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.

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.

• Pacquiao, 46, fights to majority draw in comeback bout

• Barrios keeps WBC title after strong final three rounds

• As it happened: Manny Pacquiao MD 12 Mario Barrios

By the time the final bell rang, Manny Pacquiao had done everything but win the fight. He out-threw, out-landed and out-hustled a champion 16 years his junior on Saturday night in Las Vegas, but the scorecards told a different story.

Pacquiao’s spirited return to the ring after a four-year layoff ended in a majority draw against WBC welterweight titleholder Mario Barrios. One judge scored it 115–113 for Barrios, while the other two had it 114–114, allowing the 30-year-old Texan to retain his belt by the narrowest of margins. (The Guardian scored it 115-113 for Pacquiao.)

Officially, the party says there is no mission to court Conservative defectors, but insiders suggest otherwise, and warn against the dangers of doing so

At last year’s GB News Christmas party, Suella Braverman was the centre of attention. The former home secretary is popular in rightwing media circles, but it wasn’t her straight-talking brand of conservatism that was topic of the evening, rather it was the growing whispers about what some thought was her imminent defection to Reform UK.

“It was like a panto – everyone saying: ‘Oh yes you will’, and her saying: ‘Oh no, I won’t’,” says one Reform party guest. “We all thought she was just biding her time until the right moment.”

Pen names have a long history. Now Liadan Ní Chuinn is shunning publicity in an industry that demands ever more exposure

What’s in a pen name? Irish writer Liadan Ní Chuinn’s debut short story collection, Every One Still Here, is receiving rave reviews and rapturous praise, but hardly anyone seems to know who they are. A cursory Google turns up no photos or biographical information. All we know is that the writer is Northern Irish and was born in 1998, the year of the Good Friday agreement.

A statement from Irish publisher The Stinging Fly reads: “The Stinging Fly has been working with Liadan on these stories for the past four years. From early on in the process, they expressed a desire to publish their work under a pseudonym and to protect their privacy throughout the publication process. No photographs of the author are available and Liadan will not be participating in any in-person interviews or public events.”

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

Do you feel ready to merge your past and your present? By considering a friendship with this man, you can see if this will work for you

Until four years ago, I was a sex worker – specifically, a high-end escort. In my experience, when clients treat you with respect and understand the boundaries, it’s possible to form a relationship not unlike that between a therapist and a client.

One client I was particularly fond of was a man a few years older than me. He is on the autism spectrum, which makes him somewhat socially awkward, but he is intelligent, creative and empathetic – and passably handsome. I always felt he would make a wonderful partner for a woman who could see past his quirks.

The Palestinian Authority’s ability to use the Gaza Marine field could leave them less dependent on aid

Recognition of Palestine as a state would put beyond doubt that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is entitled to develop the natural gas resources of the Gaza Marine field, according to one of the experts that worked on the stalled project.

Michael Barron, the author of a new book on Palestine’s untapped gas reserves, has suggested the field could generate $4bn (£3bn) in revenue at current prices and it is reasonable that the PA could receive $100m a year over 15 years.

£6 a pint, £199 a month for gym membership, £1,200 to rent a studio flat? The Guardian’s former North of England editor asks if the city she’s worked in for 12 years is changing for the better – or worse

Arriving in Manchester after moving up from London in 2013, I spotted something I took as a sign of how different my new life would be – how much cheaper, how much less pretentious. I told everyone back in London about the £1 Brew Stall at Piccadilly station. “Can you imagine being able to get a cup of tea at Euston for only a pound?” I would ask.

For a while, I was always seeking to prove I had not made a mistake leaving behind the bright lights of the capital city. I was the last staff reporter the Guardian had left in the whole of the north of England, and I felt isolated in a place no one in London really seemed to care about. It made me extremely chippy. This was a year before George Osborne anointed Manchester the centre of his fictional “northern powerhouse”; four before Andy Burnham abandoned Westminster to become the region’s mayor.

Christina Block is standing trial in Hamburg accused of kidnapping of her own children from her ex-husband

For over half a century Block House has ranked as one of the most recognised restaurant chains on the German high street – a collection of family-friendly steakhouses whose staples include the “classic Block burger” and filet mignon.

But for months the Hamburg-based chain has been making headlines for an altogether different reason: a bitter and extraordinary custody battle between the heiress to the family business, Christina Block, and her ex-husband over the youngest two of their four children.

Murdering and massacring innocents is indefensible. So why on earth is it allowed to continue? The answer is moral relativism

The quest for peace in major conflicts has rarely been so desperate and so seemingly futile. In Gaza, talk of ceasefires, truces and pauses typically ends in tears. In Ukraine, the war is now well into its fourth year with no end in sight, despite Donald Trump’s new 50-day deadline. Syria burns anew. Sudan’s horrors never cease. Last year, state-based conflicts reached a peak – 61 across 36 countries. It was the highest recorded total since 1946. This year could be worse.

The sheer scale and depravity of war crimes and other conflict-zone atrocities is extraordinary. The deliberate, illegal targeting and terrorising of civilians, the killing, maiming and abduction of children, and the use of starvation, sexual violence, torture and forced displacement as weapons of war have grown almost routine. Israel’s killing last week of children queueing for water in Gaza was shocking, made doubly so by the fact that scenes like this have become so commonplace.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Northern parts of the country hit on Sunday morning, according to authorities, after some of the heaviest hourly rainfall on record

At least two people were killed and more are missing in heavy downpours in South Korea, officials said, amid heavy rain, flooding and landslides, bringing the death toll to 14 from torrential rains that have lashed the country for a week.

Close to 170mm of rain hit the resort town of Gapyeong county in Gyeonggi province, 70km east of Seoul, early on Sunday, said disaster authorities, after a landslide engulfed houses and flooding swept away vehicles during a period of heavy rainfall.

Police in London detain scores of people and confiscate placards under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000

More than 100 people have been arrested across the UK at events related to Palestine Action, in the third week of demonstrations since the group was banned as a terrorist organisation.

Demonstrations were held in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Truro on Saturday as part of a campaign coordinated by Defend Our Juries.

• United States 5-40 England in rugby double header at Audi Field

• Ilona Maher stars as US women hold on to beat Fiji 31-24

On a perfectly unlovely summer’s day in Washington DC, amid lasering sunshine, lowering clouds, debilitating humidity and lengthy lightning delays, Steve Borthwick’s Lions-light England sweated to a six-try win over the US Eagles.

Borthwick expressed satisfaction, telling reporters his men did well “in the challenging conditions, two lightning breaks, so the game lasted effectively a long time. There’s a scenario that none of us had faced before. We wanted a short half-time to deal with that but it wasn’t possible, but that’s six new caps in today.”

Measles on the rise and vaccination rates falling; EPA to be gutted of its crucial research function. Key US politics stories from Saturday 19 July at a glance

“The current administration is waging a war on science,” warned Celine Gounder, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at New York University in a keynote talk in May to graduates of Harvard’s School of Public Health.

That war appeared to enter a new phase in the aftermath of a recent supreme court decision that empowered health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine sceptic, and other agency leaders, to implement mass firings – effectively greenlighting the politicization of science.

New codes developed by the tech sector and eSafety commissioner come into effect in December, with major ramifications for internet users

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As the old adage goes, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. But in Australia it might soon be the case that everything from search engines and social media sites, to app stores and AI chatbots will have to know your age.

The Albanese government trumpeted the passage of its legislation banning under 16s from social media – which will come into effect in December – but new industry codes developed by the tech sector and eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant under the Online Safety Act will probably have much larger ramifications for how Australians access the internet.

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