Archive September 1, 2025

This £30 electric gua sha speeds up your face sculpting routine with minimal effort

A £30 electric gua sha that speeds up your skincare routine and aids in de-puffing, sculpting, and smoothing your skin with little effort has been praised by shoppers.

The Stylpro Heated LED Electric Gua Sha is a handy skincare tool(Image: LookFantastic)

Despite all of us being aware of how a good workout routine can help you tone and shape your body, it can be a little trickier to achieve the same results with your face. Gua Sha has grown to be such a well-liked skincare trend because it is said to help reduce puffiness and bloating on your face, prevent water retention, and give your face a more sculpted appearance.

However, if you’ve ever attempted to follow along with a video that demonstrates how to use a gua sha, you’ll know that it requires a lot of effort and pressure, which is the opposite of a relaxing skincare regimen. Stylpro’s £29.99 Heated LED Electric Gua Sha is such a brilliant invention in this regard.

I’ve had so many compliments on Lancôme’s La Vie Est Belle perfume since it recently received a vanilla upgrade.

READ MORE: What to buy now: Boots’ Star Gifts is back to save you 50% on beauty Christmas gifts.

The Heated LED Electric Gua Sha does a lot of the work for you rather than relying solely on your own pressure and repeated movements, which can be tiring for everyone and be challenging for those with mobility issues. Both the vibration and heat settings, which aid in the gua sha-renowned lymphatic drainage, are helpful.

You’ll be able to contour and firm areas like your cheekbones and jawline more effortlessly thanks to the heat, which also aids in de-puffing and soothing skin. You can combine your gua sha and LED treatment into one, reducing time and money, thanks to LED light settings.

Red, pink, and blue light sources are available for the Heated LED Electric Gua Sha, which aid in anti-aging, boosting collagen production, reducing active acne, reducing inflammation, and boosting hydration. Your skin should look healthy and glowing with a tighter, more defined appearance as a result of the combination of sweeping movements, vibrations, heat, and LED.

Stylpro Heated LED Electric Gua Sha
You can pick up the gadget for under £30(Image: LookFantastic)

If you want to spice up your skincare routine even further, you could always use some microcurrent treatments to promote further muscle tightening. The Bear Mini from Foreo is a fantastic handheld device that is currently 40% off, saving £209 to £125.40.

The Heated LED Electric Gua Sha’s gua sha shape makes it difficult to navigate, but you can also replace it with the £29.99 Stylpro Fabulous Firmer Neck and Face Smoother. It features three different LED light colors and a long, curvy shape that fits naturally around the contours of your face.

However, users have rave reviews of the Heated LED Electric Gua Sha, with one user saying it is “perfect for travel. which makes my skin feel more contoured and tight through three LED light treatments. My facial muscles feel relaxed and my skin glows after each use. Great for “de puffing”

Another person continued, “I’ve been loving this new fangled product, I’ll admit I was a little skeptical, but it’s definitely making a difference to my perimenopausal skin. I definitely feel like my skin is renewed and tighter. It feels good on your neck and face because it’s so simple to use.

Continue reading the article.

The only real negative review was: “Bought with high hopes because my budget allowed for consistent use, but I can see a difference in cheekbones but not my chin. We’ll continue to use and see how the outcomes turn out, but maybe it will take a little longer.

Rivers LG Polls A Democratic Scam, Totally Illegal — Jake Epelle

Jake Epelle, the chief executive officer of TAF Africa, has criticised the results of the local government elections held on August 30, 2025, calling them a “democratic scam.”

Epelle claimed that the exercise, which had been run by a democratically elected government, was completely constitutional.

What transpired in River State on Saturday can only be described as unprecedented political manipulation, which is sort of a sham, and what appears to be a democratic scam, Epelle said on Monday in an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief.

To support that point, I say that. I assert that the entire process of holding this election on Saturday was completely unconstitutional and illegal.

We are intelligent, civilized, River State residents, and that’s that. They probably predicted that people would walk in the streets, and I did, in particular, urge River State’s young people to stay out of their trap.

He continued, “We cannot continue the way we are going, and it is a slap in the face to the River State people.”

He added that the figures did not accurately represent the actual events that took place during the exercise.

Epelle also warned that the state’s elections would raise a potential constitutional dispute because they would face court challenges.

The Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) held the elections for the council on Saturday in the state’s 23 local government districts.

Emily Atack proves a denim midi skirt is the perfect transitional wardrobe piece

Emily Atack has demonstrated that the denim midi skirt is ideal for autumn now that it is officially fall.

