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The last few years have been nothing short of stellar for the great Timothy Olyphant , who has settled into a key role in Ridley Scott ’s latest sci-fi series, Alien: Earth . After starring in the first season as Kirsh, it has been confirmed that Olyphant will return and star in Season 2, which is now shooting and eyeing a 2027 return. Olyphant has also become a Star Wars sensation thanks to his role as Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett , and while fans are ready to see him show up again, there don’t appear to be any plans for him to come back in the immediate future. Outside just the last few years, though, Olyphant has been starring in popular Western movies and TV shows, and one of his most famous pieces of work is staging an unexpected comeback.

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Crimson Desert 's one trillionth update is rolling out now and comes with 39 pieces of new gear, plenty of fixes, and a must-have feature for any action game - the ability to snuggle in bed with your pets.

Developer Pearl Abyss released Crimson Desert's 1.13.00 patch earlier today, and the headlining new feature is that Oongka and Damiane can now enter the Abyss as well. "Accordingly, the locations of Memory Fragments for certain rematchable bosses have been changed," the developer writes in its latest page of patch notes .

That's all well and good, but it pales in comparison to a game-changing new addition that should really be an industry standard across all games: "Summoned pets will now rest together with the character when resting in bed." Your fluffy friends will simply teleport next to you whenever you climb onto a bed and curl up into a ball.

Your summoned pet will sleep in bed with you! pic.twitter.com/aEfeIdjD14 July 4, 2026

Kliff and Oongka now also have 39 new pieces of equipment, including boss gear and complete sets. Damiane just gets 8 pieces of gear. Poor Damiane.

The rest of Crimson Desert's new patch is absolutely packed with smaller but still nice changes, including loads of bug fixes and slight tweaks here and there. "Changed certain disguise outfits that could not be dyed so that they can now be dyed," is one example from the patch notes. "Improved gathering so that up to 3 fireflies can be obtained when gathering from a firefly colony," is another.

Compared to similar single-player open-world games, Crimson Desert's enjoyed a frankly bonkers cadence of near-constant updates. Everything from Pinball to boss rematches have been added in the months since launch, and that's only beginning to tell the full tale. Marketing director Will Powers recently said the updates aren't Pearl Abyss' attempt to sell more copies , however.

Crimson Desert DLC "will be substantively different" to the main game, Pearl Abyss PR lead teases

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Thousands of police deployed to Erfurt in central Germany as AfD holds conference on key Nazi date

Riot police have clashed with opponents of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party on the streets of Erfurt in Germany, where thousands met to block roads and prevent AfD delegates from attending the party’s biennial national conference to elect its leadership.

Police reported 20,000 protesters were demonstrating in the eastern city, where Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla are expected to be re-elected as the party’s co-leaders in the run-up to crucial regional elections in which AfD could win power at state-level for the first time.

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What did the evening sky look like for Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and their contemporaries on July 4, 1776?

As the United States marks its 250th birthday, many astronomy enthusiasts may be asking exactly that. If you stepped outside around 9 p.m. local time on July 5, 1776, the sky would look much as it does today. Only careful measurements would show that the stars were not in quite the same positions they occupy in 2026.

To understand the sky more fully, it helps to look at how people in 1776 tracked celestial events and what they would have expected to see overhead.

But first, how did people in 1776 keep track of astronomical phenomena? People studied astronomy for practical reasons both in and out of the classroom. It was essential for navigation, surveying, timekeeping, and charting unfamiliar lands. In an age before light pollution, ordinary people were also likely far more familiar with the stars and constellations than most people are today.

Almanacs: timetables of the heavens

In the American colonies of the 17th and 18th centuries, an almanac ranked just behind the Bible in everyday importance. It listed sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset, the times when bright stars reached their highest points in the sky, lunar phases, planetary positions, some astrological lore, and practical information such as road conditions, husbandry tips, and weather forecasts.

Title page from a "typical" almanac of the 18th century (1761). (Image credit: Public Domain) By the early 18th century, numerous almanacs were in print. Many survived only a few years, but a bestseller could support its printer well into the following year. Among the most successful was Benjamin Franklin's " Poor Richard's Almanack ", published in Philadelphia under the pseudonym Richard Saunders from 1732 to 1758. It became immensely popular, selling more than 10,000 copies annually. Franklin has often been called America's first true Renaissance man — an author, printer, politician, diplomat, inventor, and scientist who counted astronomy among his interests.

