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 documentary shot with footage smuggled out of Alabama prisons may be in contention for an Academy Award. The nominees for this year’s Oscars will announced later this week. “The Alabama Solution” was shortlisted for “Documentary Feature Film” category. -
Multiple published reports say a former Alabama State men's basketball player has been indicted in connection with an FBI gambling probe. It's alleged that Shawn Fulcher was involved in the rigging of games between February and March 2024. Fulcher was a member of the Buffalo Bulls during the 2023-2024 season, and later played for the Alabama State Hornets. -
The nation honors Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior today. APR listeners heard from the Reverend Jesse Jackson about his days working for the civil rights leader. The APR news team’s international award-winning documentary “The King of Alabama” focused on MLK’s work in the state. -
NASA's giant Artemis Two rocket is now on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. The 322-foot rocket was rolled out to Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, with an Orion capsule that will send three American astronauts and one Canadian astronaut on a mission around the moon. The giant moon rocket is known as the “Space Launch System,” or SLS. The new booster was designed, tested, and managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville -
Suzanna's Kitchen is recalling over 13-thousand pounds of ready-to-eat grilled chicken breast fillet products over listeria concerns.The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection service announced the recall on Friday. The items were shipped to distribution centers for food service sales in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio. -
Preliminary numbers are showing a drop in Obamacare enrollment. The decline of roughly 800-thousand people is an early indication that allowing the enhanced premium tax subsidies to expire caused people to defer signing up for health insurance. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that 130,000 Alabamians will be among the Americans who will lose their Affordable Care Act coverage. -
Tuscaloosa’s Walt Maddox claims his city is being cheated. The Democratic mayor of Tuscaloosa said his city had over fifteen million dollars of sales taxes that were generated locally that were redistributed elsewhere. -
The Claudette Colvin Foundation announced that a viewing for the civil rights icon will be held on January 23rd at the Bushelon Funeral Home at 1 p.m. APR news reported this week on Colvin's death. Her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus helped spark the 1956 bus boycott. Her action came before Rosa Parks. -
Broadband internet was featured during this week’s State of the State address by Governor Kay Ivey. Observers are wondering what form this will take. The state may reportedly rely on Starlink satellites in low income areas later this year. -
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.
