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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Shortages affecting hospitals and clinics are a perilous example of an economic crisis that has worsened since the U.S. imposed economic and financial penalties on the country. -
Tell us about how you decided it was the right time to quit, what your strategy was, and what you learned that could be useful to other people trying to ditch the habit. -
No ordinary pair of shorts, these were designed by Harvard scientists to work with the wearer's own leg muscles when walking or running, and might make a soldier's heavy loads easier to carry. -
Guards said they saw a woman acting nervous as she neared the exit Saturday. They discovered she was a man, a drug trafficker facing decades in prison. Now authorities say he took his own life. -
President Trump is expected to sign the measure, ending a years-long ordeal for the victims after concerns that the fund was on the verge of running out of money. -
The current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 1,650 people, according to the World Health Organization. About 12 new cases are reported daily. -
The show is centered on the suicide of a teenage girl, and the first season's finale shows her taking her own life. Several organizations raised concerns that it could romanticize suicide.
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That makes it the second U.S. city to do so – last month, Denver voters approved a ballot initiative that decriminalizes the "magic" mushrooms. -
"Baaaaaaaaa bye," one Philippine official said as 69 shipping containers of rubbish started the journey back across the Pacific. -
"The doctors said they hadn't seen this kind of positive result in their memory," the Jeopardy! host told Peoplemagazine. "Some of the tumors have already shrunk by more than 50 percent."
