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BARCELONA (Reuters) - Champions Barcelona reclaimed top spot in La Liga on Sunday by overcoming a dogged Villarreal side to win 2-0 at home with goals from stalwart defender Gerard Pique and youngster Carles Alena taking them above Sevilla. Pique headed the Catalans in front in the 36th minute, connecting with a cross from the lively Ousmane Dembele who produced another decisive display after scoring Barca's late equaliser against Atletico Madrid last week. Villarreal are hovering above the relegation zone but they produced an admirable display and nearly took the lead when Gerard Moreno seized on a mix-up between goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen and defender Clement Lenglet but was able only to strike the outside of the near post. Homegrown midfielder Alena, 20, came off the bench to score his first league goal for Barca in the 87th minute and seal the win, racing on to a through ball from Lionel Messi and producing a confident finish. Record signing Philippe Coutinho struggled to make an impact and was booed by an impatient Nou Camp crowd when he was substituted in the second half, while fans also showed their discontent when Valverde took off Arturo Vidal for Alena. Alena had made only one league appearance this season after being promoted from the club's reserve team but he eventually lifted the mood by producing the lethal blow to Villarreal, who had deprived Barca of the ball for much of the second period while rarely troubling Ter Stegen.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin got his chance to talk with U.S. President Donald Trump after all — but their brief exchange over Ukraine didn't accomplish much. Russia put on a brave face after Trump abruptly junked a much-awaited sit-down with Putin, blaming it on internal U.S. politics and "anti-Russian hysteria." But Trump's snub was a clear kick to Putin as he joined a Group of 20 gathering in Argentina, where Western leaders banded together to denounce Russia's actions in Ukraine. The two men did end up talking briefly on the sidelines of the G-20 — just long enough for Trump to ask Putin what he is up to in Ukraine, and for Putin to respond."I answered his questions about the incident in the Black Sea. He has his position. I have my own. We stayed in our own positions," Putin told reporters. He subbed in Turkey's president for the time slot he had reserved for Trump, and sought to strengthen his alliance with China and other non-Western economies. And he cozied up at Friday's round-table talks to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, somewhat of a fellow outcast at the G-20 over his suspected role in the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist. Putin called it "too bad" that Trump cancelled their formal meeting, and hinted at the potential fallout if the leaders of the world's two biggest nuclear powers can't talk to each other substantively. Putin warned that the U.S. intention to opt out of a Cold War-era nuclear pact "creates risks of an uncontrollable arms race." Such weapons are seen as extremely destabilizing as they take just a few minutes to reach targets, leaving virtually no time for decision-makers and dramatically increasing the possibility of a nuclear conflict over a false attack warning or technical glitch.There was a risk that the Trump-Putin meeting could have worked out badly for both of them. After the summit with Putin in July, Trump was widely criticized for failing to publicly denounce Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. election and appearing to accept Putin's denials of such activity. More anti-Russian sanctions followed and relations soured further.

You’ve been here before: an adventurer awakens in a strange place, only to realize that they — and only they! — are the one who can fulfill an ancient prophecy and save the land from evil. This is the premise for The Swords of Ditto, and it is in no way unique. But there’s something about the game’s charm and structure that help it stand out. It’s sort of like a classic Legend of Zelda game, but dropped into the world of a Saturday morning cartoon. The game's title, The Swords of Ditto, doesn’t actually refer to a weapon. Instead, the swords are the heroes who are meant to defend the land. You start out as one of the swords, washed up on a beach, and a flying bug tells you the deal: you have four days to eradicate an evil magical being. You’re then largely left up to your own to figure out how to do that. The game feels a lot like a 2D Zelda game, along the lines of A Link to the Past or the NES original. There’s a fairly large and open map that you can explore however you see fit; you’ll get some guidance, but you can ignore it if you want to. The colorful world is full of monsters, like puking zombies and flying skulls, and you’ll regularly come across people in need of help, and dungeons you can explore to find new items for the final battle. It’s all very cute and charming, with a middle school vibe. Your weapons and gear are all toys, and you can equip collectible stickers for new abilities. If you need to fast travel you play a kazoo to call a bus, and you can buy cookies and sushi from a convenience store to replenish your health. There are two main things that make Ditto different than Zelda: time pressure and randomness. The four day deadline isn’t just a narrative conceit, it also dominates the structure of the game. You have four in-game days to become powerful enough to take on the final boss, and then defeat them. When you fail — which you definitely will in the beginning — you’ll reawaken as a new adventurer a century later, taking up the fight once again. But when you wake up everything has changed: Ditto uses procedurally generated worlds to ensure that it’s different each time you play. So instead of memorizing a specific path through the game, you have to learn more general skills to get you through each playthrough. This structure means that the game offers something different than Zelda. It’s not a sprawling open world you can lose yourself in; instead, it’s a smaller playground, one that’s different each time you explore. It’s bite-sized and random, bright and bubbly — which makes it a great chaser to Breath of the Wild.

