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 Tokyo Organizing Committee are urging spectators to only clap, not cheer, when the Olympic torchbearers make their way through Japan starting March 25.
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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.
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Cuomo says the patient is recovering. The governor also pledged not to receive the vaccine until Black, Hispanic and poor people do.
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The NBA postponed the Wednesday game after three Rockets players had positive or inconclusive coronavirus tests and four others were in quarantine. It left the team without enough players to play.
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"We cannot take chances with anyone that travels, particularly folks who travel in from the U.K.," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press briefing Wednesday.
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Thirty-six people stationed at the General Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme Antarctic base had tested positive for the virus, Chilean officials said this week.
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"Scientifically, it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine also can deal with the new virus variant," BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin said Tuesday.
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Several European nations, including Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany and Italy, announced travel restrictions from the U.K., where officials say a new variant of the coronavirus is spreading.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state has 60 refrigerated units available if needed. He also said that 5,000 body bags were distributed to some of the hardest-hit counties. -
Dr. Fauci said once the vaccine becomes widely available, if by "April, May, June, July, we get as many people vaccinated as possible, we could really turn this thing around" by the end of 2021.
