On days with light use, I have 70 percent left by bedtime. When I spent more time on the phone, using it for music streaming, navigation, and Instagram Reels-ing, I often ended with around 60 or 50 percent. I’d leave it on my nightstand without bothering to plug it in, a refreshing change of pace. Over the course of two days, I hit an amazing 10.5 hours of screen-on time.
This might be the best battery life on a flagship smartphone today in the US, especially when you pair it with the incredibly fast recharge times. OnePlus remains one of the only companies to include a charger in the box—mostly because it’s the only way to take advantage of its SuperVooc fast-charging technology. I was able to ramp from 15 to 80 percent in 30 minutes (50 percent in 15 minutes). It’s hard to worry about a dead phone if you don’t mind keeping the bulky charger on your person (is a folding prong too much of an ask?).
But there’s always a compromise somewhere. If you’re a fan of wireless charging and are especially interested in Qi2 smartphones that use magnets (like Apple’s MagSafe) for more convenient and faster charging, you’ll be disappointed here. The OnePlus 15 supports wireless charging, but only the standard Qi technology. OnePlus is selling magnetic cases as a salve, but unlike Samsung’s current crop of top-end phones, this doesn’t even turn it into a Qi2 Ready phone. It will only charge at slow Qi wireless charging speeds. (You can buy OnePlus’ proprietary wireless charger to fast-charge, but that’s a separate purchase, and that wireless charger will only recharge select OnePlus devices quickly.)
The beefy battery and super-fast wired charging may outshine the lackluster wireless charging, but now it’s time to talk about the second most impressive feat of the OnePlus 15: performance.
Power Play
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
This is the first smartphone in the US to employ Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a processor we’ll see in most high-end Android phones in 2026. The benchmark numbers are excellent. In a Geekbench 6 test, the OnePlus 15 is officially the first phone to pass 10,000 in multi-core CPU performance, even besting the iPhone 17 Pro Max. However, the iPhone still had a slight leg up in single-core performance (it’s also generally more efficient).
The 5,000-mAh battery is ample for most days, and the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite could maybe even last two days of light use. You’ll have to plug in when it runs low (there’s no wireless charging), and the rate tops out at 33 watts. That’s not bad, enabling you to go from zero to 80 percent in less than an hour. There’s 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.3 support, but expect the battery to drain much faster on 5G networks.
Where the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro chipset and 8 GB of RAM really struggled for me was the camera. On several occasions, it took seconds to open, and I had to reboot the phone at one point to get the camera app to load at all. I encountered occasional lag on opening and switching apps, but the camera performance was jarring because general use feels relatively slick for a budget phone.
It doesn’t help that the camera system is disappointing. The main 50-megapixel shooter is capable, if a little slow, with a large-ish 1/1.57-inch sensor and an f/1.8 aperture that handles a range of scenarios quite well. But the 8-megapixel ultrawide is poor, and the 2-megapixel macro is a complete waste of time. Comparing a close-up with the macro and the main camera (see the flower photos) shows how useless it is. There’s a 16-megapixel shooter around front that’s fine for selfies and video calls.
You’d think a design-led company like Nothing would be more calculated in adding features that only add value. If the ultrawide and macro are only going to offer lackluster results, cut them and stick with a single, solid primary camera.
I have personally owned LG-brand refrigerators for the past 15 years. When I bought my first refrigerator from LG (an acronym for “Life’s Good”), in 2011, the French door model was highly rated, and the combination of price and features was unmatched by other brands. In fact, I loved it so much I bought a second, identical one when I moved seven years later. Which is why I was dismayed when it suddenly stopped freezing earlier this year. “We get this call all the time,” the mechanic explained as he swapped out the apparently faulty compressor.
Sadly, he was not wrong. Even a cursory internet search brings up reams of damning evidence of LG’s history of faulty linear compressors. A class action lawsuit was settled in 2020 over the LG compressors in refrigerators manufactured between 2014 and 2017 (my second fridge was, unfortunately, within this range, and I was unaware of the lawsuit), but more were filed in subsequent years for fridges manufactured in 2018 and beyond, for both compressor issues and malfunctioning craft ice makers. It’s not a good look.
That said, LG sells hundreds of thousands of refrigerators a year—LG sales make up one-third of the appliance market, behind only Samsung, according to data platform OpenBrand—and other brands are on the hook for class action lawsuits as well. (In fact, Consumer Reports says that of all new refrigerators purchased since 2014, regardless of brand, 50 percent have experienced a problem.)
I decided to give LG another shot by testing one of its new Studio refrigerators, from the brand’s premium, designed-focused line that came out around 2015. Newer LG fridges have smart capabilities through LG’s ThinQ system, and, according to LG, a different linear compressor than my old model. The Studio Smart 3-Door French Door Refrigerator has been installed in my home kitchen for the past five months, where my family has been using it like any other fridge. There’s no denying it looks good both in person and on paper, but will it last?
Color Me Interested
Photograph: Kat Merck
I specifically settled on testing a Studio in LG’s proprietary Essence White, as I’ve noticed stainless steel is appearing less in high-end home builds and remodels. (If you’ve had any kind of stainless steel appliance, you know it’s a magnet for fingerprints and stains.) Cabinet-fronted SubZeros have always been de rigeur in custom luxury homes, but until recently, there haven’t been a whole lot of non-stainless options for what appliance manufacturers call the “mass premium” market, aside from retro-inspired designs by brands like Smeg and Big Chill. And in fact, the trend toward lighter woods and colored cabinetry paves the way for a more contemporary version of white, softer than the institutional tone of the ’80s and ’90s.
