
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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The new three-member investor group which purchased the team includes former Dream player Renee Montgomery, making her the first retired player to have become both a co-owner and a WNBA executive.
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The parliamentarian is often called the referee of arcane Senate rules. MacDonough has been thrust into the spotlight for ruling against adding a minimum wage hike to the coronavirus relief package.
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John Geddert, 63, who coached the women's gold medal team in the 2012 Summer Olympics, was charged Thursday with two dozen criminal counts. An official says he took his life later the same day.
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The Republican from Nebraska speaks with NPR's Steve Inskeep about the impeachment of former President Donald Trump, the future of the GOP and working with the Biden administration.
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Trump's defense used roughly three of their 16 hours to push back on House impeachment managers' case that Trump should be convicted for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
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Impeachment managers said Trump's lack of contrition indicates he remains a threat to democracy and must be disqualified from holding office.
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She touched on her unlikely journey from projects in Brooklyn, N.Y., to St. Croix, the U.S. Virgin Islands, "and now as an adult woman representing an island territory speaking to the U.S. Senate."
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Rep. Jamie Raskin called former President Donald Trump the "inciter in chief" and rejected the defense's claim that his calls to overturn the election constitute free speech under the First Amendment.
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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.
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"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.