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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Forecasters say Hurricane Eta is rapidly gaining strength as it churns towards the coast of Nicaragua. The storm is expected to bring life-threatening storm surge, flash flooding and landslides.
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A spike in cases recently led El Paso's county judge to impose a shelter-in-place order closing many nonessential businesses. The Texas attorney general has sued to block that order.
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The judge said he was "left with no choice" but to impose a countywide curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. He noted El Paso County has seen a 160% increase in its positivity rate in the last three weeks.
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Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was captured on cellphone video kneeling on Floyd's neck for several minutes, still faces a higher charge of second-degree murder.
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The public health order does not apply to varsity sports such as the football team, which plays University of Minnesota on the road Saturday. The two-week order was prompted by surging virus cases.
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As many as 300 Black residents were killed during the Tulsa race massacre. Researchers conducted another excavation in July but found no evidence of human remains at the first site.
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Texas state officials announced the arrest of Wolfe City police officer Shaun Lucas for shooting and killing Jonathan Price. Officials said the officer's actions "were not objectionably reasonable."
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There's only been one other year — 2005 — that Greek names have been needed. The National Hurricane Center on Friday announced storms called Alpha and Beta have formed in the Atlantic.
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Tamika Palmer says she wants the officers who killed her daughter to be charged. "Even in the very beginning of this year, she kept saying 2020 was her year," she said. "And she was absolutely right."
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Jeffery Ryans, the man who sustained dog bites, "certainly wasn't posing an imminent threat of violence or harm to anyone," according to the district attorney.