
Carrie Kahn
Carrie Kahn is NPR's International Correspondent based in Mexico City, Mexico. She covers Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Kahn's reports can be heard on NPR's award-winning news programs including All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, and on NPR.org.
Since arriving in Mexico in the summer of 2012, on the eve of the election of President Enrique Peña Nieto and the PRI party's return to power, Kahn has reported on everything from the rise in violence throughout the country to its powerful drug cartels, and the arrest, escape and re-arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. She has reported on the Trump Administration's immigration policies and their effects on Mexico and Central America, the increasing international migration through the hemisphere, gang violence in Central America and the historic détente between the Obama Administration and Cuba.
Kahn has brought moving, personal stories to the forefront of NPR's coverage of the region. Some of her most notable coverage includes the stories of a Mexican man who was kidnapped and forced to dig a cross-border tunnel from Tijuana into San Diego, a Guatemalan family torn apart by President Trump's family separation policies and a Haitian family's situation immediately following the 2010 earthquake and on the ten-year anniversary of the disaster.
Prior to her post in Mexico, Kahn was a National Correspondent based in Los Angeles. She was the first NPR reporter into Haiti after the devastating earthquake in early 2010, and returned to the country on numerous occasions to continue NPR's coverage of the Caribbean nation. In 2005, Kahn was part of NPR's extensive coverage of Hurricane Katrina, where she investigated claims of euthanasia in New Orleans hospitals, recovery efforts along the Gulf Coast and resettlement of city residents in Houston, Texas.
She has covered hurricanes, the controversial life and death of pop icon Michael Jackson and firestorms and mudslides in Southern California,. In 2008, as China hosted the world's athletes, Kahn recorded a remembrance of her Jewish grandfather and his decision to compete in Hitler's 1936 Olympics.
Before coming to NPR in 2003, Kahn worked for NPR Member stations KQED and KPBS in California, with reporting focused on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border.
Kahn is a recipient of the 2020 Cabot Prize from Columbia Journalism School, which honors distinguished reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2010 she was awarded the Headliner Award for Best in Show and Best Investigative Story for her work covering U.S. informants involved in the Mexican Drug War. Kahn's work has been cited for fairness and balance by the Poynter Institute of Media Studies. She was awarded and completed a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism at Johns Hopkins University.
Kahn received a bachelor's degree in biology from UC Santa Cruz. For several years, she was a human genetics researcher in California and in Costa Rica. She has traveled extensively throughout Mexico, Central America, Europe and the Middle East, where she worked on an English/Hebrew/Arabic magazine.
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In the southern state of Oaxaca, volunteers in one town take turns driving a large speaker around. They play health tips, songs and even jokes to the town's elderly and others under COVID-19 lockdown.
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The official numbers are still relatively low, but Mexico City hospitals and cemeteries are overwhelmed with apparent victims of the coronavirus.
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Immigrants in the U.S. sent an estimated $150 billion to their home countries in 2019 — half to Latin America and the Caribbean. The World Bank is predicting a sharp decline in remittances this year.
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Not only public celebrations of Mexico's Cinco de Mayo have been canceled, but families have to mark the holiday without beer — it is not on the list of essential products during the pandemic.
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At least 100 Guatemalans infected with the coronavirus were deported from the U.S. from mid-March through mid-April. And advocates say Mexico has not been testing Central American deportees.
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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has no plans to rescue the country's businesses beyond small loans for small firms. Hurt by the COVID-19 shutdown, the country's in a deepening recession.
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Hijo del Soberano was already designing lucha libre costumes on the side. Since his wrestling venue shut amid Mexico's lockdown, he's turned to making masks. "I just altered my skills a bit," he says.
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Will the masks of El Santo and the Blue Demon protect people from the coronavirus? Mexico's professional wrestlers hope so. They are now sewing face masks for the public.
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President Nayib Bukele authorized officers to use lethal force against gang members who allegedly were responsible for dozens of murders while police were focused on the COVID-19 lockdown.
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U.S. officials and firms are pressuring Mexico to open up factories vital to North American supply chains, despite a number of worker deaths from COVID-19.