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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Known for its sparkling turquoise waters and white sand, Spain's Mediterranean beaches are developing a new reputation 鈥� for a growing number of jellyfish. Scientists blame overfishing and, possibly, climate change for the spike in stinging invertebrates. -
A Spaniard born to privilege, Alejandro Cao de Benos is now a staunch defender of North Korea, where he lives half the year and works to promote its ideology. -
Anti-austerity protesters throw Molotov cocktails in Greece and blockade parliament in Spain. The Portuguese are a bit more mellow. Ana Maria Pinto shot to fame for drowning out the country's president in song. She's now a regular at street protests, leading choirs of ordinary people venting their anger.
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Thanks to a long history of migration, many Portuguese speak many different languages, and that's a big draw for European call centers. It's one of the few bright spots in Portugal's bleak economy. -
More than 1,000 people were killed in the factory collapse in Bangladesh in April. Spanish companies were among those whose clothes were made at the facility. But there's a clash between the allure of low-cost fast fashion and consumer awareness of working conditions. A Spanish artist is doing her bit: She's drawing attention to workers' plight. -
A new website offers a different perspective on the ruins of Spain's construction bubble. Called Naci贸n Rotonda, or "Roundabout Nation," the site displays before-and-after aerial photos of Spanish towns, documenting how quickly half-built condos and urban sprawl have replaced open land in recent years.
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King Juan Carlos is suffering his lowest ever approval ratings. Some Spaniards roll their eyes at his high-flying lifestyle and now question the future of the monarchy.
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On Spain's Atlantic coast, the city of Santander has installed 12,000 sensors that measure everything from when streetlights need to be dimmed to when trash dumpsters are full 鈥� saving millions for cash-strapped public coffers. It's becoming a model for cities worldwide. -
Enzo Vizca铆no looks like a busker, strumming away on his ukulele as he roams a Barcelona metro car. But he sings of his bachelor's degree and postgrad diploma. "I'm the King of Microsoft," he croons. He's not looking for a handout. He just wants a job. And his creative approach may be paying off.
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Hunting wild boar while riding horses and using only spears is a practice that dates back at least 2,000 years 鈥� and now it's making a comeback in Spain.
