Latest news with #ChrisMurphy
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Capitol Report: State budget negotiations, Rowland's pardon, bear hunt
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — This week on Capitol Report, the panel discusses the ongoing negotiations as the state creeps closer towards approving a budget and President Trump's recent pardon of former Gov. John Rowland. Plus, the panel speaks on Sen. Chris Murphy's recent criticism of his own party. As bear season continues, lawmakers debate a controlled bear hunt and other proposed legislation. Finally, the panel remembers the Hartford Whalers, as 50 years have gone by since the team first took the ice in 1975. Watch the full video in the player above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rodriguez has big night in Drive triumph
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Red Sox No. 10 Prospect Yophery Rodriguez doubled three times and drove in five runs, and the Greenville Drive staved off a late push to beat the Jersey Shore Blueclaws 10-7 on Wednesday night at Fluor Field in the opener of a six-game homestand. The Drive (21-25) plated five runs in the second inning and never relinquished the lead, handing Jersey Shore's Alex McFarlane (0-5) another rough outing. McFarlane allowed five earned runs over just 1 2/3 innings as Greenville's offense struck early and often. Boston Red Sox left-hander Chris Murphy, making his first rehab appearance since coming off the injured list, tossed a scoreless first inning for Greenville, striking out two on just 13 pitches in his brief but effective outing. Murphy spent time on the Greenville roster in 2021 before making it all the way to The Show in 2022. Murphy looked sharp in his return to the mound and will continue his rehab stint in Greenville during this homestand. Eduardo Rivera (2-1) followed with 4 1/3 innings in relief, giving up four runs on four hits while striking out eight. Closer Cooper Adams earned his first save, stranding the tying run in the on-deck circle in the ninth. Greenville's offense broke through in the second after Antonio Anderson led off with a double. After a hit-by-pitch and a force out, Brooks Brannon drove in Anderson with a single, and Justin Riemer followed with an RBI knock of his own. With two outs, Rodriguez delivered the big blow — a bases-clearing double to left-center that gave Greenville a 5-1 lead. Rodriguez struck again in the fifth, adding another two-run double as part of a three-run inning that pushed the lead to 9-3. Anderson finished 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles, while Brannon collected three hits and an RBI. Riemer added two RBIs and stole two bases. The Drive racked up 12 hits, including six doubles, and went 6-for-17 with runners in scoring position. Jersey Shore (17-28) showed life late, cutting a 9-3 deficit to 9-6 in the sixth on a three-run homer by Carson DeMartini — his fourth of the season — off reliever Danny Kirwin. DeMartini drove in three and stole a base, while Jordan Dissin and Dylan Campbell each added an RBI. Despite drawing six walks and stealing four bases, the Blueclaws were held in check by timely pitching and left 10 runners on base. Greenville's bullpen combined for 19 strikeouts, with Stebens fanning five over 1 2/3 scoreless innings. Jersey Shore threatened in the ninth, putting the tying run on deck after a hit-by-pitch and a walk, but Drive southpaw Cooper Adams struck out Lopez to end it. The Drive and BlueClaws continue their series Thursday night at Fluor Field with first pitch scheduled for 6:45 p.m. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Everything We Learned About Lockheed's QuadStar Missile Aimed At Replacing FIM-92 Stingers
Lockheed Martin has shared new details about its QuadStar surface-to-air missile, which is taking part in the U.S. Army competition to replace the venerable Stinger. QuadStar notably leverages past work the company did on a very small interceptor design called Miniature Hit-to-Kill (MHTK), particularly advanced seeker technology that allows for a more aerodynamically efficient design. Chris Murphy, Senior Manager, Business Development for Integrated Air and Missile Defense Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin's Missiles and Fire Control division, talked at length about QuadStar in an interview with TWZ last week. In 2023, the Army awarded Lockheed Martin and Raytheon contracts to develop competing designs for its Stinger replacement program, also known as the Next-Generation Short-Range Interceptor (NGSRI). Raytheon is also the prime contractor for Stinger. NGSRI is a component of the Army's larger Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) effort that also includes the Sgt. Stout air defense system and a mobile 50-kilowatt laser directed energy weapon, both of which are based on the Stryker light armored vehicle. For NGSRI, the Army has said in the past that it wants a new missile able to 'provide improved target acquisition with increased lethality and ranges over current capability,' but with the same general form factor as Stinger so it can be fired using existing launcher architecture. Stinger first began entering U.S. service in the 1980s. The five-foot-long and 2.75-inch-diameter missile uses infrared guidance and has a blast-fragmentation warhead. The engagement envelope for man-portable air defense systems (MANAPDS) like Stinger today, in general, is around 15,000 feet and below. Some variants of Stinger reportedly offer greater maximum range. 