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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China is holding a memorial service for its late leader Jiang Zemin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. We reflect on his legacy and what the controversial leader means for today's China.
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As the war has changed over the months, Ukrainian soldiers have had to adapt quickly and learn new skills — even if it means figuring out how to fire anti-tank missiles by watching YouTube videos.
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The former treasury chief was runner-up to Liz Truss in the contest to replace scandal-plagued Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and prime minister. Truss quit after a turbulent 45-day term.
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The announcement Thursday comes just six weeks after Truss succeeded Boris Johnson, and amid weeks of criticism from opponents and members of her own party.
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The British government is in chaos. After some missteps, Prime Minister Liz Truss is clinging to her job — just six weeks after she succeeded Boris Johnson in the top job.
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The U.K. finance minister has been fired by Prime Minister Liz Truss, following financial and political turmoil over the announcement of new economic policies and massive tax cuts.
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The United Kingdom has provided more military instruction than nearly any other country — putting nearly 6,000 Ukrainian civilians through basic training in recent months.
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Nearly 2,000 people crowded Westminster Abbey for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. A long procession through London carried her coffin to a final resting place at Windsor Castle, 25 miles away.
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Attention in Britain will soon turn to King Charles III, as he tries to guide the monarchy into a new, uncertain era.
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At age 96, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday at her Balmoral estate in Scotland, after 70 years on the throne. (Story first aired on All Things Considered on Sept. 8, 2022.)