Eurostar slowly resumes but passengers face more cancellations and delays

Rail traffic through the Channel tunnel slowly resumed on Wednesday with more cancellations and delays after an electricity failure on Tuesday stranded thousands of passengers and trapped some for a night in a powerless train.Two London-Paris trains were cancelled and most trips were delayed in both directions as Eurostar warned of “knock-on impacts” on New Year’s Eve.Thousands of travellers in the busy run-up to the new year faced hours of delays after the train operator cancelled services between London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels on Tuesday because of an overhead power supply problem and a failed LeShuttle train.A spokesperson said “an overhead line fell on to a Eurostar train linking London and Paris, near the entrance to the Channel tunnel”.Some services had resumed on the single available line by Tuesday evening, with Eurostar saying there were “further issues with rail infrastructure overnight”

ITV agrees to invest £3m in fitness app created by Joe Wicks

The broadcaster ITV has agreed to invest up to £3m into the health and fitness app The Body Coach, created by Joe Wicks, who shot to fame by getting people exercising in their living rooms during the Covid pandemic.It is the latest deal made through the group’s media for equity investment fund ITV AdVentures Invest. As part of the agreement, The Body Coach will advertise on ITV’s channels and its video platform ITVX.Wicks launched the app in late 2020, capitalising on the prominence gained during the Covid-19 lockdowns when he streamed daily workout videos online. It offers personalised workout plans, alongside a range of healthy recipes and access to a online group to keep users motivated

London stock exchange beats Wall Street with best FTSE 100 year since 2009

Britain’s stock market has increased in value by a fifth over 2025 – its biggest annual gain since 2009 – in a strong year for shares around the world.The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip stocks closed up 21.5% on New Year’s Eve compared with the start of January, beating Wall Street returns. The wider all-share market was 19.75% higher

UK’s FTSE 100 share index records best year since 2009 – as it happened

Britain’s stock market has recorded its strongest annual gains since 2009, after a strong year for shares on the London stock exchange and beyond.The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip equities has just closed for the year, down slightly today at 9,931 points, a fall of 9 points or 0.09%.But for 2025 as a whole, the Footsie has gained 21.5%, its highest annual gain in 16 years

Fed up: inside Trump’s unprecedented bid to exert control over the US central bank

The US president and his allies spent 2025 attacking the Federal Reserve amid a rollercoaster year for the US economy In the bowels of the US Federal Reserve this summer, two of the world’s most powerful men, sporting glistening white hard hats, stood before reporters looking like students forced to work together on a group project.Allies of Donald Trump had spent weeks trying to manufacture a scandal around ongoing renovations of the central bank’s Washington headquarters and its costs. Now here was the US president, on a rare visit, examining the project for himself.“It looks like it’s about $3.1bn

How the FTSE 100 ‘dinosaur’ roared back to life | Nils Pratley

It was a bumper year for stock markets globally and the surprise, perhaps, is that the FTSE 100 index more than kept up. The London market has sometimes been derided as lacking dynamism – the hedge fund manager Paul Marshall called it the “Jurassic Park” of exchanges a few years ago – but its main index enjoyed its best 12 months since 2009. The Footsie didn’t quite make it to the round number of 10,000 but still improved by 21.5%, slightly outperforming the S&P 500 index in the US.How did that happen amid weakening UK growth, pre-budget chaos and general gloom? The short answer is that a stock market index reflects only its constituent parts