Asus launched its latest budget smartphone, Zenfone Lite L1 in the Indian market this October. Besides the Zenfone Lite L1, the Taiwanese tech firm launched another budget phone Zenfone Max M1 with the aim to take on the dominant Chinese player Xiaomi’s budget devices. The entry-level Asus Zenfone Lite L1 was introduced at an introductory price of Rs 6,999 for the 2GB RAM and 16GB onboard storage. The new Asus phone features a 5.45-inch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor and a single 13MP camera at the back. Asus Zenfone L1 Lite specifications: 5.45-inch HD display | Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor | ZenUI based Android Oreo | 13MP primary camera | 5MP front-facing camera with LED flash | 3000mAh battery | 2GB RAM/16GB storage Talking about performance, the Zenfone Lite L1 managed to smoothly handle day-to-day tasks. The casual games run fine and we did not observe any lag or stutter while playing for an hour. During benchmark tests, the phone scored 55669 points on AnTuTu, which is in line with most phones in this price segment. Under bright light, the Zenfone Lite L1 could capture portraits an landscape photos with decent colour reproduction. In the indoor situation, the rear camera could render output with decent detailing and colours. The new Asus phone packs a battery capacity of 3000mAh and promises a day’s worth of backup with moderate usage. During the PCMark test, the phone lasted for about 9 hours and 44 minutes.

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UFC fighter Conor McGregor has been banned from driving for six months after pleading guilty to speeding.The Irishman, 30, admitted to driving his Range Rover at 154kph (96mph) in a 100kph (62mph) zone near Kill, County Kildare, in October 2017.He apologised to the judge after he was also fined 1,000 euros (£883) at Naas district court near Dublin.McGregor's last UFC bout ended in defeat by Russia's Khabib Nurmagomedov in October. Following the fight, there were violent scenes involving the fighters and McGregor was suspended for a month on medical grounds.McGregor has 12 previous traffic offences dating back to his teens.Judge Desmond Zaidan said: "The speed here is in the higher end. Speed kills and that is what makes speeding dangerous.When speeding goes wrong the consequences are catastrophic and life-changing, there is no question about that.Sadly we have lost more lives on our roads because of excessive speeding, dangerous speeds and other bad behaviour.

You may have played many versions of Tetris, but you’ve probably never played one like Tetris Effect. The latest iteration of the falling-block puzzler comes from Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Enhance Experience and combines music, sound, vibration, and visuals into something that becomes almost transcendent. It does have a late-game difficulty spike that’s worse for those that aren’t playing in VR, but this is still a masterfully presented new entry in a long-running series. The main campaign of Tetris Effect is Journey, an engrossing series of connected boards each with their own diverse art style, music, and ruleset. Each board is unique and I was constantly surprised by what they offered. One might see you starting underwater as a beautiful particle-effect whale swims around you, while the next will be a desert landscape with a meandering caravan of camels that, halfway through, transitions to a realistic-looking version of the moon complete with an astronaut tooling around in a lunar vehicle. Some don’t have music at all, instead opting for a soundscape drawn from the sounds of wind. Another had me inadvertently creating a jazz jam with the sound effects created by rotating, moving, and dropping pieces. Don’t be fooled by the focus on music and mood though - Tetris Effect can be punishingly difficult. There’s no hard-and-fast rule to how each stage will play: some are traditional in that they start off slow and ramp up after you clear a set number of lines, while others start blisteringly fast then slow all the way down to let you regain your composure, only to suddenly speed up again without warning. This constant fluctuation in speed and difficulty at times feels at odds with the often meditative presentation of Tetris Effect’s stages. The ability to rotate a piece several times after it lands and the return of the hold queue, with which you can substitute a Tetromino once per turn, give you several ways to react but it can still feel cheap to suddenly see a board speed up 5 or 6 levels, slamming blocks into positions and ruining my carefully laid plans. If you find yourself in a pickle, you can activate Tetris Effect’s trippy new time suspending Zone mechanic. Zone accrues as you play and activating it pauses the action, allowing you to clear lines for a high-score combo or to set up your board without the constant threat of falling blocks. Zone may not be as revolutionary as something like the ability to swap out a Tetromino for one in your hold queue but I enjoyed it for the strategic possibilities of stacking a board as high as I could and then quickly working to clear it as the timer ran down. Early on I’d horde my Zone until I found myself in a jam, but a quick look at the leaderboards convinced me to use it as often as possible. Who would think that a new version of a simple game like Tetris could deliver such a thoroughly absorbing experience? The merging of time-tested gameplay with the synesthesia-inducing sound and visual design of Tetsuya Mizuguchi creates something you’ve likely never experienced. While Tetris Effect’s diverse and beautiful presentation can sometimes literally get in the way of the gameplay, this is proof that even after 30+ years, Tetris can still feel fresh.

