Liz Halloran

Credit Doby Photography / 2010

Liz Halloran joined NPR in December 2008 as Washington correspondent for Digital News, taking her print journalism career into the online news world.

Halloran came to NPR from US News & World Report, where she followed politics and the 2008 presidential election. Before the political follies, Halloran covered the Supreme Court during its historic transition — from Chief Justice William Rehnquist's death, to the John Roberts and Samuel Alito confirmation battles. She also tracked the media and wrote special reports on topics ranging from the death penalty and illegal immigration, to abortion rights and the aftermath of the Amish schoolgirl murders.

Before joining the magazine, Halloran was a senior reporter in the Hartford Courant's Washington bureau. She followed Sen. Joe Lieberman on his ground-breaking vice presidential run in 2000, as the first Jewish American on a national ticket, wrote about the media and the environment and covered post-9/11 Washington. Previously, Halloran, a Minnesota native, worked for The Courant in Hartford. There, she was a member of Pulitzer Prize-winning team for spot news in 1999, and was honored by the New England Associated Press for her stories on the Kosovo refugee crisis.

She also worked for the Republican-American newspaper in Waterbury, Conn., and as a cub reporter and paper delivery girl for her hometown weekly, the Jackson County Pilot.

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8:02am

Sat July 2, 2011
News

Abortion Wars: Taking It To The States

The nation's abortion wars, simmering but largely quiet in recent years, have begun boiling again.

Nowhere has the battle been more pitched than in Kansas, where the Legislature this session passed four anti-abortion measures and adopted strict new licensing rules that this week came within hours of closing down the state's last abortion provider.

Late Thursday, Kansas officials agreed to license Planned Parenthood's Overland Park surgical facility, which provides abortions, after the organization scrambled to comply with the week-old clinic rules by Friday's deadline.

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4:09pm

Mon June 27, 2011
Politics

Michele Bachmann's Moment: Can She Sustain It?

Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, riding a wave of Tea Party excitement over her strong showing in a new Iowa caucus poll and a round of national media appearances, has conspicuously altered the early race for the GOP nomination.

Just ask the Minnesota congresswoman's home state rival for the GOP crown, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who, despite dogged organizing in Iowa and efforts to improve his own national profile, has so far failed to find a receptive audience.

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3:06pm

Fri June 24, 2011
News

How I Remember Whitey

Credit Boston Police

Irish mob boss James J. "Whitey" Bulger's scheduled arraignment in a Boston courtroom Friday after 16 years on the lam will open yet another chapter in the violent crime-and-politics family saga that has consumed Beantown reporters since the 1980s.

"I've spent half my career chasing Whitey Bulger around," says Gerard O'Neill, retired head of the Boston Globe investigative team, which in 1988 outed Bulger as an FBI informant since the mid-1970s.

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7:49am

Thu June 23, 2011
Politics

GOP Finds Itself At A 'Pivot Point' Over Afghanistan

Not so long ago, when the question was war, the response on Capitol Hill was an automatic blank check.

A largely compliant Congress, and presidents and politicians who were fearful of looking "weak on defense" or "unpatriotic," rubber-stamped massive military spending.

Funny how 10 years, two $1 trillion-and-counting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a budding military engagement in Libya, and a nation mired in unsustainable spending and debt can change what was once a military imperative.

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12:51pm

Tue June 21, 2011
Politics

Is Huntsman Wrong to Skip Iowa?

It was no accident that Jon Huntsman chose the Statue of Liberty as the backdrop to announce his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Sure, the scene had echoes of Ronald Reagan, who used the same spot to launch his 1980 White House run. But it was also far from the cornfields of Iowa.

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