“Essence White is not a traditional stark white,” explained Dean Brindle, LG’s head of product management. “It’s not a blue-white that you traditionally see in white appliances. It’s a warmer white, so a little bit of yellow.”
Indeed, I can see it—the Essence White Studio is matte, almost glowy, with sharp edges and squared, bronze hardware. It wouldn’t look out of place among luxury European appliances like La Cornue or Bertazzoni. I’m into it. I have read complaints that the hardware looks gold in online promotional photos but is actually rose gold-ish, and this is true—the color is not how it appears in photos. It definitely wouldn’t be a direct match with gold hardware elsewhere in the kitchen. Brindle said the unusual hardware tone was deliberately matched to the fridge’s hue.
The OLED looks great, but one of the benefits of OLED is HDR in gaming, thanks to the incredible contrast from being able to turn off individual pixels. OLED isn’t known for being bright, but lately, that’s improved on laptops and external monitors. The OLED display on the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10, for example, can be cranked up to over 1,000 nits, creating an impressive HDR effect. The Razer Blade 14, however, only maxes out at 620 nits in HDR and 377 nits in SDR. Because of that, I could hardly tell HDR was even turned on. It’s still a pretty screen, and OLED has other benefits over IPS panels, including faster response times, less motion blur, and higher contrast.
Unfortunately, the Razer Blade 14’s OLED panel is not as colorful as the one I tested on the Razer Blade 16, with a color accuracy of 1.3 and 86 percent coverage of the AdobeRGB color space. Also, the 120-Hz refresh rate is standard for OLED laptops, but you can get 240-Hz speeds on laptops that use IPS, like the Alienware 16X Aurora, which happens to be a much cheaper device.
The Razer Blade 14’s biggest competition is the ROG Zephyrus G14. I haven’t tested the latest model yet, but it’s a laptop we’ve liked for years now, and it’s on sale often enough for less than the Blade 14. The only real difference is that the Blade 14 uses a more powerful AMD processor, the Ryzen AI 9 365. Not only does it perform better in anything CPU-intensive, such as certain games and creative applications, but it’s also a more efficient chip.
That leads to some improved battery life—at least, better than your average gaming laptop. I got 10 hours and 19 minutes in a local video playback test, which is about the most you can expect to get from the device. On the other hand, Asus offers higher-powered configurations of the Zephyrus G14, including one that includes the more powerful Ryzen AI 9 HX.
The RTX 5070 Takes Charge
Photograph: Luke Larsen
Bad news: The RAM is no longer user-upgradeable on the Razer Blade 14, so you’ll have to configure it up front with what you need. My review unit had 32 GB, but you can also choose either 16 GB or 64 GB. Because it’s soldered, the memory speeds are faster. As for internal storage, you still get one open M.2 slot to expand space if you need it, supporting up to 4 TB.
The Omni looks nice. It’s a step up from your average office chair design, with a bit of class and a design language on the backrest that resembles the spine-like look of the Herman Miller Embody. It comes in Midnight Black or Space Gray (creative names), and my unit is the latter. The company says the Omni can support people up to 300 pounds.
I don’t think I’ve sat on an office chair with softer padding than the Omni. The multi-density sponge cushion material of the seat and backrest is plush without feeling like you’re sinking in, because it isn’t super thick. It’s very comfortable, and the softness of the material is still what surprises me the most about the Omni after sitting on it for weeks.
It’ll be interesting to see how the fabric holds up after more than a year of use. So far, it still looks great after close to a month of sitting, though it likes to collect hair. It’s hard to gauge breathability as we’re now in the cooler months, but my back feels a little warm after a few hours on the chair. If you’re in a hot environment, you’ll likely feel sweaty. It’s not as bad as the vegan leather-covered foam on most gaming chairs, but it won’t offer the breathability of a true mesh.
The armrests aren’t much to write home about—you can move them up or down, forward and back, and angle them inward or outward. You can’t push them toward or away from your body like on the Embody, but this is standard for a chair at this price (which is $1,099 MSRP, though the company seems to have a persistent sale of $848). I appreciate that the arms don’t easily shift or slide around, which is a common problem with many chairs. The armrest itself isn’t too hard, and the material feels fairly durable.
A Battery-Powered Chair
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
The Bionic FlexFit Backrest is the Omni’s highlight, which uses the battery-powered ErgoPulse Motor System for configuration. It’s essentially a motorized way to ensure the backrest lines up perfectly against your back; no need to fiddle around with an awkward lumbar support. There are three buttons on the left armrest. The front two shift the backrest support up or down, and the third is a spinal massage function, which I’ll address later.
Aura has been trying for years to get us to mount its frames. The Aura’s first frame back in 2017, the Aura Classic, was wall-mountable, and then Aura’s latest frames, like the Aura Aspen, have had a flat, wall-mountable design. But the downside was the cord running below it for all of these models, which takes away from the clean gallery-wall design it’s otherwise well-suited for, and limits the locations it can be hung.
Now, with the Aura Ink’s truly cordless design, it’s possible to hang it without any cord clutter. The 13-inch screen makes it a little larger than the 12-inch Aura Aspen but smaller than the 15-inch Walden, and is a nice size for hanging. The Ink comes with a little mounting kit of two nails and a small hook that the digital frame clicks into, and it can easily click back off for charging (the charging port is on the side if your hanging spot is near an outlet). I was able to hang it on one of my existing pushpins without issue, and the frame easily blended into my existing gallery wall.
Overall, it’s an impressive feat of technology, though I wouldn’t call it perfect. I’d like to see the front light get a little brighter. It’s considerably more expensive than other digital photo frames, too. But as I look at it on my gallery wall, I have to say that if you didn’t already know it was digital, you’d likely have no idea. If you’re looking for a frame like that for your home, this is the one to get.
