Mary Louise Kelly
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.
Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she's kept that focus in her role as anchor. That's meant taking All Things Considered to Russia, North Korea, and beyond (including live coverage from Helsinki, for the infamous Trump-Putin summit). Her past reporting has tracked the CIA and other spy agencies, terrorism, wars, and rising nuclear powers. Kelly's assignments have found her deep in interviews at the Khyber Pass, at mosques in Hamburg, and in grimy Belfast bars.
Kelly first launched NPR's intelligence beat in 2004. After one particularly tough trip to Baghdad — so tough she wrote an essay about it for Newsweek — she decided to try trading the spy beat for spy fiction. Her debut espionage novel, Anonymous Sources, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. It's a tale of journalists, spies, and Pakistan's nuclear security. Her second novel, The Bullet, followed in 2015.
Kelly's writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford, and taught a course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly serves as a contributing editor at The Atlantic, moderating newsmaker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.
A Georgia native, Kelly's first job was pounding the streets as a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996, she made the leap to broadcasting, joining the team that launched BBC/Public Radio International's The World. The following year, Kelly moved to London to work as a producer for CNN and as a senior producer, host, and reporter for the BBC World Service.
Kelly graduated from Harvard University in 1993 with degrees in government, French language, and literature. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in European studies at Cambridge University in England.
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Jacob Frey acknowledges a need to shift a culture that has "failed black and brown people" for years. But he says calling for the dismantling of police without an alternative in place is "not a plan." -
Author L.L. McKinney created the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag, where black and white authors are comparing their book advances. "You can now use this to fight for what you are worth," she says. -
Atlanta was the cradle of the civil rights movement in the '60s. As protests return to the city — this time in response to the death of George Floyd — what lessons can be taken from the past? -
Scientists are trying to answer various questions about the coronavirus four months after the first confirmed case in the U.S.: why it spreads, who transmits it and where the spread is happening.
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Nearly 41% of jobs in the state's food and accommodation industry have been lost. The overall levels are comparable to the Great Depression, says David Schmidt, a state economist. -
Maureen O'Donnell of the Chicago Sun-Times says obituary writers aren't able to cover the life of each person who has died of COVID-19. But they do their best to tell "a variety of stories." -
Feda Almaliti is the mother of a 15-year-old son with severe autism and an advocate. She describes how the challenges of the coronavirus crisis are exponentially more difficult for families like hers. -
Developing and producing a vaccine is a complicated process — one that is heavily reliant on countries sharing supplies and a common goal, says Prashant Yadav of the Center for Global Development. -
California led the nation in issuing a statewide stay-at-home order. And it's paying an economic price: a $54 billion deficit. As the state reopens, it seeks to balance the economy and public health. -
Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell talks about releasing his new album early to independent record stores and reconnecting with a younger version of himself after being sober for almost a decade.