Emily Atack has just given us some transitional wardrobe inspirationInstagram handle @emilyatack

With the arrival of darker evenings, chilly mornings and the leaves falling, it’s clear to see a new season is well and truly on the way. Although technically it’s still summer, September really marks a shift for a new beginning. And with changing weather comes with changing out our wardrobes.

However, being stuck in an awkward in-between can make it difficult to get dressed in the morning. Luckily for us, Emily Atack has provided us with some well needed transitional wardrobe inspiration. And it revolves around an item that you most likely already own: the denim midi skirt.

Denim is expected to be a big trend for the fall, as always, and it’s the ideal material to transition from chilly evenings to crisp mornings.

READ MORE: The Lulu Guinness tote bag, which is the “perfect size” and “holds everything,” is selling quickly.

I had a sneak peak at Topshop at Liberty, so read on for more. I predict these five pieces will sell quickly.

Instagram handle @emilyatack

In an Instagram post, Emily styled her mid blue denim skirt with a simple white t-shirt, white two-strap sandals and a slouchy brown tote bag for a chic and minimalist end-of-summer look. To style this outfit for cooler weather, simply throw a cosy knit over the tee, and swap out the sandals for a pair of ballet flats or loafers.

We’ve rounded up some of our favorite high street denim midis, which are perfect for September, despite not knowing where Emily’s exact denim midi comes from.

Sosandar Midi Skirt, Midi Longline Denim, Midi.

Available here for £55.

Sosandar Midi Skirt, Midi Longline Denim, Midi.
Sosandar Midi Skirt, Midi Longline Denim, Midi.(Image: Sosandar)

This mid-blue midi skirt from Sosandar is similar to Emily’s, and it has a split front that makes it ideal for styling with knee-high boots. It’s also made of Sosandar’s signature soft stretch denim, which prevents the uncomfortable ridgid effect that many high-street denim skirts do.

For a stylish transitional look that works from day to night, combine button-up shirts, thin-knit cardigans, and cropped jackets.

Ro & Zo Blue Denim Split Front Maxi Skirt

Here, you can purchase it for 79 pounds.

Ro &amp, Zo Blue Denim Split Front Maxi Skirt
Ro &amp, Zo Blue Denim Split Front Maxi Skirt(Image: Ro & Zo)

For those who want a little extra length, this maxi from Ro &amp, Zo is the perfect option. It also has a split front, which is ideal for those slightly chilly autumn days when you don’t want to completely cover up. The waistline, which doesn’t have the traditional belt loops and button fastening, is what makes this skirt appear a little higher, though.

Topshop Denim Seamed Circle Skirt

Here, you can purchase it for £48.

Topshop Seamed Circle Skirt
Topshop Seamed Circle Skirt(Image: Topshop )
Continue reading the article.

This Topshop version of the denim skirt is ideal if you’re looking for a cool-girl take on it. The mid-blue wash allows for easy styling with items you already own, and the A-line cut and seam detailing give it a retro vibe.

New BBC Gareth Southgate football drama struck by raid as thieves steal £100k of kit

Production has been a hit with the upcoming four-part series Dear England, which adaptation of James Graham’s stage play, which centers on Gareth Southgate’s tenure as England manager.

Dear England is due to air on the BBC next year(Image: BBC)

A new drama bringing to life Gareth Southgate’s transformation of the England football team has been hit by disaster with over £100,000 of kit stolen.

The raid has caused a “massive headache” for BBC production staff as Dear England suffered a big set-back. The up-coming four-parter is an adaptation of James Graham’s hugely popular stage show, which charts the Three Lions rise under the stewardship of Southgate.

The production was centered on the cultural shift in the national team under the direction of manager, according to scriptwriter James, who wrote the popular television series Sherwood. After Southgate won the team to the World Cup semi-finals in 2018, the English public still had a love affair with the team, which was put to the test in 2021.

READ MORE: Freddie Mercury’s secret daughter says his actress lover to blame for tragic early deathREAD MORE: Ryan Thomas furiously defends decision to allow daughter Scarlett to not sit her GCSEs

Dear England is due to air on the BBC next year
Filming continued following the theft but security has been beefed up(Image: Getty Images)

However, it is obvious that the thieves responsible for the raid did not enjoy the national team. Police are conducting an investigation. A gang “got on to the Dear England set in East London and grabbed a trolley full of priceless cameras and lenses,” a source told The Sun. It was a genuine smash and grab,” she said.

The production was greatly hampered by the “kit,” which was worth more than £100k, being stolen in a matter of minutes. Thankfully, neither the cast nor the crew were harmed. No one wants this to happen again, and security has become even tighter. Although they are assisting the police with their inquiries, it is likely that the kit will never be used.

