The Kremlin says it’s agreed to halt attacks on Kyiv and surrounding towns until February 1, after a request from US President Donald Trump pointing to the ‘record-setting cold’ gripping the region. Many Ukrainians have no heating, after Russian attacks on power infrastructure.
Mercedes were pre-season favourites for 2026 long before any of the new cars ran on track, and nothing that happened in the Formula 1 ‘shakedown’ in Spain this week has changed that.
The new Mercedes made a strong impression on rivals. The team did the most miles, and set the fastest times while the car was on the track, albeit Lewis Hamilton posted the quickest time of the week late on the final day in the Ferrari.
The seven-time champion’s lap of one minute 16.348 seconds pipped George Russell’s best for Mercedes, set the previous day, by 0.097 seconds. World champion Lando Norris was second fastest on the final day, and third overall, in the McLaren, 0.246secs off Hamilton.
Judging performance from pre-season testing is always fiendishly difficult because of the number of variables involved, all the more so after a week such as this.
The test was held behind closed doors, with no independent media allowed access. No official timing was released. Only very few photographs were taken, and most of those were vetted by the teams who released them.
The test was exactly how it was billed – a shakedown is motorsport terminology for giving a car a first run-out to make sure everything works.
On top of that, everything the teams were using was new – cars, engines, tyres and fuel – after the biggest regulation change in the sport’s history.
Testing outright pace was very much not on the agenda for anyone. So the headline lap times meant almost nothing, not that that erases the general impression that Mercedes are in the best place at this early stage.
The test was all about learning about the new cars and, particularly, the new power-units. It was held in private because teams were scared by memories of the last time new engines were introduced, in 2014, when many suffered major reliability problems.
But those fears did not come to fruition, partly because the standards in F1 are so high these days, and partly because the technology change was not as big as last time. If anything, the engine technology, at least, is simpler.
The engines now have 50% of their total power produced by the electrical part of the hybrid engine, and will require much more energy management than ever before in F1.
But there is now only one hybrid element to the engine, albeit that it produces three times as much power, following the removal of the MGU-H, which recovered energy from the turbo and exhaust. This means lots of energy recovery, and optimising that for lap time will take plenty of learning.
Fully sustainable fuels, made from waste biomass or synthetic industrial processes, have added a new complication, as they burn differently from fossil fuel petrol.
Getty Images“There is a lot of excitement, not only in Ferrari but around the whole paddock,” Hamilton’s team-mate Charles Leclerc said.
“We have to adapt as drivers and teams to try and find ways to maximise what is our new package, especially now with this energy management that is so much more than in the past.”
Teams were allowed to run on a maximum of three days of their choosing out of the five. Mercedes had not only completed all their running by Thursday, but they finished before even the end of the day.
Russell was generally positive about the new-style cars.
“It is very different,” he said, “but when you wrap your head around it, it feels quite intuitive.
“From a fan perspective, there is an opportunity to see more exciting racing, and I don’t think you will see potentially some of the negatives we will feel from the car in terms of the recharge, but that will evolve so much over time.
“Overall, I’m just really glad the cars are smaller now. I was a fan of the bigger cars when they came in in 2017, visually, but having driven them, they were too big, and now they just look cool.”
Ferrari also ran reliably and so, most impressively, did the two Red Bull teams.
Red Bull are starting this new era of F1 with their first in-house engine, developed in conjunction with new partner Ford. Russell went on record to say how impressed he was that the car had run so trouble-free.
The biggest problem Red Bull seemed to have at the test was driver-inflicted. The team made the somewhat odd decision to run in the rain on Tuesday, something only Ferrari did as well.
New driver Isack Hadjar crashed in the afternoon in the quick final corner, having just switched from full wet tyres to intermediates. The Frenchman did enough damage that the team needed to ship in new parts, and Red Bull could not run again until Friday even if they had wanted to.
Most teams had problems of some kind or another, though.
World champions McLaren started the test late, because the car was not ready until Wednesday.
They said that was a deliberate decision to ensure they had as much design and development time as possible, and it seemed to have not affected them when Norris impressed on the first day of the car’s running on Wednesday.
But McLaren’s late arrival meant their flexibility was reduced, and when a fuel-system issue occurred on Thursday, they lost a lot of running time when they decided to strip the car down and ensure they fully understood the problem.
For all the concentration on reliability, teams were of course trying to glean any snippets they could about relative pace.
Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen said: “We’re all looking at lap times, of course, trying to guess what fuel loads everyone has got.
“You speculate about other people’s and you try to persuade yourselves you’re competitive, but by the end of the Bahrain tests (in February) we will see long runs, which is where you do your calculations.”
