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The U.S. just celebrated its 250th birthday, and Americans living off the planet had a great view of some of the parties down below.

"The International Space Station orbited over Los Angeles on July 4th as America marked 250 years of independence with a burst of fireworks lighting up the city below — a celebration so bright it reached all the way to space!" NASA officials said on Monday (July 6) via the agency's ISS X account.

That post featured a 15-second video captured from the orbiting lab, which showed hundreds of firework shows flickering across the L.A. area at night like cameras flashing in quick succession at a concert or a football game.

The International Space Station orbited over Los Angeles on July 4th as America marked 250 years of independence with a burst of fireworks lighting up the city below — a celebration so bright it reached all the way to space! pic.twitter.com/SMCXTFYRjD July 6, 2026

There are seven people living in Earth orbit at the moment, members of the ISS' current Expedition 74. Three are Americans: NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway, Jessica Meir and Chris Williams, all of whom serve as flight engineers.

The others are the European Space Agency 's Sophie Adenot and cosmonauts Andrey Fedyaev, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev. Kud-Sverchkov is Expedition 74's commander, while Adenot, Fedyaev and Mikaev are flight engineers.

NASA didn't just passively observe celebrations of the United States' 250th birthday; the agency marked the occasion in multiple ways as well.

For example, NASA painted big "America 250" logos on the Space Launch System rocket that launched the Artemis 2 astronauts around the moon this past April. The four Artemis 2 crewmates also wore special patches commemorating the anniversary.

In addition, NASA conducted a series of airplane flyovers in the Washington, D.C. area over the July 4 weekend and will perform more in the coming weeks and months. You can learn more about the agency's anniversary activities in this Space.com story .

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North Korea’s newest warship, the Kang Kon , has an unexpected feature: the ability to deliver something of a modern broadside, albeit with machine guns rather than larger naval guns. The vessel’s various weapon systems, including a vertical launch system array loaded with cruise missiles, were recently shown off to the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un. State media claims the ship, which was damaged in a botched launch attempt last year, is now set to be commissioned into service within the next two months.

Kang Kon is one of two Choi-Hyun class warships (also sometimes written Choe Hyon) that have been built to date. Two more are reportedly under construction. As a matter of taxonomy, North Korea describes them as destroyers, but also says that they displace around 5,000 metric tons. Globally, surface combatants with similar displacement are more commonly categorized as frigates. Kang Kon and its sister ship Choi-Hyun are very heavily armed for their size, as we will go over in more detail.

The Kang Kon seen firing its machine guns during a demonstration last week. North Korean state media

There have also been reports that Kang Kon was renamed Jiang Jian after the failed launch, which was a huge and undeniable embarrassment for the regime in Pyongyang. Satellite images of the incident went viral , and it remained a global news headline for weeks . As such, it would make a certain amount of sense with the stigma that might now be attached to the original moniker. However, English-language state media reports can be found from just yesterday still referring to the ship as Kang Kon .

Kim Jong Un observed the demonstration of the Kang Kon ‘s capabilities last Friday, but official reports were only published yesterday. These were accompanied by a video montage and still images. During the event, the ship launched 12 “strategic” cruise missiles, a term North Korea typically uses to describe nuclear-capable weapon systems . It also fired its 5-inch main gun and at least one of its Close-in Weapon Systems (CIWS) armed with a 30mm multi-barrel Gatling-type cannon. There were “trials of its electronic warfare systems and assessments of its target-detection and information-processing capabilities,” as well, according to the Associated Press , citing official reports.

Uncle Kim oversaw the successful test launch of strategic cruise missiles from the Korean People's Navy's (KPN) new guided-missile frigate, Kang Kon (52).

The trials also included tests of the ship's primary weapons systems, including its main gun, electronic warfare suite, and… pic.twitter.com/SfXS4KuCqY

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) July 5, 2026

And then there were the machine guns.

