Passengers get a break from airlines, cabs become wheelchair-friendly, Balloon Boy’s parents can’t profit from hoax, and a future king follows in his philanthropist mother’s footsteps

Sci-fi therapy

1|Face transplants for injured veterans fast-tracked by Pentagon

The details: American surgeons completed their first facial transplant only a year ago — ­successfully replacing 80 percent of a trauma patient’s face. Now the Department of Defense has given a $3.4 million grant to a Boston hospital transplant team to operate on six to eight patients in the next 18 months. DOD hopes to fast-track the surgical science and help some 200 veterans who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with injuries too serious to benefit from basic cosmetic surgery.

Recommended Stories

Judge grants bond to man accused of smashing Iwo Jima statue with sledgehammer

California’s Proposition 40 would soak the rich and sink the state

California Democrats still butting heads over destructive wealth tax