Adele's 25 makes UK chart history with 800,000 album sales

Adele's new album 25 has sold more than 800,000 copies in its first week of release - the highest ever figure for a single UK chart week.

Adele's first-week sales were more than eight times those for any other album this year

The album shifted more copies than the next 86 albums in the chart combined, and has become the first album to sell more than 100,000 downloads in a week.

In fact, 252,423 of the album's 800,307 sales were digital with the rest on CD.

Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot said: "The statistics surrounding the album are staggering."

He added: "No album has ever sold 800,000 copies to reach number one in the history of British music."

The previous record was held by Oasis's Be Here Now, which reached number one with sales of 696,000 in 1997. However that album only went on sale three days before the end of the chart week.

Adele's record-breaking sales

• Before this, no album had sold 100,000 copies in a single week this year. Adele's 25 has sold 800,307.
• That is more than the combined sales of the last 19 number one albums in the weeks they topped the chart.
• More than 300,000 people bought 25 on its first day of release.
• Ed Sheeran held the previous record for weekly digital album sales, with 95,709. Adele's 25 has eclipsed that with 252,423 downloads.
• 25 has reached double platinum status already.
• It still has some way to go to match the sales of Adele's last album 21, which is owned by 4.8 million people in the UK.

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Beard and Moustache Championships

The Championships first started in 1990, and have increased in popularity every year. Now 350 bearded competitors are competing.

Meet the hairy competitors

Bearded competitors from all over the world are gathering in Austria, for this year's annual Beard and Moustache World Championships.

Around 350 contestants from 20 different countries have signed up to show off their hairy facial sculptures, in the hopes of being crowned champions.

Hairy competitors can take part in 18 different categories, including best goatie, best stubble and best fashion beard.

Here is a closer look at some of the whiskered wonders who will be competing...

The championships take place in a different country every year, and the UK even held one in 2007. Take a look at this mighty tusk moustache!

From CBBC Newsround

The Battle of Waterloo recreated with Lego

One of the most famous battles in history has been recreated using Lego.

It's taken 20 people and more than a million bricks to construct.

It's all to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo - when the famous French general Napoleon took on an army led by England.

The bicentenary of the death of Napoleon is being celebrated in the Belgian town of Waterloo with an exhibition involving over a million bricks.

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Amazing artwork on a pencil tip

You might be sharpening your pencils ready for school after the holidays, but check out the way a Russian artist carves his pencils.

Salavat Fidai carefully carves tiny sculptures into the tips of pencils.

To create his miniature artwork he uses a craft knife and magnifying glass.

When the works are completed, he photographs them with a special magnifying camera lens.

He creates all types of sculptures on pencils, including well known characters like Bart Simpson.

And robot WALL-E from the Disney film.

Remember don't try this at home, Salavat Fidai is an experienced artist.

From CBBC Newsround

The new £1 coin designed by 15-year-old boy

The design of the new £1 coin has been revealed after a competition to design the "tails" side.

The winner was 15-year-old David from Walsall who made a design featuring the four plants associated with the four nations that make up the UK.

His design features the leek, thistle, shamrock and rose, coming out of a crown.

Chancellor George Osborne said the image will be "recognised by millions in the years ahead".

The new coin will be roughly the same size as the current one, but has 12 edges and is both gold and silver coloured, like a £2 coin.

David was declared the winner out of more than 6,000 entries.

The coin featuring his design will start appearing in shops and banks in 2017.

David said: "I was really excited to hear that I had won the competition to design the new £1 coin but hugely shocked as well."

The £1 coin is being replaced for the first time in more than 30 years because there are concerns it is too easy for criminals to copy.

The Royal Mint, which makes new coins, says the new £1 will be the most secure coin that exists in the UK.

Loom band dress bid reach £170,000 in online auction

A dress made entirely from loom bands being auctioned online is attracting bids of over £170,000!

There have been over one hundred bids so far for the clothing on eBay described as a "multi coloured dress made from loom bands".

The loom bands craze has travelled the world since its invention in 2011.

The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, brought the bands to grown-ups' attention by wearing a loom bracelet on her trip to New Zealand.

David Beckham and Harry Styles have also picked up on the trend.

Single mum Helen who is studying degree in forensics in Wrexham said she had the idea after helping her 12-year-old daughter Sian who is "mad" about making loom band designs.

"My friend Katherine physically made it because she's out of work and gets bored.

I said why don't we make a dress from loom bands and Katherine said she'd be happy do do it because she's too ill to work. She did an hour here or there in between her house work to keep her busy.It took her about 45 hours to make but that was over weeks and weeks.

