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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Astronaut Randy Bresnik flew aboard space shuttle Atlantis in 2009. He later worked aboard the International Space Station. NASA named him Commander, and three other men to be on the crew, of Artemis-3. The astronauts will launch aboard an Alabama built Space Launch System rocket to test one or both of lunar landers NASA may use for the first mission to put people on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. -
A federal appeals court has ruled that Alabama’s use of nitrogen gas to put people to death needs more study of whether it violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. This decision comes just days before a state death row inmate is scheduled to be executed using the controversial method. -
Missing Auburn University engineering student James "Weston" Higginbotham was found dead outside of Kyoto, his mother said Saturday on Facebook. The student was found in a mountainous area by a volunteer search-and-rescue group, Nancy Higginbotham wrote. A cause of death or more details were not immediately available. -
After cooling slowly in 2024 and 2025, inflation is rising again, squeezing most Americans' budgets and making it harder to afford gas, groceries, and other necessities. Inflation reached 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the highest in three years. And, an Associated Press analysis shows it's hitting red states like Alabama as well as blue states. -
The House passed legislation that would aid Ukraine and sanction key segments of the Russian economy, overriding objections from Republican leaders who warned the bill would undermine negotiations designed to achieve a comparable but stronger result. The website of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives says Alabama’s delegation voted along party lines on the measure. -
A no-holds-barred bout of partisan redistricting has been won by Republicans. Now it's up to voters to decide whether it matters for control of Congress. The previous map for Alabama had two Democrats, five Republicans. The U.S. Supreme Court in June allowed the state to use a congressional map approved by Republican state lawmakers that improves the GOP's chances of winning an additional seat by reshaping a Democratic-held district that has a large number of Black voters. -
APR news has covered the war between Ukraine and Russia a lot. When President Joe Biden said, ‘We will walk softly and carry a big javelin,’ he was paraphrasing Teddy Roosevelt and his saying about carrying ‘a big stick.’ Biden was also giving a nod to the Lockheed Martin plant in Troy, that Alabama factory makes the shoulder fired anti-tank missiles. And then there's the perspective of Alex Drueke. -
The Supreme Court allowed Alabama to use a congressional map favoring Republicans in this year’s elections, blocking a lower court ruling that the redistricting plan intentionally discriminates against Black people. -
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is reporting considering arguments on overturning a lower court injunction. That’s all standing between the Alabama GOP and its plan to erase an African American U.S. House seat and redraw three others before a plan August 11th special Congressional primary. -
It’s the Crimson Tide and the Red Raiders in tonight’s women’s softball College World Series. Marlie Giles homered and drove in four runs, Jocelyn Briski threw a complete-game one-hitter, and top-seeded Alabama ended Nebraska's 27-game winning streak with a 5-1 victory on Saturday to improve to 2-0 at the Women's College World Series.
