WASHINGTON — The standard mileage rate for the business use of a car, truck, van or other vehicle will increase by 2.5 cents in 2026.
The IRS announced Monday that beginning Jan. 1, the standard mileage rate for a qualifying vehicle will be 72.5 cents per mile, up 2.5 cents from 2025.
The rate will be 20.5 cents per mile driven for medical purposes, down a half cent from 2025 and will be 20.5 cents per mile driven for moving purposes for certain active-duty members of the Armed Forces and certain members of the intelligence community, which is reduced by a half cent from last year.
The change, meant to reflect updated cost data and annual inflation adjustments, applies to fully-electric and hybrid automobiles, and gas and diesel-powered vehicles.
Use of the standard mileage rates is optional. People who use a their car for work may instead choose to calculate the actual costs of using their vehicle.
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Local and international gold prices declined on Wednesday, with 10 grams becoming cheaper by Rs2,143 and a tola by Rs2,500, while the 10-gram price settled at Rs391,771 and the per-tola price at Rs456,962.
The global price fell by 25 dollars to 4,346 dollars per ounce.
During 2025, however, gold became expensive by Rs158,060 per 10 grams and Rs184,362 per tola, while the global price rose by 1,732 dollars per ounce.
SAP has announced a final five months transition period for the usage rights of its Compatibility Packs for SAP S/4HANA on premise, moving the expiration date from December 31, 2025, to the end of May 2026.
Compatibility Packs provide temporary usage rights, allowing certain classical SAP ERP functionalities to operate within SAP S/4HANA, aiming to ease the migration and maintain business continuity for customers moving from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA.
For most of the Compatibility Packs, the usage rights end on December 31, 2025, which has been extensively communicated to customers, partners, and user groups and is documented in SAP Note 2269324.
To counter for the fact that despite the extensive communication several customers still need some more time to manage this transition, SAP is offering this final transition period in an effort to provide customers with greater choice and flexibility.
Accompanying this extension, SAP will offer tailored programs for customers that are moving to the respective SAP cloud solutions that replace the compatibility pack functionalities. We encourage affected customers to contact their SAP representative.
Stefan Steinle is EVP and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.
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The line closures will affect passengers travelling on Avanti West Coast trains
Train passengers are being warned of disruption to cross-border services in the first week of the new year due to major engineering work.
Network Rail says the West Coast Mainline between Lockerbie and Carlisle will be closed from New Year’s Day for six days.
Replacement bus services transport passengers between the two stations.
Buses will also replace trains between Carlisle and Dumfries when the line is shut from Friday until 6 January.
The cross-border closure is part of a wider shutdown of the line to allow the installation of a new bridge at Clifton, near Penrith.
The 426ft (130m) bridge, which weighs 4,200 tonnes, will carry trains on the West Coast Main Line over the M6.
The removal of the previous bridge and the installation of the new structure begins on Hogmanay and will affect services on the line until 15 January.
Part of the M6 motorway will also be closed and Network Rail says it will use that opportunity to also replace more than 50 miles (80km) of overhead cables.
And it added that “significant work” will also take place on an ongoing £61m upgrade to signalling systems north of Carlisle.
Rail passengers are being warned that the West Coast Main Line will be closed:
From 1-4 January through Preston, between Oxenholme and Carlisle, and Carlisle to Dumfries and Lockerbie
From 5-6 January between Oxenholme and Carlisle, and Carlisle to Dumfries and Lockerbie. The line through Preston will be open.
From 7-14 January the line north of Carlisle will be open. The line between Oxenholme and Carlisle will be closed until the early hours of 15 January.
Network Rail
Engineers will replace the bridge over the M6 near Clifton
The M6 will be shut between junctions 39 at Shap and 40 near Penrith on two consecutive weekends.
The closures will take place between 20:00 on Friday 2 January and 05:00 on Monday 5 January, and between 20:00 on Friday 9 January and 05:00 on Monday 12 January.
William Brandon, Network Rail’s project manager, said: “This is a vital project which will improve journeys for passengers for decades to come.
He added: “We appreciate passengers’ patience while this work is completed, and I would urge anyone planning to travel in this period to check National Rail Enquiries in advance.”
Chris Liptrot, operations director at Avanti West Coast, said it would operate an amended timetable.
“Some journeys between the north-west, Carlisle, and Scotland will involve changes onto a shuttle service as well as rail replacement buses,” he added.
“We strongly advise customers to plan ahead and check their journey before travelling.”
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite index is poised for a 21% gain this year, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies is roughly 12% higher year-to-date.
In early April, when Trump announced sweeping tariffs on US trading partners, the S&P 500 fell to the brink of bear market territory – Wall Street’s term for a drop of 20% from the latest high. Both the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 indexes did briefly tumble into bear markets.
But major indexes quickly bounced back after Trump walked back his steepest tariffs, easing Wall Street’s fears about a tariff-driven economic slowdown.
Stocks have since surged to new highs.
That’s been in spite of persistent jitters about the economy, Robert Edwards, chief investment officer at Edwards Asset Management, said in a note.
“The market continues to climb the wall of worry into next year,” he said.
He added that 2026 “should be another year of record setting for stocks”, pointing in part to expectations for lower borrowing costs, which could boost corporate earnings and drive stock prices higher.
Strong earnings growth in corporate America has been a key driver of the stock market rally since the tariff-drivenwhiplash in the spring, said Parag Thatte, an equity strategist at Deutsche Bank.
At the same time, geopolitical tensions, Trump’s tariffs and expectations of interest rate cuts added to investor demand this year for safe haven assets, such as gold and other commodities. The price of gold is on track for a nearly 70% yearly increase.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, has struggled to keep up with strong returns across stocks and gold.