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Queen Elizabeth is a woman known by many names. To her great-grandchildren, she's Gan-Gan, and to most of her subjects, she's Her Majesty. But for a select group of Brits, the Queen goes by a very different title: Duke of Lancaster. Despite being a woman, the Queen is known as a Duke as opposed to a Duchess, and today, she will be toasted as such. As royal blog the Crown Chronicles pointed out on Twitter, "Today is Lancashire Day, marking the area first sending representatives to Parliament in 1295. During the day, you may hear a chorus of 'Long live our noble Duke' instead of 'God Save The Queen,' as the reigning Monarch's title in that county is 'Duke of Lancaster.'" The site goes into detail about the history of the royal title, noting that when John of Gaunt, the Second Duke of Lancaster died in 1399, "his nephew King Richard II confiscated the Lancaster inheritance and banished John’s son, Henry Bolingbroke, from England for life."

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Google announced today that its Project Fi wireless network, now rebranded to Google Fi, will be available for iPhones and the majority of Android devices. That’s supposed to open up a lot more phones to Google Fi’s unique features, such as flat rate data billing; unlimited international roaming; and the ability to switch between multiple networks, like T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular, for better service. However, if you’re planning to use your iPhone on Fi, there are quite a few caveats to be aware of. Though Fi SIMs have unofficially worked on non-Fi phones (including iPhones) before with some limited functionality, Google is now supporting iPhones directly. You can go through the Google Fi site here and check if your phone is compatible, but to save you some time, you should know that iPhones won’t be able to make calls or text over Wi-Fi, use visual voicemail, or be used as data hotspots outside the US at all. They also won’t be able to take advantage of Fi’s unique network-switching features. Google Fi flat-out won’t work on the iPhone 5, 5C, or older. Today’s news is more of an official acknowledgement by Google rather than an announcement of proper support, but Google Fi does have a pretty interesting pricing model that might be cheaper than other carriers, depending on how much data you use. Each phone line is $20, and $10 per gig of data, which caps at $60. With Google Fi, you can receive your voicemails as transcribed texts, and there’s no international roaming fees. If this all sounds good to you and you want to make the switch, there’s a Google Fi iOS app to help new users get set up.

