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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Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin wants to see high-speed rail between his city and Atlanta.He proposed the idea at a recent speech at the Birmingham Kiwanis Club, noting it could cut rail travel time between the two cities from four and a half hours to less than one hour. -
State lawmakers are confronting the possibility of new major costs tied to SNAP benefits.This comes as new federal requirements under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are shifting administrative costs to states.The move forces Alabama to cover roughly 39-million-dollars.Beginning next year, the state could also face up to 200-million-dollars in addition expenses tied to payment error rates. -
At least 45 people in nearly two dozen states have been sickened with salmonella food poisoning tied to the Super Greens brand of diet supplement powder, federal health officials said Wednesday. -
Alabama lawmakers are looking a bill that would ban vaping in indoor public spaces. The new Alabama bill is called SB-9. It would prevent the use of vapes and e-cigarettes in public spaces. The legislation expands on the Alabama Indoor Clean Air Act introduced in 2003. -
Claudette Colvin, whose 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus helped spark the modern civil rights movement, has died. She was 86. Her death was announced Tuesday by the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation. Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization confirmed she died of natural causes in Texas. The APR news team spent last year going "behind the scenes" of this pivotal time in the civil rights movement. -
Governor Kay Ivey gave her final State of the State address last night. The Republican lawmaker’s time in office reportedly includes over sixty nine billion dollars in Capital investment, close to one hundred thousand new jobs, and the lowest unemployment rate in state history -
Some construction work on the University of Alabama has led to a real life lesson in archeology. UA students will spend the coming weeks analyzing artifacts they dug up at a site dating back to the Civil War. -
NASA began demolishing part of its own history over the weekend. Crews at the Marshall Space Flight Center are removing the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility and the Dynamic Test Facilities. These structures prepared the engines for the space shuttle and the Apollo moon missions. Now, Artemis-2 awaits. -
Jordan Pope scored 28 points, Dailyn Swain added 18 and a huge block in the waning seconds, and Texas stunned No. 13 Alabama 92-88 on Saturday night for its first Southeastern Conference win of the season. -
Alabama’s national championships in 2010 and 2015 are turning into the proving grounds for the coaches who will play for this month’s national championship. Indiana pasted Oregon last night in the Peach Bowl 56 to 22. That sets up a showdown in Miami between the Hoosiers and the Hurricanes between former assistants of retired Alabama coach Nick Saban.
