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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Col. Roman Kostenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, has built a reconnaissance and sabotage team to target Russian forces. His ultimate goal: free his family village from Russian control.
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Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Finland is on the brink of joining NATO. Finns have their own memories of Russian aggression.
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Russia celebrates Victory Day to mark the end of World War II. The day is being marked completely different in Ukraine. A lot of people are sheltering indoors after Russia invaded its neighbor.
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Attacks on Ukraine's capital had mostly stopped until Thursday's missile strike. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was in Kyiv trying to negotiate humanitarian corridors for civilians.
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Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in part, to prevent it from joining NATO. The war has so frightened Finland and Sweden that they are looking to join the military alliance.
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When the war in Ukraine began, many in neighboring Moldova feared Russian troops would attack there next. Eastern Europe's most vulnerable front-line state wants to protect itself from Russia.
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Russia's war on Ukraine has shaken Europe's political landscape. And perhaps the most vulnerable front-line country is the tiny, former Soviet republic Moldova.
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As President Biden heads to Brussels for a NATO summit this week and the Russians continue to bomb Ukrainian cities, pressure is building on the military alliance to do more.
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Shelling can be heard across parts of Ukraine as Russia has begun its military action. In Odesa, Ukrainian's are packing up and leaving to seek shelter elsewhere.
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Russian military exercises are extended even as diplomatic efforts continue. The White House says President Biden is willing to meet with Putin "in principle" as long as Russia doesn't invade Ukraine.