As I wore them on one of my walks through San Francisco, on the shore of Ocean Beach, I came upon a dolphin-like fish that had washed up on the sand. Though I got my camera glasses close enough to the thing that I could smell it, Meta’s AI assistant could not tell me what kind of animal it was. It correctly identified that it was very dead and that I should not touch it. It was then able to direct me to a number to call for city animal control services.
Beyond instances like that, I tend to avoid the AI voice interaction because I haven’t gotten to the point where it feels natural. Getting it to search something is usually very quick, but doing so requires you to stop dead in your tracks, stare directly at another person’s purse or something, and say out loud, “Hey Meta. HEY META. Is this bag Gucci?”
The glasses’ AI features are both its best asset and biggest weakness. Features like live language translation and whispered map directions are very helpful. But if you’ve spent any time curating the AI slop out of your Facebook feed lately, you’ll know that Meta just can’t help pack a firehose blast of AI features into everything it does.
The software features are funneled through the same app as Meta’s AI services. That’s where pictures and videos go by default, and sometimes you have to go into the app to import the files from the glasses. There’s a very clear problem with using the app: bad vibes.
The Vibes Are Off
When you go into the Meta AI app to look at the pictures or videos you’ve taken, the first thing you’ll see is Meta’s terrible new Vibes service. It’s a constant barrage of AI slop videos that Meta just one day foisted upon its app users. Vibes is akin to OpenAI’s dubious Sora app, but somehow even worse quality.
Granted, this is probably only the case for big people like me (6’ 4”, 255 pounds, and with very broad shoulders) and it might not even register for average-sized people. In fact, at 6’ 4”, I’m an inch too big for the XP4, at least according to the brand, which says the bike fits riders 4’ 10” to 6’ 3”. But that extra inch feels negligible, as, over my first 150 miles on the bike, my legs have yet to feel hemmed in by my saddle height.
Speaking of that saddle, the bike’s seat post features an integrated suspension coil, offering 40 mm of travel. While, in theory, some rear suspension is welcome, I felt as though, every time the coil compressed, it was actually my seat tube slipping down into the frame. It was a strange sensation and one I must admit that, some 200 miles into riding the bike, I haven’t quite gotten used to.
Something else I don’t love about the XP4 is its old-school, one-sided kickstand. A bike of this heft should feature a motor-scooter-style stand that retracts from beneath the bottom-bracket, giving even support to both sides of the machine. The one-sided kickstand, however, often finds itself (and me!) fighting gravity when I’m trying to lock the bike up on anything resembling an incline.
All told, those very few shortcomings are hardly enough to make me not love the XP4 750, as it’s smooth ride, extra-long range, handsome design, and litany of aftermarket add-ons make this a bike I would commute with for a long, long time.
The Thuma Hybrid offers three firmness options: Plush, Medium, and Firm. I chose Medium because my partner and I (mainly me) fluctuate between different sleeping positions. We both are side sleepers for the most part, but often, I revert to being a stomach sleeper sometime in the night. Both of these sleeping positions require more lumbar support to prevent back pain. But from the first night of testing, it was undeniable that this mattress had a firmer feel. In my experience, beds with medium firmness typically range between a 5 and 6.5 on a scale of 10, with 10 being the firmest setting available on a bed. With Thuma Hybrid’s innerspring pocketed coils and firmer Dunlop latex, I would rank it as a 7 out of 10. In fact, I would guess that the “Firm” Thuma Hybrid may be comparable to the Plank Firm, one of the firmest mattresses our team has ever tested.
As time went on and my body adjusted to the mattress’s feel, I could sense a slight increase in softness and sink around my body. But in terms of pressure relief, I did notice slight tension around my hips and shoulders. It was nothing that disrupted my sleep, but I could easily see it doing so for those with joint pain in these areas.
But that doesn’t take away who I really think this bed is a star for: couples, stomach sleepers, and heavy-bodied sleepers. Couples, especially ones who are interested in the best mattress for sex, may find a firm mattress to help not only with differing sleep positions, but also support for other positions. Stomach sleepers (and back sleepers who prefer a firmer bed) require a bed that provides adequate lumbar support. Lastly, heavy-bodied sleepers, or those with larger frames who weigh over 250 pounds, may be happy with this mattress’s level of firmness. This is because with more body mass, the bed has more give. A too-soft bed can also contribute to the development of back pain over time, as the spine sinks out of alignment. The high-end materials that compose the Thuma Hybrid should enhance overall support and durability and help prevent back pain.
Touchdown, Thuma
Photograph: Julia Forbes
In the end, the Thuma Hybrid will likely be a classic case of “give your body time to get used to it”—particularly if you’re someone with a smaller- to average-weight frame. Heavier-bodied sleepers may be good to go from the jump. Would I personally classify the Thuma Hybrid as more of a medium-firm, rather than a medium? No, especially since mattresses typically soften up over time. However, the reality is that people generally aren’t in the mood to wait that long—there’s a reason most brands, Thuma included, require all 30 nights in the sleep trial to elapse before a return is allowed.
However, for stomach sleeping, couples, and sex, this mattress is a star—especially when paired with a Thuma bed frame. My next project will be getting my dogs on board with their own Thuma setup, as the brand has recently launched its own dog bed. But it’s safe to say that I’ve joined my teammates as the new member of the (unofficial, but we can make T-shirts) Thuma fan club.
