A US Air Force C-17 flew 110 Iraqi children and 97 parents and guardians from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad, Iraq, to support Operation Smile—an international non-governmental organization that helps provide corrective surgery for cleft palate and cleft lip birth defects. Leaders of Operation Smile contacted DOD to request assistance to provide safe airlift for Iraqi patients and their parents. Many of the kids had never been in an aircraft before, much less a C-17. “You see all the children with the smiles on their faces. I’m glad to be a part of this,” said Lt. Col. Chris Carlsen, the aircraft’s commander.
The Pentagon’s cutting-edge technology research agency awarded cash prizes worth $8.5 million at hacker conference DEFCON last week as part of a contest to build open-source generative AI tools that can help find and patch software vulnerabilities.