As ever at this time of year, on the record the teams were giving nothing away, emphasising they didn’t – couldn’t – know where they stood. And pretty much every single one uttered the word “positive” about how the test had gone for them.
Team insiders, though, say a picture did seem to emerge. Unsurprisingly, the top teams look in good shape. As far as it is possible to tell, behind Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull all seem to be in a similar competitive ballpark – or “within the noise of data,” as people in F1 like to say.
Alpine, who finished last in 2025, seem to have made a significant step forward having switched to Mercedes customer engines. They, Racing Bulls and Haas are the midfield, it seems.
The new works Audi team, the German manufacturer having taken over Sauber and produced their own engine, were stymied by a fair few reliability problems early in the test.
And all-new Cadillac, as expected, are at the back, was the general view.
One big thing all the teams learned was that on-track running meant rapid learning and progress, because of the complexity of the new cars, and the time it takes to build up the knowledge to getting the best out of all the systems.
This may well be why the factory teams of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull did so well, as they have the most experience of what their new engines need and how they should be run.
Aston MartinPerhaps the most intriguing aspect of the test was the highly anticipated new Aston Martin.
The car arrived late – the team did not run until late on Thursday and the car stopped on track with Lance Stroll at the wheel after just four very slow laps. So effectively their test was just for one day, with Fernando Alonso in the car.
But they certainly turned heads. The first Aston Martin design led by the legendary Adrian Newey, it bore many differences from the other cars, from its wide nose with its underside bulge, through its front suspension, slim sidepods and shrink-wrapped engine cover.
This is the first car for which Aston Martin have designed their own gearbox for many years, having bought Mercedes gearboxes previously.
They have a new engine partnership with Honda. Newey joined only in March last year, and new chief technical officer Enrico Cardile, formerly of Ferrari, in August.
And they are starting work with a new wind tunnel and driver-in-the-loop simulator, about which Newey was pretty disparaging last spring.
Alonso, was second last on the time sheets, ahead only of the Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas, and more than four seconds slower than Hamilton.
But the veteran two-time champion, who could be going into his final season in F1, did manage to complete more than 60 laps, to get his team’s data-gathering off to a reasonable start.
Alonso said: “Some of the teams did filming days and shakedowns in the beginning of January and then the whole weekend here in Barcelona, but for us it was the very first day.
“We had a positive one, 60-plus laps and the car is responding well. More to come.
Protesters in the United States have started a nationwide “no work, no school, no shopping” strike in response to the President Donald Trump administration’s deportation drive.
The strike on Friday, organised by an array of activist groups, comes in the wake of the killing of two US citizens in Minnesota by immigration enforcement agents this month, building on a state-wide strike held last week.
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On Friday, the US Department of Justice announced it would open a civil rights probe into the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by border patrol agents on January 24.
However, it has still not moved to investigate possible rights violations of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in her fatal shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on January 7.
United States Representative Ilhan Omar, who represents Minneapolis, was among the elected officials promoting Friday’s strike.
“Solidarity with every single person participating in today’s general strike against ICE’s terror campaign,” Omar wrote on X.
“You’re changing the world,” she said.
The killings of Good and Pretti followed the Trump administration’s surge of immigration agents to Minnesota to specifically target alleged fraud in the Somali American community.
The deployment came amid a wider deportation drive that observers say has seen immigration agents use dragnet techniques to reach dramatically increased detention quotas.
Earlier this week, border security chief Tom Homan, officially dubbed the “border czar” by the White House, pledged that enforcement operations would continue in the state, but said increased cooperation with local officials could lead to a “drawdown”.
On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that the agency was conducting a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s killing, saying “we’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened”.
The statement came as Trump administration officials, many of whom had initially falsely claimed that Pretti had brandished a gun at immigration agents before he was fatally shot, confirmed the FBI would take over the investigation of the shooting from the Department of Homeland Security.
Blanche did not give further details as to why the department was not also opening a civil rights probe into Good’s killing, saying only that the division does not get involved in every law enforcement shooting and that there have to be circumstances that “warrant an investigation”.
Trump officials had immediately labelled Good a “domestic terrorist” who was trying to run over an ICE agent when she was fatally shot. Video of analyses of the killing indicated that Good was trying to drive away from the officer when she was killed.
Federal authorities have barred local and state authorities from conducting their own independent investigations into the killings.
On Friday, protesters gathered at Howard University in Washington, DC, where they planned to march to the White House.
“I think that it just goes to show how many people are against this, and how this is jeopardising our country,” one student told Al Jazeera.
