Vanessa Romo
Vanessa Romo is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She covers breaking news on a wide range of topics, weighing in daily on everything from immigration and the treatment of migrant children, to a war-crimes trial where a witness claimed he was the actual killer, to an alleged sex cult. She has also covered the occasional cat-clinging-to-the-hood-of-a-car story.
Before her stint on the News Desk, Romo spent the early months of the Trump Administration on the Washington Desk covering stories about culture and politics – the voting habits of the post-millennial generation, the rise of Maxine Waters as a septuagenarian pop culture icon and DACA quinceañeras as Trump protests.
In 2016, she was at the core of the team that launched and produced The New York Times' first political podcast, The Run-Up with Michael Barbaro. Prior to that, Romo was a Spencer Education Fellow at Columbia University's School of Journalism where she began working on a radio documentary about a pilot program in Los Angeles teaching black and Latino students to code switch.
Romo has also traveled extensively through the Member station world in California and Washington. As the education reporter at Southern California Public Radio, she covered the region's K-12 school districts and higher education institutions and won the Education Writers Association first place award as well as a Regional Edward R. Murrow for Hard News Reporting.
Before that, she covered business and labor for Member station KNKX, keeping an eye on global companies including Amazon, Boeing, Starbucks and Microsoft.
A Los Angeles native, she is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, where she received a degree in history. She also earned a master's degree in Journalism from NYU. She loves all things camaron-based.
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"They used that training as a cover to kill him in retaliation for his whistleblowing activity," attorney Bradley Gage told NPR. Officer Houston, who died in May, was investigating an alleged rape. -
Investigators are scouring old shooting homicides for possible connections to the six fatal shootings that have terrorized the the city, officials told NPR. -
Talk about a late bloomer. Carl Allamby, who ran an auto repair shop for more than 20 years, was recently hired as an attending physician at Cleveland Clinic's Hillcrest Hospital at age 51. -
Officials said at least two gunmen were targeting a specific person and that they are still working to determine what touched off the shooting. It comes amid a surge in violence across the city. -
Robert Sarver, who owns 35% of the Suns and Mercury, says he's looking for buyers after he was disciplined by the NBA for abusive behavior. His cited the "unforgiving climate" for his decision. -
The defendants allegedly carried out a plot to steal $250 million from a nutrition program meant to serve needy children in Minnesota. Officials called it a "brazen scheme of staggering proportions." -
More than 760,000 customers have been left with no access to clean running water since Hurricane Fiona struck the island on Sunday. -
The governor of Puerto Rico says it will likely take days to fully restore the electricity on the island — but that's contingent upon how much damage the storm inflicted on the power grid. -
The social media comedian has gone farther than he'd imagined as kid. But now, he says he wants more than your TikTok and Instagram attention. -
A GoFundMe account set up by Pieper Lewis' former math teacher has surpassed the amount of the court-ordered restitution — and people are still giving.