The 53-year-old Three Lions manager has led England to eight successive European Championship titles. However, after England lost to Spain in Euro 2024, he fell on his sword last summer. In a moving statement, Southgate confirmed the news.

Thieves made off with more than £1million of gear
Thieves made off with more than £1million of gear(Image: Getty Images)

It read: “As a proud Englishman, it has been the honour of my life to play for England and to manage England. It has meant everything to me, and I have given it my all. But it’s time for change, and for a new chapter. Sunday’s final in Berlin against Spain was my final game as England manager.

In 2011, I left the FA with the intention of promoting English football. I have been supported by some amazing people, including my eight years as England men’s manager, for whom I give my sincere gratitude. Steve Holland was the best companion I could have had. He has been incredibly successful and one of the most gifted coaches of his generation.

I have participated in 102 games as the leader of a sizable group of players. They have each been a credit to their country in many ways by wearing the three lions proudly on their shirts.

“The squad we traveled to Germany has a lot of promising young talent, and we can all hope to win the trophy.” I’m so proud of them, and I hope the FA and St. George’s Park players who work every day to improve English football and who appreciate the power that football has to spur positive change, will continue to support them.

Continue reading the article.

The backroom staff deserves special thanks for their tireless support for the players and I over the past eight years. I am so grateful to them for making the brilliant “team behind the team,” and for their hard work and commitment, which they continue to inspire me every day.

Timeline of Afghanistan’s deadliest earthquakes since 2015

After a powerful earthquake struck Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, killing over 800 people and injuring over 2,500 others.

Afghanistan is prone to tremors because of its mountainous surroundings, which are highly active seismically near the intersection of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.

The country has experienced one of the most deadly earthquakes in the last ten years:

August 31, 2025

Around midnight on Sunday (23:30 GMT on Sunday), a magnitude 6 earthquake struck Kunar and Nangarhar, the nation’s eastern provinces.

According to Interior Ministry spokesman Mufti Abdul Mateen, at least 600 people died in Kunar and 12 in Nangarhar.

According to Sharafat Zaman, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, rescue operations are still being conducted because the earthquake destroyed a number of villages.

October, 2023

In one of the country’s most deadly natural disasters in a long time, three earthquakes erupted in Herat province in October 2023.

Western Afghanistan’s Herat province was struck by a magnitude 6. 3 earthquake on October 7.

On October 11, another magnitude 6. 3 earthquake struck the province, and a magnitude 6. 4 earthquake was recorded on October 15.

At least 2,445 people died in these earthquakes, according to the British Red Cross Society.

March 21, 2023

Near the border with Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Badakhshan, was struck by a magnitude 6. 6.5 earthquake.

At least 13 people died.

September 2022

The neighboring provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar in northeastern Afghanistan experienced two earthquakes of magnitudes of 5. 1 and 4. 6.

At least eight people have been reported dead.

June 22, 2022

Eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika, Paktia, Khost, and Nangarhar provinces were struck by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake.

More than 1, 000 people were killed when several homes collapsed as a result of the disaster.

January 17, 2022

A shallow earthquake of magnitude 5.3 was reported by the US Geological Survey (USGS) in the western Afghan province of Badghis.

At least 26 people died.

October 26, 2015

Northeastern Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush region was the site of a magnitude 7.500 earthquake.

117 people were killed, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

The Team Behind the Team – ‘elite people’ supporting elite athletes

Getty Images

There is little that illustrates the point better than road cycling when it comes to the importance of the team behind the team in top-level sport.

A short, steep hill in rural northern France is flanked by hundreds of people awaiting the marauding Tour de France peloton, all standing in among pretty flowers from the nearby meadow.

Dotted within fans holding beers and babies are Ineos Grenadiers’ ‘soigneurs’ – the crucial team support personnel.

They are carrying bags, criss-crossed to either side, full of bottles, with more in their hands as they balance precariously holding either a water or electrolyte drink out for the riders, with energy gels strapped to the side of each with an elastic band like a cheap fairground prize.

To the riders it is salvation as they battle through the oppressive heat, which has returned to the northern Hauts-de-France region after an epic morning downpour, on their way to a blistering uphill coastal finish in Boulogne-sur-Mer.

For the staff, there is more than sustenance to contend with, as they deliver the goods within a peloton which passes in seconds, team cars’ horns blaring from the chasing sporting directors as they miss prams and elbows by inches.

An Ineos Grenadiers soigneur hands out bottles on the second stage of the 2025 Tour de FranceBBC Sport

Leadership

Soigneurs do a lot, including changing every bed sheet and pillow in every hotel to the riders’ preferred type.

