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 16-year-old boy was to be deported Wednesday under a new administration policy that applies federal health statutes, intended to mitigate the spread of disease, to immigration cases.
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"I want to encourage the exchange of ideas and work to establish dialogue between law enforcement and protesters so that we may implement enduring systemic change," the LA district attorney said.
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"The prosecution of protesters charged with these low-level offenses undermines critical bonds between law enforcement and the communities we serve," District Attorney Cyrus Vance said Friday.
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Protesters outraged over police brutality and systemic racism have spilled into the streets across the country, from Minneapolis to New York and in smaller cities such as Omaha, Neb.
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A new official autopsy, released on the heels of one commissioned by Floyd's family, says he died due to "cardiopulmonary arrest." It also noted neck compression, heart disease and drug use.
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"Planned Parenthood has demonstrated that it provides safe and legal abortion care," a state commission ruled. It said state health regulators wrongly blocked the St. Louis clinic's renewal in 2019.
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Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer who planted a knee on the black man's neck, has been detained by state officials. For days, a video of the arrest has elicited fury across the country.
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Prosecutors say a probe of the black man's death while in police custody is underway and federal charges are possible. Violent protests erupted for a third night.
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The new guidelines stipulate religious centers must limit attendance to 100 people or 25% of the building's capacity, whichever is lower. They also recommend against singing and group recitation.
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"Never forget the sacrifices that these men and women made. Never, ever, forget," Biden said before leaving the wall. He later told reporters, "It feels good to be out of my house."
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Gov. Kristi Noem says she plans to take the Cheyenne River Sioux and Oglala Sioux tribes to federal court for refusing to shutter checkpoints onto their reservations. "Clarity" is needed, she says.
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The report comes as the government announced all states must now meet federal reporting guidelines. The type of information gathered by states up to now has been inconsistent.