“I think us all coming together and speaking out against this shows our government that we are not OK with this, and we won’t let it slide,” she added.
Arizona and Colorado, meanwhile, were among states where schools were cancelled in anticipation of mass absences. Dozens of students walked out of morning classes at Groves High School in Birmingham, Michigan.
“We’re here to protest ICE and what they’re doing all over the country, especially in Minnesota,” Logan Albritton, a 17-year-old senior, told the Associated Press news agency. “It’s not right to treat our neighbours and our fellow Americans this way.”
Protests were also planned in major cities like Atlanta, Georgia and Portland, Oregon, where the mayor, Mark Dion, urged people to show their discontent.
“Dissent is Democratic. Dissent is American. It’s the cornerstone of our democracy,” Dion said.
Some businesses, reeling from a recent snowstorm that hit the eastern US last week, found other ways to show their objection to the administration’s actions.
In a post on social media, Otway Bakery in New York said it would remain open and donate half of its proceeds to the New York Immigration Coalition, a local nonprofit.
In a post on X, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the strike a “direct challenge to ICE’s brutality”.
“Your courage is inspiring the world. The power is with the people. Solidarity with everyone striking,” he said.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Duchess Harris, a professor of American studies at Macalester College in St Paul, Minnesota, said public pressure can change the administration’s approach, even as other avenues fail.
She pointed to the Justice Department’s move to open an investigation into Pretti’s killing as evidence.
“I think that history teaches us that these moments can either deepen division or become turning points toward reform, and sometimes the division comes before the reform,” Harris said.
Harry Brook has admitted other England players were present when he was “clocked” by a nightclub bouncer in New Zealand.
The England white-ball skipper had initially said he was out on his own in Wellington on 1 November, the evening before a one-day international.
But in a statement released on Friday, the Yorkshireman conceded others were with him and he lied to protect them “from being drawn into a situation”.
The statement came after the Daily Telegraph reported that Brook and two of his team-mates, Jacob Bethell and Josh Tongue, could be subject to an investigation from the cricket regulator.
“I accept responsibility for my actions in Wellington and acknowledge others were present that evening,” said Brook.
“I regret my previous comments and my intention was to protect my team-mates from being drawn into a situation that arose as a result of my own decisions.
“I have apologised and will continue to reflect on the matter. This has been a challenging period in my career, but one from which I am learning.
“I recognise I have more to learn regarding the off-field responsibilities that come with leadership and captaincy. I remain committed to developing in this area and to improving both personally and professionally.”
Brook was placed in charge of England’s white-ball teams last summer and the tour of New Zealand was his first overseas as captain.
The 26-year-old was involved in the altercation the night before the third one-day international in Wellington on 1 November – a game England lost.
He was fined and given a final warning over his conduct, though the incident and punishment only came to light more than two months later after the final Test against Australia in Sydney, at the end of a dismal series England lost 4-1.
In an interview with BBC Sport last week, Brook said he didn’t want to “go into any details” of the Wellington incident, but said it began with some players “going out for food”.
“There was no intention of going out, no intention of putting ourselves in a tricky situation,” he said.
“I took it upon myself to go out for a few more and I was on my own there. I shouldn’t have been there.
“I was trying to get into a club and the bouncer just clocked me, unfortunately. I wouldn’t say I was absolutely leathered. I’d had one too many drinks.”
England men’s director of cricket Rob Key told BBC Sport the England and Wales Cricket Board had investigated the night out in Wellington when it happened, with Brook saying he reported it to his employers the day after it took place.
The Telegraph story says the cricket regulator is preparing a report after receiving paperwork on Brook, Bethell and Tongue from the ECB last week.
The body, set-up in 2023 and headed-up by Chris Haward, a former chief constable of Lincolnshire police, has freedom to operate as it sees fit. It is able to fine or suspend players for disciplinary offences.
Brook’s statement is the latest act in a series of incidents involving drinking that dogged the England team through the New Zealand tour, the Ashes series that followed and its aftermath.
We explore what’s in store for Venezuela after the capture of President Maduro by US personnel in Caracas.
Venezuelans are bracing for an uncertain future after the United States military abduction of President Nicolas Maduro. Reactions across the country have been sharply divided. Some are celebrating what they see as the end of an era while others have expressed fear and anger, accusing the US of trying to impose a government subordinate to Washington to secure access to Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world.
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests:
Luis Ernesto Patino – activist and political commentator
Adelys Ferro – executive director, Venezuelan American Caucus
Israel says it will reopen the Rafah crossing on Sunday after nearly two years — but only for restricted, tightly controlled movement of people. Humanitarian aid remains barred. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reports from Rafah as Israel retains full security control.