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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Residents of Denver's suburbs who had to flee Thursday's wildfires describe the damage.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks to Thomas Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, about the preparations being made for the New Year's Eve celebration in New York City.
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Looking back, countdowns weren't always good news. Think atomic bomb tests. Americans also counted down moon missions and Top 40 hits. It wasn't until 1979 that a Times Square crowd joined in.
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Compared to this time last year, we're all paying a lot more to use many kinds energy — whether it's gasoline for our cars or heating fuel for our homes.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse about wildfires that tore through towns outside of Denver, forcing more than 30,000 residents to evacuate.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, about the threats to our elections in 2022 and 2024.
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Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton says war-gaming and civics education could help assure that the military is better prepared for a contested election.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Evan Osnos of The New Yorker about radio host Dan Bongino, who calls masks "face diapers," opposes vaccine mandates and says the 2016 and 2020 elections were rigged.
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Ten months after U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell thought he'd die as Capitol rioters pummeled him, he's still working to recover his mental and physical health.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with retired Major General Paul Eaton about the possibility of another insurrection after the 2024 election.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell about the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Al Michaels of NBC Sports about football coach and sportscaster John Madden, who died Tuesday at the age of 85.