The Air Force is also looking to thicken the Thin Blue Line with a batch of new, upgraded F-16s.
Good, IMHO... 
Congress, with cooperation from, especially, Presidents OhBummer! and Otto Penn, let the USAF's F-15 and F-16 fleet go without being fully upgraded with newer technologies. The F-15EX and the upcoming upgraded F-16 will catch up that capability gap.
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WRT the laser story, I'm so old that - oh wait, it was just a year or two ago - when mil-bashers were saying that the US military was helpless from and clue-free about drones. Now "suddenly" the US armed forces are deploying ship-, aircraft-, and vehicle-based and man-portable anti-drone weapons (not just lasers, BTW). It's almost as if these weapons were in development when or before the threat from drones appeared.