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 political battles over just how the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. Langfitt also frequently appears on the BBC, where he tries to explain American politics, which is not easy.
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 has expanded his reporting into a book, The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China (Public Affairs, Hachette), which is out in June 2019.
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 reform movement in Bahrain.
Prior to Africa, Langfitt was NPR's labor correspondent based in Washington, DC. He covered the 2008 financial crisis, the bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler, and coal mine disasters in West Virginia.
In 2008, Langfitt also 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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A former diplomat at the U.S. embassy says Ambassador Robert Wood "Woody" Johnson IV told him about the request. "I advised him that doing so would violate federal ethics rules," he tells NPR. -
The UK government has decided that British telecom companies can no longer buy equipment from Huawei, the controversial Chinese telecom giant, for development of 5G beginning next year.
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The package, announced Sunday, includes grants and loans that theaters, museums, live music venues and others can use to pay salaries and maintenance costs as they try to survive during the pandemic.
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The British government has announced it would provide a major monetary lifeline to theaters, arts and music venues, independent cinemas, and heritage sites hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The widespread protests sparked by George Floyd's killing are reverberating in Europe, leading to the removal of two statues in the United Kingdom and one in Belgium tied to racist, colonial legacies.
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In Bristol, England, protesters demonstrating against racism and police brutality pulled down the statue of Edward Colston, a prominent 17th century slave trader and dumped it in the harbor.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised his top aide who is accused of violating quarantine rules by leaving London and driving to northern England while he was infected with COVID-19.
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Oxford research has found conspiracy theories about the virus gaining ground.
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Political analysts say China's growing assertiveness and its recent coronavirus disinformation campaign have soured relations and encouraged the British government to reconsider its China policy.
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Britain now has the second-worst death rate for COVID-19 in the world. Some critics blame Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his late response and policy missteps.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has dropped the message to stay at home in England and outlined a road map for exiting the lockdown. But leaders in the rest of the U.K. disagree with him.
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"Today, 75 years later, we are forced to commemorate alone, but we are not alone!" Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier says, celebrating international unity in the post-war era.
