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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A group of students and professors at public universities across Alabama are asking an appeals court to halt a state law that bans diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public schools and prohibits the endorsement of what Republican lawmakers dubbed “divisive concepts” related to race and gender. -
Authorities knocked on doors Monday searching for any video there might be of the Brown University gunman, who could be seen in grainy footage walking away from the weekend attack that killed two students and wounded nine others. Ella Cook of Mountain Brook, Alabama was among the victims. -
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer is gearing up for his first playoff game with the Crimson Tide. Oklahoma will host Friday’s game with the winner facing number one ranked Indiana at the Rose Bowl. The Sooners’ defense is ranked fifth in the nation for rushing and seventh for scoring points -
The Alabama Public Radio spent eleven months investigating three critical anniversaries in the state’s civil rights history in 2025. Our documentary is titled "...a death, a bridge, and a seat on the bus."This year marked sixty years since civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot twice by an Alabama State Trooper on February 18, 1965. His death sparked voting rights marchers to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where police on horseback attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. The incident became known as “bloody Sunday.” Rosa Parks, who sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, is a familiar name. Our series includes her story, beyond refusing to surrender her seat on a municipal bus. We also hear remembrances from two people on the “front lines” of the boycott that made Parks, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior international figures.These events not only impacted public opinion in the U.S. but also in Europe. APR formed a focus group of college students majoring in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Their reaction shows Alabama and the U.S. still has a long way to go. -
An arctic air blast swept south from Canada, spreading into the northern United States. Meanwhile, residents of the Pacific Northwest braced for possible mudslides and levee failures as floodwaters slowly recede. The concern for Alabama and the southeast are brutally cold temperatures tonight and early this week with lows in the mid-teens in some spots. -
Brayden Burries scored 28 points, 20 of those coming during a 14-minute second-half flurry, and No. 1 Arizona roared back from its first halftime deficit of the season to beat No. 12 Alabama 96-75. -
Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Alabama, kicked off his campaign for governor Friday, saying voters deserve a choice and a leader who will put aside divisions to address the state's pressing needs. -
Huntsville, Dothan, Birmingham, and Garden City in Cullman County spread the word early about the brutal overnight cold. The low temperatures along the Tennessee Valley, over the weekend and into Monday morning, are forecast to be as low as the mid teens. Even the Wiregrass region toward the south was predicted to be in the mid-twenties. -
The Alabama Public Radio spent eleven months investigating three critical anniversaries in the state’s civil rights history in 2025. Our documentary is titled "...a death, a bridge, and a seat on the bus."This year marked sixty years since civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot twice by an Alabama State Trooper on February 18, 1965. His death sparked voting rights marchers to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where police on horseback attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. The incident became known as “bloody Sunday.” Rosa Parks, who sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, is a familiar name. Our series includes her story, beyond refusing to surrender her seat on a municipal bus. We also hear remembrances from two people on the “front lines” of the boycott that made Parks, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior international figures.These events not only impacted public opinion in the U.S. but also in Europe. APR formed a focus group of college students majoring in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Their reaction shows Alabama and the U.S. still has a long way to go.
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The Senate on Thursday rejected legislation to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, essentially guaranteeing that millions of Americans will see a steep rise in costs at the beginning of the year. The Kaiser Family Foundation says close to a half million Alabamians depend on the ACA for health coverage.
