Ashley Westerman
Ashley Westerman is a producer who occasionally directs the show. Since joining the staff in June 2015, she has produced a variety of stories including a coal mine closing near her hometown, the 2016 Republican National Convention, and the Rohingya refugee crisis in southern Bangladesh. She is also an occasional reporter for Morning Edition, and NPR.org, where she has contributed reports on both domestic and international news.
Ashley was a summer intern in 2011 with Morning Edition and pitched a story on her very first day. She went on to work as a reporter and host for member station 89.3 WRKF in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she earned awards covering everything from healthcare to jambalaya.
Ashley is an East-West Center 2018 Jefferson Fellow and a two-time reporting fellow with the International Center for Journalists. Through ICFJ, she has covered labor issues in her home country of the Philippines for NPR and health care in Appalachia for Voice of America.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with attorney Chantel Cherry-Lassiter about seeing the bodycam footage of Andrew Brown Jr. being shot, as well as the independent autopsy.
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NPR's Mary Louse Kelly talks with African Americans and the Culture of Pain author Debra Walker King about how Black pain can be a double-edged sword, used to both benefit and hurt Black Americans.
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NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra how the Biden administration is housing and handling the unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Patrick Oppmann, a CNN reporter based in Havana, about what it means for Cuba that a Castro is not at the helm for the first time in more than sixty years.
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NewsFamilies and friends met in airports for the first time in over a year after Australia and New Zealand opened a "bubble" of quarantine-free travel between their countries. -
Australia and New Zealand have launched one of the world's first "travel bubbles" between countries. People traveling between the two now no longer have to quarantine upon landing.
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COVID-19 cases in Papua New Guinea have been surging. As hundreds become sick each day, the healthcare system is struggling to keep up. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with journalist Rebecca Kuku.
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NewsPalau has seen no COVID-19 cases and Taiwan has kept the virus in check. Taiwan's first tourist flight to Palau during the pandemic era landed Thursday. Travelers do not need to quarantine on arrival. -
Many Asian adoptees say they feel left out of the national conversation about anti-Asian racism because they don't feel like they belong in either the Asian American community or white America. -
After nearly half the Pacific island territory's population voted in favor of independence from France in a referendum in October, a new government is made up mostly of pro-independence politicians.
