Brakkton Booker
Brakkton Booker is a National Desk reporter based in Washington, DC.
He covers a wide range of topics including issues related to federal social safety net programs and news around the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
His reporting takes him across the country covering natural disasters, like hurricanes and flooding, as well as tracking trends in regional politics and in state governments, particularly on issues of race.
Following the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Booker's reporting broadened to include a focus on young activists pushing for changes to federal and state gun laws, including the March For Our Lives rally and national school walkouts.
Prior to joining NPR's national desk, Booker spent five years as a producer/reporter for NPR's political unit. He spent most to the 2016 presidential campaign cycle covering the contest for the GOP nomination and was the lead producer from the Trump campaign headquarters on election night. Booker served in a similar capacity from the Louisville campaign headquarters of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2014. During the 2012 presidential campaign, he produced pieces and filed dispatches from the Republican and Democratic National conventions, as well as from President Obama's reelection site in Chicago.
In the summer of 2014, Booker took a break from politics to report on the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.
Booker started his career as a show producer working on nearly all of NPR's magazine programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and former news and talk show Tell Me More, where he produced the program's signature Barbershop segment.
He earned a bachelor's degree from Howard University and was a 2015 Kiplinger Fellow. When he's not on the road, Booker enjoys discovering new brands of whiskey and working on his golf game.
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Trump's current legal team came together a little more than a week ago. It happened after the former president and his previous defense team mutually agreed to part ways late last month. -
La'Ron Singletary was fired from the Rochester Police Department in September. Prude, a Black man with a history of mental illness, died of asphyxiation after an encounter with officers in March.
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"Her understanding is that the officer basically told her 'I can't do that. I can't call anyone else,' " family attorney Lorenzo Napolitano told NPR Thursday. -
"We will work with everyone involved to facilitate testing as quickly as possible. There will be no matches at Melbourne Park on Thursday," Australian Open officials said in a statement. -
President Biden joined Sicknick's family and colleagues from the Capitol Police Tuesday night. Sicknick was fatally injured while fending off a mob during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol complex. -
The cremated remains arrived with ceremony in a motorcade with members of Sicknick's family and were carried by colleagues into the Capitol. His urn rests on a pedestal next to a U.S. flag. -
Demonstrators gathered near a Rochester, N.Y., police precinct — not far from where a 9-year-old girl was pepper-sprayed last week. An officer is suspended, two others are on administrative leave. -
The incident renews scrutiny of the city and its police department following the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died of asphyxiation after an encounter with police in March. -
Linda Thomas-Greenfield was grilled by members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about a speech she gave at a Chinese-backed institution on the campus of Savannah State University in 2019. -
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency announced a modified version of the 737 Max will be allowed to fly once again. The Max jetliner was grounded worldwide after two deadly crashes.
