Latest news with #AlexAdams
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Idaho health official nominated to federal Health and Human Services role in Trump administration
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Alex Adams joins state officials and business leaders to announce the Idaho State Park Foster Family Passport at Lucky Peak State Park, as foster parents and families stand behind him. (Kyle Pfannenstiel/Idaho Capital Sun) President Donald Trump nominated Idaho's new top health official to a role in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. Alex Adams, who has been the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare's director since June 2024, is tapped to serve as the HHS assistant secretary for family support. The U.S. Senate, which confirms presidential nominations, received the president's nomination of Adams on Monday. It isn't immediately clear when his confirmation hearings are planned. The Idaho governor's office and Adams couldn't be immediately reached for comment Tuesday. Adams previously served for years as Idaho Gov. Brad Little's budget chief, and also served as interim Idaho Public Charter School Commission director, executive director of the Idaho Board of Pharmacy and formerly worked in the pharmacy industry. Soon after he took over the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Adams announced foster care as a top priority. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Adams holds a master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University, along with a bachelor's degree and a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Toledo in Ohio. Adams directed the Idaho Board of Pharmacy starting in 2015, the Idaho Press reported. Adams previously served as vice president of pharmacy programs at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, a trade association in Arlington, Virginia, that represents over 40,000 pharmacies in the U.S, according to a news release last year from the governor's office. When then-Idaho governor-elect Little named Adams budget chief in 2018, Little said Adams oversaw a nearly 40% reduction in the Idaho Board of Pharmacy's regulations that boosted jobs and expanded pharmacy services in underserved areas, the Associated Press reported. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is Idaho's largest state government agency, with a more than $5 billion budget that is mostly federally funded. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare runs social programs like Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Women and Infant Children program. The health department also provides public health services, regulates long-term care facilities, runs the state's mental health hospitals, provides child welfare and provides services for people with developmental disabilities. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
BBC News
06-02-2025
- General
- BBC News
Stansted Airport staff recall UK's longest hijack situation
Twenty-five years ago, an Afghan airliner landed at London Stansted Airport, and so began the longest-ever hijack situation on British would be another four days before the hostages were released and the hijacking came to an Boeing 727 Ariana Airlines jet was hijacked on 6 February 2000 after taking off from Kabul, Afghanistan, on an internal had made stops in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Moscow before landing in the north Essex countryside at Stansted, the UK's designated hijack airport, in the early hours of 7 February with more than 150 passengers on News has spoken to some of the airport workers and others about the role they played in the crisis. 'I can't even put into words what it was like' Airport worker Curtis Walsh was 19 at the time. He was sent over to disconnect ground power from the aircraft following the four-day crisis, and then went on board."I can't even put into words what it was like," he says."These people had been on that aircraft for four days. It was pretty awful."I remember just the silence on board the aircraft. As a passenger when you fly you are used to it being all lit up, and clean, and this was just cold and dark; just a cold, dark tunnel."Now 45, he has since become a security trainer at the airport and refers to the hijacking during training sessions. 'I definitely had the adrenaline pumping' Alex Adams, 48, is head of fire and rescue operations at Stansted Airport, but back in 2000 he was a Green Watch firefighter, just 14 months into the had experienced disaster at the airport just a month and a half earlier, when a Korean Air cargo flight crashed shortly after take-off in December the hijack crisis, fire crews were put on standby while negotiations continued."We would get regular briefings and instructions, along the lines of 'Special forces have an intent to storm the aircraft if there isn't a resolution.' "Fourteen months into service, I was thinking, 'This is quite an interesting place to work.' I definitely had the adrenaline pumping for some time." 'Everyone we saw was treated as hostile' Among the special forces personnel at the airport was Colin MacLachlan, then a 24-year-old based at barracks in Colchester, he had just come through selection for the Special Air Service (SAS).He was paged to head to the airport and was the first special forces soldier on site, dressing as a police officer to blend in."I was watching the front of the plane," he remembers."You have to keep the line of sight and provide commentary as to what's going on. Everyone we saw was treated as hostile." 'You could see people coming out of the window' The crisis began to come to an end when the plane's captain and three senior crew members escaped through a cockpit window in the early hours of the fourth day. Rona Wetherall-Young, now 53, worked in the airport's press office and was on duty that night. "I remember watching Sky News as they had a live feed fixed on the aircraft," she recalls."It started showing movement inside the cockpit and you could see people coming out of the window. It was very exciting." All hostages were released soon after, with 60 going on to claim asylum in the Afghans were jailed in 2001 for hijacking, false imprisonment, and possession of firearms and explosives, but were acquitted in 2003 after they were found to have been acting under duress. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, external, Instagram, external and X, external.
