The Air Force Reserve Command plans to translate its traditional associate unit role—supplying airmen to fly and maintain active-duty aircraft—to the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The reserve manpower that will share in operating and maintaining equipment at the space ops center will come from the 939th Air Refueling Wing, which must give up its KC-135 tankers and close up shop in Portland, Ore.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.