The Simply Red singer gets emotional over Aretha and wakes up to Ravi Shankar. But which record healed his broken teenage heart?
The first single I bought
One of the first albums I bought was Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones; the first single was The Last Time. I was about 11 when my dad bought me my first record player, and I wore it out by listening to it so much.
The first song I fell in love with
My first love was an unrequited crush. I heard Let’s Stay Together by Al Green on the radio, went out and bought it, and played it over and over to heal the pain of teenage rejection.
Instead of spending millions and taking years to complete, creative directors are producing high-grade work using the latest software, but critics voice copyright concerns
A US stealth bomber flies across a darkening sky towards Iran. Meanwhile, in Tehran a solitary woman feeds stray cats amid rubble from recent Israeli airstrikes.
To the uninitiated viewer, this could be a cinematic retelling of a geopolitical crisis that unfolded barely weeks ago – hastily shot on location, somewhere in the Middle East.
The 27-year-old is charged with four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon upon a peace officer and one count of extreme cruelty to animals, which is a fourth-degree felony, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
Authorities axe flights and school classes as typhoon closes in, with China’s Hainan and Guangdong provinces also on high alert
Hong Kong issued its highest tropical cyclone warning as Typhoon Wipha battered the city, with authorities cancelling school classes and grounding hundreds of flights.
Wipha was located around 60km south-east of Hong Kong as of 10am on Sunday, according to the city’s weather observatory. Huge waves were spotted off the eastern coast of Hong Kong Island.
This year’s theme for the Prix Pictet, the photography award that focuses on sustainability, is ‘storm’. The shortlisted images were announced at the international photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles. The winner will be selected at the Victoria and Albert Museum in September.
“In many ways our planet is a more dangerous place to live than ever before. The impacts of the climate catastrophe abound. Fires, floods, heat and drought are killing and injuring people and destroying both infrastructure and precious ecosystems. Already, parts of our planet are unliveable, and all the indications are that more will follow. The economic, social and political impacts of these changes are immense. There could not have been a more timely moment for the Prix Pictet to invite nominations on the theme of ‘storm’.” Sir David King, Prix Pictet jury chair
Michael McGrath awaits results of secret shopper investigation amid crackdown on Chinese retail platforms
The EU justice commissioner has expressed shock at the toxicity and dangers of some goods being sold by Shein and Temu, amid a crackdown on the popular Chinese retail platforms.
With 12m low-value parcels each day coming into the EU from online retailers outside the bloc, Michael McGrath has vowed to crack down on the sale of goods that blatantly break the law.
Fun and educational outdoor activities in the wild that will coax kids off their screens this summer
There’s no escaping sea and sky on Tiree, as the Inner Hebridean island is only 12 miles long and 3 miles wide. Shallow seas provide rich feeding grounds for marine life, and it is one of the UK’s best spots for whale watching. Tiree Sea Tours – a member of the WiSe national training scheme for minimising disturbance to marine wildlife – offers half-day and full-day sea-faris (from £75). Visitors can also try to spot basking sharks circling the island in the plankton-rich waters at viewing spots in Hynish Bay or Caoles, or from the deck of the CalMac ferry over to nearby Coll. Sunset Pods’ two cabins (from £700 a week, one week minimum stay in July-August) sleep four and offer views over Balevullin beach, a Dark Sky discovery site and home to Blackhouse Watersports.
Some in an east London park say they like the incessant beeping, but others that it’s an indication of low-level crime
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Was that exhausting to read? Well, imagine if that noise was the soundtrack to your summer.
To the ire of many city dwellers this year, it is. The piercing and persistent sound, something akin to a half-bothered fire alarm you accidentally set off, has been everywhere. Its origin? Lime e-bikes, specifically the stolen variety.
Student midwives working thousands of hours unpaid in NHS fear lack of vacancies despite staff shortages
A student midwife who fears she will be unable to get a job after completing 2,300 hours of unpaid placement work in the NHS is calling for guaranteed posts for newly qualified midwives who otherwise will be forced to abandon the profession before their careers begin.
Aimee Peach, 43, is due to complete her training next summer, but says the promise of a job at the end of her three-year degree course has “collapsed”, despite severe shortages of midwives across the country.
No boxer has ever represented his country to this degree: Usyk is a living embodiment of his nation’s defiance of the Russian invasion
Perhaps the most striking part of the surge of controlled fury that ended this heavyweight title fight wasn’t the short right or the clubbing left that took Daniel Dubois down midway through the fifth round.
It was Oleksandr Usyk’s smile before the second of those shots. More of a snarl perhaps, or a baring of the gumshield, as Dubois let his arms drop, giving Usyk time to freeze the moment, load up, take aim and unleash a fully extended left hand to the side of the jaw that made Dubois crumple, legs folding under him as his father, Stan, threw in the towel.
The astonishing save to prevent an own goal against France is the prelude to the match-winning shootout show from a two-time cancer survivor
Ann-Katrin Berger is flying. The ball is flying. A few yards away, near the penalty spot, Clara Mateo of France already has her arms raised in celebration. A heroic German defensive rearguard is about to end in a misdirected defensive header, a looping own goal and a heartbreaking defeat. But a 34-year-old double cancer survivor, largely written off by her own country’s media before this quarter-final, has other ideas.
The mechanics of the save itself are easy enough to explain. Berger is about five yards out of her goal, and so has to back-pedal furiously while also keeping her eye on the flight. At the last moment, it looks like the ball is about to beat her. Which is the point at which Berger flings herself backwards and upwards, finding every last gram of strength, straining every last muscle, the sort of moment you spend a lifetime training for. She claws it away with her fingers. Falls heavily on her shoulders. Accepts the congratulations of her teammates, who look like they have just seen a biblical miracle.
Home favourite in disbelief after shot on the 11th sends an old ball flying but eagle a hole later sends fans into ecstasy
Deep into day three of the Open and Rory McIlroy is still surfing gigantic waves of momentum and goodwill. He has jumped to six under, at this point only four shots off the lead, with each birdie sounding like a sonic boom over Portrush. It is manic, messianic and a lot of fun. And then it gets weird. Twilight Zone weird.
McIlroy has just twirled a drive into the rough at the 11th. For a moment he fears that his ball is lost, only to get the all clear from the marshal. Better still, he will be playing from trampled-down ground. He pauses. Takes aim. And then as his ball flops wearily into air, a member’s Titleist ball, which has been deeply buried under ground, suddenly jumps up beside him.
Florida State University professor Trevor Luke spoke to Fox News Digital about recently uncovered evidence that the notorious ruler Caligula had a surprising interest in botany.
France 1-1 Germany (Germany win 6-5 on penalties): Ann-Katrin Berger was the hero in the shoot-out after Kathrin Hendrich was sent off for pulling an opponent’s hair
A severe drought this summer in the Balkans has left over 1,000 cows and horses without water on a mountain in southeast Serbia, forcing the authorities to bring up emergency supplies
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