Ailsa Chang
Ailsa Chang is an award-winning journalist who hosts All Things Considered along with Ari Shapiro, Audie Cornish, and Mary Louise Kelly. She landed in public radio after practicing law for a few years.
Chang is a former Planet Money correspondent, where she got to geek out on the law while covering the underground asylum industry in the largest Chinatown in America, privacy rights in the cell phone age, the government's doomed fight to stop racist trademarks, and the money laundering case federal agents built against one of President Trump's top campaign advisers.
Previously, she was a congressional correspondent with NPR's Washington Desk. She covered battles over healthcare, immigration, gun control, executive branch appointments, and the federal budget.
Chang started out as a radio reporter in 2009, and has since earned a string of national awards for her work. In 2012, she was honored with the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her investigation into the New York City Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" policy and allegations of unlawful marijuana arrests by officers. The series also earned honors from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists.
She was also the recipient of the Daniel Schorr Journalism Award, a National Headliner Award, and an honor from Investigative Reporters and Editors for her investigation on how Detroit's broken public defender system leaves lawyers with insufficient resources to effectively represent their clients.
In 2011, the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters Association named Chang as the winner of the Art Athens Award for General Excellence in Individual Reporting for radio. In 2015, she won a National Journalism Award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her coverage of Capitol Hill.
Prior to coming to NPR, Chang was an investigative reporter at NPR Member station WNYC from 2009 to 2012 in New York City, focusing on criminal justice and legal affairs. She was a Kroc fellow at NPR from 2008 to 2009, as well as a reporter and producer for NPR Member station KQED in San Francisco.
The former lawyer served as a law clerk to Judge John T. Noonan Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.
Chang graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University where she received her bachelor's degree.
She earned her law degree with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she won the Irving Hellman Jr. Special Award for the best piece written by a student in the Stanford Law Review in 2001.
Chang was also a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University, where she received a master's degree in media law. She also has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she never got to have a dog. But now she's the proud mama of Mickey Chang, a shih tzu who enjoys slapping high-fives and mingling with senators.
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Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black has made no effort to hide his frustration with the political turmoil in his daily morning prayers.
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Even as hundreds of thousands of federal workers stay home, some members of Congress have kept most or all of their own staffs working. With no end to the government shutdown in sight, that's put Republicans on the defensive. -
The Senate passed a bill Friday to keep the government open without stripping any funding from the president's health care law. Now the action returns to the House, where Republicans are tying the measure to defunding the Affordable Care Act. -
President Obama has been able to fill one opening on a key appeals court, but three more remain. And GOP senators are signaling that they'll block those remaining nominations, saying the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals doesn't really need that many judges. -
A day after President Obama announced he'll wait for congressional authorization before launching strikes on Syria; members of Congress attended a classified briefing at the Capitol. Even though there's still one week left of summer recess, dozens of lawmakers flew to Washington, D.C. from their home districts just for the meeting. -
The Obama administration appears poised to attack Syria after concluding Bashar Assad's government used chemical weapons, but many members of Congress say they haven't been briefed enough about why military action is warranted. And their opinions about what to do in Syria are all over the map. -
Just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, North Carolina has a new law to require photo ID at the polls and to shorten early voting. Proponents say the law will stave off voter fraud. Opponents say it will effectively quash the vote of many poor minorities. -
Congressional inaction let the interest rate for some student loans double at the start of the month, even though lawmakers' preferred solutions don't seem that far apart. The Senate is planning to vote Wednesday on a proposal that would bring rates back down for one year. -
For some, it's a symbol of America's might. For others, it's a frightening weapon of warfare. For many target-shooting hobbyists, it's "the Mr. Potato Head of firearms" — customizable to fit each individual. And it's all part of what is now a nearly billion-dollar business in military-style weapons. -
The White House maintains it had sufficiently briefed Congress on the Internet and phone data monitoring programs leaked last week, but many lawmakers vehemently disagree.