In one of the official still pictures, seen at the top of this story and in parts below, there looks to be at least 12 KPV-series machine guns firing from the port side of the ship. This includes at least eight guns in four twin mounts that are remotely controlled. These mounts are installed on the deck at various points. Available pictures show three more KPVs on single mounts seen protruding from ports in the left side of the main superstructure, which may be manually operated by sailors within. The video footage shows there is another mount toward the stern, but it is not entirely clear if it has one or two machine guns fitted.

Close-up looks at one of the remotely-controlled twin-mounts (at left) and one of the single mounts (at right). North Korean state media

The KPV is a Soviet-designed heavy machine gun that fires the 14.5x114mm cartridge. Though the core design traces back to the end of World War II, variants are still in service in Russia, as well as in dozens of other countries around the world. It has been widely used over the years, especially as a light anti-aircraft weapon. With its large round and appreciable range, it is also effective against a variety of other targets, including lightly armored vehicles and small boats. Versions have been on various vehicles and naval vessels over the years, and it can also be employed from mounts on the ground.

A KPV machine gun on a single ground mount, a configuration also known as the ZPU-1, which US forces captured in Iraq in 2003. US Military

A KPV machine gun in single naval mounting on a Russian Navy vessel. This configuration is also known as the MTPU. Russian Ministry of Defense

There is another gun in a port on the left side of the ship, but not enough of it is visible to identify it. One of Kang Kon’s 30mm CIWS’s is also visible in this picture, along with multi-cell launchers that could be used to fire various defensive payloads, including flares, chaff, and other expendable countermeasures. Previous images of the Kang Kon and the first-in-class Choi-Hyun have also shown them equipped with what appears to be a Russian-made Pantsir-ME CIWS , or a clone thereof. There are also multiple Vertical Launch System (VLS) arrays with a total of 74 cells between them, including ones that look large enough to accommodate ballistic missiles .

Another close-up showing an unknown gun in a port on Kang Kon ‘s hull (at lower left), as well as one of its 30mm CIWSs. North Korean state media

The array of machine guns on Kang Kon looks like almost comical overkill, especially if there are an equal number of them mounted on the opposite side of the ship. There is a growing use case for some additional small-caliber armament on ships , especially to provide extra close-in defense at sea and in port against aerial drones and uncrewed boats. These are real threats to warships that have now been fully thrust into the public consciousness by the war in Ukraine .

Over the years, the Russian Navy has been observed adding additional machine guns, including ones in remotely-operated mounts , as well as so-called “cope cage” style screens to surface vessels to help ward off kamikaze drones, with mixed results . The cages have also appeared on submarines in port . It is worth noting here that the North Korean regime has been providing troops , as well as ballistic missiles and other weapons , to support the Russian war effort.

KRONSTADT (St. Petersburg), June 3.

Birds of the @1usc_army , @usf_army hunted down and set ablaze the corvette Boikiy, a guided missile weapons carrier.

06:35, 03.06.26. Veleshchynskyi Dry Dock, Kronstadt (St. Petersburg) – the cradle of the russian Navy.

Tired after its… pic.twitter.com/2HjrlyVKdc

— 414 Magyar's Birds (@414magyarbirds) June 3, 2026

Russian Defense Ministry announced that Ukraine attempted to attack the Ivan Khurs signals intelligence ship of the Russian Navy with 3 unmanned surface vessels (USVs) in the Black Sea this morning.

Moscow released footage allegedly showing the destruction of one of the USVs. pic.twitter.com/YfS7xWSGWw

— Status-6 (War & Military News) (@Archer83Able) May 24, 2023

There are still larger questions about the actual combat capability of both of the Choi-Hyun class warships, as well as their broad utility, especially if they are ultimately procured only in relatively small numbers. Furthermore, Kang Kon was relaunched very quickly last year, despite the extent of the damage that it looked to have suffered after the initial botched attempt. The full scale and scope of repairs that have been made since last May, and over what timeline, remain unclear. The official video from the demonstration last Friday does notably show the ship sailing under its own power.

