Hundreds of people gathered at APM Terminals in Mobile yesterday to celebrate the final transport of the first major A320 components from the Port of Mobile to the Airbus U.S. Manufacturing Facility.
The large plane parts arrived yesterday afternoon amid fanfare and a parade. Airbus announced three years ago that Mobile will house the planemaker's first final assembly line on U.S. soil.
Ulrich Weber, vice president for Airbus' Mobile facility says airplane production will begin in July after the wings, stabilizers and fuselages move through testing stations upon arrival at Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley.
Several speakers at yesterday's event lauded the delivery of the parts as an important milestone as the city prepares to open its $600 million final assembly line.
Alabama’s low cigarette tax may be making things easier for organized crime.
That’s the view of a former assistant director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Richard Marianos believes the state’s low cigarette tax rate is part of a multi-state tax fraud scheme. He says the black market tobacco trade is the new face of organized crime.
“Well, specifically in Alabama, where there’s such a low tax on cigarettes, what you have is criminal organizations coming to Alabama to buy cigarettes, exploiting the low tax in Alabama, and using that amount of money to traffic them to higher areas.”
Marianos says cigarettes from Alabama often end up in New York, Pennsylvania, and other areas with high cigarette taxes. He believes stronger laws and sentencing guidelines are needed to stop these types of operations.
Alabama fans of the card game known as bridge are joining a fund raising effort to fight Alzheimer’s disease.
They’re taking part in a two day bridge tournament called The Longest Day. The effort has raised close to a quarter million dollars to help victims of Alzheimer’s.
Coordinator Darbi Padbury says clubs participating in the event play “duplicate” games that remove the element of chance or luck
“Each hand of bridge really requires players to apply previous knowledge to a new and different challenge. Additionally there’s a healthy social component to playing bridge and social element is a factor in healthy aging.”
Padbury says that 160 clubs participated in The Longest Day last year. That effort included nearly 75,000 hands of bridge. 200 clubs registered to participate this year.
A Birmingham-based coal company says it won't be renewing a permit for a Walker County mine.
Drummond Company said in a news release Friday that it won’t be renewing its permit for the Shepherd's Bend mining site. The company said the decision was based solely on financial considerations in light of plummeting coal prices globally.
The release says environmental concerns did not factor into the decision and that the company would have mined the site in an environmentally responsible manner.
The Black Warrior Riverkeeper nonprofit group has long opposed mining at the site because of its proximity to a drinking water intake that serves Birmingham.
Black Warrior Riverkeeper Executive Director Charles Scribner called the announcement "very important." But he said questions still remain about the possibility of future mining at Shepherd's Bend.