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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The president will meet with Putin on Friday in Alaska. A former secret service agent shares how the service plans last minute trips like this, especially one with major geopolitical implications.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Glenn Kessler, outgoing writer of the Washington Post's Fact Checker, about recent buyouts at the paper, and the current state of fact-checking.
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Authorities say the gunman who killed a police officer and three others in a NYC high-rise had "documented" mental illness issues, which leaves many people asking how he could get a gun despite laws aimed at preventing such deadly incidents?
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Kit Miyamoto, an engineer specializing in disaster recovery, about U.S. readiness following the major earthquake off the Pacific coast of Russia.
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The State Department has shuttered the team involved in South China Sea security, getting rid of the top experts on the subject, at a time the administration says security in the region is a priority. NPR talked to several members of the team who were fired, who say there's no one to replace them.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Tim Podlogar, who researches exercise metabolism, about how elite cyclists consume thousands of calories each day to compete in the Tour de France.
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As Trump supporters continue to demand answers in the Epstein case, today the DOJ requested to question jailed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
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The man convicted in the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz in New York City has had his conviction thrown out. A jury convicted Pedro Hernandez following his confession in the notorious abduction.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Rep. Seth Moulton, Democrat from Massachusetts, about President Trump's recent social media post about Afghan refugees in the United Arab Emirates.
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An AI imposter is making calls to officials. Who is the AI imposter impersonating? United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio.