41 m. ago ZIIP Dot review: Can this gadget heal my hormonal acne breakouts?

The doughnut-shaped device was created to treat and calm blemishes

Politics

41 m. ago Havoc review – Tom Hardy’s gonzo gun mayhem misses the point

Disillusioned cop Hardy must rescue a corrupt politician’s son from triads and police but potential for drama goes down in a hail of bulletsThe title is appropriate. Welsh director Gareth Evans is the action maestro who rocked our world with his superb skull-rattling thrillers The Raid and The Raid 2; this new one for Netflix certainly has its fair share of OTT gonzo mayhem. Shootouts in cramped interiors and in the open air sometimes seem to go on so long that the gunfire feels like an extended drumroll. Dozens of people get riddled with bullets from automatic weaponry; they all go into that shoulder-rolling, arm-waving, blood-spurting choreography. At one stage, a comatose and heavily bandaged person in a hospital bed gets the same machine gun treatment, and even this poor guy has to jitterbug, infinitesimally and horizontally, in his hospital pyjamas as he gets filled full of lead.But frankly the action and the violence is too chaotic and almost meaningless and the CGI-Gotham-typ...

Politics

70 m. ago Trump team may have violated another judge’s order by moving Venezuelan to Texas for deportation

Administration appears to have bucked yet another court order as officials prepare for more removals under the Alien Enemies Act

Politics

2 h. ago Cristiano Ronaldo is closing in on 1,000 goals – but may be running out of games

The finishes are still flowing for Al-Nassr but, at 40, his future for club and country is under increasing scrutinyOn Saturday, Cristiano Ronaldo can take a big step towards a first major trophy since moving to Saudi Arabia but the quarter-final of the Asian Champions League against Yokohama F Marinos also offers a chance to take a smaller stride towards an unprecedented personal milestone: 1,000 first-class goals.Pelé scored plenty but claims of 1,279, recognised by the Guinness World Records, included unofficial and exhibition games and perhaps, wondered Diego Maradona, backyard games against his nephews. The stats site RSSSF credits the Brazilian with a total of 778. Continue reading...

Politics

3 h. ago Home Lotta Love! Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant's hideaway country mansion up for sale for £2.6million

Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant lived in the Grade II-listed manor house in Penallt, Monmouthshire, during the 1980s before moving out.

Economics

3 h. ago The Accountant 2 teeters on the edge of making autism a punchline

While the 2016 original seemed to respect the neurodivergence of Ben Affleck’s savant superhero, this belated follow-up goes for easy jokes

Politics

3 h. ago Teenager who died in M6 Easter crash tragedy named as family pay moving tribute

'Our home and our family will be so empty and quiet without him'

Events

3 h. ago I found an old letter. What it said changed how I think about love

Holding onto keepsakes isn’t holding onto the past, and moving on doesn’t have to mean completely forgetting the old flames who helped form us. Helen Coffey takes a trip down memory lane and thanks her former self for having the foresight to preserve her romantic souvenirs

Politics

4 h. ago Circa/LPO/Gardner review – Exhilarating, exquisite and extraordinary as Ravel melds with acrobatics

Royal Festival Hall, LondonMultitudes festival opened with a stunningly effective collaboration between the Australian circus company and the London Philharmonic OrchestraThe Southbank Centre’s cross-genre Multitudes festival opened with a double bill of Ravel’s ballets Daphnis et Chloé and La Valse, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner, and performed by the Australian company Circa with choreography by their artistic director Yaron Lifschitz. Circa’s style amalgamates circus and acrobatics with contemporary dance, and the combination of athletic beauty, agility and strength suits Ravel uncommonly well.Rather than use the music as accompaniment to display, Lifschitz worked with the score rather than against it, though he dispensed with Daphnis et Chloé’s narrative, replacing it with a sequence of contrasting abstract tableaux, now exhilarating,now erotic, always rooted in the pulse and throb of the music, played with exquisite finesse and detail by the LP...

Politics

4 h. ago All Fours by Miranda July audiobook review – the frank, sexy novel everyone’s been talking about

The author’s hypnotic reading evokes the desires and existential crisis of a 45-year-old woman on a wild road trip In the second novel by writer, actor and film-maker Miranda July, a nameless Los Angeles-based artist who has had success “in several mediums” leaves behind her husband, Harris, and their young child, Sam, to drive across America. She is due at a meeting in New York and has decided to get there via a leisurely road trip. But what starts off as a fleeting break from the mundanity of marriage and motherhood turns into a wild and wonderfully odd unravelling. Just half an hour into her journey, she impulsively leaves the freeway and checks into a scruffy motel. There she is electrified by a younger car hire worker who has “a Huckleberry Finn/Gilbert Blythe look that I used to flip out over as a teenager.” After the two lock eyes while he squeegees her windscreen (not a euphemism), she decides to pursue him in an unusually chaste love affair.All Fours – which has been shortl...

