hunt

Former Celtic striker Chris Sutton said of Nygren on Sky Sports: “What a strange player. He can go missing in midfield but comes up with goals.”

Just as well given Daizen Maeda is still looking like a shadow of the player who lit up Scottish football last season, January loan signings Tomas Cvancara and Junior Adamu have yet to fully impress and Kelechi Iheanacho has disappeared from view despite his return from injury.

Nygren is not one of the title winners Tierney talked about in Celtic’s squad, but the 24-year-old Sweden midfielder is doing more than most to make sure he gets that league winners’ medal.

Former Celtic midfielder Scott Allan enthused on BBC Radio Scotland’s Sportsound: “The impact substitutes you’ve seen at the weekend, you’ve seen it again tonight with Benjamin Nygren and James Forrest linking up.

“Lovely tee-up from Forrest and Nygren just finishes – we’ve seen that time and time again and he’s had a real impact in this team.”

Indeed, Nygren has found the net three times and provided one assist in his latest four Premiership games – and his 15 goals are more than any other Celtic player in the league this season.

“I know Nygren gives up certain parts of the game, but what he does do is he gets into the box and gets on the end of things,” Allan said.

“I felt his overall play in the game was really good, played some lovely through balls, always looked like he was going to be a threat round about that 18-yard box and he was the difference again tonight.”

His manager was similary enthusiastic.

“He’s doing something that is the most difficult thing in the game – to score goals -and he’s popped up again with what proved to be the winning goal,” O’Neill said.

“Substitutes in recent weeks have made big contributions to us, so that’s important for us.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump just can’t seem to choose among friends in the Texas Senate Republican primary.

So when he travels to the state on Friday for his first post-State of the Union trip, where he plans to promote his energy and economic policies, Trump will have all three candidates in the competitive race join him — just days before his party casts ballots in the primary race.

Sen. John Cornyn is battling for his fifth term and is being challenged by state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in a primary fight that has become viciously personal. And all three men, missing the coveted endorsement from Trump, have been trying to highlight their ties to him as they ramp up their campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

For his part, Trump will be seeking to ride the message of his State of the Union address from Tuesday, where he declared a return to economic prosperity and a more secure America — two centerpiece arguments for Republicans as they campaign to keep their congressional majorities this fall.

Trump’s hesitation to endorse in the Texas Senate primary speaks to the tricky dynamics of the race.

Cornyn is unpopular with a segment of Texas’ GOP base, in part for his early dismissiveness of Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign and for his role in authoring tougher restrictions on guns after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But Senate GOP leadership and allied groups see Cornyn as the stronger general election candidate, in light of a series of troubles that have shadowed Paxton.

Paxtonbeat impeachment on fraud charges in 2023, and has faced allegations of marital infidelity by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have urged Trump to endorse Cornyn. They and allied campaign groups argue that the seat would cost the party hundreds of millions more to defend with Paxton as the candidate.

“It is a strong possibility we cannot hold Texas if John Cornyn is not our nominee,” Scott told Fox News on Wednesday.

Hunt, a second-term Houston-area representative, was a later entry to the race, but claims a kinship with Trump, having endorsed him early in the 2024 race. Hunt campaigned regularly for Trump and earned a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

If no candidate reaches 50% in Tuesday’s primary, the top two finishers will advance to a May 26 runoff.

Cornyn’s campaign and a half-dozen allied groups have poured more than $63 million into the race since last fall, chiefly trying to slow Paxton but recently attacking Hunt in an effort to keep him from making it to the runoff.

Earlier this month, Trump feinted toward weighing in on the race when he said he was taking “a serious look” at endorsing in the Texas primary. He has since reaffirmed his neutrality.

Still, you wouldn’t know it from watching TV in Texas. Cornyn has been airing ads since last year touting his support for Trump’s agenda, even though his relationship with the president has been cool at times. Paxton and Hunt both have ads airing now featuring them standing with Trump.

“I like all three of them, actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three,” Trump said earlier this month.

The GOP battle comes as Democrats have a contested primary of their own in Texas between state Rep. James Talarico, a self-described policy wonk who regularly quotes the Bible, and progressive favorite U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Trump hasn’t been shy about wading into other contested Republican primaries in the state. Parts of Corpus Christi fall within Texas’ 34th congressional district, where former Rep. Mayra Flores is fighting to reclaim her seat against the Trump-endorsed Eric Flores. (The two are not related.) The winner of the primary will face off against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, long a target of the GOP, whose district was redrawn to make it easier for a Republican to win.

Eric Flores will be at the Trump event at the Port of Corpus Christi, which technically is located in a neighboring district.

Elsewhere in the state, the president has also endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is fighting calls from his own party to resign from Congress after reports of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire. Gonzales is refusing to step down and has said that there will be “opportunities for all of the details and facts to come out” and that the stories about the situation do not represent “all the facts.”

