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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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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NPR Music's 2025 Tiny Desk Contest got more than 7,000 entries, including some standouts in the folk and country genres.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with mycologist Aishwarya Veerabahu about the rapid spread of golden oyster mushrooms across North America. It's the subject of a new study authored by Veerabahu.
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As Trump supporters continue to demand answers in the Epstein case, today the DOJ requested to question jailed Epstein associate Ghislane 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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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks to author and journalist Tim Weiner about his new book, The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century.
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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.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Sophie Elmhirst, author of A Marriage at Sea, which chronicles the voyage of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, a British couple who was lost at sea for 118 days in 1972.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula about the military planning underway in the U.S. amid the Israel-Iran conflict.