'When the Army announced this [NGSRI] competition, they said, 'look, Stinger, there's a lot of good about Stinger – its size, its weight, the way it works – those are all good things. … just the technology's old, and we want to see what industry might be able to bring to the table in the way of of new technologies and innovative approaches that could give us more performance in the same essentially in the same package,'' Lockheed Martin's Murphy explained. '[They] don't want to change anything with respect to the size of the launch tube. Don't want to change anything with respect to the overall way that it works. … So that was the challenge that they laid out.' Murphy also highlighted additional overarching challenges when it comes to developing any next-generation surface-to-air missile system that is capable of being employed in a man-portable configuration effectively and affordably against a broad swath of target sets. 'The challenge that you have with unmanned systems today is you're going to have to do something that is a little bit out of the ordinary to address all of them,' he said. 'They're not particularly expensive. Their impact is probably way outsized.' At the same time, 'having a man-portable device that can be a part of a layered defense – because one system isn't going to do it all, right? And can still take on fixed wing aircraft,' including fourth, fifth, and even sixth-generation fighters, at least to some degree, is important, he continued. Crewed helicopters are still part of the threat picture, as well. The ranges at which those platforms can threaten friendly forces are also increasing. The Lockheed Martin QuadStar video below includes a number of potential operational scenarios involving different threat types. 'So how do you address those high-end threats and at the same time be inexpensive enough that you can be used when necessary on Group 3 or Group 2 UAVs [uncrewed aerial vehicles]?' In U.S. military parlance, Group 2 drones are defined as weighing between 21 and 55 pounds, as well as being able to fly at altitudes up to 3,500 feet and at top speeds of up to 250 knots. Group 3 category includes designs with gross weights between 55 and 1,320 pounds, altitude ceilings of between 3,500 and 18,000 feet, and top speeds of between 100 to 250 knots. 'So, to a degree, we relied on … some work that was done a while ago when the counter rocket, artillery, and mortar [mission] was a significant driver,' Murphy added. 'We built a small missile that we called Miniature Hit-to-Kill. It was a 40 millimeter projectile. So we took a lot of what we learned in doing that work and applied it to this problem set that the Army has.' MHTK was one of a number of interceptors the Army tested in the 2010s as part of an effort called Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2-Intercept (IFPC Inc 2-I). As noted, IFPC Inc 2-I was focused primarily on finding new ways to knock down incoming artillery shells and rockets. Lockheed Martin said at the time that MHTK could also be used to engage small drones. IFPC Inc 2-I has since evolved into a short-range air defense system called Enduring Shield, which the Army is now in the process of fielding and currently uses the AIM-9X Sidewinder as its interceptor. 'One of the things that we took from Miniature Hit-to-Kill was the shape,' Murphy said. With QuadStar, 'we taper down. So we have a 2.75-inch or 70 millimeter rocket motor, and then we taper down as you get up towards the forebody, for lack of a better term, once you get past the rocket motor.' 'So we have a pointy nose, if you will. And by having that pointy nose with the same kind of rocket motor that you use today on Stinger, it's no secret, it's just physics, you get less drag. If you get less drag, you fly further, and you can fly faster,' he added. 'And so then if you do something to the rocket motor, you can do even more.' Murphy did not elaborate on what advancements Lockheed Martin may have introduced on QuadStar with regard to the missile's rocket motor. Last week, the Army did interestingly highlight separate work it has been doing since 2022 on an air-breathing rocket ramjet propulsion system that could fit in a Stinger-sized missile as part of a science and technology effort called Red Wasp. Rocket ramjets are not new, but are seeing a renewed burst of interest given the benefits they offer in terms of range and speed, especially within the U.S. military. QuadStar's shaping has direct impacts on other aspects of the design, particularly the seeker. Stinger has a blunter nose profile to help optimize the field of view for the seeker head inside. With MHTK, 'we had about three different seeker types. And one of those seeker types had windows, if you will, for a semi-active laser kind of thing on the front,' Murphy said. 