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.
-
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.
-
The U.S. has added four leftist groups from Europe to the State Department's foreign terrorism list, raising questions about whether they'll be used to support terrorism charges against Americans.
-
A neighborhood network in Chicago has been helping other cities that face immigration enforcement raids. -
Chicago is no longer the main focus of the federal immigration crackdown. For one neighborhood group, the intense enforcement activity was a test of resistance tactics they developed eight years ago.
-
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef about Tucker Carlson's interview with white nationalist and holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the rift it's creating.
-
The report's claim comes with caveats. Its critics say it does more to reveal issues around collecting and analyzing domestic terrorism data than it does to clarify the current state of the problem.