Gonzales is facing a primary challenge from Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and gun rights influencer who Gonzales defeated by fewer than 400 votes in their 2024 runoff. The White House did not return a request for comment on Thursday on whether Trump stands by his endorsement of Gonzales.

Kim and Beaumont write for the Associated Press. Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Ia. AP writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.

A TEEN singer who starred on The Voice Kids has been killed after she was struck by a hit-and-run driver who fled the scene.

Nicole Valeria Vargas Gomez, 19, died in the horror crash in Quindio, Colombia.

She appeared on Colombia’s edition of The Voice Kids in 2019.

William Andres Paipa, 40, also died in the collision.

Cops said the pair were crossing the road when an unidentified vehicle smashed into them out of nowhere.

The impact threw them through the air onto the opposite side of the road.

Local police confirmed that the driver did not stop the help William and Nicole, but fled the scene.

They are now hunting down the vehicle which caused the deadly crash.

Nicole was studying Business Administration student at the University of Quindío.

The university said in a statment: “Nicole was a young woman committed to her academic training and to the cultural life of our alma mater.

“From the classrooms and also from the stages, she left her mark through her discipline, sensitivity and deep love for art.

“As a member of Coranto, she always carried the name of the University of Quindio with honour to every meeting and performance.”

The U.S. Navy is exploring options for a new long-range anti-radiation missile designed to home in on radars to help neutralize enemy air defense networks. The capabilities the service wants for this Advanced Emission Suppression Missile (AESM) sound curiously similar to the ones it is already working to acquire through the AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER). There is one crucial difference: the AESM needs to be able to engage targets in the air, as well as on the ground. This would give the Navy a single missile it could use to attack critical airborne early warning and control planes, as well as potentially other aerial targets, and air defenses down below.

Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR) Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons (PEO U&W) recently put out a contracting notice regarding the AESM.

NAVAIR is “conducting market research to identify potential sources capable of providing an advanced, anti-radiation guided missile weapon system, or key subsystems thereof, with a longer range than existing in the Navy’s current inventory, including associated engineering, manufacturing, testing, and logistics support,” the notice explains. “This All Up Round (AUR) must be compatible with existing launch platforms (e.g. F-18, F-35) and infrastructure currently supporting the Navy and Air Force’s existing inventory of anti-radiation guided missiles.”

The notice later elaborates that AESM needs to be compatible, at least, with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It is unclear whether “existing inventory of anti-radiation guided missiles” includes the AARGM-ER, which is a substantial new evolution of the AGM-88 design and is still under development. TWZ has reached out to NAVAIR for more information.

“NAVAIR is seeking to enhance its capabilities to suppress and neutralize enemy air defenses in contested environments,” the AESM notice adds. “This effort aims to identify and potentially acquire a weapon system that provides similar or improved capabilities compared to its current weapons inventory, focusing on extended range, advanced targeting, counter-countermeasures, and integration with existing and future platforms.”

No specific range requirement is included in the notice beyond that AESM needs to be capable of “engaging targets at significant standoff distances.” The missile also needs to have an “advanced anti-radiation seeker with broad frequency coverage,” the “ability to target modern and advanced radar systems,” a “precision navigation and guidance system (e.g., GPS/INS with anti-jamming capabilities),” and the “potential for pre-emptive targeting capabilities.”

Much of this sounds, at least in broad strokes, like the requirements for the AGM-88G. “The AARGM-ER incorporates hardware and software modifications to improve AGM-88E AARGM capabilities to include extended range, survivability and effectiveness against future threats,” according to NAVAIR’s own website.

However, as noted, the requirements laid out in the AESM notice notably differ from those for AARGM-ER in one key respect: the explicit call for anti-air engagement capability. Prospective offers are required to “describe ability to engage air-to-air and air-to-ground targets.”

AESM also needs to have “robust ECCM [electronic counter-countermeasures] capabilities to defeat enemy countermeasures, including chaff, flares, jamming and anti-ARM [anti-radiation missile] techniques.” This might also point further to emphasis on the air-to-air role. Radar blinding chaff and infrared decoy flares are countermeasures typically associated with the air and naval domains.

U.S. military interest in very-long-range air-to-air capable anti-radiation missiles traces all the way back to the Cold War, primarily as a means for engaging enemy airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) planes. Anti-air weapons designed around this role are often colloquially referred to as ‘AWACS killers,’ a reference to the U.S. E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. A very-long-range air-to-air missile could be used against other aerial targets, as well.

This is also not the first time the Navy, as well as the U.S. Air Force, has pursued an air-launched weapon that would blend together traditional anti-radiation and air-to-air capabilities. Starting in the mid-2000s, the two services worked together on a single missile to replace the AGM-88 and the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) dubbed the Joint Dual-Role Air Dominance Missile (JDRADM), which then evolved into the Next Generation Missile (NGM). The NGM effort came to an end, at least publicly, in 2013, ostensibly over high costs. A more secretive parallel development effort, called the Triple Target Terminator (T-3), continued for at least some time afterward. A possible successor to T-3, called the Long Range Engagement Weapon (LREW), emerged in 2017. How far the LREW effort subsequently progressed, and what its current status might be, are unclear.

