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, and terror attacks to the renewed push for , political tensions in and Megxit. Langfitt has contributed to NPR podcasts, including , , and . 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 . He expanded his reporting into a book, (Public Affairs, Hachette).
While in China, Langfitt also reported on the government's infamous � secret detention centers � as well as his own travails taking , which he failed three times.
Before moving to Shanghai, Langfitt was NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi. He reported from , covered the in Somalia, and interviewed imprisoned , 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 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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Growing numbers of Chinese have hired American surrogates, allowing a couple to get around China's ban on the procedure and its birth limits. It also guarantees a coveted U.S. passport.
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The smartphone apps let people summon cabs and negotiate prices directly with drivers. Officials say they benefit the young and the rich. But they're also a free-market challenge to state control.
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Host David Greene gets the latest from NPR's Frank Langfitt about the potential debris from Malaysia Flight 370 spotted by satellite imagery in the southern Indian Ocean.
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The search for the Malaysian Airlines plane that went missing more than a week ago has expanded as officials still have little idea what happened to it.
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As dozens of ships and aircraft search a widening swath of the Pacific Ocean, few details are known about the fate of a Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared Friday.
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The government is accusing Muslim separatists, known as Uighurs, for the knife attacks that killed 29 at a train station. But the government hasn't provided hard evidence so far.
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Over the next two years, Hong Kong plans to burn 28 tons of ivory. Many conservationists hope destroying stockpiles will dampen demand in a country where many wealthy Chinese are buying ivory statues and carvings as investments. Others worry that it may have no effect at all.
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Chinese immigrants adapted their cuisine over time to appeal to American palates. So Americans looking for familiar dishes in China won't find many. But a new restaurant in Shanghai hopes to change that � offering expats a taste of home and introducing locals to foreign treats like fortune cookies.
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China officially shut down its re-education through labor camp system late last year. But critics say the change was mostly cosmetic and that the government still has a wide range of means to incarcerate critics without legal process.
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China is greeting the Year of the Horse with a little less fanfare, noise and smoke, after severe air pollution choked scores of cities last year. Firework sales are down, and more people say they're forgoing the ancient and beloved good-luck tradition for the sake of their lungs and health.