Despite getting a boost earlier in the year from the Trump administration’s support for digital assets, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is poised to end 2025 slightly lower, after a sharp decline from its record highs in October.
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Siemens Energy has been the second-best performing German blue-chip stock in 2025, with its shares more than doubling, but the dramatic recovery has been too slow for some investors who see its struggling wind business weighing down its valuation.
The German producer of gas turbines and power grid equipment, which was forced to turn to a government-backed €15bn rescue package in 2023, has been buoyed by surging energy demand driven by artificial intelligence data centres and electrification.
Shares in Siemens Energy, which fell below €7 in late 2023 amid problems at its wind business, are now trading around €120.
“Even 12 months ago, we would not have imagined that the momentum, in all areas, is as strong as it is today,” Siemens Energy finance chief Maria Ferraro told the Financial Times.
The share surge has allowed it to so far shrug off calls in December from activist investor Ananym Capital to consider a spin-off of its Siemens Gamesa wind business, which it says competes with other units for investment.
Ferraro said the company’s leadership had the “proven track record” to turn around the wind unit, after guiding the gas and grid businesses to growth.
The company wanted Siemens Gamesa to “be a contributor . . . and not dilutive to our business, but that takes time”.
The group’s management had discussed a potential spin-off of Siemens Gamesa before receiving the letter from Ananym. Chief executive Christian Bruch said in November that Gamesa needed to be a “double-digit margin business, otherwise we’re not the right owner”.
Ferraro said Siemens Energy was currently “committed” to its target for the wind unit to break even and reach an operating margin of between 3 and 5 per cent in 2028 as a “minimum”.
Siemens Energy finance chief Maria Ferraro
Jefferies analyst Lucas Ferhani noted that the energy business was marked by cyclical changes. “Not too long ago people were telling us that [Siemens Energy’s] gas business was not great. And now look at where they are,” he said, pointing to soaring demand.
Management would hope that the market for wind turbines would turn out to be “on their side” in years to come, he added.
Siemens Energy’s order backlog stood at a record €138bn as of September, with the next available delivery slot for one of its large gas turbines in 2029. The group, which made a net loss of €4.6bn at the depth of its crisis in 2023, turned a profit of €1.7bn in the year to September.
The energy company, which had been at the core of the Siemens conglomerate, was spun out in 2020 inheriting a majority stake in the wind power business, Siemens Gamesa.
The stake in the wind engineering and turbine unit was seen at the time as a counterweight to Siemens Energy’s fossil fuel divisions.
However, beset with technical problems, Siemens Gamesa suffered from steep losses. After Siemens Energy delisted the wind unit in 2023 to gain more control over the business, it was forced to fall back on a rescue package owing to a funding crunch.
Siemens Gamesa recorded an operating loss of €1.3bn before special items in the past financial year and is finally expected to break in 2025 after it restarted sales for onshore turbines.
Despite the share rally, Ananym’s letter argued that Siemens Energy still traded at a significant discount to its sum-of-the-parts value as well as its industry peers such as GE Vernova and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Other investors and analysts have said that simply separating out the wind business would not close the valuation gap.
A factor behind the difference was that the concentration of AI data centre investment in the US meant an American company such as GE Vernova had been “quicker to benefit” from the boom, according to one banker.
Ferraro also said that a German company might be perceived differently by investors. “When you look at European companies versus American companies and valuations, you see that there’s a different evaluation,” the finance chief said.
The calls for Siemens Energy to sell the wind unit were understandable while the rest of the business was booming, some analysts said. Jefferies’ Ferhani said that without a path to an operating margin of at least 10 per cent for Siemens Gamesa, “you’re going to get continued pressure to sell the business”.
The banker said the wind industry had a “good future” but the question for investors was “do I want to stay and keep that exposure, or am I too scared about the volatility and Chinese competition?”
Ferraro said that beyond 2028, Siemens Gamesa would need to be “evaluated to ensure it has double-digit potential” in terms of profitability.
However, she showed confidence in Siemens Energy and the wind business to deliver on its targets, saying: “We’re going to continue to execute on this plan as fast as possible.”
The newly established Board of Directors of Telenor Pakistan appointed Awais Vohra as the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the company, Telenor Pakistan, which is now an autonomous subsidiary of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) following the completion of all regulatory approvals.
The Board of Directors acknowledged the strategic leadership of Mr. Fridtjof Rusten during a pivotal phase for Telenor Pakistan. His guidance was instrumental in navigating a complex transaction and regulatory process, while safeguarding operational stability, customer trust, and organizational focus.
The development follows the formal acquisition of 100% of the issued share capital of Telenor Pakistan by PTCL. However, in line with regulatory directives, Telenor Pakistan will operate as a separate legal entity alongside Pak Telecom Mobile Limited (PTML), widely known as Ufone 4G, and U Microfinance Bank.
Awais brings over 25 years of leadership experience in telecommunications, with senior roles across Pakistan and Scandinavia. A founding member of Telenor Pakistan’s launch team, he is recognized for fostering a performance-driven culture, leading large-scale digital transformations, and delivering impactful cross-border initiatives. Most recently, as Chief Technology Officer, he has spearheaded network modernization, AI adoption, and strategic technology transformation to enhance customer experience and business performance
PTCL had announced the acquisition of 100 percent of the issued share capital of Telenor Pakistan and Orion Towers (Private) Limited in December 2023. After a comprehensive regulatory review, the CCP granted approval for the acquisition on October 01, 2025, followed by the PTA’s approval on December 05, 2025.
Telenor Pakistan will continue to provide uninterrupted services to its customers nationwide. The company remains committed to a smooth transition and changeover for its customers, ensuring provision of all services without disruption.