But back at the hotel on the outskirts of the beautiful French city of Valenciennes, a range of staff and vehicles are pitched up in the car park, with chefs, mechanics and more ready to service every need.

It is also where you will find the team’s leadership – the only difference being there will be a laptop or multiple smartphones in their hands instead of a spanner or spatula.

So what makes a good leader? Winning. It is as simple as that.

“We have a team of sport directors and they typically run and navigate each of the races,” says Ineos performance director Scott Drawer.

“We have a science, medicine, technology engineering team, and also as part of the performance teams are our riders. So I oversee all of that.

“The conversations you have always start from the end, if that makes sense. Performance always starts at the end. And how does that play itself out in the way we train and prepare? So there’s a framework and structure by which you need to understand the performance.”

Team CEO John Allert is also on the ground in France – overseeing a period in which Ineos have not won a three-week Grand Tour in four years. Yet expectations for the team’s return to the top of the sport are high, after winning seven Tours de France in 10 years between 2010 and 2019, many as Team Sky.

“Like all elite sports, it’s a pyramid and everybody is trying to get to the top. And that creates pressure,” Allert says.

Data & AI in sport

Ibrahima Konate playing for Liverpool Getty Images

There are people and there is leadership, but numbers are becoming ever more influential in assessing performances and deciding who truly is the best of the best.

Speed, distances, heart rate, VO2 max aerobic capacity tests, biomechanics, injury risk, sleep, mood, stress, positions, heat maps, formations – it is too much for most of us to contemplate.

“Football is the hardest sport. You know, fundamentally, it’s hard to analyse because there are not many goals,” says Ian Graham, founder and CEO of analytics company Ludonautics.

“I was director of research at Liverpool Football Club for 11 years. In the Premier League, certainly every move is analysed.

“For every game, you get this data, which is this list of what happened, where and who did it. Most leagues now have something called tracking data, where you see 25 frames per second, the positions of all of the players. That tells you something about the off-ball impacts of players.”

It does not come cheap, though. Graham says it will cost anything from £1.5m to £3.5m for clubs such as Liverpool, Arsenal, Brighton and Brentford, who are known to be invested in the numbers.

Then again, in football at least, that is a steal if you are paying £100m for a player.

Data will tell anybody with knowledge of how to use it an awful lot, but can athletes understand it themselves?

Certainly – just ask English golfer Lottie Woad, who recently won the Scottish Open aged 21, a week after turning professional in a sport which demands accuracy.

“I love data, so that’s kind of how my brain works,” Woad says.

“I record stats from each round and put them in a system called Upgame – it’ll tell you everything about your round, strokes gained and stuff like that.

“And then in my practice using launch monitors, showing you all the stuff you need for your technique as well as looking at ball flight, spin rates, stuff like that. It’s helped a lot.”

Incremental improvement is the name of the game, but there’s a more sophisticated phenomenon on the horizon which could change elite sport forever and needs a scientist, not a sports star, to explain.

“Artificial intelligence is a form of computer science. So it uses systems that can perform tasks which mirror human intelligence, such as the likes of problem-solving, decision-making and learning,” says the Open University’s Mark Antrobus.

Laviai NielsenGetty Images

Athlete autonomy

We need humans in elite sport, otherwise it is time to watch the Robot Olympics and forget everything else.

But just how much athlete autonomy is left in the modern era? There is no purer place than the athletics track to get a feel for that.

“The data doesn’t lie,” says Darren Campbell, gold medallist for Great Britain at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games in the 4x100m relay. “But I would say attitude, discipline and relay skills are important ingredients for success.

“Raw speed with no hand skills – we’re not going to get the baton round. You know you can’t just have raw speed.”

Fellow Briton Laviai Nielsen won Olympic bronze at Paris 2024 in the women’s 4x400m relay.

“The training camps are so important – we analyse everything and anything that could happen,” she says.

“We do rehearse a lot of what happens if you get shoved, what happens if you grab the baton and turn around and someone’s right in front of you.”

Back in France, as the morning summer sun warms the hotel swimming pool and its assortment of gently drifting inflatables, Ineos’ 2018 Tour de France winner and team patron Geraint Thomas thinks about his own autonomy on the bike before he retires at the end of this year.

“The racing has moved on, and you just kind of have to adapt. [The riders] definitely have an input,” says the Welshman.

“I like the thought of cycling being an art more than a science. It still needs the human element for sure. Just keep those paintbrushes by your side, mate. That’s what I say.”

Related topics

  • Golf
  • Athletics
  • Cycling
  • Football