Russell Lewis
As NPR's Southern Bureau chief, Russell Lewis covers issues and people of the Southeast for NPR — from Florida to Virginia to Texas, including West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. His work brings context and dimension to issues ranging from immigration, transportation, and oil and gas drilling for NPR listeners across the nation and around the world.
In addition to developing and expanding NPR's coverage of the region, Lewis assigns and edits stories from station-based reporters and freelancers that air on NPR's news programs, working closely with local correspondents and public radio stations. He spent a year in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, coordinating NPR's coverage of the massive rebuilding effort and the reverberations of the storm in local communities. He joined NPR in 2006 and is based in Birmingham, Alabama.
Lewis is also a key member of NPR's 'Go Team' — a small group of experienced NPR producers and reporters who respond to major disasters worldwide. He is often among the first on the scene for NPR — both reporting from these sites as well as managing the logistics of bringing additional NPR reporters into disaster areas that lack functioning transportation systems, basic utilities, food, water, and security.
He was dispatched to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, where he helped manage a group of NPR journalists. He created an overland supply line for the NPR team between the Dominican Republic and Haiti and brought listeners stories about the slow pace of supply distribution because of border bottlenecks. In Japan in 2011, he was quickly on the scene after the earthquake and tsunami to help coordinate NPR's intensive coverage. In 2013, he was on the ground overseeing NPR's reporting in the Philippines in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan. Covering the impact of the massive earthquake in Nepal in 2015, he field-produced NPR's coverage and also reported how a lack of coordination by the government and aid workers slowed response. Lewis managed NPR's on-the-ground coverage in 2015 of the terrorist attacks in Paris, France, and reported from Brussels, Belgium. He returned to Brussels in 2016 after the terrorist bombings at the airport and metro station. He helped field-produce NPR's coverage and also reported several stories about the response and recovery. In 2018, he went to Indonesia to field-produce and edit coverage following the earthquake and tsunami in Palu.
Lewis also oversees NPR's sports coverage. He spent six weeks in Brazil in 2014 handling logistics and reporting on the World Cup. In 2015, he did the same in Canada for the Women's World Cup. In 2016, Lewis reported and oversaw NPR's team of journalists at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. He also led NPR's coverage from Pyeongchang, South Korea, at the 2018 Winter Olympics and from Tokyo at the delayed Summer Olympics in 2021.
In 2010, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University awarded him a prestigious Ochberg Fellowship. The Fellowship is designed to improve reporting on violence, conflict, and tragedy. Lewis has continued his work with the Dart Center and has trained reporters on behalf of the organization in Trinidad and Tobago, the Cayman Islands, and Puerto Rico.
A graduate of the University of Florida, Lewis began his public radio career in 1992 as reporter and executive producer at NPR member station WUFT in Gainesville, Florida. He also spent time at WSVH in Savannah, Georgia, and was Statehouse Bureau Chief at Kansas Public Radio. For six years he worked at KPBS in San Diego as a senior editor and reporter. He also was a talk show host and assistant news director at WGCU in Fort Myers, Florida.
When he's not busy at work, Lewis can be found being creative in the kitchen or outside refereeing soccer games.
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According to preliminary investigation findings released by NTSB investigators on Tuesday, four key bolts were "missing" when a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 in midair last month.
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The mission, Ax-3, is the third time Houston-based Axiom Space has sent paying passengers to the I.S.S. During 16 days of orbit, the all-European crew will conduct 30 experiments and public outreach.
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Frank Borman commanded two early NASA missions including Apollo 8, the first to orbit the moon. He was a no-nonsense astronaut known for his keen attention to detail and duty to country.
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He piloted Apollo 16 and commanded the shuttle. But he may be best known for the mission he didn't fly: the ill-fated Apollo 13. And he worried late in life about the high cost of human space flight.
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New details from the off-duty pilot's interactions with the flight crew are emerging from state and federal court papers that charge him with interfering during Sunday's flight.
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Lee's sheer power is expected to bring dangerous beach conditions to Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos over the weekend. Its effects on the U.S. East Coast are still unclear.
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Hurricane Lee strengthened to a Category 5 storm late Thursday night, forecasters said, and could present potentially dangerous beach conditions on the U.S. East Coast as early as this Sunday.
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The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Lee is forecast to strengthen rapidly into an "extremely dangerous" major hurricane this weekend as it nears the Lesser Antilles and Caribbean.
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The four-member crew — three astronauts and a cosmonaut — launched in March and conducted more than 200 experiments. They also performed spacewalks and did maintenance on the orbiting outpost.
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Hurricane Idalia made landfall near Keaton Beach, Fla., on Wednesday as a Category 3 storm before it was downgraded to a tropical storm. Georgia and South Carolina could see heavy wind and flooding