Personnel of the 59th Medical Wing from Lackland AFB, Tex., airlifted seven-year-old Meaghan Ababa from Hawaii to Los Angeles in what her doctors describe as a “miracle” flight. The girl had been placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine to aid her failing heart and lungs, but the doctors in Hawaii couldn’t perform a heart transplant should it be needed. Moving a patient on an ECMO machine is tricky, so the doctors enlisted the help of a specialized team at USAF’s Wilford Hall Medical Center to undertake the eight-hour flight aboard a C-17.
Hundreds, or possibly thousands, of transgender service members have returned to work after two judges ordered preliminary injunctions blocking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ban of transgender service members and recruits. But their long-term future remains uncertain.