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 House intelligence chairman told NPR that President Trump should also be charged with obstruction: "It is difficult to imagine a more ironclad case of obstruction of Congress than this one."
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Democrats will soon control Virginia for the first time since 1993. Gov. Ralph Northam tells NPR: "With a Democratic Senate and House, I believe we can move forward with common sense gun legislation."
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A string of Jehovah's Witnesses have been convicted since Russia's Supreme Court banned the Christian denomination as an "extremist organization" in 2017.
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Nestlé USA listed 26 products that may contain "food-grade rubber pieces." They include "ready-to-bake refrigerated Nestlé Toll House Cookie Dough bars, tubs and tube-shaped 'chubs.' "
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Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, was widely admired as a champion for his hometown of Baltimore. Residents of Baltimore react to the news of his death.
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Michael McKinley says he quit his job and then testified to House investigators because of the use of ambassadors "to advance domestic political objectives."
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The New Jersey senator sat down for NPR's interview series Off Script and was asked by an undecided voter why some residents in his hometown of Newark don't see him as "the voice" of black youth.
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Carroll is remembered as the first black actress to depict a non-stereotypical character on television on NBC's Julia, which debuted in 1968. She was also a Tony winner and Oscar nominee.
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The Trump administration says only the federal government can set tailpipe emissions standards. It's the latest move in a months long standoff over efforts to weaken a key Obama-era climate rule.
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Some areas of the Bahamas are still only reachable by helicopter or small watercraft, like jet skis. The official death toll is 30, but it's expected to rise as search efforts continue.