The new Nest Cam Indoor and Nest Cam Outdoor boast the easiest setup experience I’ve encountered. Simply plug them in (the Nest Cam Indoor comes with a 10-foot USB-C cable, the Nest Cam Outdoor has an 18-foot weatherproof cable), scan the QR code sticker on the front of each camera with the Google Home app, connect to Wi-Fi, and you’re up and running in no time (both support 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands). The elegant magnetic mount for the Nest Cam Outdoor needs a couple of screws, while my Nest Cam Indoor is perched neatly on a shelf.
While Google has lagged behind competitors for years with its 1080p cameras, support for HDR and a high frame rate helped keep the last-gen Nest cams relevant. That said, the jump to a 2560 x 1400 resolution with a wider 152-degree diagonal field of view is a clear and immediate upgrade. This resolution bump also enables 6X digital zoom, so the Nest Cams can serve up notifications that zoom in on the subject of each animated alert. These notifications show a few frames of each event, making it far easier to decide whether you need to tap through and watch the full video. You can also zoom in on the live feed and crop the view to stay focused on a specific area, like a garden gate or path.
Google Home via Simon Hill
Google Home via Simon Hill
Both cameras detect more activity and alert more accurately and swiftly than their predecessors. The range seems to be better, too. For example, my indoor camera faces a side door, and it can pick up people across the street and zoom in on them as they walk by. I don’t necessarily want it to do that, but the reach is impressive. It’s more successful with the outdoor camera, as only the newer model picks up on me entering the back door of the distant garage compared to the prior generation. The outdoor camera is also far faster to alert and upload accessible video than the old battery-powered model (this is generally true for wired cameras).
The cameras get six hours of cloud video history at no extra cost (up from three for the previous generation), but that’s your allotment without an expensive subscription. On that note, Google has killed off Nest Aware in favor of the two-tier Google Home Premium: Standard is $10 per month or $100 per year, and Advanced is $20 per month or $200 per year.
Google’s Home Premium subscriptions include everything you got with Nest Aware (30 days of video history, Familiar Faces, and garage door, package, smoke and CO alarm detection) and Nest Aware Plus (60 days of video history or 10 days of 24/7), but Standard also includes Gemini Live on compatible smart speakers and displays, and the option to create automations by typing what you want in the Home app. This last feature works well if you have a bunch of smart home devices set up in Google Home, and you can tell it to do things like “turn on the lights at sunset” or “have the side door camera trigger the outside lights.” It’s far easier than using the old script editor.
Advanced AI
The cream of the AI goodies requires the Advanced subscription. This adds descriptive notifications, so instead of “person detected,” you get messages like “person walks up stairs” or “cat is on the table” instead of “animal detected.” The searchable video history using the Ask Home search bar is genuinely handy; you can ask questions like “who opened the back door last night?” or “Did FedEx deliver a package today?” and jump straight to the event. You also get daily summaries with Home Brief, giving you an often weirdly comical digest of highlights from the day.
To test the contrast however, I first listened to the speaker without its bass bottle. It’s very loud for a small speaker, and in my office I couldn’t cope with the volume turned up past 30 percent. It’s just not an enjoyable listen, sounding shrill and disappointing without any discernible bass. It’s not quite as bad as putting your old iPhone in a cup for extra amplification, but it’s not far off—and at least you can actually drink from the cup afterwards.
But we’re here for the bass-boosting bottle, and I can categorically say that the acoustically tuned plastic bottle does indeed boost the lower frequencies, and makes the speaker sound significantly better. The bottle takes the edge off the volume, and there’s a noticeable depth to the mids and bass once it’s attached. You can really hear the difference in the mix and balance, and the contrast between the sound with the bottle on and off is impressive.
Push the volume, however, and the bass gets muddy quickly, with the sharp edges once again noticeable in the mix. It’s not horrible, but compared to the competition it’s just not that enjoyable to listen to, which is a shame, because it sure does look cute on my desk.
While it is larger, the Anker Soundcore Motion 300 ($70) wipes the floor with the Sodapop, with clear bass and clarity, even at volume. Similarly, the Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4 ($80) is small, portable, boasts full 360-degree sound and comes with IP67 waterproofing (it floats), which is a huge upgrade to Sodapop’s dust- and splash-resistant IPX65 rating.
Played side-by-side with the similarly proportioned and much cheaper $35 Tribit StormBox Micro 2 (IPX7 rating, 10 hours playtime), the physical separation and large chamber between the drivers and bass port does create a wider soundstage. There’s not much in it in terms of the amount of bass and overall performance though.
Speaking of critical listening, the XC1 work with Sony’s hi-res capable LDAC Bluetooth codec, should you happen to own a compatible Android phone (sorry, iPhone users). Using LDAC can reveal more detail, especially when listening to a source of lossless audio, but for these earbuds, I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze. Using LDAC disables your EQ settings and Bluetooth Multipoint, and the XC1 struggle to maintain a steady Bluetooth connection when LDAC is set to its highest-quality setting.
Baseus also includes two Dolby Audio modes (Music and Cinema), which are meant to create a more immersive, spatial experience. For me, it’s the opposite. I find they wash out the sound, with Cinema being downright muddy. At 60 percent volume, there was more than enough power for an engaging listening experience indoors. Outside, I needed a bit more oomph.
Beyond Music
Photograph: Simon Cohen
Calling on the Inspire XC1 is good. Whether indoors or outdoors, your callers will find it easy to understand you, and almost all background sounds are kept at bay. However, as with most clip-style open-ear earbuds, your voice won’t be crystal clear—some distortion does manage to creep in, particularly when outside.