She made it by running one long strip of loom bands then got one of Sian's dresses and laid them both on the floor and got the pattern from there."

– HELEN WRIGHT

Helen said the dress cost £47 spent on 47 packets of loom bands.

"When it was done we thought we'd stick it on eBay as a bonus for £50 and thought if it went over the £50 we might have a day out," she said.

"Last night we checked Ebay and thought it was a joke when we saw it had gone over £100,000."

It took 47 packets of loom bands to make the dress says mum Helen. Credit: Geoff Abbott

The bids rocketed after buyers waged war on each other in a tit-for-tat contest for the dress modelled by Helen's daughter Sian.

Helen says her daughter is a size 12 and it took two of them to get it on her and it was very heavy.

The rainbow loom was invented by Cheong Choon in 2011 and has seen millions of children making bracelets and necklaces.

The loom band craze continues to grow. Credit: PA

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/28275986

http://www.itv.com/news/wales/2014-07-11/looney-price-for-loom-dress-mum-tells-of-shock/

Simpsons get a Lego makeover for a new episode

Cartoon family The Simpsons have had a Lego makeover.

Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie will all be Lego versions for a new episode.

An advert for the new look edition of the show has been released and it will be shown later in the year.

From CBBC newsround

Spain's famous Altamira caves open again for a day

Spain's famous Altamira caves have briefly opened to the public, for the first time in 12 years.

People chosen in a draw were amazed at the Ice Age paintings of bison, bulls and other animals.

The paintings are special because they are thought to be the oldest art in Europe.

And one piece of art - a faint red dot - is said to be more than 40,000 years old.

From CBBC Newsround

Altamira is a cave in Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithic cave paintings featuring drawings and polychrome rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands.

Its special relevance comes from the fact that it was the first cave in which prehistoric cave paintings had been discovered. When the discovery was first made public in 1880, it led to a bitter public controversy between experts which continued into the early 20th century, as many of them did not believe prehistoric man had the intellectual capacity to produce any kind of artistic expression. The acknowledgement of the authenticity of the paintings, which finally came in 1902, changed forever the perception of prehistoric human beings.

It is located near the town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain, 30 km west of the city of Santander. The cave with its paintings has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

    

The cave is approximately 300 meters long and consists of a series of twisting passages and chambers. The main passage varies from two to six meters in height. The cave was formed through collapses following early karstic phenomena in the calcerous rock of Mount Vispieres.

Archaeological excavations in the cave floor found rich deposits of artifacts from the Upper Solutrean (c. 18,500 years ago) and Lower Magdalenean (between c. 16,500 and 14,000 years ago). Both periods belong to the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. In the millennia between these two occupations, the cave was evidently inhabited only by wild animals. Human occupants of the site were well-positioned to take advantage of the rich wildlife that grazed in the valleys of the surrounding mountains as well as the marine life available in nearby coastal areas. Around 13,000 years ago a rockfall sealed the cave's entrance, preserving its contents until its eventual discovery, which occurred after a nearby tree fell and disturbed the fallen rocks.

Human occupation was limited to the cave mouth, although paintings were created throughout the length of the cave. The artists used charcoal andochre or haematite to create the images, often diluting these pigments to produce variations in intensity and creating an impression of chiaroscuro. They also exploited the natural contours in the cave walls to give their subjects a three-dimensional effect. The Polychrome Ceiling is the most impressive feature of the cave, depicting a herd of extinct steppe bison (Bison priscus) in different poses, two horses, a large doe, and possibly a wild boar.

Dated to the Magdelenean occupation, these paintings include abstract shapes in addition to animal subjects. Solutrean paintings include images of horses and goats, as well as handprints that were created when artists placed their hands on the cave wall and blew pigment over them to leave a negative image. Numerous other caves in northern Spain contain Paleolithic art, but none is as complex or well-populated as Altamira.

Text from Wikipedia

Giant duck floating in Sydney

Rubber ducks are usually found swimming in bathtubs - not in one of the worlds most famous harbours!A giant yellow duck floated around Sydney Harbour on Thursday in a rehearsal for a Sydney Festival event which organizers say will turn the harbor into a "giant bathtub

But that's what's happening in Sydney, Australia where a 15 metre high rubber duck has taken to the water.

The duck is floating in the water as part of a rehearsal for a festival at the weekend.

Its creator Florentijn Hofman said he made the duck because "the global waters are our bathtub, so it joins people."

The giant toy will remain in the harbour until 23 January.

Imagine trying to share a bath with that!

From CBBC