Later, yearly "prospectuses of the sundry celestial events" could be derived from the extensive calculations appearing in " The Nautical Almanac", established in 1766 by Dr. Nevil Maskelyne , the fifth Astronomer Royal of England.

The planets visible over the U.S. in 1776

For anyone consulting an almanac for the year 1776, they would find that only one planet could be readily viewed after sundown. Saturn , in the constellation Virgo , passed opposition to the sun on April 7 and during July would be evident in the southwest sky at dusk, shining with a yellowish-white glow and appearing slightly brighter than the bluish first magnitude star Spica , about 7 degrees to its lower left. On the evening of July 22, a waxing crescent moon would appear to form a broad triangle with Saturn and Spica. Of course, Saturn's most notable telescopic feature is its ring system , which at that time was tilted 10 degrees from edge-on with its north face in view.

Looking southwest as darkness fell on July 4, 1776, one could see Saturn in the zodiacal constellation of Virgo. Saturn was positioned about 7 degrees to the upper right of Virgo's brightest star, Spica. (Image credit: Graphic created by Joe Rao using Starry Night Pro 8.0/Simulation Curriculum. Background added in Canva Pro.) Toward the end of the month, three other planets would be available about 90 minutes before sunrise, low in the east-northeast amidst the stars of Gemini : Mercury, Jupiter and Mars. Dazzling Venus would be invisible due to its proximity to the sun.

The great lunar eclipse of July 1776

The month's most anticipated astronomical event was the total lunar eclipse of July 30 . By the standards of most eclipses, it was exceptional: totality would last an unusually long 1 hour 35 minutes. Unfortunately for observers in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and many other locations, much of the spectacle unfolded before moonrise. Mid-totality was predicted for "7:01 o'clock in the evening," before the moon rose, and the moon would begin emerging from Earth's shadow at 7:49 p.m., when it was positioned just above the east-southeast horizon. It would "quit the shadow completely" at 8:48 p.m.

The eclipse came just 26 days after the Declaration of Independence was unanimously adopted by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It was widely observed and discussed in journals of the era and later became part of Revolutionary War Lore. In a time of profound uncertainty, early Americans watched it closely despite poor viewing conditions. Diarists and observers, including hymn writer John Newton and militia officers, often treated the event as an omen reflecting the gravity of the Revolution. The Declaration of Independence was engrossed on parchment, and delegates began signing it on Aug. 2, 1776, only three days after the eclipse.

Beyond the month's most dramatic event lies a subtler question: whether the background stars themselves would have looked meaningfully different from the way they appear today.

Did the stars look different 250 years ago?

Besides rotating and revolving, Earth has an oscillating motion like that of a spinning top due chiefly to the pull of the moon on Earth's equatorial bulge. Each oscillation takes about 26,000 years. Thus, the North Pole traces a circle in the sky, pointing to different stars as it moves in its circuit.

Earth's slight equatorial bulge causes its axis to slowly wobble like a spinning top, tracing a circle across the sky every 26,000 years. As a result, different stars take turns serving as the North Star. (Image credit: NASA) Consequently, Polaris wasn't as good a pole star in 1776, being 1.88 degrees from the celestial pole compared to 0.63 degrees today. Put another way: the gap between the celestial pole and Polaris measured nearly four moon-widths in 1776 compared to just over one-width today.

What about proper motion? Have any stars shifted noticeably in 250 years? The only one would be the brilliant orange star Arcturus in Boötes , which has the largest proper motion of any 1st-magnitude star, but since 1776 has drifted only about 0.13 degrees (equal to about one-quarter of a moon diameter ) with respect to its fainter neighbors.

The weather on America's first Independence Day

Weather observations in Philadelphia, recorded by Thomas Jefferson and assisted by Phineas Pemberton, for the first four days of July 1776. (Image credit: NCDC (National Climate Data center)) One final detail adds historical texture: the weather in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, was pleasant and mild, with clear morning skies giving way to increasing clouds by afternoon. Weather journals kept by Thomas Jefferson and local observer Phineas Pemberton record a high of 76° F. Those later clouds, however, might have obscured much of the sky on that first night of Independence.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium . He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine , Sky and Telescope , The Old Farmer's Almanac and other publications.