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.
-
Justification for starting a war with Iran have been inconsistent and sometimes contradictory from U.S. officials, but the language has also been different than in wars past.
-
Investigators in the U.S. search for motives in three recent instances of targeted attacks, and whether they are related to the war in Iran. -
Investigators in the U.S. search for motives in three recent instances of targeted attacks, and whether they are related to the war in Iran.
-
This week saw multiple attacks in the U.S. that the FBI is investigating as terrorism. Experts say they reflect an accelerating threat environment fed by foreign conflict and online radicalization.
-
Researchers of online extremism say lack of public accountability in relation to the release of the latest Epstein files has bred a worrying mixture of cynicism and nihilism in some online spaces.
-
In a rare move, the White House recently took down a racist post from one of President Trump's social media accounts. Extremism researchers say it fits a pattern of mainstreaming extremist ideas. -
Interest in firearms for self-defense has grown on the left in Minneapolis. The labeling of an armed resident who was shot while filming ICE activity as a "domestic terrorist" has some reconsidering.
-
An encounter with white separatists decades ago led to new deadly force policies for some federal law enforcement. Minneapolis is raising questions about whether it's again time to revisit the issue. -
More than 30 years ago, a standoff with a white separatist family in Idaho led to federal rules on deadly use of force. Some say Renee Macklin Good's death in Minnesota offers a similar opportunity.
-
The recent shooting of two National Guardsmen in D.C. has revived calls from the Trump administration for "reverse migration," or "remigration." But those ideas trace back to European extremists.
