Williston Wire -- July 9, 2015; Williston Now Has North Dakota's Largest Walk-In Humidor

Construction of Williston's new airport is expected to begin in spring, 2016. Enplanements in Williston continue to soar; 9,800 passengers boarded in Williston in June, 2015. Sloulin Field International Airport Director Steven Kjergaard says the month - to - month increase  is closer to ten-percent, rather than the twenty-percent it had maintained for the past few years - but he says they are still moving in the right direction. The pending airport relocation project could mean even higher enplanements. Relocation plans are moving forward for Sloulin Field International Airport.

The Great Plains Smoke Shop is now open at the Sand Creek Town Centre in Williston. The new store features North Dakota's largest walk-in humidor and a wide selection of premium hand-rolled cigars, pipes and pipe tobacco. 

The US Postal Service celebrated the one year anniversary at its Badlands Postal Facility recently. The satellite branch of hte Williston Post Office is located in the Badlands Town Center near Walmart.

New restaurant in Wildrose; only restaurant in 30-mile radius. Founded by Paul Urias; moved to North Dakota seven years ago from Fresno, CA, where he owned and operated a restaurant called "The Tamale Shop." The new restaurant is in the "old" Wildrose High School which closed in 2006 due to lack of enough students to keep it open.

Huge Ray reconstruction / infrastructure project is in full swing.

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Meanwhile Elsewhere

Updates

July 11, 2015: just days after posting the note below, The Los Angeles Times had a front page lead story on the surge in heroin deaths.

Frieden made his comments as he announced that heroin use had increased 62% and related deaths had nearly quadrupled since 2002.

The biggest increases were among groups associated with a parallel rise in the use of prescription painkillers, such as OxyContin and Vicodin. Today's heroin user is increasingly likely to be wealthy, privately insured and between the ages of 18 and 25, according to the study by researchers at the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

It is a phenomenon familiar to people on the front lines of the crisis from Simi Valley to San Diego.

Original Post

USA Today is reporting:

After seeing years of decline in violent crime, several major American cities experienced a dramatic surge in homicides during the first half of this year.

Milwaukee, which had one of its lowest annual homicide totals in city history last year, has recorded 80 murders so far this year, more than double the 39 it tallied at the same point last year.

Milwaukee police chief Edward Flynn said the mounting homicide toll in his city of 600,000 is being driven by Wisconsin's "absurdly weak" gun laws (carrying a concealed weapon without a state-issued concealed carry is a misdemeanor in the Badger State), a subculture within the city that affirms the use of deadly violence to achieve status, and growing distrust of police in some parts of the city.

Milwaukee is not alone.

Baltimore, New Orleans and St. Louis have also seen the number of murders jump 33% or more in 2015. Meanwhile, Chicago, the nation's third largest city, has seen the homicide toll climb by 19% and the number of shooting incidents increase in the city by 21% during the first half of the year.

But not to worry. An authority suggests this may simply be an anomalous blip:

Alfred Blumstein, a professor of urban systems and operations research at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said the current surge in murders in some big cities could amount to no more than a blip.

Closer to home, the number of murders in Fargo, North Dakota's tripled in 2013 compared to the number just two years earlier (3 vs 1).

I couldn't find the final homicide number for Fargo for 2014, but as of September, 2014, it was five times higher than 2011 with 5 homicides.

Unsettling numbers are coming out of Fargo-Moorhead about homicide.

The murder death toll in the area is at an all-time high.

Usually, our area sees one murder a year, but the past twelve months have brought five times that many.

And, not unexpectedly,

Some downtown think it's population growth; others bring up the Bakken boom.

I'm trying to connect this murder story with the Bakken. If the link is broken, the key statement:

...the convicted felon with a string of crimes stretching back 15 years had first been identified by police as a person of interest in connection with a homicide on Monday.