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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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. -
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.
