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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The German shepherd mix went missing in October 2021. Now, the friendly pooch is on a cross-country road trip from Kansas to California, back to the family who adopted him as an abandoned puppy. -
The civil rights icon spent nearly 60 years in public service, including more than three decades representing the Atlanta area. Now, the USPS is paying homage to his years of work. -
Santonastasso Enterprises broke the law when more than a 100 teens were asked to work too many hours or too many late shifts, according to the Department of Labor. -
The skeleton and skin of what is believed to be the last Tasmanian tiger have been stashed away in a cupboard at a museum in Tasmania, where experts lost track of the bizarre looking creature. -
Hardcore Starbucks fans eagerly await the day the coffee company gives out limited-edition holiday cups. The union organizing Starbucks workers hope those same customers will help support their cause. -
Witnesses saw a "flaming basketball" streaking across the sky, then heard a loud crash, then Dustin Procita's house went up in flames. But that may be a coincidence, not the fire's cause. -
Three football players were killed on a bus late Sunday after returning to the University of Virginia from a field trip. Police arrested the suspected gunman after a 12-hour manhunt. -
Scientists wanted to learn whether bees, like humans and other mammals, had any interest in playing for fun's sake. They say they have evidence that bees do, and that could change how we view insects. -
Health, Science & EnvironmentDoctors say they are seeing an unprecedented number of cases. How concerned should parents be? Why are young children so vulnerable? What's causing this year's outbreak? We offer some answers. -
Two customers who bought $6 worth of Barilla pasta say they were duped. They thought they were buying products made in Italy. What they got was made in Iowa and New York.