The Kang Kon as seen at the shipyard in Chongjin on May 23, 2025. Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies (now Vantor)

A satellite image showing Kang Kon in dry dock in Rajin, North Korea, on June 12, 2025. Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies (now Vantor)

A screen capture from the official video of last week’s demonstration, showing the Kang Kon underway. North Korean state media capture

As TWZ has previously written about this new class of North Korean ships:

“While this ship should be capable as a launch platform for longer-range strike missiles, its other primary role as an air warfare asset is highly debatable. As with other new high-profile North Korean weapon systems, while they may offer advanced capabilities in relation to what the country already has, in a wartime scenario, they would be the first to be targeted and destroyed. Having a ship that looks loosely like more advanced foreign ones and packed with weapons is one thing, actually making it a survivable asset, with all the technology and training that goes with it, is a far higher bar to reach. Infusion of Russian technologies and assistance could help in this regard, but only to a degree.”

“It is unlikely that Pyongyang will ever be able to build these ships in large enough numbers to give their fleet true depth and resiliency in combat, assuming they even stand a shot in a combat scenario at all. Even if multiple frigates are built, they would be tracked and sunk quickly during the opening stages of a conflict. This is especially true considering they could carry standoff weapons with nuclear warheads. Still, they may have enough time to send their long-range weaponry on its way before they reach their demise. Considering the unique weapons configuration we are seeing, that could very well be their point. An ambiguously assured second-strike deterrent.”

Kim Jong Un and others walk away from a viewing area after watching a demonstration of Kang Kon ‘s firepower. The ship is seen in the background to the left. North Korean state media

If the North Koreans keep the timeline that has now been stated, Kang Kon should be officially commissioned by September, if not before then. Many questions remain, whether the ships are festooned with machine guns firing from their sides or not.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post North Korea’s Frigate Bristles With A Comical Number Of Machine Guns appeared first on TWZ .

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Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a generational historical RPG that deserves every ounce of praise it's gotten, and in my opinion was every bit as deserving of GOTY 2025 as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but apparently the actor behind one of its main characters hasn't been able to share in its success.

In conversation with Firezide Chat , Luke Dale, the charming face and voice behind Hans Capon in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, says he turned to streaming after becoming recognizable as Hans Capon, a role you'd think might open up a lot of professional doors for an actor.

"I wish I could say that Kingdom Come 2, the work I've done and the fact it's been played by millions of people led to more work, but it didn't," Dale says.

"I was hoping it would, but I always hedge my bets because I don't think the industry has been particularly kind to me. Warhorse have been absolute gems. They're so supportive and really believed in me the whole way through. But the industry at large has never really given a fuck."

As the games industry rushes to replace humans with AI on the payroll, and as seemingly unending layoffs make work more competitive, there's no denying that it's a hard time for everyone right now, actors and voice actors included. That said, Dale has managed to accumulate an impressive 72.2 thousand followers on Twitch and 177 thousand YouTube subscribers, which is likely at least in part thanks to his role as Hans, so it's not like his post-Kingdom Come professional life has been entirely thankless.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 lead designer says "friction is intentionally" in the RPG because when "you overcome the friction, you feel better about yourself"

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Scientists say they have built a "synthetic cell" that can eat, grow and divide in a way that's remarkably similar to living cells.

The research, released to the preprint database bioRxiv July 2, has not been peer-reviewed yet. It introduces SpudCell, a new type of artificial cell, and marks a striking step toward creating living cells from scratch. But for study co-author Kate Adamala , a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota, that's far from the most interesting part of the work.

"I do not believe [SpudCell] is alive," Adamala told Live Science. Instead, she describes the system as a framework that could generate "all the chemicals we need for our civilization with biology." The thought is that SpudCell could serve as a tiny factory, pumping out medicines, fertilizers, plastics or any number of other compounds.

The work's announcement has sparked some controversy, with some scientists seeing it as a ploy to gain media attention for the simultaneous launch of the author's nonprofit Biotic , which aims to raise money to further develop the SpudCell platform. Adamala does not take umbrage to that criticism, as she is keen to bring more attention and funding to her field. If a synthetic cell can be perfected, she thinks, it could help humanity generate chemicals without relying as heavily on petroleum products.

