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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Rescue and recovery efforts continue following deadly flash flooding along the Guadalupe River in Texas. A Mountain Brook girl is confirmed among the fatalities. Now, two reports indicate that a Mobile couple may missing. The Facebook page of the Corpus Christi Chronica and Mobile’s Lagniappe Newspaper reports that Eddie Santana-Negron and his wife Ileana Santana had traveled to Texas to spend the holiday with their eldest son. -
Birmingham radio icon Shelly “The Playboy” Stewart is among the inductees for the national Radio Hall of Fame. The Alabama broadcaster’s contributions to the civil rights movement in the 1960’s were chronicled by Alabama Public Radio in its international award winning documentary “Civil Rights Radio.” Stewart is credited with using his radio program to signal the start of the so called “children’s march” where teenagers marched to protest unfair employment treatment of their parents. -
As the floodwaters began to recede from Camp Mystic, a torrent of grief remained as the identities of some of the campers who died in the flash floods began to emerge on Saturday. Texas officials are reportedly under scrutiny for the heavy casualty toll, as well as the Trump White House, over key staff positions at the National Weather Service that remain unfilled. -
Alabama has scheduled a September execution by nitrogen gas for a man convicted of killing a convenience store clerk during a 1997 robbery. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey set a Sept. 25 execution date for Geoffrey Todd West. West, now 49, is on the death row for killing Margaret Parrish Berry. Prosecutors said West drove to Harold's Chevron in Attalla with plans to rob the store where he once worked. Berry, 33, was shot in the back of the head while lying on the floor behind the counter, prosecutors said. -
The Alabama Triple-A is expecting a busy travel day today. More than seventy million Americans are expected to hit the road for the Fourth of July holiday. That’s considered an all-time high. Gas prices may be working in favor of families looking for a holiday getaway this year. -
Last year, Americans spent an estimated total of $13.3 billion on food and beverages for the Fourth of July. As we come together to celebrate Independence Day, food and drinks will be a highlight for many. Several of these dishes echo the same one that the Founding Fathers and American colonists ate in 1776, and others are completely different. One similarity appears to be the barbecue. -
The Trump administration is withholding more than $6 billion in federal grants for after-school and summer programs, English language instruction, adult literacy and more. Officials in Gadsden City Schools say they'll have no choice but to shutter their after-school program serving more than a thousand low-income students if federal funds aren't released. -
A federal appeals court ruled Alabama prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of a man sentenced to death in 1990, saying Blacks were rejected from the jury during his trial. The Monday ruling from a three judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals means Michael Sockwell, 62, is eligible for a retrial. -
Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage on the narrowest of votes, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session. Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 tie to push it over the top. The outcome capped an unusually tense weekend of work at the Capitol, the president's signature legislative priority teetering on the edge of approval, or collapse. -
The measure taking effect today prohibits the sale of smokable marijuana products to minors. It also limits how consumable cannabis can be sold in stores or online. Vendors of Tetrahydrocannabinol will now have to register with Alabama’s Beverage Control Board and pay excise taxes. This chemical is also known as THC. It’s what makes people high when they use marijuana.
