Adele's comeback album 25 breaks US records

Image copyrightPA

Image captionAdele announced last week she will tour next year.

Adele's comeback album - 25 - has sold a record-breaking 3.38 million copies in its first week on sale in the US, according to Nielsen Music data.

The British star notched up the largest single sales week for an album since Nielsen began monitoring sales in 1991. 

25 - released on 20 November - has also become the first album to sell more than three million copies in a week.

In Britain, 25 similarly broke records for the highest number of albums sold in a single week of the UK charts.

The album shifted more than 800,000 copies in its first week of release in the UK - more copies than the next 86 albums in the charts combined.

In the US, 25 is already the biggest selling album of 2015, surpassing the 1.8 million copies sold of Taylor Swift's 1989.

Adele, who has been out of the limelight since winning an Oscar for the Bond theme tune Skyfall in 2013, recently announced her first tour since 2011, playing in arenas across Europe from next February.

Her last tour ended prematurely due to the discovery of a haemorrhage on her vocal cord, which required surgery.

Image copyrightNew York Times/Twitter

Image captionLater tweets promoting the same article dropped the mother reference.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has been criticised for a "sexist" and "insulting" tweet used to promote an article about Adele.

Friday's tweet read: "A 27-year-old mother who barely uses social media is selling more albums than anyone thought was still possible."

"I don't get what her being a mom and 27 years old has to do with any of this," tweeted Nicole B in response.

"It's amazing she managed to accomplish so much since her tiny little woman brain is consumed with thoughts of bottles and diapers," tweeted Ryanne Ball.

"I'd love to see you describe a male artist as a father. Sexist and irrelevant," wrote White Borpo.

Later tweets plugging the same article dropped the mother references.