Lauren Frayer
Lauren Frayer covers India for NPR News. In June 2018, she opened a new NPR bureau in India's biggest city, its financial center, and the heart of Bollywood鈥擬umbai.
Before moving to India, Lauren was a regular freelance contributor to NPR for seven years, based in Madrid. During that time, she substituted for NPR bureau chiefs in Seoul, London, Istanbul, Islamabad, and Jerusalem. She also served as a guest host of Weekend Edition Sunday.
In Europe, Lauren chronicled the economic crisis in Spain & Portugal, where youth unemployment spiked above 50%. She profiled a , and a 90-year-old survivor of the Spanish Civil War, from a 1930s-era mass grave. From Paris, Lauren reported live on NPR's Morning Edition, as French police moved in on the Charlie Hebdo terror suspects. In the fall of 2015, Lauren spent nearly two months covering the flow of migrants & refugees across Hungary & the Balkans 鈥� and among them. She interviewed a , and managed to get a rare interview with the 鈥� by sticking her microphone between his bodyguards in the Hague.
Farther afield, she introduced NPR listeners to a , a , and in South Korea's presidential election.
Lauren has also contributed to The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the BBC.
Her international career began in the Middle East, where she was an editor on the Associated Press' Middle East regional desk in Cairo, and covered the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Syria and southern Lebanon. In 2007, she spent a year embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, an assignment for which the AP nominated her and her colleagues for a Pulitzer Prize.
On a break from journalism, Lauren drove a Land Rover across Africa for a year, from Cairo to Cape Town, sleeping in a tent on the car's roof. She once made the front page of a Pakistani newspaper, simply for being a woman commuting to work in Islamabad on a bicycle.
Born and raised in a suburb of New York City, Lauren holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from The College of William & Mary in Virginia. She speaks Spanish, Portuguese, rusty French and Arabic, and is now learning Hindi.
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The king of Spain says he is stepping down, ceding the throne to the crown prince. King Juan Carlos has been in ill health, and his popularity has dropped recently after a series of scandals.
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The Rock of Gibraltar is on a peninsula attached to Spain. It's been sovereign British territory for 301 years, but many Spaniards still say it belongs to them. -
Soccer, Spain's national pastime, has been tainted by racism. After two recent ugly incidents, debate is raging over how to punish racist fans, and if the teams they love should be held responsible.
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Once status symbols for newly minted millionaires, horses are now the voiceless victims in Spain's economic crash. Two sisters are adopting horses that might otherwise end up in the food supply.
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The mayor of a small Spanish town cleaned out supermarkets to give food to the hungry and draw attention to their economic plight. But now he's facing a potential jail stint. -
Parliament is likely to approve a near-total ban on abortion, which has been legal in Spain since 1985. Some proponents argue change has come too quickly, breaking down traditional Spanish values. -
Spain's royal family, which used to face little criticism, is increasingly becoming a target over its spending habits during Spain's economic woes. The king's youngest daughter, Infanta Cristina, and her husband have had their mansion confiscated and are now facing allegations of fraud. -
Spain's banking system is officially marking the end of its reliance on bailout loans from Europe 鈥� only the second eurozone country to do so. Although the banking system may be on surer footing, the overall economy 鈥� with youth unemployment pushing 60 percent 鈥� still has a long way to go. -
Two-dozen endangered horses were brought to an unfenced area of western Spain that's believed to have once been native territory for them.
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A new noise reduction law in Spain's capital also prohibits amplifiers and requires entertainers to move along every two hours. The city's famed buskers who pass an audition get a free, one-year renewable permit to perform outdoors; those who don't pass muster could face fines for disturbing the peace.
