After hopping between country, disco and soft rock, Tyler found her groove with Jim Steinman-penned epics, shining through even the most overblown backing tracks

• News: Bonnie Tyler, 80s pop legend known for Total Eclipse of the Heart and more, dies aged 75
• From Swansea clubs to worldwide fame: Bonnie Tyler – a life in pictures

Bonnie Tyler had a peculiar career: two bursts of global success that seemed to have almost nothing to do with each other beyond the name that appeared on the records. Her first big British hits, 1976’s Lost in France and 1977’s It’s a Heartache, were superior examples of what writer Pete Paphides subsequently dubbed “medium wave pop”, the largely forgotten stuff that actually filled the charts and Radio One’s playlists at a time when reductive rock histories would have you believe the entire nation was gripped by punk. They were a little bit soft rock, a little bit country, a little reminiscent of reliable mid-70s hitmakers Smokie, and so catchy that no one seemed to notice that somewhere between their respective releases, Tyler’s voice had changed dramatically: possessed of a rather sweet tone on Lost in France, an operation to remove nodules on her vocal cords had caused her to develop a striking Rod Stewart-like huskiness by the time of It’s a Heartache.

It looked like It’s a Heartache would turn Tyler into a huge star: it sold 6m copies, and the accompanying album made the Top 3 on the US country chart. But said success proved difficult to sustain, compounded by the fact that her record label seemed bizarrely unsure what to do with her. Get her to cover Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, as on Louisiana Rain? Aim her squarely at the easy listening market via a version of Sometimes When We Touch? Encourage her to go disco, as on the fabulously camp (The World is Full of) Married Men?

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Bungalows asks: Is it possible for an ordinary person from a normal background to do well in these tournaments or do you have to be rich? The LTA needs to address why the UK has so few top players due to the lack of investment.

McFilmCritic asks: Jack Draper came from our local (underfunded) tennis club in Sutton, but this is getting rarer. British tennis players need more support or else only the rich hedge funded ones will have any chance.

Tumaini: There are some players from ordinary backgrounds who succeed in this sport. I think the most prominent examples inside the top 20 are players like Naomi Osaka and Frances Tiafoe. Novak Djokovic’s family did not come from great wealth. However, there is clearly a reason why there are currently multiple billionaire heiresses, Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro, competing on the tour. Arthur Fery, of course, also comes from great wealth and Jack Draper’s father, Roger, was the chief executive of the LTA between 2006 and 2013.

This is an incredibly expensive sport that requires hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment into players each year in order to fund coaches, equipment, travel costs and so many other things. Unlike other sports like football, where the talented players are eventually employed by teams, that investment does not stop when players first “make it”. This is a financially challenging sport for many players that even make it to Wimbledon. Players ranked outside of the singles top 100 are unlikely to break even.

Tumaini: I think the good news for Sinner is that he is serving at an incredibly high level this year and since his tough first round win against Miomir Kecmanovic, in which he served a career best 31 aces, he has not dropped a set. However, he has had a great draw, avoiding a seeded player until the semi-finals and his forehand has looked erratic at times. Djokovic, if he is in good shape after his marathon against Auger-Aliassime, will be a massive step up in level for Sinner and it will be the first true indication of his level, particularly the confidence he has in his forehand right now

Crude memes of the Maga luminary are exploding online – less than a year after conservatives were suppressing any slander against him

Ten months since his assassination, Charlie Kirk’s name and likeness are still proliferating online. Just not the way the far-right activist would have wanted.

Audio of the gunshot that killed him has become a TikTok meme, as have ironic reposts of the apparent AI-slop song We Are Charlie Kirk, which was originally created as a posthumous tribute. He was the butt of a crude joke during the Netflix roast of Hollywood star Kevin Hart in May. The next month, a viral tweet encouraged people to take “a shot” in his honor on Juneteenth. And a trend known as “Kirkification” has emerged, in which internet pranksters superimpose his face on to unlikely images, such as the Mona Lisa, a woman in a bikini, or Jeffrey Epstein.

