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 political battles over just how the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. Langfitt also frequently appears on the BBC, where he tries to explain American politics, which is not easy.
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 has expanded his reporting into a book, The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China (Public Affairs, Hachette), which is out in June 2019.
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 reform movement in Bahrain.
Prior to Africa, Langfitt was NPR's labor correspondent based in Washington, DC. He covered the 2008 financial crisis, the bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler, and coal mine disasters in West Virginia.
In 2008, Langfitt also 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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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan, have announced that they want to step aside from their positions within the British Royal Family, and try to become financially independent.
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Same-sex couples in Northern Ireland will be able to marry in 2020, six years after the rest of the U.K.
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British voters have delivered a decisive victory to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party, which all but ensures Brexit.
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British citizens vote Thursday in parliamentary elections that will help determine when and how the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.
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It will be the third general election since 2015. The stakes are high, voters are weary and the two main candidates for prime minister are polarizing.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hopes his Conservative Party can break through the opposition Labour Party's historic grip on England's working class. The election will be held on Thursday.
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President Trump called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "two-faced" on Wednesday after a video surfaced seeming to show Trudeau complaining about Trump to other leaders.
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At a Tuesday press conference in London, President Trump and French President Macron went after each other on the role of Turkey in NATO, the fight against ISIS and the nature of the EU.
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London suffered another deadly terror attack Friday. The attacker was a home-grown Islamist terrorist. Normal people, armed with whatever they could find, took down the attacker until police arrived.
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Simon Cheng, a former U.K. Consulate worker, says he was tortured in mainland China in a series of interviews. He says Chinese authorities falsely suspected him of spying for the U.K. in Hong Kong.