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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How can All Things Considered consider all things without considering dinosaurs? That's the question posed by 8-year-old Leo Shidla of Minneapolis.
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Slavitt tells NPR that getting more vaccines out quicker will involve lots of "small steps." He says people will have to be "more patient than they want to be," but supplies are increasing. -
Shireen Al-Adeimi of Michigan State University argues the U.S. has done "everything except for pulling the trigger" in the war in Yemen. She tells NPR she's skeptical of a U.S. role in creating peace. -
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., says expanding vaccine distribution in key industries is one of many steps to inoculating Latinos and other hard-hit communities. -
After getting help with his addiction and while pausing for the pandemic, Langhorne Slim found songs — happy, sad, anxious, joyful — to be pouring out of him like deep breaths. -
Robert Grenier oversaw CIA's counterterrorism operations from 2004 to 2006. He argues that counterinsurgency tactics used overseas are needed to fight extremists such as those who stormed the Capitol. -
"Sharing grief brings people together," says historian Micki McElya. The ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday was the most prominent memorial so far to the victims of COVID-19. -
A year into the COVID-19 crisis, Dr. Robert Redfield stands by his federal health agency's response to the pandemic despite an early "learning curve" and contradictory messaging from President Trump.
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Voting rights activist LaTosha Brown says the Senate runoff results in Georgia represent how mobilizing and harnessing the power of Black voters can help forge a new political landscape. -
With control of the U.S. Senate hinging on Georgia's runoff elections, groups working to turn out Black voters there are not slowing down. Will their votes drive a historic outcome for Democrats?