'And we took that same approach here, where we've got windows that allow our [infrared] seeker to see where it's going.' 'Across the board, [camera and other optical] technology has advanced … there are still some really cool things that you can do with all the different wavelengths of light,' he added, speaking more generally. 'Those things that don't necessarily have to have as much attention to them to work, have gotten very capable.' The configuration of QuadStar's seeker allows it to be less complex, overall, and lower cost, as a result, according to Murphy. 'What we learned in Miniature Hit-to-Kill was, really, how small can we go diameter-wise and still have functioning electronics and still have a round that could be affordably produced,' he added. 'Miniaturization of electronics is just leaps and bounds over where it was a few years ago, much less 50.' Unlike MHTK, which was designed to destroy targets through sheer force of impact, QuadStar does have an explosive warhead inside, but it is also designed to be as compact as possible while still being effective. 'If you can get a warhead closer to a target, and if that warhead is optimized … for those kinds of situations, you can have extremely lethal effects, not only against small drones, but against fixed wing targets, as well,' Murphy said. Other prior work at Lockheed Martin on other unspecified 'systems that are either man-portable or operator-in-the-loop kinds of things' have also fed into QuadStar's development, according to Murphy. QuadStar also has a modular, open-architecture design intended to make it easier to integrate new and improved capabilities and functionality in the future. Murphy said that this is already helping accelerate iterative developmental work, including changes based on feedback from members of the Army. Murphy further noted that the Army has structured the NGSRI program in a way that will give it ownership over the core architecture behind whichever design it ultimately chooses. This gives the service much more freedom to incorporate upgrades provided by third parties down the line should it choose to do so. All together, 'what we tried to do was take our experience in fire control, our experience with AI [artificial intelligence] and machine learning, our experience with aerodynamics of missiles, and with seekers, and we tried to put all that together to get us a low cost missile that can get out and get after targets at really long range, and can still do the kinds of things you expect this kind of weapon to do.' Murphy said that the QuadStar team has also been making design decisions with an eye toward manufacturability, as well as performance and affordability. While he could not provide an estimated unit cost, he said the missile is set to be far under the Army's target price point. The unit price for new-manufacture current-generation Stingers has been reported to be around $400,000 in recent years. Though the Army's NGSRI requirements call for the ability to use existing Stinger launcher architecture, Lockheed Martin has also been developing a new Command Launch Assembly (CLA) for employing QuadStar in the man-portable mode. This has been driven in large part by the need for improved targeting capabilities to match the increased range of the new missile. Even today, in its man-portable configuration, Stinger has a relatively rudimentary optical sighting system. A night vision optic can also be fitted, but is a notably cumbersome addition. An IFF (identification, friend or foe) antenna is also provided to reduce the chance of friendly fire. Auditory tones, as well as physical feedback to the cheekbone via a bone transducer, are the only indicators the operator gets for successful IFF interrogation and target lock. Any additional help in finding targets to begin with is done via communicating with other personnel either verbally or via radio. The Army has also experimented with firing Stinger from the Lightweight Command Launch Unit (LWCLU) for the Javelin anti-tank guided missile, which offers improved targeting capabilities. Lockheed Martin's new CLA for QuadStar incorporates much-improved optics together with a computerized targeting system that leverages advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning. 'If you think about the optics that you have available in your mobile [phone] camera today compared to what I had in my, you know, Zeiss Ikon in 1970 whatever it was, it's pretty amazing the quality you get out of those kinds of cameras,' Lockheed Martin's Murphy said, speaking generally, about advances in optics since Stinger was originally designed. '[We can] take advantage of artificial intelligence [and] machine learning … to help with automated target recognition and automated target tracking and our automated target ID, so that the soldiers and the Marines can be sure that what they're shooting at is what they really intended to shoot at, but that they can do it at a range that's longer than what you would expect today,' he added. With QuadStar, 'the gunner will look for the target through … the Command Launch Assembly. And once he detects that target, there's a process within the CLA that helps [determine] … what type of target it is, [the] likelihood that it's friend or foe, that kind of thing,' Murphy explained. 