Larry Abramson
Larry Abramson is NPR's National Security Correspondent. He covers the Pentagon, as well as issues relating to the thousands of vets returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prior to his current role, Abramson was NPR's Education Correspondent covering a wide variety of issues related to education, from federal policy to testing to instructional techniques in the classroom. His reporting focused on the impact of for-profit colleges and universities, and on the role of technology in the classroom. He made a number of trips to New Orleans to chart the progress of school reform there since Hurricane Katrina. Abramson also covers a variety of news stories beyond the education beat.
In 2006, Abramson returned to the education beat after spending nine years covering national security and technology issues for NPR. Since 9/11, Abramson has covered telecommunications regulation, computer privacy, legal issues in cyberspace, and legal issues related to the war on terrorism.
During the late 1990s, Abramson was involved in several special projects related to education. He followed the efforts of a school in Fairfax County, Virginia, to include severely disabled students in regular classroom settings. He joined the National Desk reporting staff in 1997.
For seven years prior to his position as a reporter on the National Desk, Abramson was senior editor for NPR's National Desk. His department was responsible for approximately 25 staff reporters across the United States, five editors in Washington, and news bureaus in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The National Desk also coordinated domestic news coverage with news departments at many of NPR's member stations. The desk doubled in size during Abramson's tenure. He oversaw the development of specialized beats in general business, high-technology, workplace issues, small business, education, and criminal justice.
Abramson joined NPR in 1985 as a production assistant with Morning Edition. He moved to the National Desk, where he served for two years as Western editor. From there, he became the deputy science editor with NPR's Science Unit, where he helped win a duPont-Columbia Award as editor of a special series on Black Americans and AIDS.
Prior to his work at NPR, Abramson was a freelance reporter in San Francisco and worked with Voice of America in California and in Washington, D.C.
He has a master's degree in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Abramson also studied overseas at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and at the Free University in Berlin, Germany.
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Gathering in Washington, D.C., drone manufacturers say they are optimistic about their business, despite a downturn in defense spending. The unmanned vehicle industry is hopeful the domestic market will open up. But they first must address privacy concerns exacerbated by the NSA spying scandal.
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A new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association says the rising number of suicides in the military cannot be blamed on deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. But other studies say there is a link and many researchers caution that the factors leading to suicide are complex and unique for each individual, so they question whether the findings should guide treatment.
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There's growing momentum in Congress to overhaul the government surveillance efforts uncovered by leaker Edward Snowden. Some proposals would require more transparency in the programs, or require that telephone companies hold onto metadata, instead of the government. But some say much greater changes are needed, and they want to radically transform the role played by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
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The X-47B is an experimental flying wing with a UFO-like profile. Now it's also the first unmanned aerial vehicle to land on an aircraft carrier.
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Sequestration has yet to cause the huge job losses in the defense industry that many had predicted. Many defense firms have been turning to other growth areas — particularly, developing countries, which are growing their defense budgets while the West is cutting back. -
When surveillance laws were revised in 2012, Congress expressed great concerns that without proper oversight intelligence agencies would engage in the sort of monitoring that has been uncovered in recent days. Congress put a number of safeguards in place, but rejected others that would have guarantee more public discussion about what the NSA does.
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Congress holds another hearing Tuesday on ways to reduce sexual assault in the military. Despite agreement that sexual assault is a problem, the military is struggling to find the most effective way of dealing with the problem. Congress wants to see more offenders go to jail or at least get kicked out of the service. But in fact there's little evidence that strategy will actually reduce the number of assaults.
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The Air Force Special Victims' Counsel is a new effort to provide support to sexual assault victims. These military attorneys will represent the victim only, and the hope is that this kind of support will make it easier for victims to report assaults without feeling like they're being victimized again.
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The U.S. will soon begin to open combat positions to women. That's already the case in Israel, where women say it is an important step but doesn't guarantee full equality. The military's upper echelons remain male-dominated. -
The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines must submit plans Wednesday for ending the policy that keeps women from serving in ground combat positions. The move will open up more than 200,000 positions in the military to them, but the change won't end questions about the role of women in the armed forces.