Culture

4 h. ago Nicola Benedetti: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto album review – warm and deliciously playful throughout

Benedetti/Aurora Orchestra/Collon(Decca)Benedetti and the Aurora, who play from memory, have fun and freedom here, augmenting the role of the drum in an ebullient recordingWe tend to have an unhealthy reverence towards Beethoven, says Nicola Benedetti in the notes to her new recording of his Violin Concerto. He did, after all, write this now-venerated concerto largely on the fly, for a soloist whose party piece was playing the violin upside down.So it’s apt that Benedetti, Aurora and their conductor Nicholas Collon have recorded an interpretation that’s buoyant, warmly affectionate and at times just a little tongue-in-cheek. You’d expect playfulness in the last movement, but it’s there to some extent throughout, even in Benedetti’s weightless playing of the slow movement. There are striking moments nodding to historical authenticity – the drum, with sticks hard as nails, at the very start, and the vibrato-less strings in the introduction to the slow movement. The drum becomes unusua...

Events

4 h. ago Tron: Catalyst captures the look and vibe of the 2010 movie with a top

Tron gets an isometric action upgrade from Bithell Games, with a new game that smartly plays with the plot using a unique looping mission structure.

Politics

4 h. ago Guardian writers on their ultimate feelgood movies: ‘Unfailing ability to cheer me up’

Our writers highlight the films they find endlessly rewatchable, including Notting Hill, You’ve Got Mail and Mamma Mia!“Feelgood” movies are often thought of as big-hearted romantic comedies, comforting classics, or childhood favourites that still hold up decades later. In our series, My feelgood movie, Guardian writers reflect on their go-to flick, and explain why their pick is endlessly rewatchable.This list will be updated weekly with further picks. Continue reading...

Events

5 h. ago Alice Snedden at Soho Theatre review: a wonderfully witty turn from the versatile Kiwi comic

This is Snedden’s first show in five years - not that you’d know it

Politics

5 h. ago Flintoff on Disney+ review: this documentary spares no grisly detail

The former England cricketer is an engaging and likeable presence in this exhaustively detailed retelling of his life

Politics

5 h. ago Will Poulter on ‘ironic’ reason his most underrated film didn’t get the love it deserved

Actor tells Jacob Stolworthy about the project that never had its moment in the sun

Politics

5 h. ago George MacKay picks his hidden movie gem that deserves more love

‘It’s a beautiful film, but it’s not necessarily an easy film,’ the ‘Femme’ and ‘1917’ actor said

Politics

5 h. ago Until Dawn review – efficient, if unscary, video game horror

A solidly made adaptation of the Playstation hit sees a group of twentysomethings stuck in a gory death loopA week after the release of Ryan Coogler’s unusual, artfully crafted horror Sinners, we are now back to the industry’s genre norm with Until Dawn, a schlocky video game adaptation that has far less on its mind. Such a drastic drop in IQ and ambition means there’s no serious comparison to be made here and this weekend there’ll be no real competition at the box office (Sinners is likely to remain on top) so such contrast does ultimately allow the film to stay within its own, sillier space, a deep-fried donut for dessert after a filet mignon entree.On its own, lower-stakes terms, Until Dawn is a passable, if rather unfrightening frightener, made with some skill and enlivened by a strong troupe of young actors, enough to notch it slightly above the piss-poor standard but not quite enough to really justify its existence. The game it’s based on has been described by the director Dav...

Events

5 h. ago US army suspends commander after Trump and Hegseth portraits flipped to face wall

Col Sheyla Baez Ramirez, Wisconsin training base’s first female commander, was suspended after the discoveryThe army has suspended a Wisconsin training base’s first female commander after discovering portraits of Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth had been flipped around to face a wall.The army has posted an undated statement on Fort McCoy’s website saying Col Sheyla Baez Ramirez has been suspended as the base’s garrison commander. The statement said the suspension isn’t related to any misconduct, but provided no other details, saying the matter was under review. Continue reading...

Politics

5 h. ago Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut and Lynne Ramsay’s latest among significant Cannes additions

Ramsay’s Die, My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, helps take number of female directors in competition to a record-breaking sevenLynne Ramsay’s long-awaited new film, Die, My Love, has been announced as a late addition to this year’s Cannes competition lineup. The film, which is Ramsay’s first for eight years, stars Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson and concerns a woman in rural America who experiences psychosis after the birth of her baby.The inclusion of Ramsay’s movie takes the number of female director’s in the official selection to seven – a record for the festival. It also means that a British director is now in the running for this year’s Palme d’Or. Continue reading...

Events