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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Charity groups and municipal agencies in Jefferson County and Decatur are announcing that they will have warming stations open ahead of Monday night’s forecast with lows in the lower twenties along the Tennessee Valley. Below freezing overnight conditions are expected to continue until Thursday. -
The shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Cook, the federal budget shutdown, and the selection of American Robert Prevost as Pope Leo the fourteenth back in May were among the Associated Press’ biggest stories of 2025, in Alabama and around the nation. -
Graphite mines in the United States largely closed down seven decades ago. Mining the ubiquitous mineral found in everything from nuclear reactors to pencils seemed to make little sense when it could be imported inexpensively from other nations, especially China.That view is changing now. And, Alabama is among the states taking part. -
Last weekend's first round of the College Football Playoff averaged 9.9 million viewers on ABC, ESPN, TNT, TBS and truTV, according to ESPN and Nielson. That is a 7% drop from last year. Alabama's win over Oklahoma was the exception. -
Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti believes his four seasons working with Nick Saban helped him learn how to prioritize organization, avoid complacency and maintain high standards. In fact, Cignetti thinks it's a primary reason he's preparing for his first Rose Bowl as a head coach. Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer feels similarly about the one season he spent at Indiana. -
Fans of the fictional superhero Superman got some welcome news last weekend. Director James Gunn announced that, in the sequel to this year’s motion picture featuring the “man of steel,” a familiar but underused silver screen villain would be included. The bad guy in the Superman sequel “Man of Tomorrow” would be the criminal android Brainiac. A University of Alabama graduate, and two-time Prime Time Emmy award winner, could say “been there, done that.” -
Alabama and Indiana couldn't have more different football histories. This Indiana team couldn't be more unlike the program's painful past. Alabama will play No. 1 Indiana in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 in a national quarterfinal matchup between a blue blood and the ultimate upstart. Alabama is one of the most successful programs in college football, with six national titles this century. Indiana has never won a New Year’s Six game and has no bowl victories since 1991. -
A Brown University sophomore who was killed in an attack at the Rhode Island university was remembered Monday as “smart, confident, curious, kind, principled, brave,” at a funeral in her home state of Alabama. Hundreds gathered at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in downtown Birmingham to remember Ella Cook, 19. -
Investigators in the shooting that killed an Alabama college student are talking about the high tech tip that blew the case wide open. Gunman Claudio Neves Valente is believed to be the shooter at Brown University who left sophomore Ella Cook of Mountain Brook dead. -
The University of Alabama is the first team to advance in this year’s college football playoffs. Oklahoma was on its way to be the first team to beat Alabama twice in one season since Grover Cleveland was President. The Sooners led seventeen to nothing in the second quarter. That when the Tide came to life.