"I feel this incredible stressful urgency that if we don't get to work on it now, then we're going to run out of time," she said, referring to the climate crisis . "We need to highlight that bioengineering can offer a solution. That's why I'm doing it."

A synthetic cell and a big promise

According to the preprint, Adamala and her team produced a lifelike system that closely resembles a living cell. To do so, they combined 36 purified enzymes and a fatty membrane with a pared-back genome about 50 times smaller than that of an average bacterial cell. By mixing these human-made elements together, the scientists generated a cell that could feed, grow, and divide — so, in essence, they created a full cell cycle in a petri dish.

"We built a cell-like system that is fully chemically defined, so there are no unknown building blocks in it," Adamala said. "It's capable of doing things that people up until now used to think only natural living cells can do." They call the system "SpudCell" because it looks similar to a potato, The New York Times reported . The name is also a nod to the Sputnik satellite, per CNN .

The concept of recreating the cell cycle in a dish is not entirely new . The J. Craig Venter Institute's 2016 "minimal cell" paper flirted with the concept by stripping as many genes from a bacterium as possible to leave only a minimal cell that could still replicate. However, the new study is the first time scientists have achieved feeding, growing and division using a "bottom-up" approach.

The work marks "a great advancement," said Mauro Rinaldi , a lecturer in biotechnology and biochemistry at the University of Hull in the U.K. who was not involved in the work. "It moves the needle because one of the key things about cells is division."

But there are important caveats. For one, the cells cannot yet create their own energy as our cells do with mitochondria. They also rely on externally provided fats, sugars and enzymes. The cells cannot make their own ribosomes, the machinery that turns genetic instructions into working parts of the cell. That means it relies on proteins being delivered from the outside.

Left: A super-resolution image of SpudCell's liposomes with an encapsulated genome and active protein expression. Right: A SpudCell encapsulates a whole genome. The DNA of the genome and the synthetic cell membrane are stained with fluorescent dyes. (Image credit: Orion Venero, Adamala Lab) Another difference is that SpudCell's genome is spread out over bits of DNA called plasmids, rather than being neatly packaged in chromosomes. It does not possess the skeleton that cells typically use to neatly split DNA during cell division, so consequently, the division of SpudCell's DNA to its daughter cells can be somewhat haphazard.

"The description of the results leaves me with substantial technical questions regarding the nature and the robustness of the findings," said Cees Dekker , a biophysicist at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands who was not involved in the work. "[Its] approach uses some ingenious engineering tricks as shortcuts to achieve complex functions such as growth, but a major challenge remains to create a truly autonomous cell that executes all these functions without external help," he said.

Dekker is among the scientists who would have preferred that the research made the news after being published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. "If these findings are solid, that great media attention is definitely warranted; if peer review would, however, reveal weaknesses or issues, all the current media reporting is premature," he argued.

From cell to manufacturing platform

Adamala sees SpudCell as a blank slate for engineering. "We believe that if we make a cell from scratch, that's fully engineerable," she said.

Cells have long been used to produce chemicals for human use. Millions of people use synthetic insulin made in bacteria and yeast cells, for example. But cells resist making chemicals that could be harmful to them, and through evolution, they've developed systems to prevent them from doing so. A SpudCell-like system could circumvent those natural hurdles, Adamala and her colleagues think.

That kind of platform could also be useful for making newer generations of medicines, such as those based on mRNA or peptides. These drugs use molecular building blocks, like amino acids or nucleotides, that have been chemically tweaked to make the molecules more stable or harder for the body to break down. SpudCell could be engineered to produce such modified components directly, rather than scientists having to synthesize them in traditional chemistry labs. This could potentially shorten development timelines and lower costs, the team thinks.

Adamala and her colleagues also envision the cells being used as easily shippable laboratories . They could be dried out, shipped, stored without refrigeration, and then activated on-site to make chemicals, vaccines or proteins when and where they are needed.

