Ashley Engle
Ashley Engle connects economic and policy shifts to their practical impact on Florida residents, with a particular focus on fuel costs, housing and community safety. She is a weekend morning reporter at Spectrum News 13 working the automobile beat, where she reports on gas prices and related transportation issues as they affect drivers, small businesses and nonprofits.
Fuel costs and everyday economics
Engle’s automobile coverage is anchored in how changes at the pump ripple through the wider economy rather than in technical car industry news. In a recent piece on lower gas prices, she followed the relief felt by drivers and Florida small businesses, framing fuel costs as a core pressure point for household budgets and local commerce. In another story on rising fuel costs, she reported the state average for regular gas and showed how those prices increase operating costs for Central Florida food banks, especially transportation and freight. That reporting tracks the logistical details of food distribution alongside the human impact, highlighting how a single input cost can reshape nonprofit capacity.
Housing, affordability and Habitat for Humanity
Engle has built a substantial body of work around housing access and Habitat for Humanity’s role in local communities. She has covered the reopening of a Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Leesburg, focusing on how the shop gives residents a lower-cost way to furnish and maintain their homes. Her reporting on Lake County Commission funding decisions has detailed hundreds of thousands of dollars allocated to affordable housing investments, including new Habitat homes and expanded assistance for displaced households.
She has written about Habitat’s repair program, explaining how dedicated funding supports critical home repairs that help residents remain safely housed.
Her housing coverage also extends to the people and partnerships behind those programs.
She has profiled Habitat partner families such as the Youngs, putting names and stories to the broader issue of housing affordability. In pieces on the Youth Construction Academy, she has documented how local high schools collaborate with Habitat to build new homes, connecting workforce development for students with concrete gains in affordable housing stock.
Together, those stories show her tendency to move beyond policy headlines into the operational details of how housing initiatives are implemented on the ground.
Public safety and local policy
Engle regularly covers public safety and policy issues where law enforcement and local government decisions intersect with everyday life. In a report on Florida’s new Spectrum Alert, she examined how a statewide tool is designed to help locate missing children with autism more quickly, detailing how law enforcement and the public are mobilized when a child goes missing.
She has contributed to crime coverage such as the U.S. Marshals Service arrest of a suspect in a DeLand double homicide, following search warrants, evidence collection and investigative timelines in collaboration with Spectrum News staff.
Her policy reporting includes close attention to local government measures that directly affect residents’ finances and safety.
In coverage of Amendment 3, she has explored what the proposal could mean for Oviedo’s city services and fees, breaking down how a ballot measure might change municipal revenue and what that implies for residents. Through her public professional posts, she has highlighted Volusia County leaders considering a domestic violence registry, noting the county’s high ranking for domestic violence cases and the council’s unanimous vote to study the initiative. Those stories show a consistent interest in how policy tools - from registries to amendments and alerts - are used to respond to complex social problems.
Community programs, nonprofits and local life
Outside core crime and policy coverage, Engle spends considerable time on community programs and the nonprofit sector. She has written about holiday campaigns such as “Give the Gift of Home for the Holidays,” spotlighting how donations and volunteer efforts translate into housing stability for partner families.
In “Kids Stuff: Time to think about summer camps,” she has turned to youth opportunities, outlining options and timing for families planning children’s summer activities. Her reporting on Disney donations to 19 nonprofits has catalogued recipient organizations and what they do, providing a clear picture of how major corporate grants filter into services across the region. In a year-in-review piece, she has summarized Habitat’s work over the year in “Habitat Wrapped 2024,” capturing the scope of projects and community impact in a single narrative.
Engle’s work across these community stories keeps the focus on practical outcomes: homes built or repaired, programs funded, families housed, and services expanded. Even when the subject is a grant announcement or seasonal campaign, she returns to the specific ways resources are turned into tangible benefits for residents.
That through-line - following money, policy and logistics all the way to their effects on daily life - runs from her coverage of fuel prices to housing, safety and local nonprofit initiatives.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aarian Marshall
Aarian Marshall is a staff writer at WIRED who stands out for covering how cars, software, and policy collide. She writes on transportation systems and cities, from the auto industry to broader mobility systems. Before WIRED, she reported on cities and urban policy for The Atlantic’s CityLab. Her beat runs from electric vehicles, fuel prices, tariffs, and car-buying decisions to autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, and software-defined cars. She reports with a systems view, linking policy shifts, technical failures, and urban life to what happens on streets, in repair shops, and at the pump.
Abby Smith
Abby Smith’s most distinctive work combines motorsports coverage with live digital and radio reporting. She is Digital Director at KRDO13 and covers the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, including race updates, weather shifts, breaking developments and ways to follow the action. Her beat also includes automotive news, crime, public safety, politics, city government and community life. Notable work includes coverage of homicide arrests, a major drug bust, a presidential address about the war with Iran, a family’s effort to bring Stephen Hubbard home, a state governor candidate and a city security ordinance. She also reports on fitness, school spirit and station staff. Smith writes in a concise, factual style shaped by investigative documentary experience. She turns live events, official announcements and daily developments into clear coverage across digital and radio platforms.
Adele Peters
Adele Peters covers climate solutions and other structural problems as design and policy questions, focusing on what can work in practice. She is a senior writer at Fast Company, where she reports on energy, transportation, housing, materials, agriculture, corporate sustainability, and social impact. Her stories examine climate technologies, grid resilience, electric vehicles, renewable energy, modular construction, homelessness, affordable housing, compostable materials, regenerative agriculture, and ecosystem restoration. She looks at whether projects can scale, their real-world constraints, and their measurable effects. She interviews political and philanthropic leaders, startup founders, and climate tech entrepreneurs, anchoring stories in what is being built and tested. She has written more than 3,000 stories and contributed to Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century and State of Housing Design 2023.
Adrian Leung
Adrian Leung writes engineering-led coverage of Chinese electric vehicles and performance cars for CarNewsChina. He focuses on new energy vehicles, battery systems, powertrains, electric platforms, high-end domestic brands, and track-ready models, and he explains technical details in plain language for non-specialist readers. His reporting treats new models as hardware and systems stories, with precise figures on range, battery capacity, chassis layout, motor outputs, weight, and acceleration. He also covers the Chinese auto industry’s finances and technology roadmap, including sector profits, vehicle volumes, and solid-state battery timelines. His background in Electrical and Computer Engineering shows in the way he writes about vehicle electronics and battery management.