The state of Alabama and the country of Peru are a step closer to stronger economic ties. APR Student Reporter Sable Washington reports on today’s ceremony and a similar one is underway involving Europe…
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and Peru’s Ambassador to the United States Harold Forysth are to sign the new trade deal. The document includes collaborations on trade, investment, agriculture, education, and cultural affairs. Alabama’s Department of Commerce will later undertake a trade mission to Peru. This Tuesday, local business leaders will meet in Mobile to discuss the new Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the U.S. and Europe. That trade deal could help establish e-commerce regulations, intellectual property rights, and create better opportunities for Alabama business to trade with Europe. For A-P-R News, I’m Sable Washington.
If you’ve been waiting for Girl Scout Cookie season to begin, today’s your day. Sales get underway today for the annual fundraising drive by the Girl Scouts of America. Familiar flavors like thin mints, Savannahs, and Do-See-Does will be joined by gluten free varieties. Those new products are called toffee-tastics and Trios. Hannah Wallace the Director of Communications and Marketing for the Girl Scouts of North Central Alabama. She says customers can send cookies to U.S. Servicemen and women with a program called Operation Cookie Drop.
“You can donate a box of cookies to be sent to the troops. So the girls collect those throughout the cookie season and at the end of the cookie season we package them all up and they are sent over to the troops so they can enjoy their favorite cookies at the same time everyone else is.”
Girl Scouting is open to all girls ages five to seventeen. Anyone who may be interested can sign up online at girlscoutsnca.org.
Alabama Emergency Management Director Art Faulkner is the new chairman of the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium.
Faulkner says the consortium focuses on reducing deaths, injuries, property damage and economic loss from earthquakes in the central United States. He says Alabama had at least three earthquakes last year with a magnitude of 3.0 or higher.
Faulkner has served as a board member of the consortium since 2011. His term as chairman is for two years.