and a lot of traffic?
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Lots of older Americans say they'd love to downsize, but it doesn't make financial sense. The housing roadblock has left some would-be buyers stuck. We asked experts what policies could change that. -
The rules that dictate what can be built and where were often meant to be exclusionary, experts say. With homes too few and rents too high, many cities are loosening rules to encourage more housing.
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As Americans struggle to find affordable housing, cities are realizing their own rules have made it too hard and expensive to build the homes they need. Now, some cities are trying to change that. -
This week's ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the resulting turmoil on Capitol Hill has made for some very timely discussions in high school civics classes.
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Spain's World Cup victory was supposed to be a moment of triumph, but it was overshadowed when the head of the country's soccer federation planted an unwanted kiss on one of the team's star players.
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The U.S. team squares off against longtime rival Sweden Sunday at the Women's World Cup. The Americans, who have dominated past tournaments, have struggled in this one.
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The Women's World Cup kicks off today, and the U.S. team hopes to become the first team ever to win three tournaments in a row.
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A few yards from the central memorial for the shooting victims, a clown hands out snow cones and toys for free to all. She says it's her way to give back — and she wants the gun violence to stop. -
The deadly fire in a Bronx high-rise earlier this month has cast attention on fire safety requirements for apartment buildings. Seventeen residents died from smoke inhalation.
