Pat Duggins
News DirectorPat Duggins is APR’s news director. As a kid, he watched the Apollo manned moon launches along Florida’s space coast. Pat later spent 14 years covering NASA for NPR. After re-organizing the APR newsroom, he and the team were honored with over 150 awards for excellence in journalism. That includes APR being the first radio newsroom to receive RFK Human Rights’ “Seigenthaler Prize for Courage in Journalism.” Pat holds a master’s degree from the University of Alabama and has published two books on NASA. When he’s not at APR, he enjoys cooking with Lucia, and tending his beloved fig tree.
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Ty Simpson completed a school-record seventeen consecutive passes, with three of them going for touchdowns, and number twenty one ranked Alabama rebounded from a season-opening loss -
A judge sided with Alabama Governor Kay Ivey and blocked a policy that prevented school voucher recipients from playing on sports teams this fall. Montgomery Circuit Judge J.R. Gaines issued a temporary restraining order barring the Alabama High School Athletic Association from enforcing a policy that says the voucher recipients are ineligible to play sports during their first year at a new school. -
Back in February, the US State Department asked me to speak to a foreign delegation about APR’s coverage of human trafficking. One member of that group was an investigative reporter from Ukraine. When I was done, we were all smiling and taking pictures and shaking hands, and this journalist came up and pressed a book into my hands. It was poetry written by Ukrainians about the war with Russia. The stories of pain and loss hammered home for me the fact that I don't know firsthand what it's like in Ukraine, but one part time resident of Huntsville, does. -
The on again, off again cease fire and peace talks between Russia and Ukraine appear to be off again. This subject hits home for one, part time, resident of Huntsville. I say part time because Yaryna Zhurba’s family is still living in the city of Zolochiv in Ukraine, near the border with Poland. She visited there as recently as April. Zhurba is working to rebuild her nation. One jigsaw puzzle at a time. We'll explain that one in a minute, but first we discuss the difficulty in making Americans really understand what the Ukrainian people are going through… -
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey asked a court to overturn a decision by a high school athletics association that blocks students on the state's new school voucher program from participating in athletics their first year in a new school. -
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Back in February, the US State Department asked me to speak to a foreign delegation. It was about APR’s coverage of human trafficking. One member of that group was an investigative reporter from Ukraine. When I was done, we were all smiling and taking pictures and shaking hands, and this journalist came up and pressed a book into my hands. It was poetry written by Ukrainians about the war with Russia. The stories of pain and loss hammered home for me the fact that I don't know firsthand what it's like in Ukraine, but one part time resident of Huntsville, does. -
President Donald Trump announced that U.S. Space Command will be located in Alabama, reversing a Biden-era decision to keep it at its temporary headquarters in Colorado. The long-expected decision from Trump caps a four-year tug of war between two states and opposing administrations about where to locate U.S. Space Command -
Alabama hasn't looked the same since coach Nick Saban's retirement. It raises speculation about the future of his replacement, Kalen DeBoer. The eighth-ranked Crimson Tide have dropped three of their last four games following a 31-17 loss at Florida State on Saturday, a game in which the Seminoles bullied Alabama on both sides of the ball. -
President Donald Trump wants to eliminate the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and House Republicans overseeing federal budget negotiations did not include funding for it in their budget proposal. That’s where Alabama is seeing an impact.
