Odette Yousef
Odette Yousef is a National Security correspondent focusing on extremism.
In her reporting, Yousef aims to explore how extremist ideas break into the mainstream, how individuals are radicalized and efforts to counter that.
Before joining NPR in August of 2021, Yousef spent twelve years reporting for member station WBEZ in Chicago, where she was most recently part of the Race, Class and Identity team. While there, she was reporter and host for Season 3 of WBEZ's investigative podcast, Motive. The podcast, which won a 2021 national Edward R. Murrow award, explores the emergence and spread of the neo-Nazi skinhead movement in the U.S. and its connections to the far right extremism of today. Yousef was also part of a team that won a 2016 National Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Continuing Coverage, and she received a 2018 Studs Terkel Community Media Award. Prior to joining WBEZ, Yousef reported at WABE in Atlanta.
Born and raised in the Boston area, Yousef received a Bachelor of Arts in economics and East Asian studies from Harvard University. She is based in Chicago.
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Three middle school students in southern Maryland have been charged with hate crimes for allegedly harassing a Jewish classmate. Experts say young kids are increasingly exposed to hate ideologies.
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As Trump's high-profile hush money case moves forward, the court is also grappling with an issue that has become a regular and concerning feature of Trump's many trials — how to keep jurors safe.
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Donald Trump launched his election campaign a year ago in Waco, Texas — a place linked with extremists. Experts say it marked an embrace of far-right narratives central to his White House bid.
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He praises defendants who are charged with rioting that day. His campaign's launch site has connections to extremist violence. Experts worry he's tapping into anger that motivated domestic terrorism.
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To those who have watched how certain elements of the anti-abortion campaign have gone from fringe to mainstream, the Alabama IVF decision is both validation and a warning of more shifts to come.
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The state's Supreme Court ruling equating frozen embryos to children came as no surprise to those who've tracked how once-extreme ideas around fetal personhood have gained acceptance in some circles.
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In the days after Alabama's Supreme Court deemed frozen embryos to be "extrauterine children," the chief justice's ties to a movement that experts call "Christian extremist" have come to light.
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More has become known about the Alabama chief justice's ties to a far-right Christian Nationalist movement that played a major role in the Jan. 6 riot. The movement aims to assert Christian supremacy.
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The recent truck convoy that directed national attention to a surge of migrants at the Southern border featured dangerous, dehumanizing rhetoric that once was limited to extremists.
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Republican officials and far-right influencers have ratcheted up rhetoric describing immigrants. Extremism experts warn it represents a dangerous mainstreaming of white nationalist talking points.