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 U.S. Coast Guard says it has rescued the last crew member trapped aboard the overturned car carrier Golden Ray, which became disabled in Georgia's St. Simons Sound early Sunday. -
The Coast Guard says 20 of the 24 people aboard the Golden Ray have been accounted for. Officials say a rescue mission will resume once the vessel is stable.
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The secretary of state was on the Sunday news talk shows a day after Trump tweeted that a secret meeting to be held at Camp David between leaders of Afghanistan at the Taliban was canceled. -
The House of Lords gave final approval to a bill blocking Britain from leaving the European Union without first securing an exit agreement. -
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. -
The prime minister failed to garner the two-thirds of members necessary for an election he wanted to hold on Oct. 15. -
The Bahamas health minister announced the higher death toll late Wednesday, as Dorian continued shadowing the U.S. East Coast. -
Dorian is roughly 105 miles off the shore of Fort Pierce, Fla. It has maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per hour. Officials in the Bahamas say there are at least seven storm-related deaths. -
The prime minister said five people were killed on Abaco Island. The Category 3 storm sustains 125 mph winds with "life-threatening" storm surge levels expected on Florida's east coast by late Monday. -
Harney County Sheriff's Office confirmed Jessi Combs was trying to break her record of 398 mph when she died. Her North American Eagle Supersonic Speed Challenger crashed in Oregon's Alvord Desert. -
In a statement, the senator said his Parkinson's disease was progressing. "I will not be able to do the job over the long term in the manner the citizens of Georgia deserve," Isakson said. -
A dozen patients' deaths were ruled homicides. They died after Irma knocked out power to the air conditioning system at the South Florida center in 2017.
