Majd Al-Waheidi
Majd Al-Waheidi shapes how NPR’s flagship shows cover climate, energy and public policy online, bringing environmental stories into broader debates about politics, technology and social conflict as a digital editor for Morning Edition and Up First. She works at the intersection of beat reporting and format design, translating complex issues into accessible explainers, briefings and feature pieces for NPR’s digital audiences. Her coverage of environment-related topics sits inside a wider portfolio that includes fuel prices, artificial intelligence, trade policy and Middle East flashpoints, giving her work a cross-cutting, systems-focused character.
Climate, legislation and Morning Edition’s digital coverage
Al-Waheidi’s environment beat runs through Morning Edition’s online and newsletter output, where she connects climate impacts to legislative decisions and public protest. She has edited briefings that link worsening heat waves to climate change, street protests in Israel and the unveiling of an Emmett Till monument, compressing disparate events into a clear narrative about power and accountability. In another newsletter, she steers coverage that pairs Senate legislation to end a government shutdown with an update on where climate change efforts stand, foregrounding environmental policy alongside fiscal and political stakes. Her work on housing legislation and bipartisan negotiations follows the same logic, treating housing policy as part of a larger conversation about how public investment and regulation shape communities and their environmental footprint.
She consistently keeps the environment inside the frame when reporting on lawmaking and party politics, so climate is treated as a core dimension of governance rather than a separate niche.
Energy prices, agriculture and everyday costs
Al-Waheidi brings environmental economics down to ground level through coverage of fuel markets and agriculture.
In a recent story on how a national farm leader is dealing with record diesel prices, she follows the consequences of energy costs into the daily decisions of agricultural producers, highlighting how price spikes strain both operations and broader rural communities. That work links energy, transportation and food systems in a concrete way, giving environmental and economic policy context through the experience of a single sector. By centering a named farm leader, she shows how abstract shifts in diesel markets translate into choices about planting, distribution and resilience, making the story relevant to both environment and business readers. Her focus on energy prices and their ripple effects positions her as a useful contact for stories that sit between climate policy, supply chains and cost-of-living pressures.
Technology, AI and collective risk
Al-Waheidi also handles coverage of technology and artificial intelligence, often with an emphasis on collective responsibility and systemic risk. In one feature, she highlights why Steve Bannon aligned with Bernie Sanders rather than Donald Trump on AI, using that unexpected alliance to probe how different political movements understand technological power and regulation.
In another, she presents an Anthropic co-founder’s argument that slowing AI is a “collective action problem,” foregrounding the idea that managing advanced technology requires coordination across governments, firms and publics.
Those pieces treat AI as a governance challenge akin to climate change, where diffuse benefits and concentrated risks demand shared rules and long-term thinking. This through-line - pairing technology coverage with themes of regulation, ethics and collective action - complements her environment beat, because it frames both climate and AI as domains where society must confront consequences that are global, interdependent and hard to reverse.
Gaza, free speech and cultural flashpoints
Al-Waheidi’s broader reporting portfolio includes high-intensity stories about Gaza, genocide claims and the politics of art and expression. Her work on how Ed Sheeran’s tour became a flashpoint over Gaza and free speech traces how a pop concert turns into a stage for arguments about war, solidarity and censorship, connecting cultural events to geopolitical conflict. She has also contributed to coverage asking whether what is happening in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide, walking through international law and the shifting views of scholars as civilian casualties mount.
These pieces show her comfort with legal and moral complexity, and they reinforce her habit of placing discrete events inside larger systems - whether those systems are international law, public opinion or historical memory. Her digital production for interviews with political figures and artists, such as work on Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign and Sara Bareilles’ album about grief, further reflects an ability to move between policy, personal narrative and cultural analysis while keeping the stakes clear.
Role in NPR’s formats and professional background
Al-Waheidi is a digital editor for Morning Edition and Up First, where she helped launch the Up First newsletter and the “From Our Hosts” essay series, giving NPR’s audio journalism new written and email formats. She now focuses on editing and producing original Morning Edition pieces for NPR’s digital platforms and occasionally edits interviews for the show’s books and arts coverage, ensuring that long-form conversations and cultural segments are packaged effectively for readers as well as listeners. Earlier in her career, she worked as a reporter for The New York Times, Channel News Asia, the technology magazine Rest of World and Business Insider, experience that grounds her editing in frontline reporting across international, business and technology beats.
She continues to bring Morning Edition’s journalism to online audiences, using that platform to connect climate, energy, technology and conflict stories in a way that highlights the systems tying them together.
4 more environment journalists.
Alan Halaly
Alan Halaly is a water reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who treats the Colorado River as a working system, not a backdrop, making its governance, infrastructure and risks central to his beat. He covers how policy decisions and infrastructure projects shape the region’s water future, linking high-level choices on the Colorado River, dams, mining and data centers to everyday consequences under mounting heat and growth pressures. He reports deeply on new laws, lawsuits and regulatory shifts, focusing on on-the-ground impacts. His coverage spans Colorado River cuts, Hoover Dam operations, extreme weather, heat and parks, septic system rules, workplace and public health risks, lithium and gold mines, protected landscapes, data centers, AI infrastructure and public funding. Previously he reported for metropolitan dailies, digital outlets and public media, including the Miami Herald, WUFT, The Daily Beast and Miami New Times, with work recognized by Hearst, ONA and the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Alejandra Borunda
Alejandra Borunda reports on how climate change affects human health for NPR. Her work treats global warming as a direct cause of physical and mental health risks. She covers extreme heat, including undercounted deaths, lost sleep and local efforts to track heat-related fatalities. She also reports on wildfire smoke, hurricanes, disease spread such as dengue fever, trauma, stress and unequal health impacts. Her stories examine how communities protect themselves and recover, as well as practical solutions involving climate-resilient crops, agriculture and diet. Before NPR, she wrote about climate science and environmental issues for National Geographic, including glacier retreat, shade and heat inequity, and shrinking ice-fishing seasons. A former climate scientist, she combines field reporting with scientific data to connect atmospheric research to everyday risks, choices and people’s lived experiences.
Alex Lubben
Alex Lubben is an environment reporter at The Times-Picayune/The Advocate who connects climate risk to policy, industry and community change. He covers Gulf warming, flood protection, coastal restoration, wetlands litigation, industrial projects such as SpaceX’s possible expansion, invasive species and local ecosystems. His reporting tracks how law, politics and corporate decisions shape levees, drainage, marshes and long-term resilience. He also examines climate relocation, housing and labor, showing how hurricanes, floods and wildfires displace vulnerable communities and expose gaps in government systems. He works on a small environment team and brings an investigative background to document work, data analysis, legal and policy research, and field reporting. His work has appeared in VICE News, The Center for Public Integrity, The Nation, Jewish Currents and NBC News.
Alex Wigglesworth
Alex Wigglesworth reports on how climate, land use and public policy shape California communities. She covers the Inland Empire and Mojave Desert for the Los Angeles Times and is part of its environment team. Her beat includes wildfires, megadrought, extreme weather, desert development, conservation, wildlife, industrial hazards, aging infrastructure and regulatory enforcement. She has covered Western Joshua trees, desert tortoises, beaver-led restoration, toxic lead pipes, air-quality concerns after industrial fires and the effects of nuclear war on food systems. Earlier, she was a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. She combines breaking news with detailed reporting grounded in scientific studies, modeling and expert interviews. Her work connects fires, drought and other hazards to climate change, while examining how agencies, companies and land-use decisions affect people and ecosystems.