Merrit Kennedy
Merrit Kennedy is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She covers a broad range of issues, from the latest developments out of the Middle East to science research news.
Kennedy joined NPR in Washington, D.C., in December 2015, after seven years living and working in Egypt. She started her journalism career at the beginning of the Egyptian uprising in 2011 and chronicled the ousting of two presidents, eight rounds of elections, and numerous major outbreaks of violence for NPR and other news outlets. She has also worked as a reporter and television producer in Cairo for The Associated Press, covering Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan.
She grew up in Los Angeles, the Middle East, and places in between, and holds a bachelor's degree in international relations from Stanford University and a master's degree in international human rights law from The American University in Cairo.
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Birds change the shape of their wings far more than planes. The complexities of bird flight have posed a major design challenge for scientists trying to translate the way birds fly into robots. -
Francesca Di Giovanni is the first woman to have a managerial role in the Secretariat of State, one of the most important departments in the Vatican. She has been working there for 27 years. -
Videos appear to show security forces using live ammunition, which Iran's government has denied. The demonstrations erupted after Iran acknowledged that it accidentally shot down a passenger plane.
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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is fiercely opposed to immigration and has said that boosting national fertility rates is his preferred way to counter the population downturn and risk of labor shortages. -
The unanimous Montana Supreme Court decision found that religious institutions are not always obligated to report child sexual abuse to authorities due to an exemption in Montana state law. -
Nicolas Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, stands accused in multiple legal actions. In this case, he allegedly attempted to convince a court official to illegally release information. -
Jozef Dudek was 2 when an Ikea dresser fell on top of him and killed him. His family sued the furniture giant in a wrongful death lawsuit. Millions of the recalled dressers may still be in use. -
Caskets holding the bodies of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and others killed in a U.S. drone strike last week in Iraq were paraded though the streets of Tehran as mourners chanted "death to America." -
An out-of-control wildfire threatened exit routes from the town of Mallacoota, forcing residents to rush toward the water for safety as embers rained down from a red sky. -
He Jiankui announced in November 2018 that he had created the world's first gene-edited babies. Scientists are concerned about unintended side effects that could be passed down to future generations.
