Floodwater swept away one of Britain’s oldest bridges yesterday and forced the cancellation of the New Year’s Day race meeting at Cheltenham Racecourse as rain again lashed the country.

Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club, is seeking to end a four-year power struggle between two fellow Russian resources heavyweights after agreeing to buy a $2bn (£1.2bn) stake in their company Norilsk Nickel.

Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea football club, is seeking to end a four-year power struggle between two fellow Russian resources heavyweights after agreeing to buy a $2bn (£1.2bn) stake in their company Norilsk Nickel.

The gymnast who ended Britain's 100-year wait for a men's Olympic team medal explains that he and his fellow competitors aim to build on the nation's appreciation of their skills when they compete in Glasgow next weekend

Former Coral drummer-turned-multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Ian Skelly's solo debut was apparently inspired by a fevered hallucination. Small wonder, then, that it has a slightly miasmic, blurry texture and heady sound that harks back to the late-Sixties heyday of British psychedelia. "Cut from a Star" suggests what Pink Floyd might have sounded like augmented with Roy Wood's cellos; and spangly guitar arpeggios, flute and mellotron make "Paper Sky" a real throwback to the Summer of Love. Elsewhere, "Caterpillar" –doubtless smoking a hookah – gradually submerges beneath extraneous found-sounds, while Skelly's pastoral harmonies are best employed on the wyrd-folk-rock of "Nickel and a Dime".

The usual suspects dominated at Cheltenham yesterday, when David Pipe and Paul Nicholls landed a double apiece on the opening day of a meeting they always target as the first major skirmish of the campaign. The success of Uncle Junior for Willie Mullins meanwhile testified that the most powerful stable in Ireland is also stirring from his summer repose.

Outlook Thanks to the Qataris, Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg's protracted quest to win control of Xstrata is now all but over. The oil-rich state's sovereign wealth fund will likely carry the day for him because, even though the structure of this mining mega-merger means that only 16 per cent of Xstrata shareholders saying "no" could kill it, there isn't enough stomach among the rest to torpedo it now the big dog is laying at Mr Glasenberg's feet.

The beleaguered South African platinum miner Lonmin has made an impassioned plea to investors to support its $817m (£514m) rights issue, with a stark warning that its future would be in jeopardy if they didn't.

For the chairman and chief executive of Murray Energy, an Ohio-based coal company, the reelection of President Barack Obama was no cause for celebration. It was a time for prayer — and layoffs.

Strikes at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in South Africa pushed it to a $698m loss

Investment View: Cynthia Carroll didn't do such a bad job in an extremely difficult situation

Scientists say the Martian soil at NASA's Curiosity Rover's landing site contains minerals similar to that found on Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano.

Lakshmi Mittal, ArcelorMittal's chief executive and a 41 per cent shareholder, is set to lose dividends worth about $350m (£217m) after proposing to slash investor payouts at the steel maker by nearly three-quarters next year.

Following Kelis's somewhat perfunctory opening verse, Scotland's answer to David Guetta hits his stride about a minute into "Bounce", and stays on it for pretty much the entire album, his pumping, Brutalist synth-stomp riffs ploughing an extended furrow in which a succession of vocalists – Rihanna, Tinie, Ne-Yo, Dizzee and the like – sow their meagre seeds. The poorest served is hapless Ellie Goulding, struggling against the hurtling momentum of "I Need Your Love"; more successful is Florence Welch on "Sweet Nothing". But the killer cut remains the collaboration with Dutch DJ Nicky Romero on "Iron", a berserk, Prodigy-esque blend of wailing banshee synths and quacking dubstep hook.