UK retail sales drop unexpectedly as shoppers await Black Friday and budget

Sales at UK retailers slumped unexpectedly last month as shoppers waited for Black Friday deals, and uncertainty over the upcoming budget dampened consumer confidence.Retail sales fell 1.1% month on month in October, the first fall since May, according to official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Economists had been expecting sales growth to be flat on the previous month.Supermarkets, clothing stores and online mail order companies suffered sales declines, which some retailers said was due to consumers delaying purchases in the run-up to the annual Black Friday sales, according to the ONS

Xania Monet’s music is the stuff of nightmares. Thankfully her AI ‘clankers’ will be limited to this cultural moment | Van Badham

Xania Monet is the latest digital nightmare to emerge from a hellscape of AI content production. No wonder she’s popular … but how long will it last?The music iteration of AI “actor” Tilly Norwood, Xania is a composite product manufactured of digital tools: in this case, a photorealistic avatar accompanied by a sound that computers have generated to resemble that of a human voice singing words.Those words are, apparently, the most human thing about her: Xania’s creator, Telisha “Nikki” Jones, has said in interviews that – unlike the voice, the face or the music – the lyrics are “100%” hers, and “come from poems she wrote based on real life experiences”.Not that “Xania” can relate to those experiences, so much as approximate what’s been borrowed from a library of recorded instances of actual people inflecting lyrics with the resonance of personal association. Some notes may sound like Christina Aguilera, some sound like Beyoncé, but – unlike any of her influences – Xania “herself” is never going to mourn, fear, risk anything for the cause of justice, make a difficult second album, explore her sexuality, confront the reality of ageing, wank, eat a cupcake or die

Australia v England: Ashes first Test, day one – live

England are all over Australia like a cheap cliche. Carse went round the wicket to the left-handed Khawaja and rammed in a vicious delivery that climbed to kiss the glove and fly through to Jamie Smith.Fourteen wickets have fallen in barely 50 overs: it’s Perth 2024 all over again.An absolute snorter from Brydon Carse gets rid of Usman Khawaja!17th over: Australia 31-3 (Khawaja 2, Head 1) Head is beaten by successive deliveries from Archer. The first was short and trampolined past Head’s attempted uppercut; the second was a textbook length deelivery to the left-hander

Overseas-trained doctors leaving the UK in record numbers

Record numbers of overseas-trained doctors are quitting the UK, leaving the NHS at risk of huge gaps in its workforce, with hostility towards migrants blamed for the exodus.In all, 4,880 doctors who qualified in another country left the UK during 2024 – a rise of 26% on the 3,869 who did so the year before – figures from the General Medical Council reveal.NHS leaders, senior doctors and the GMC warned that the increased denigration of and abuse directed at migrants in the UK was a significant reason for the rise in foreign medics leaving.“It’s really worrying that so many highly skilled and highly valued international doctors the NHS just can’t afford to lose are leaving in their droves,” said Daniel Elkeles, the chief executive of the hospitals group NHS Providers.“We wouldn’t have an NHS if we hadn’t for many years recruited talented and valued people from all around the world

Prozac ‘no better than placebo’ for treating children with depression, experts say

Clinical guidelines should no longer recommend Prozac for children, according to experts, after research showed it had no clinical benefit for treating depression in children and adolescents.Globally one in seven 10-19 year olds have a mental health condition, according to the World Health Organization. In the UK, about a quarter of older teenagers and up to a fifth of younger children have anxiety, depression or other mental health problems.In the UK, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) guidance says under-18s with moderate to severe depression can be prescribed antidepressants alongside therapy.But a new review of trial data by academics in Austria and the UK concluded that fluoxetine, sold under the brand name of Prozac among others, is clinically no better than placebo drugs in treating depression in children, and should therefore no longer be prescribed to them

Winter has finally kicked in – it’s time to crack out the casserole dish and get stewing

At the risk of sounding like a British cliche, can we take a moment to discuss the change in the weather? This week’s sudden drop in temperature has our house excited for potential snow (the children are giddy), with everything suddenly feeling a lot more wintry. New coats are on the hooks, thermals are being dug out and a casserole dish filled with some sort of soup, stew or stock seems to be permanently ticking away on the hob. These range from quick, warming weeknight dinners to leisurely, slow-cooked weekend meals.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link