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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Congressional Democrats seek to remove the "punishment" clause from the 13th Amendment which allows members of prison populations to be used as cheap and free labor. -
Kenosha County Circuit Court Commissioner Loren Keating said he found enough probable cause for the case to go forward. -
Paul Petersen was sentenced for his role in an international smuggling scheme trafficking pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to the U.S. for the purpose of having their babies adopted. -
The team is led by Janet Yellen, a former Fed chair who Biden nominated for treasury secretary. Other nominees, like OMB nominee Neera Tanden, may face stiff Republican opposition. -
"We do elections well here in Arizona. The system is strong and that's why I have bragged on it so much," said GOP Gov. Doug Ducey. Meanwhile, the state GOP tweeted, "DO NOT CERTIFY A FALSE ELECTION!" -
Among the names: Cecilia Rouse is nominated as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. If confirmed, she'll be the first Black woman, and just the fourth woman overall, to lead the CEA. -
The matchup between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Rams made history because for the first time, the league assembled an all-Black officiating crew. The Rams beat the Bucs 27-24 in Tampa. -
Atlas is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative-leaning think tank based at the university. He's currently on leave while he works as an adviser to President Trump. -
State Rep. Attica Scott was charged with first-degree rioting, which is a felony. She was also facing lesser charges of failure to the disperse and unlawful assembly. She called charges "bogus." -
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a "three-week pause" to curb coronavirus cases in the state. A Trump administration official encouraged residents to "rise up" against the restrictions.