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Yet again, Genesis gives brand-unconscious luxury shoppers the last laugh. It did as much with the G80 and G90, two larger sedans introduced two model years back (or reintroduced under the Genesis name). The G70 packs the winning formula in a smaller package — it's about a foot shorter and around $7,000 less expensive than the G80 — with compelling results. On sale now, the sedan offers two turbocharged engines: a 2.0-liter four-cylinder and a 3.3-liter V-6, with standard rear-wheel drive or optional all-wheel drive. An eight-speed automatic transmission drives both, but you can also get the 2.0-liter with a six-speed manual. I drove all the engines, transmissions and drivelines over three days on Maine's winding roads and at a private racetrack in New Hampshire as part of Genesis' national media introduction (per our ethics policy, Cars.com pays its own airfare and lodging to such automaker-funded events). Back at Cars.com's Chicago headquarters, we also drove two G70 sedans, one with each engine. Inside, the G70 is a godsend. Take it from someone who harps on impractical interiors all the time: This is the commonsense sports sedan. Mercifully absent are capacitive-touch buttons, arcane menu structures and console-mounted knob or touchpad controllers — all maddening developments from too many luxury brands. Every G70 has large, physical dials for climate controls. Volume and tuning knobs above them flank shortcut buttons for a standard 8-inch touchscreen. A generous storage tray (by sports sedan standards) sits ahead of the cupholders, and the armrest in automatic-equipped cars has enough storage space to fit a 16-ounce bottle. The doors have armrest-level pockets; the overhead console has a sunglasses holder. Our test cars had three USB ports apiece, beating the norm by one. Non-luxury cars have such sensibilities in spades, but too many luxury models do not. Genesis rights the ship. Expectedly, cabin materials are a step down from the G80 and G90, especially below arm level, but the high-traffic areas show attention to detail. Attractive vinyl wrapping with double stitching covers middle sections of the dashboard (it's standard, not part of an upgrade package), and the console even has low-gloss materials around the cupholders and storage tray — places where some cheaper luxury cars still throw shinier, high-grain plastics. Leatherette (vinyl) seats are standard, and leather or upgraded Nappa leather is optional. The basic leather feels a bit rubbery; the Nappa cowhide is lush. We haven't evaluated cars with leatherette.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday signed an act introducing martial law after Russia's seizure of three of Kiev's navy vessels sparked the worst crisis in years between the neighbours."President Poroshenko has signed the law," spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko wrote on Facebook. Ukraine's parliament on Monday voted in favour of the president's request for the introduction of martial law in border areas for 30 days. There was some confusion over when exactly martial law entered force, however, with some officials saying that it had already begun on Monday. The presidential spokesman was not immediately reachable for comment. Poroshenko called for the move after Russian forces fired on, boarded and captured three of Kiev's ships on Sunday off the coast of Crimea. The Ukrainian authorities have said that martial law -- which allows the mobilisation of citizens, control of media and restricts public demonstrations -- is essentially a preventive measure. Poroshenko in a television interview on Tuesday said that "the aim of this martial law is to show that the enemy will pay very dearly if they decide to attack us and that will be like a cold shower that will stop the madmen who have plans to attack Ukraine." Ukraine's defence ministry was set to give a press conference on Wednesday afternoon to explain how martial law will be applied in the armed forces.

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AEK Athens’ Champions League defeat to Ajax in the Greek capital was marred by violent scenes before kick-off. The away fans came under attack as home supporters threw flares into the stands. Social media footage also appeared to show a home fan throwing a ‘Molotov cocktail’ – an improvised petrol bomb – towards Ajax supporters. Shocking photos from the game also showed police officers hitting Ajax fans, many of whom were pictured caked in blood. The Ajax defender Matthijs de Ligt ran over to the visiting fans at one point, in an attempt to play the role of peacemaker. There was then further crowd disturbance, with several firecrackers set off at the start of the second half, with the smoke affecting players on both sides. No arrests or injuries were immediately reported. Police also clashed with mostly Greek fans in central Athens earlier in the day. Rival supporters were involved in the violence near the city’s police headquarters. Traffic was blocked after youths hurled petrol bombs at rival supporters and police. Ajax won the match 2-0, with Dusan Tadic scoring from a penalty in the 68th minute and adding a second goal four minutes later as the Dutch side secured their place in the last 16. Marko Livaja was sent off for AEK, who can not qualify for the Europa League knockout rounds after losing all five of their group games.

Dragon Ball FighterZ has finally arrived on Nintendo Switch. After launching on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC earlier this year, Arc System Works' anime fighter has come to Nintendo's console/handheld hybrid. The version that Nintendo Switch owners are getting is largely the same as the other consoles. There's not even much of a visual downgrade despite the Switch's less impressive technical prowess. Dragon Ball FighterZ is about as seamless a port as can be imagined. The identical nature of the Switch port is mostly a blessing. Dragon Ball FighterZ's frenetic and gorgeously animated gameplay is second to none and the Switch doesn't sacrifice anything in translation. Unfortunately the Switch game also inherits the same pratfalls of its console brethren. As strong as Dragon Ball FighterZ's core mechanics are, they're still weighed down by some very poor online functionality. In a style made po[CENSORED]r by Marvel vs. Capcom, matches take place in teams of 3v3 or 2v2. There's an option to switch out between fighters with a click of a trigger. By using the three main button of light, medium and heavy attacks its easily possible to deliver devastating combo (with multiple fighter) that look incredible and feel even better. There's even a simple mode which makes fighting even more accessible. Dragon Ball FighterZ is the ultimate example of a game that's easy to play but hard to master. There is a great deal to enjoy in Dragon Ball FighterZ. Online is a bit of a bust but it could improve with time. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4's online modes had similar troubles at launch but they've steadily gotten better. Even if online never does get much better the offline modes of arcade and story are still strong enough to justify the price of the game, especially for hardcore Dragon Ball fans. The real selling point of FighterZ is still the fighting itself which remains as flawless and fun on the Switch as any other console. Sadly the rest of the game isn't as perfect.

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