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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Hundreds of bulky green packages were discovered amid the spicy chiles. The drugs seized at a San Diego cargo facility were valued at $2.3 million. -
Israel had said it would allow the Michigan congresswoman to visit her aging grandmother in the West Bank after announcing earlier that it would bar her from visiting on a political trip.
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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. -
Flights were beginning to return to normal after police in riot gear and armed with pepper spray forced out most of the protesters staging a sit-in at one of the world's busiest aviation hubs. -
Operations at the major aviation hub initially appeared to be returning to normal early Tuesday, but by the afternoon, hundreds of pro-democracy activists had returned to departure areas. -
"I want to praise the defendant's grandmother, who saved lives by interrupting this plot," said a federal prosecutor. She was able to persuade her grandson to go to a hospital. -
"It's crazy to know that he died alone in a country he'd never been in," Jimmy Aldaoud's sister told NPR. He had arrived in the U.S. with his Iraqi family when he was a very young child. -
President Trump has repeatedly attacked Elijah Cummings' district. "I want him to come and look at my entire city," Cummings said. "I want him to see all the wonderful things that are happening." -
Guards said they saw a woman acting nervous as she approached the exit. They discovered she was a man, a drug trafficker sentenced to decades in prison. -
"We have uncovered evidence ... that the shooter was exploring violent ideologies," the FBI said. A list of organizations found on the gunman's digital media may have indicated potential targets.