Baseus rates battery life on the XC1 at eight hours per charge, with 40 hours of total use when you include the case’s battery, numbers that are only eclipsed by the OpenDots One’s 10/40 combo. Baseus assumes 50 percent volume and does not include the use of either Dolby Audio or LDAC. LDAC can be very power hungry, often reducing battery life by up to 30 percent, which is one more reason to avoid it.
Open-ear earbuds aren’t for everyone, but with great sound quality, a comfortable, clip-style design, and easy-to-use controls, the Baseus Inspire XC1 are an excellent choice. They check a lot of boxes for a price that’s considerably less than their nearest competitors, including strong water and dust resistance, optional LDAC mode, and Bluetooth Multipoint. The only thing that’s missing is support for Auracast. Sadly, that feature has yet to see widespread adoption. If you’re after an affordable pair of open buds that compete with the best, these are among the best we’ve tried.
Eight children were killed in domestic violence incidents across Colorado in 2024 — the highest number since the state began tracking annual domestic violence deaths eight years ago, according to a report released Tuesday by the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board.
The youngest child to die was 3-month-old Lesley Younghee Kim, who was found dead with her mortally injured mother in a Denver home in July 2024.
“It’s a wakeup call, I hope, for people in Colorado,” said Whitney Woods, executive director of the Rose Andom Center, which helped compile the board’s report. “This is a real problem.”
Seventy-two people died in domestic violence incidents statewide in 2024. That’s up 24% from the 58 domestic violence deaths in 2023 but remains below pandemic-era peaks, when 94 people died in 2022 and 92 people died in 2021.
The pandemic years also saw elevated numbers of children killed, with four children killed in 2021 and six in 2022. Across the other years, no more than three children died in any given year, the board’s reports show.
Five of the eight children killed in 2024 died amid custody disputes between their parents, the report found.
“These findings highlight custody litigation as a high-risk period for families experiencing domestic violence and point to the urgent need for stronger safeguards within family court proceedings,” the report concluded. The legislatively-mandated board, chaired by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, began tracking domestic violence statewide in 2017 and makes annual recommendations for policy changes aimed at preventing deaths.
The fatality review board last year recommended that the state’s child and family investigators and parental responsibilities evaluators go through training on domestic violence, particularly around understanding the dynamics of domestic violence and how to evaluate the risk of lethality during the custody process. The Colorado Judicial Department is still developing such training, with work continuing in 2026, the report noted.
“That is to my mind a call to action,” Weiser said. “And we are working with the court system on this right now — how do we make sure our family courts and the general system for addressing domestic violence provides protection, support, services, so that we don’t see these deaths happen?”
The increase in domestic violence deaths came even as statewide homicides declined 17% to a five-year low. Roughly one in six homicide victims in Colorado in 2024 died during domestic violence incidents. Domestic violence victims account for 18% of all homicide victims statewide, the highest proportion in five years, the annual review found.
“That is really alarming in this line of work, for us,” Woods said.
The increase in domestic violence homicides amid the drop in overall homicides “suggests that while broader public safety interventions may be reducing general violence, they are not having the same impact on (domestic violence fatalities),” the report found.
The increase also comes at a time when many organizations aimed at preventing domestic violence and supporting survivors are facing funding shortfalls and uncertainty, Woods noted.
Among the 72 people killed in 2024, 38 were victims of domestic violence, 26 were perpetrators of domestic violence and eight — all of the children — were considered ‘collateral victims.’ The victims were overwhelmingly female and the perpetrators overwhelmingly male.
Across all 72 deaths, guns were used 75% of the time. The second most common type of attack was asphyxiation, which was involved in 8% of all deaths, followed by a knife or sharp object, used in 7% of deaths.
“Occasionally, people will make comments like, ‘If someone wants to kill someone they can kill them with a knife,’” Weiser said. “I think it’s fair to say access to firearms makes it far more likely that a domestic violence perpetrator will kill somebody.”
Removing guns from a suspect when domestic violence begins can be an effective prevention strategy, Woods said.
The report makes a number of recommendations aimed at preventing domestic violence deaths, including passing a new state law that would require police officers to take guns (those in plain sight or discovered during a lawful search) from domestic violence suspects at the time of arrest and hold onto those guns for 48 hours or until the suspect first appears in court. Suspects could then retrieve their guns if they were allowed to legally posses them.
“By empowering officers to disarm abusers immediately at the scene, the proposed law would provide urgent protection for victims and responding officers, create a period to reduce the chance of lethal escalation, and provide a tool for law enforcement to fill the relinquishment gap,” the report reads.
The report also recommends adjusting Colorado’s laws around third-degree assault, suggests law enforcement should give resources to both people involved in a domestic violence incident even when there is not enough evidence to make an arrest, and widening the scope of material gathered by local fatality review boards.
Once the settings are properly adjusted, though, this keyboard performs incredibly well. The actuation distance of each switch can be manually adjusted, meaning it can register a key-press anywhere from the very top of the key-press to the very bottom, and multiple inputs can even be mapped at different distances. The keyboard is responsive, with an 8,000-Hz polling rate, and the low latency barely produces any significant input lag.
This keyboard is wired-only, which might be a dealbreaker for some. It’s a fairly dense, all-metal keyboard that has a significant focus on high-speed use, none of which is necessary for a portable keyboard. While wireless would be nice, it would increase the price of this keyboard and its complexity.
The RGB lighting has over 20 built-in presets, and all of them work well, but the color isn’t perfect. When adjusting the lighting settings, nearly all of them seem to skew heavily toward a cyan/blue tint. This is presumably because of the Magnetic Jade switches’ light blue housing, which is unavoidable without using different switches, but even without switches, the LED diodes seem to be slightly cooler than a true neutral white.
