An article this week in the Rapid City Journal recounts the first flight of Allegiant Air from Rapid City, S.D., to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, the new name for Williams Gateway Airport. Reporter Dan Daly notes that the airport is the product of a “13-year effort by Mesa and other nearby cities to turn the former Williams Air Force Base into a civilian economic engine for the east end of the Phoenix area.” Williams fell to an early BRAC, and Daly goes on to report how Ellsworth barely escaped BRAC 2005.
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.