All that being said, the value of an ‘AWACS killer’ missile is clear-cut. AEW&C are critical surveillance and battle management assets. Shooting them down deprives an opponent of those capabilities, inherently reducing their ability to effectively maneuver air assets and share important information, including with other nodes on the ground or at sea, as well as in the air. Knocking out these flying radar stations, which can be especially well-suited to spotting lower flying threats from their high perches, just hampers an enemy’s overall situational awareness.

The issue, of course, is that AEW&C planes typically orbit well behind the front edges of a conflict, creating additional challenges for targeting them. This is where something like AESM could come into play. A weapon of this type could engage other aerial targets by zeroing in on the radiofrequency emissions they pump out. This could include electronic warfare aircraft, and potentially other aerial targets. AESM might be able to take on a more general anti-air role with the addition of an active radar and/or imaging infrared seeker, as well as datalinks allowing for the use of networked targeting data. AARGM and AARGM-ER both feature an active millimeter-wave radar seeker to enable them to hit fleeing ground targets, but a similar concept could be adapted for air-to-air use.

AARGM F-18

For the Navy, as well as other branches of the U.S. military, this is all particularly relevant in the context of a potential future high-end fight with China, which has made major investments in its fleets of AEW&C and electronic warfare planes. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has also been pursuing ever-longer-ranged anti-air missiles, including types that could be used to target American AEW&C platforms, as well as other key support aircraft.

TWZ has previously highlighted much of this in a past feature discussing the use cases for the Navy’s new AIM-174B air-launched version of the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), which was officially unveiled in 2024. Navy officials have previously hinted at further long-range air-to-air capabilities to come when talking about the AIM-174B.

How The Navy’s New Very Long-Range AIM-174 Will Pierce China’s Anti-Access Bubble

“Clearly we recognize that we’ve got to find opportunities to increase reach and range for our weapons,” Navy Rear Adm. Michael “Buzz” Donnelly, then director of the Air Warfare Division (N98) within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, said at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space symposium in April 2025. “We’re doing it in air-to-air. We just recently fielded the air-launched SM-6, or the AIM-174, that we’re capable of carrying off the F-18 Super Hornet. And we’ll look at increasing range and incrementing beyond that.”

“That’s [the AIM-174B] an operational capability. And, as you can see, that one being revealed and shown into the area, there are many more behind [it], things that we’re doing there, making sure that we are staying ahead of the conflict, making sure that we’re prepared for the fight that’s going on,” Navy Rear Adm. Keith Hash, head of NAVAIR’s Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD), also said during a panel discussion at the WEST 2025 conference in January 2025. “And those activities and that development is active and strong.”

In addition, the Navy is now working together with the U.S. Air Force on the development of the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile. The AIM-260 is intended as a longer-range and otherwise more capable direct successor to the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).

As described now, AESM would also offer air-to-surface capabilities in line with a traditional anti-radiation missile in the same package. Even in a future missile ecosystem that also includes the AGM-88G, AIM-174B, and AIM-260, having a single hybrid anti-air/anti-radiation missile would offer extremely useful additional flexibility, especially for addressing threats that might appear unexpectedly in the course of a mission.

One missile capable of being used in those disparate roles could also offer valuable magazine depth benefits, particularly if it has a form factor that allows it to be carried internally by various stealthy crewed aircraft, such as the F-35, and/or advanced combat drones. There had been some speculation that the aforementioned LREW effort, and possibly one or more of its predecessors, had been aiming for a missile that could serve in the anti-radiation and air-to-air roles, and fit inside F-22 and F-35 weapon bays. At the same time, a missile designed to be carried externally could help maximize range, which would be an important consideration for AESM. As an aside, scalable missile concepts have been raised in the past as a way to readily adapt a core design for internal or external carriage.

Altgoether, there is a possibility that AESM requirements could be met by a further variation on the AARGM-ER design. The U.S. Air Force is also already acquiring a more general high-speed strike derivative of that missile called the Stand-In Attack Weapon (SiAW). Prime contractor Northrop Grumman has also proposed a surface-to-surface version called the Advanced Reactive Strike Missile (AReS).

The “market research” the Navy is doing now is intended to see what other options might be available. The AESM contracting also highlights the possibility of a weapon that could be further exported to allies and partners. Additional customers could help defray development and acquisition costs, and support production at scale.

Much is still to be learned about the Navy’s plans for AESM, but the Navy certainly seems to have kicked off a new hunt for an ‘AWACS killer’ type missile that could also be used against other targets in the air and on the surface.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com