'And once they decide that that's a target that they want to track, they can automatically track that target. And then when it's time to engage, they essentially go through a few buttons and launch the missile.' 'The missile itself will lock onto the target after it leaves the tube and engage the target, hopefully at a pretty long range,' he continued. Overall, 'we're trying to cut the steps that you go through for an engagement significantly so that it's not quite as protracted. We're trying to take away some of the things that might pose a little bit of a challenge in terms of operations.' Right now, the ability to network the CLA together with other nodes in a larger integrated air defense architecture is something that is under consideration. Many larger air defense systems that currently employ Stinger, such as the Sgt. Stout and the older Avenger, already incorporate certain degrees of offboard cueing capability. 'When you think about it from an operational point of view, you want that piece of kit to know as much as it can,' Murphy said, speaking in broad terms. 'It might even be good if that piece of kit were able to provide information back into the system.' 'Everybody is working [on] their architectures for the future,' he added. This, in turn, raises questions about 'what information flow can we handle? What information flow is even valuable? So part of this goes to, can you do it technically? Sure. Is it worthy of something that you want to spend time and effort doing? I think that's still up in the air based on requirements from the people that have to use it, I guess is the way that I would put it.' Murphy said that Lockheed Martin sees its new CLA as already offering significantly improved capability to spot and engage threats over what is available now with Stinger. At the same time, he did acknowledge that demand for additional capability to help find and track targets at extended ranges could grow in the future. Improving sensor fusion and network connectivity, especially when it comes to air and missile defense architectures, are areas the Army and the rest of the U.S. military are already very interested in. The Army is in the process of fielding a new networking architecture focused on air and missile defense missions called the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS). It is important to note that the competition between Lockheed Martin and Raytheon for NGSRI is very much still underway. Given the Army's push for the new missile to slot in with existing Stinger infrastructure, whoever wins the contract could well expect to see a significant windfall. The Marines are also expecting to acquire NGSRIs to replace their Stingers, and other branches of the U.S. armed forces could follow suit. There are dozens of other operators who employ Stinger in various configurations globally, as well. Murphy also highlighted the potential for QuadStar to be employed in other domains, including as an air-launched weapon and in maritime installations. However, he said the focus now is on ground-based applications. Stinger can already be used in an air-to-air mode, as well as from mounts on ships. Growing threats posed by drones are now also creating new demand broadly for lower-cost anti-air interceptors, including ones that can be launched from fixed-wing aircraft, crewed and uncrewed, and helicopters. The ongoing war in Ukraine has also helped thrust Stinger, as well as other man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), back into the spotlight in recent years. Ukrainian forces have been using various types of MANPADS to good effect against Russian helicopters, drones, and even subsonic cruise missiles. #Ukraine: Another Russian cruise missile (Kh-101/Kh-55) was shot down by Ukrainian 9K38 Igla MANPADS operators today. Two 9M39 missiles are fired, with one striking the target. — Polymarket Intel (@PolymarketIntel) December 29, 2022 The conflict in Ukraine has also underscored the importance of both affordability and manufacturability, as Lockheed Martin's Murphy highlighted when talking about QuadStar. After Russia's all-out invasion in 2022, Raytheon had real trouble keeping up with the surge in demand. The U.S. military's transfer of large stocks of Stinger to Ukraine has only put additional emphasis on the replacement NGSRI. Recent U.S. operations in the Middle East have also highlighted growing concerns, in general, about the adequacy of existing munitions stockpiles and the ability to replenish them, especially in the event of a large-scale conflict, such as one in the Pacific against China. 'At the end of the day, if you build this exquisite piece of machinery that you can only make one of a month because they're too difficult to produce, then you really haven't helped anybody,' Lockheed Martin's Murphy told TWZ. When it comes to NGSRI, the Army is looking to pick between QuadStar and Raytheon's proposal sometime in the next few years, and to hopefully begin fielding its new short-range surface-to-air missiles by 2028. Contact the author: joe@