Whenever major reform is proposed the media, big business and Westminster quickly conclude it’s too expensive and disruptive. This doesn’t bode well for Andy Burnham

In an old, often anxious and conservative country, the perception of risk is a potent political weapon. If a policy or a project for reforming the UK seems too risky, or can be made to seem so by its opponents, then it can usually be quickly killed off. It can be added to the pile of possible futures that never occurred.

In politics as in life, riskiness is sometimes real. To see that Brexit or Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq might not end well did not require huge foresight. Yet often the perception of risk is politically constructed: a reflection of powerful forces, their self-interest, and what they do or don’t want to happen.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

Intensive farming has all but destroyed England’s ancient woodlands and freshwater wetlands. On a farm in Lincolnshire a radical aristocrat hopes to show there’s money in protecting nature

• The summer issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. Click here to order

In the silent countryside south of Grantham, three vast steel barns rattled in the breeze. Gathered in a loose circle beside them were 15 landowners, land agents and a couple of young investors; all expensively dressed men, many with a sceptical mien. It was June 2022, and Sir Charles Raymond Burrell, 10th Baronet, was explaining how the purchase of 1,525 bleak acres (617 hectares) of prairie fields of wheat and beans could revolutionise farming and nature conservation, not just in South Lincolnshire but across Britain and beyond.

Burrell, known by everyone as Charlie, led the group on a walk from the barns beside the unlovable modern farmhouse, a red-brick behemoth with small windows like piggy eyes. We began by crossing a field of broad beans. Less than a century ago, it had been a patchwork of 10 fields. As we walked over the hard, cracked ground, we encountered not a single insect. Later, by a verge, a couple of butterflies flew. As for humans, we didn’t meet a single other person in our two-and-a-half-hour stroll across a range of footpaths and field edges. “This is a ruined landscape,” said one of the guests, the architectural historian Matthew Rice. “Not because of the soils. Because there are no people here. I’m sorry there are not enough stoats but I’d like there to be some children here, too.”

Reputation for frumpiness is over as M&S wins over younger audience with shows at Silverstone, Ibiza and now LFW

This autumn’s London fashion week boasts plenty of familiar labels, from Burberry to Alexander McQueen, ready to show off their wares. But on Wednesday there was an unexpected addition: Marks & Spencer is joining the luxury lineup.

The British high-street retailer will celebrate its 100th anniversary in the fashion industry by staging a catwalk show in September highlighting its latest women’s and menswear collections.

Sides exchange strikes with Iranian media saying attacks reported near facility in Bushehr

Kuwait’s foreign ministry has issued a statement condemning the Iranian attacks against the country. It reads almost identical to the statement issued yesterday, although emphasises Kuwait’s sovereignty is “a red line”.

“The state of Kuwait reserves its full rights to take all necessary measures to protect its security and preserve its sovereignty,” it said.

Two women who alleged they were raped by Tyrion Davis in Suffolk had to testify at an invasive court martial on a US base

Minutes after fleeing the home of an American airman, Rebecca called 999 in tears to report that he had raped her. She recalls vomiting at a police station in Suffolk as she described being repeatedly and violently attacked.

Officers took her to a sexual assault referral centre for an intimate examination. There, a nurse measured and photographed her injuries, including bruises and bite marks on her neck.

Welsh singer and Eurovision entrant’s other hits included Footloose soundtrack smash Holding Out for a Hero

• Alexis Petridis on Bonnie Tyler: She totally eclipsed her power-ballad peers, and created an astonishingly wide variety of pop
• From Swansea clubs to worldwide fame: Bonnie Tyler – a life in pictures

Bonnie Tyler, the Welsh singer whose husky yet commanding voice made songs such as Total Eclipse of the Heart into 1980s classics, has died aged 75.

A message on her Facebook page reads: “Bonnie’s family and team are heartbroken to announce that Bonnie unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for.”

Neso asks for extra supplies from electricity generators to cope with added demand on Thursday night

Great Britain’s energy system operator has warned that “extreme temperatures” could hit power supplies on Thursday night, as the UK entered its third heatwave of the year.

The National Energy System Operator (Neso) issued a notice overnight asking for extra supplies from power generators to cope with the added demand from households turning on fans and air conditioners to cope with the high temperatures.