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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Some middle-schoolers are returning to class for the first time since Hurricane Maria hit the island in September. The students are sharing a school with high-schoolers, and that worries some parents. -
The La Niña weather pattern is likely to develop, boosting snowfall in the Great Lakes and northern Rockies and lowering snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic.
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The portrait of Jesus Christ, Salvator Mundi, was recently confirmed to be a da Vinci that had been thought to be destroyed. It's not clear where the painting was, exactly, for more than a century. -
Hacienda San Pedro had harvested just 2 percent of its beans before Hurricane Maria blasted through. The ripple effects will continue — it is expecting to run out of beans in December. -
"I need a strong house," says Angel Joel Alvarez Lopez, whose roof was ripped off his home. Rain is pouring in. Now, he's looking ahead to months of building and trying to determine his next steps. -
As in many other parts of Puerto Rico, cell service is slowly returning and waters are receding in Playita after Maria's devastation. But for the residents there, the progress is painfully slow. -
The disease has killed at least 15 people and infected nearly 400 in the city, and it is hitting the homeless population the hardest. -
The show of opposition to President Macron's proposed labor law overhaul is seen as the first major test for the recently elected leader. In Paris, there were clashes between protesters and police. -
The death tally left by the now-tropical depression rose Wednesday as recovery workers in Harris County were able to reach a white van that a rescued man had told them held several family members. -
"Aetna's privacy violation devastated people whose neighbors and family learned their intimate health information," a legal group representing customers says. Aetna calls its mistake "unacceptable."
