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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Mississippi moved into the top five with its win over LSU, the Tigers stayed in the top 10, and Florida and Mississippi State cracked the rankings to give the Southeastern Conference 10 teams in The Associated Press Top 25 college football poll released Sunday. Alabama also moved up following its 50-36 come-from-behind win over FSU. -
Keelon Russell threw for 320 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another score as No. 10 Alabama overcame a 15-point deficit to beat Florida State 50-36 on Saturday. The Crimson Tide (3-0) struggled to run the ball early and had few answers for Florida State’s explosive plays. Once Alabama settled in, the Seminoles (1-2) struggled to slow it down. -
President Donald Trump announced Friday he has a deal with Denmark to bolster the U.S. military presence in Greenland after months of threatening to take the island by force from the NATO ally — an agreement that also keeps the Arctic territory in Denmark's hands. APR special correspondent James Niiler reported extensively on the controversy over the Danish territory, starting with the so-called “Alabama Expedition.” -
Alabama executed a man by lethal injection for a 1998 double murder, three months after a judge’s ruling blocked the state from putting him to death with nitrogen gas. Jeffrey Lee was also sentenced to death under a state policy abolished by Governor Kay Ivey in 2017. The Alabama Public Radio news team focused on the state’s “judicial override” practice, where juries could ask for life in prison for a convicted killer, but the judge could veto that decision and impose death. Lee was one of those cases, before Ivey ended the policy. -
Florida State left last season’s opener against Alabama with a statement victory. The Crimson Tide left with questions about where their season was headed. The months that followed changed the outlook for both programs. -
Alabama is set to execute a man Thursday night via lethal injection, three months after a judge's ruling blocked the state from putting him to death with nitrogen gas. Jeffery Lee, 49, is scheduled to receive an injection beginning at 6 p.m. at south Alabama's William C. Holman Correctional Facility for killing two people during a 1998 pawnshop robbery in rural Dallas County. -
The Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $177 billion in federal grants since the president took office for his second term, according to a tracking tool released Wednesday by a pro-democracy nonprofit and a group of researchers and scientists. Last summer, frozen funding for schools in Alabama generated headlines. -
Sixty-three years ago, dynamite planted by Ku Klux Klan members exploded through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls as they prepared for Sunday services. Hundreds of people filled the church on Tuesday on the 63rd anniversary of the bombing. -
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump's bid to restrict mail ballots for the midterm elections, capping a flurry of last-minute legal action with voting already underway. The decision allows states to continue sending out mail ballots under the same processes they’ve used for years and have accounted for nearly a third of votes cast. Alabama’s mail-in ballots for absentee voting were sent out last week. -
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is hoping that photos taken Saturday night in Tuscaloosa will lead to clues to a shooting that left eight people injured. Similar efforts helped cracked cases like the Brown University shooting in 2025.UPDATED with arrest