These effects combine to make a keyboard that struggles to have a pure white color even with serious tweaking, especially since the RGB adjustments easily get overwhelmed and start to lag when moving your cursor around on the color wheel. The closest I could get to a pure white was with an RGB setting of [255, 60, 90], which still had a slightly cool tint to it. When set to the “breathe” setting at a low speed with this color, the lighting was choppy as it faded out, and slowly shifted to be red as it became darker instead of maintaining the preset color. When set to a faster speed and using a more standard color setting (like solid blue or green), these quirks disappeared.
Internal Assembly
Photograph: Henri Robbins
The internal assembly is rather simple: The printed circuit board (PCB) and switch plate are screwed together, sandwiching a sheet of silicone between them. This silicone fills the empty space between the plate and PCB, and extends past on the outside edge to create gaskets that the two halves of the case hold in place. With this, the internal assembly is held in place without making direct contact with the outside case, reducing vibration and excess noise.
Skullcandy has cracked the code on one of my most-requested features for wireless earbuds. Unlike almost every other pair I’ve owned, dropping the charging case won’t send the earbuds flying across the room. For my fellow clumsy humans, I’m happy to report that the Skullcandy Method 360 ANC (8/10, WIRED Review) are marked down at several retailers. I found the best price on the white (Bone) pair at Amazon, but some of the other colors are discounted too if you don’t mind paying a little extra.
Courtesy of Skullcandy
While the enclosed case is my favorite thing about these earbuds, they also have excellent active noise-canceling. That’s largely thanks to a collaboration with Bose, one of the best in the business when it comes to ANC, giving these a truly impressive level of sound isolation and noise reduction, particularly for the price.
The sound profile has clearly taken some notes from Bose as well, with our reviewer Parker Hall saying, “There is a real life to this listening experience in the midrange, with vocals, pianos, guitars, and other center-heavy instruments each occupying their own musical space.” He was also impressed by the wide stereo image, which can give a lot of life to panning, and the intricate details that stand out when you have good isolation and tuning.
Of course, if you want to tweak the experience you can use the mobile app to adjust button functionality or change the equalizer profile for your preferred music genre. There are noise-canceling and transparency mode settings as well, the latter of which works particularly well for hearing traffic while walking the dog.
The downside here is that the whole setup is slightly bulky. The earbuds have a sizable back-end that sits flush inside your ear, making them a bit more noticeable than some of the other earbuds we like. The case, while great for keeping your earbuds in one place when you knock it off the kitchen counter, is also on the large side and a little awkward to use at first. Still, for under $100, you get excellent ANC, quality sound profile, and a comfortable fit, which I think is well worth the price of admission.
Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry speaks exclusively to Sky Sports to discuss 2027 free agency
Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry has opened up on his plans for free agency in 2027 after admitting situations change “really fast” in the NBA.
The prospect of Curry, a two-time league MVP and 11-time All-Star, playing for any franchise other than The Dubs is a strange one.
After being drafted with the seventh overall pick in 2009, Curry has gone on to revolutionise the game of basketball, helping himself to four championships, one finals MVP and the NBA record for most three-pointers made with 4,058 to add to his overall tally of 25,386 points.
All while wearing No 30 for the Warriors.
4 x NBA champion
2 x NBA MVP
2022 NBA Finals MVP
11 x NBA All-Star
2 x NBA All-Star MVP
11 x All-NBA Team selection
2024 NBA Clutch Player of the Year
2 x NBA Three-Point Content champion
Most three-pointers made in NBA history
Curry signed a one-year extension with the team in 2024, worth a reported £47.5m ($62.6m) and ending growing speculation around his future in the process, keeping him in San Francisco until 2027.
Two years from now, when that deal expires, the greatest shooter of all time will be 39.
After averaging just under 25 points, six assists, and over four rebounds in his 16th season, as well as longevity being more prominent than ever in the league, it is clear to see that his time in the NBA is far from over.
But could the next chapter in his illustrious career lie away from Chase Center? Do not rule it out.
“What I have learned about this league is that things change really fast,” Curry told Sky Sports while discussing Underrated Golf, a programme set up by the point guard to break down barriers to entry and increase diversity in the game of golf.
Underrated Golf is an initiative led by Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry to create a pathway into the sport for young athletes from underrepresented communities.
The programme aims to break down barriers in the game of golf to give prospects a level playing field, in a bid to create a more inclusive and accessible environment for young golfers.
“What you might feel like in two years from now could be totally different. I try to stay in the moment as much as possible; it’s not the glitziest answer but it allows me to enjoy what is happening now.
“I do want to play for only one team, let’s keep that pretty clear. Being at the Warriors has been unbelievable and I feel blessed to have only played for one franchise and to have accomplished what we have.
“So if I could have the best of both worlds and continue to be championship relevant over the next couple of years, that would be great but this league is wild. You kind of just stay in the moment.”
Despite a decision on his future looming as we approach 2027, Curry’s full focus remains on securing more success with the team he holds so dear to his heart in the upcoming 2025/26 season.
The arrival of six-time All-Star Jimmy Butler in February has shown early signs of promise after the Warriors reached the Western Conference semi-finals last time out, only to be denied the opportunity to show their title-winning credentials following a Grade 1 hamstring strain for Curry in game one against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
A 4-1 defeat in the series would follow but heading into 2025/26, the roster has been bolstered by a new two-year deal for Jonathan Kuminga, as well as the arrival of 2024 NBA champion Al Horford,to run alongside long-term teammate Draymond Green in the frontcourt.
Golden State Warriors forward Jimmy Butler (left) Stephen Curry (centre) and forward Draymond Green (right)
With Curry now back to full fitness and fresh depth surrounding him, the intentions from the Warriors have been clear from pre-season.
