Ashley Westerman
Ashley Westerman is a producer who occasionally directs the show. Since joining the staff in June 2015, she has produced a variety of stories including a coal mine closing near her hometown, the 2016 Republican National Convention, and the Rohingya refugee crisis in southern Bangladesh. She is also an occasional reporter for Morning Edition, and NPR.org, where she has contributed reports on both domestic and international news.
Ashley was a summer intern in 2011 with Morning Edition and pitched a story on her very first day. She went on to work as a reporter and host for member station 89.3 WRKF in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she earned awards covering everything from healthcare to jambalaya.
Ashley is an East-West Center 2018 Jefferson Fellow and a two-time reporting fellow with the International Center for Journalists. Through ICFJ, she has covered labor issues in her home country of the Philippines for NPR and health care in Appalachia for Voice of America.
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Two Dutch museums returned nearly 500 cultural objects to Indonesia and Sri Lanka that were looted during the colonial era, including gold and silverware, statues, weapons and hundreds of artworks.
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Philippine film regulators are reviewing Barbie after a senator said it depicts a map that China uses to lay claim to nearly all of the South China Sea. Warner Bros. says it's just a "doodle."
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The International Atomic Energy Agency has approved a plan by Japan's government to dump nuclear waste water from the destroyed Fukushima power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
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New York Yankees pitcher Domingo Germán threw a perfect game Wednesday, just the fourth in team history and 24th overall in Major League Baseball history.
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The survey, conducted by the nonprofit social research group Social Weather Stations, shows a rise in supportive views of gays and lesbians in the socially conservative country in the past decade.
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Four of the cases were found in Florida, while the fifth was logged in Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Australia's government, which announced earlier this month that it would be moving refugees off of Nauru, confirmed to media that it will pay $350 million annually to keep the Nauru facility open.
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The K-pop phenomenon BTS is on a break right now. But their fans are not — especially thousands of them in the Philippines, who call themselves the "titas" or aunties of BTS. All of them are over 30.
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The Detroit automaker says the buyouts will be offered to most U.S. salaried workers and some global executives.
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The match organizer and the security chief were handed down prison sentences Thursday in connection with a 2022 stampede that killed more than 130 people following a match in East Java.