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump laments size of ‘much too big' airplane gifted by Qatar
Donald Trump's big, beautiful new plane from the government of Qatar has arrived – but the US president has a problem with it. Not the smack of impropriety that comes with a US president accepting a luxury 747 jumbo jet from the Gulf state, intended as a replacement Air Force One – Trump has already brushed off any criticism on that front. Now that it's arrived in the US, Trump says it's too big. The Qataris have given the president a Boeing 747-8, a stretch model of the jumbo that is more than 18 ft longer than the much older 747-200B that flies as the current Air Force One. 'Frankly, it's much too big,' Trump told reporters during a question and answer media session in the Oval Office at the White House on Wednesday afternoon. He expanded. He called the new jet a 'beautiful, big, magnificent, free airplane for the United States air force'. But is apparently unhappy with its size, although he has not sought to answer the question, too big for what? The original offer from Qatar set off a firestorm of criticism of Trump, from both political parties, particularly following his visit to the country earlier this month where he focused most vigorously on trade and business deals. The US Senator Cory Booker and other prominent Democrats slammed the arrangement and Chris Murphy, the Connecticut senator, called the gift 'the definition of corruption' and 'wildly illegal'. Asked on Wednesday if it is definitely going to become Air Force One, the official plane of the president of the United States, Trump said only that the aircraft is in the US and 'is being re-fitted for military standard'. He admitted he doesn't know how much the re-fitting will cost but guessed 'a hell of a lot less than building a new one'. He again criticized Boeing, the troubled US aircraft manufacturer for delays in replacing the current jet used as Air Force One, which dates to the early 1990s, apparently necessitating an expedited replacement from another country. The White House insists the jet is a gift to the country not to Trump personally.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Semiconductor ETF options show caution ahead of Nvidia results
Traders in the options markets are bracing for industry-wide volatility when AI-chipmaker Nvidia reports results on Wednesday, with defensive options contracts on a major semiconductor ETF drawing heavy trading. For VanEck Semiconductor ETF, the largest semiconductors ETF with some $22 billion in assets, about 2.4 put options changed hands daily over the last 10 days against every call option traded, the most defensive the trading has been in about 10 months, according to Trade Alert data. Call options convey the right to buy shares at a fixed price in the future while put contracts offer the right to sell the shares at a given price. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. "The put buying in SMH ahead of Nvidia's earnings reflects growing concern about potential volatility for the entire sector following the report," said Chris Murphy, co-head of derivative strategy at Susquehanna Financial Group. On Tuesday, some 105,000 put options changed hands against about 16,000 call options, by 3 p.m. ET (1900 GMT), Trade Alert data showed. Live Events In one notable trade, one investor last week bought 50,000 put options in SMH that would guard against the ETF's shares slipping about 10%, to below $220, by the end of May. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories Nvidia accounts for about a fifth of the semi ETF's assets but due to its dominance in the artificial intelligence market, the chipmaker's influence goes beyond its weight in the fund, analysts said. While investors have been focused on defensive plays in the SMH ETF, options action on Nvidia itself was more mixed, Murphy said. Murphy said investors were selling options to take advantage of heightened volatility expectations around the chipmaker's earnings, meaning they were betting the reaction to the chipmaker's results will not be overly severe. "It's been hedging in SMH while in NVDA they're tactically monetizing elevated premiums ahead of earnings," he said. Susquehanna makes markets in the securities of Nvidia. Interactive Brokers' list of the 25 most active securities by client orders showed Nvidia ranked second, underlining the heightened investor interest in the results. Still, the stock was only one of two names for which investors were net sellers. "That likely reflects some caution ahead of earnings after a solid run," Steve Sosnick, Interactive Brokers' chief strategist, said in a note. Nvidia will be the last of the "Magnificent Seven" megacap tech and growth companies to report results for this period. Their stocks have been mixed in 2025 after leading the market higher as a group in the last two years. For the year, Nvidia shares are up about 0.7%, while SMH shares are up about 1.2%.