But there's still a long road ahead. For now, SpudCell is only a proof of principle, and many hurdles must be addressed before it could become an industrial platform.

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"[SpudCell] is not an engineering platform that can give you any useful product, but it's step one," Adamala said. "It's probably at least a couple of decades from now when we can actually scale it up to the point where we can replace all the petrochemicals with biology, but I do believe it's doable."

Adamala hopes the nonprofit Biotic will help funnel donations from philanthropists directly to research. "Biotic is a funding agency that is going to globally fund this work," she said.

While the technology is promising, "it needs to go through peer review," Rinaldi said. "I expect a lot of the hype and some of the terms that they're using to go away after a couple of years have passed."

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23.9% of people who financed a new vehicle last quarter got an 84+ month loan.

The average monthly payment soared to a new record of $777, but many pay more.

People are putting less money down and financing an average of $44,156.

The average transaction price for a new vehicle is hovering around $50,000, so it comes as little surprise buyers are embracing longer loans. This has been playing out for awhile and Ram introduced a 10-year/100,000-mile limited powertrain warranty as CEO Tim Kuniskis noted nearly 80% of new truck loans exceed five years.

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However, five years is nothing as many shoppers are now turning to even longer loans. According to Edmunds , a record 36.5% of people who financed a new vehicle in the second quarter opted for a loan of 73 months or more. That’s over six years and the number has soared from 27.3% in 2016.

More: America’s $1.7 Trillion Auto Debt Is Driving Repos Back To Recession Levels

Even more surprisingly, 23.9% of financers signed up for loans lasting at least 84 months. That’s seven years and yet another record.

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Despite the fact that customers are embracing longer loans, the average monthly payment has soared to a new record of $777. That’s an all-time high for the third consecutive quarter and it means people are paying an average of $9,324 per year.

That’s a lot of money, but 20.3% of new vehicle financers opted for payments of $1,000 or more in the second quarter. That ties the all-time high and is up slightly from Q1.

New Car Financing

Q2 2026 Q2 2025 Q1 2026

Term 70.4 69.8 70.3

Monthly Payment $777 $756 $773

Amount Financed $44,156 $42,388 $43,899

APR 7 7.2 6.9

Down Payment $5,815 $6,433 $6,206

SWIPE

Given that monthly payments have soared to a new record, it’s not surprising to learn that the average amount financed has also hit a new all-time high. Buyers are taking on an average of $44,156 in debt, which is up $257 from the first quarter and $1,768 from a year ago.

If that wasn’t bad enough, people are putting less money down on their purchases. The average down payment dropped to $5,815 and that’s below the $6,206 in Q1 as well as the $6,433 last year. In fact, down payments now make up just 11.6% of the average total purchase price and that’s the lowest percentage in nearly six years.

Banks are making bank as the average lifetime interest payment has soared to a new record of $9,811. That’s up $195 from a year ago and the average annual percentage rate was 7% in the quarter.

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Used Car Financing

Q2 2026 Q2 2025 Q1 2026

Term 70.1 69.7 69.9

Monthly Payment $576 $559 $559

Amount Financed $30,414 $29,080 $29,314

APR 10.5 10.9 10.8

Down Payment $4,016 $4,092 $3,993

SWIPE

Used car buyers are also paying a ton as a record 6.3% of them opted for monthly payments of $1,000 or more. The average amount financed for a used vehicle also shot up from $29,080 last year to $30,414 in the second quarter. That’s enough to buy several brand-new vehicles including the Buick Envista , Chevrolet Trax, Nissan Kicks, and Toyota Corolla Cross – just to name a few.

Edmunds’ head of insights, Jessica Caldwell, said “The Q2 data perfectly illustrates the stark reality of today’s new-vehicle market: Affordability is such a massive hurdle that buyers are forced to stretch their budgets to the absolute limit just to get into a new vehicle.” She added “this is the new normal for new-car buyers” and noted “consumers will have to keep walking this financial tightrope” for the foreseeable future.

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