Frank Langfitt
Frank Langfitt is NPR's London correspondent. He covers the UK and Ireland, as well as stories elsewhere in Europe.
Langfitt arrived in London in June 2016. A week later, the UK voted for Brexit. He's been busy ever since, covering the most tumultuous period in British politics in decades. Langfitt has reported on everything from Brexit's economic impact, Chinese influence campaigns and terror attacks to the renewed push for Scottish independence, political tensions in Northern Ireland and Megxit. Langfitt has contributed to NPR podcasts, including Consider This, The Indicator from Planet Money, Code Switch and Pop Culture Happy Hour. He also appears on the BBC and PBS Newshour.
Previously, Langfitt spent five years as an NPR correspondent covering China. Based in Shanghai, he drove a free taxi around the city for a series on a changing China as seen through the eyes of ordinary people. As part of the series, Langfitt drove passengers back to the countryside for Chinese New Year and served as a wedding chauffeur. He expanded his reporting into a book, The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China (Public Affairs, Hachette).
While in China, Langfitt also reported on the government's infamous "black jails" — secret detention centers — as well as his own travails taking China's driver's test, which he failed three times.
Before moving to Shanghai, Langfitt was NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi. He reported from Sudan, covered the civil war in Somalia, and interviewed imprisoned Somali pirates, who insisted they were just misunderstood fishermen. During the Arab Spring, Langfitt covered the uprising and crushing of the democracy movement in Bahrain.
Prior to Africa, Langfitt was NPR's labor correspondent based in Washington, DC. He covered coal mine disasters in West Virginia, the 2008 financial crisis and the bankruptcy of General Motors. His story with producer Brian Reed of how GM failed to learn from a joint-venture factory with Toyota was featured on This American Life and has been taught in business schools at Yale, Penn and NYU.
In 2008, Langfitt covered the Beijing Olympics as a member of NPR's team, which won an Edward R. Murrow Award for sports reporting. Langfitt's print and visual journalism have also been honored by the Overseas Press Association and the White House News Photographers Association.
Before coming to NPR, Langfitt spent five years as a correspondent in Beijing for The Baltimore Sun, covering a swath of Asia from East Timor to the Khyber Pass.
Langfitt spent his early years in journalism stringing for the Philadelphia Inquirer and living in Hazard, Kentucky, where he covered the state's Appalachian coalfields for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Prior to becoming a reporter, Langfitt dug latrines in Mexico and drove a taxi in his hometown of Philadelphia. Langfitt is a graduate of Princeton and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
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Polls show that President Biden's rhetoric and policy changes have already improved America's image in parts of Europe. But analysts say he must also reach substantive agreements with G-7 countries. -
President Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed a 21st century Atlantic Charter, an update of a document that tied the countries together during World War II. -
A former close aid to British prime minister Boris Johnson has told parliament that Johnson's inept response to the pandemic led to the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of people.
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Diana's two sons blamed the BBC for its role in their mother's death. They say Diana's life was irrevocably damaged by an interview she gave in 1995.
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A U.K. government inquiry says a BBC reporter used fake documents to obtain an explosive interview with Princess Diana in the 1990s.
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A majority win by Scotland's pro-independence parties energizes the push for a referendum on leaving the U.K.
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People in Scotland are voting in regional parliamentary elections. Victory for nationalist candidates will lead to calls for a referendum on Scottish independence and a possible split from the U.K.
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The Scottish National Party has pledged to push for a referendum for independence from the United Kingdom if they win a majority in the Scottish Parliament.
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Recent polls show a surge in support for Welsh independence, with 33% of the people of Wales now saying that they would vote for independence if a referendum were to be held tomorrow.
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Scottish voters go to the polls this week for parlimentary elections which could have a big impact on whether Scotland eventually holds a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom.
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The European Commission president says she expects all 27 EU member states will accept visitors who've received COVID-19 vaccines, but the CDC is still warning against travel to much of Europe. -
Israel and the United Kingdom are among the top five most vaccinated countries. But to get there, they had combat rumors about the vaccines circulating in faith and minority communities.