The Dubs are 3-1 in games Curry has featured in, beating the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers twice, with attention now turning to the season opener against the Lakers on October 21, live on Sky Sports.
When asked what aspects of the game still motivate a player who has already achieved so much in the sport as we approach a new 82-game season, Curry added: “I talk about championships, and that drive – it allows every part of the journey to matter.
“Even in the off-season, how you prepare for the year, come in and try and build chemistry with your teammates and how you get through the emotional rollercoaster of an 82-game season.
“All of that is built into being at your peak come playoff time in April.
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry during the pre-season game against the Los Angeles Clippers
“Individual accolades take care of themselves. When you win, everybody is rewarded. As long as I’m taking care of championship motivation, everything else takes care of itself. Whether you win or not, you just lay it all out there.
“We have a brand new team again. We’ll all try and stay healthy and try and get to the finish line. That’s our goal.”
The Warriors have won seven championships in total across their 78-year history, with Curry leading them to more than half of that total.
If the franchise is to add an eighth banner to the rafters in 2026, their point guard will be the man to lead them there.
His powers at the highest level are showing no signs are waning, with the 37-year-old looking to replicate the successes of the likes of LeBron James and Kevin Durant by “redefining” what it is to be playing at a high level towards the latter stages of their respective careers.
“I feel like I’ve got some good basketball ahead of me. I’m trying to redefine what it is to be playing at a high level at this age,” said Curry when the question of his timeline leading the roster was posed.
“I still love the work that goes into it and playing the game; hopefully, that will carry me. I don’t want to put any limits on it.”
Watch the Golden State Warriors against the Los Angeles Lakers live on Sky Sports + on October 21, tip-off 3am UK time.
In the words of LL Cool J, don’t call it a comeback.
So, I won’t. Let’s go with part-very-loyal-pre-existing-fan-base, part-resurgence, then. That’s what it feels like to a non-Jonatic, when the Jonas Brothers somehow keep popping up on their feed – most recently, in an ad for A Very Jonas Christmas Movie, coming to Disney+ on November 14.
The year 2025 is definitely part of the reason, as it’s Kevin, Joe, and Nick’s 20th anniversary as a band. To mark the occasion, the New Jersey-born brothers have been keeping busy. There was JonasCon in March; a live album, Live from the O2 London, in June; and a studio album, Greetings from Your Hometown, in August. Not to mention a few collaborations with artists like Marshmello and Rascal Flatts, Joe’s second album, Music for People Who Believe in Love, released back in May, and the announcement of a Camp Rock 3 incoming.
And, of course, there’s the Jonas20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour, which brought the band to the Toyota Center last night.
The family affair of it all extended past Kevin, Joe, and Nick, as brother-in-law Michael Deleasa performed DJ sets before the openers and right before the brothers took the stage. And, of course, the first opener of the evening was Franklin Jonas.
Franklin Jonas performing at the Toyota Center during the Jonas20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour. Credit: Jennifer Lake
“I think a lot of us grew up together,” said Franklin. “See, I’m a lot of y’all’s little brother, and I’m so grateful that I am, tell you what.”
Just five years old when his brothers released their debut album in 2006, Franklin has since grown up and moved on to self-awarely co-hosting the celebrity-relative reality show Claim to Fame with Kevin and releasing his own EP in 2023. With guitar and banjo backing him up, Franklin performed a 15-minute set of original songs from his current project, Franklin Jonas & The Byzantines, along with covers of George Strait’s “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” and Coldplay’s “Yellow.”
During “Yellow,” he jumped off the stage, crossed the floor, and made the trek up into the club level, eventually traversing from sections 110 to 117. Though the moment had the arena buzzing, his stripped-down, country-tinged introspection brought an unexpected depth to the night. Songs like “Village Liquors,” with lines like “Too young to live, too young to die / I’m the aftermath of youth I sacrifice,” and “Road Soda,” with its refrain “Nothing I love more than hating my life,” marked him as a grittier, moodier counterpoint to the coming main event.
The All-American Rejects performing at the Toyota Center during the Jonas20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour. Credit: Jennifer Lake
The All-American Rejects, guests at the aforementioned JonasCon, were up next. And as soon as the lights went down, fans in black-and-white checkered pants and band tees – mostly JoBros – jumped out of their seats for some light headbanging.
Founded in Oklahoma in 1999, the band leaned right into that nostalgia with their lead-off song, “Dirty Little Secret,” from 2005’s Move Along, before tearing through the rest of their high-energy, nine-song set. Turns out, two decades later, those mid-2000s pop-punk anthems have not lost their punch, as fans happily bopped along to the band’s breakthrough hit, “Swing, Swing,” and sneered out the chorus of “Gives You Hell” like they were just waiting for the chance.
Frontman and bassist Tyson Ritter was unpredictable and playful, bantering freely with the crowd (and sometimes, inexplicably, in a German accent). There was a back-and-forth with a fan who brought a sign that said, simply, “Reject me.”
“All right, well. Proposition me,” Ritter countered to the sound of laughter and catcalls.
Much to the audience’s delight, the love fest went both ways. “We play a lot of these JoBros shows,” he told the crowd, “and I’ll tell you what, this crowd right here—you jumpers, you people that are actually into this shit—I am all about.” So about it, he pulled out a “giant invisible knife” and said: “I’m dipping it into the invisible honey and I’m spreading it all over your ass cracks that’s how much I love you. And I will happily eat a sandwich out of that place – that’s how endeared I am.”
Unsurprisingly, Ritter noted that “the JoBros team” don’t like it when he swears.
