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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The centrist is set to become the youngest president in modern French history. Sunday's results mark a big defeat for right-wing Marine Le Pen, who had hoped to ride the populist wave to victory. -
French voters head to the polls on Sunday in the presidential election runoff. They're choosing between two candidates with starkly different views about the future of France.
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Political outsider Emmanuel Macron has come in top place in the first round of the election with around 24 percent of the vote. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen trailed with 22 percent. -
France faces its most important presidential race in more than five decades. But polls show many French voters are undecided or might not vote at all.
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The British are known for understatement, but political observers speak of Brexit in superlatives. They say it could prove transformational for the country – either for good or ill. -
Police descended on the Parliament grounds after reports that a car struck pedestrians on Westminster Bridge. Witnesses say a man went on the attack by Parliament's gates. This is a developing story.
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Wednesday's election may be political populism's next big test. Wilders' right-wing Freedom Party has led in polls — until recently. Two political analysts put his potential impact in context. -
The last day of February is called Pancake Day in the United Kingdom, and it is marked by pancake races. Teams run pan in hand toward the finish line in a tradition going back hundreds of years. -
Most of the infrastructure dates to the end of World War II, and is either a jumble or in decay. The complex is riddled with asbestos. Renovation could force lawmakers to work elsewhere for years. -
As thousands protested outside Britain's Parliament Monday, members debated whether President Trump should have the honor of meeting the queen on a state visit. Rhetorical skills were on full display.