Kevin Jonas during the Jonas20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour at the Toyota Center. Credit: Jennifer Lake
Almost exactly on time, the lights dropped for the last time, and the arena erupted as the Jonas Brothers cracked open a time capsule with “Year 3000,” the Busted cover that launched their Disney-era fame. The song was met with deafening screams. There’s no way to say for sure, but it seemed everyone in the building knew, and shouted, every lyric. The brothers jumped to the present with “Love Me to Heaven,” the first single off Greetings from Your Hometown. They also took the opportunity to do some introductions.
“Tonight, we are celebrating 20 years together, and not just the three of us on this stage, but each and every one of you who’s part of this story,” said Nick.
From there and across the hour and 45 minutes they stayed on stage, the atmosphere remained celebratory and joyous, stretching across the years as the band seamlessly threaded early hits like “S.O.S.” and “Lovebug” into their set alongside their more recent material. This included five tracks off Greetings, showing that while their sound has grown and evolved, their pop instincts are perfectly intact. That sound, by the way, was further brought to life by an impressive 11-piece backing band with a particularly well-utilized horn section.
Joe Jonas performing during the Jonas20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour at the Toyota Center. Credit: Jennifer Lake
Between songs, the brothers’ camaraderie and warmth came through. Joe dedicated “Little Bird” to parents and anyone who plays a parental role and later led a fan-request segment that produced snippets of deep cuts like “Got Me Going Crazy,” “You Got the Right,” and “Inseparable.” “Spaceman,” requested by Kevin for Nick, drew loud cheers for its Houston mention.
Luckily, the set list had room for a couple of solo spotlights. Joe turned the arena into a dance party with “Cake by the Ocean,” introduced by his DNCE guitarist JinJoo Lee, while Nick’s sultry “Jealous” showed his skill for R&B-infused pop. Colombian singer Ela Taubert emerged onto the stage to join Joe for “¿Cómo Pasó?,” a song she performed with him at last year’s Latin Grammys, and stayed for the following song, “Slow Motion.”
The night’s nostalgia reached its peak during a Camp Rock sing-along. Collectively, “Play My Music,” “Gotta Find You,” and “Introducing Me” got some of the biggest pops of the night. But as the night wound down, the focus shifted from those Disney Channel memories to something more personal.
Before the confetti and goodbyes, the brothers circled back to where it all began with “Please Be Mine,” the first song they ever wrote together. Finally, Franklin returned to the stage to join them for “When You Look Me in the Eyes.” Together, the two songs triumphantly underscored the tour’s familial and retrospective themes, and the celebration was complete.
Nick Jonas performing at the Toyota Center. Credit: Jennifer Lake
Set List
Franklin Jonas Break a Leg Yellow All My Ex’s Live in Texas Road Soda Village Liquors
All-American Rejects Dirty Little Secret Someday’s Gone Swing, Swing I Wanna Sweat Search Party! Move Along Easy Come, Easy Go Gives You Hell
Jonas Brothers Year 3000 Love Me to Heaven Only Human Mirror to the Sky Don’t Throw It Away S.O.S. Sucker Little Bird Fan Requests: Got Me Going Crazy, You Got the Right, Inseparable, Spaceman Waffle House Vacation Eyes Celebrate! No Time to Talk Cake by the Ocean Jealous ¿Cómo Pasó? Slow Motion Backwards Play My Music Gotta Find You Introducing Me Lovebug Leave Before You Love Me Burnin’ Up Please Be Mine When You Look Me in the Eyes
A series of shallow grooves line either side of the case’s bottom half. These seem to mimic the side sculpts of some limited-run custom keyboards, and they have a functional purpose, making it easier to lift the keyboard. The design is mirrored in the aluminum knob in the top right corner, which has a similar motif. I really like that these designs are not only ornamental but actually have a functional purpose during regular use.
Going further into the aesthetic choices of this keyboard, it loses me a bit with the keycaps. I’m not a big fan of the camouflage design. The shapes don’t always line up across keycaps, and it overall seems tacky. However, the print quality is top-notch, with no fuzziness or discoloration, consistent even along the keycaps’ sides. Because the keycaps are white with multicolored printing on top, the RGB lighting is able to bounce between the white plastic plate and the white undersides of the keycaps, appearing brighter and diffusing more evenly across the keyboard.
With a polling rate of 1,000 Hz (meaning the keyboard sends 1,000 messages to the computer every second), the DeltaForce 65 feels snappy and responsive. This combines with the relatively light Gateron Red switches to make a keyboard that’s effective for gaming while still being comfortable to type on. It doesn’t compare to high-end gaming keyboards with Hall effect switches and 8,000-Hz polling rates, which are going to be faster and more customizable, but for casual gaming, it’s more than enough.
The compact size of the keyboard is ideal for gaming, saving a significant amount of space compared to a full-size keyboard. This allows for more mouse space and lets your hands sit closer together for more rapid movement between the mouse and keyboard. To make up for the loss of the function row up top, you can hold the FN key and press the corresponding number key (i.e., FN+1 = F1), and the FN key can be used with some other keys for the Home, Pause, Print Screen, and other removed keys. The knob in the top right is easy to reach and has a satisfying notchiness to it. It’s programmed to adjust volume by default, but can be remapped to nearly anything else.
Software Quirks
Photograph: Henri Robbins
As far as programmability, VIA is the star of the show here. The DeltaForce65 uses an open source system known as QMK for its programmability, and VIA is an in-browser interface based on QMK that allows for seamless, rapid customization of the keyboard’s layout. The system is incredibly powerful and intuitive to use, and a common capability of many modern mechanical keyboards.
