Like Antonelli, team boss Toto Wolff was as focused on the lessons of the day and year as he was on the success.
He reflected on the fact that while Mercedes had dominated the first half of the season, not only have they been caught in the second, but upgrades brought to the car a few races ago did not have the expected effect.
“Look at the last few races,” Wolff said. “We haven’t won.
“Then today at the beginning of the race, Kimi was just storming away. It looked like this could be ours. But the competition has been getting tougher between Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and ourselves.
“It’s four teams that can win races and will be challenging for a world championship. And I have no doubt that this is going to be very difficult for us next year.”
Wolff is pleased that Mercedes have found their way back to the front after struggling relatively through what was known as the ground-effect era.
But he says he does not expect this to be the start of another dominant era such as they enjoyed with Lewis Hamilton in the last decade.
“Looking back, those last four years were very difficult between getting it wrong and then kind of understanding why it was wrong and then realising, no, we didn’t understand. And that was a bit back and forth,” he said.
“It wasn’t that bad at all when you look at the sheer numbers, but it felt not good. And the resilience of the team, the people that held together in those tough times is a factor.
“So it feels really good sealing those two titles. Not many sports teams have done that after consecutive run of championships, then a difficult spell and then coming back.
“It looks like the most maybe competitive era that is about to start, because the teams have become so professional in capability, in resource, that this kind of runaway seasons, I don’t see them any more, whether it’s four in a row or eight in a row. And that is a completely new challenge.
“You can see how quickly it goes from being dominant. And within a few races, you realise that your upgrade doesn’t work and you fall back and you’re just third on the road.
“It’s great for the sport. I wished it was the era of Mercedes and me running away with another few championships. I don’t think it’s the reality.”
WASHINGTON — The top federal prosecutor in Miami who had been tasked with overseeing an investigation into foes of President Trump has resigned, joining other high-profile Justice Department officials departing in the wake of the midterm elections, officials said Friday.
Jason Reding Quiñones’ resignation follows frustrations among Washington officials with his management of the office assigned to lead the so-called grand conspiracy investigation, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues.
The Justice Department’s top national security official, John Eisenberg, also resigned Friday, Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said. On Thursday, Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who led a radical overhaul of the department’s Civil Rights Division, also announced her departure.
Quiñones was confirmed by the Senate last year as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, where the Justice Department had centered its meandering probe into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against the Republican president.
His departure comes as the investigation has shown signs of faltering amid a spate of staff turnovers and delays. Investigators in recent weeks have put off scheduled grand jury testimony of several witnesses, according to multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Blanche said in a social media post that the department is grateful for Quiñones’ “leadership in combating violent crime, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and transnational crime, including the indictment of Raúl Castro.”
Castro, the former Cuban president, was indicted by Quiñones’ office in May on charges related to the 1996 downing of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles.
Quiñones said Friday that he is leaving with “immense pride in what we accomplished together and profound gratitude for the opportunity to serve our great Nation.”
“I am grateful to President Trump for his trust and to the extraordinary men and women of the great Southern District of Florida for their dedication, friendship, and unwavering commitment to justice and the rule of law,” Quiñones wrote in a social media post.
The “grand conspiracy” investigation has proceeded in fits and starts for over a year with repeated setbacks and departures. Last April, a lead national security prosecutor in the investigation of former CIA Director John Brennan was replaced on the team after raising questions about the strength of the case.
Shortly afterward, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, took over the probe. DiGenova resigned from the Justice Department in September without bringing any criminal charges.
Eisenberg was sworn in as assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s National Security Division in June 2025 and oversaw cases involving espionage, terrorism, export control violations, cyber crimes and other matters.
Among the division’s most high-profile cases under his watch was the prosecution of former national security adviser John Bolton, who pleaded guilty this year to allegations of mishandling classified information and is awaiting sentencing.
“He has served with distinction, strengthening our nation’s ability to address threats, both foreign and domestic,” Blanche said in a statement.
Russell said he and his team had analysed the season so far and worked out that he has had a trouble-free run in only six of this season’s 20 races.
“These issues constantly keep popping up but unfortunately this always seems like it’s on my side of the garage,” he said.
“We concluded we’ve only had six races from the 20 where we’ve had a clean weekend. So to think 14 of those weekends have had issues is unbelievable.
“We need to look to understand why that is, if there’s something we are overlooking or if it’s just pure misfortune. At the moment it does seem like it’s more misfortune than anything.
“In a normal season you might have two weekends or three weekends where there are issues. We’ve had three quarters of this season and that has been incredibly unfortunate.”
He said it was the fact that he had been struck by another technical glitch that made him skip his media duties after last weekend’s Mexico City race, rather than the fact Antonelli had just won the title.
Russell, who started second to Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari, had a loss of power on the run to the first corner when the electrical part of the power-unit did not reply properly.
He was swamped by the field, and then collided with Isack Hadjar’s Red Bull at Turn Six, earning himself a 10-second penalty. He finished sixth and dropped from second to fourth in the drivers’ championship, behind Antonelli, Max Verstappen and Hamilton.
“In racing you always pick yourself back up and for me the best way to pick myself back up was getting out of there,” Russell said on media day for this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
“It was as simple as that, really. I was just very upset with missing out on the chance of a good result because the championship for me was already over but I just couldn’t believe how things had panned out again.
“In that moment, yeah, I just wanted to get out of there.
“I think I’m 99% of the time a true professional and I try not to spit my dummy out, but sometimes missing out on doing the press – OK, it’s not ideal but not the end of the world.
“Moments like that you don’t really want to deal with it.”
The symphony orchestra takes its name from the Greek symphonía, meaning sounding in agreement, and orkhēstra which implies a public stage for dance or, in ancient Rome, where senators and other big shots sat. Democracy comes from dēmokratia, rule by the people. Even though the modern orchestra originated three centuries ago as a plaything of princes, there has always been an implicit connection — and tension — between orchestras and democracy.
Despite the orchestra never having been a financially sustainable model, dependent on some form of patronage, the symphony orchestra was embroiled in political activism by the early 19th century. Beethoven brazenly yanked the dedication to Napoleon from his “Eroica” Symphony when the “hero” proclaimed himself emperor in 1804, a betrayal of the democratic ideals of the French Revolution.
More than two centuries later, the orchestra continues to be a potent reminder of power to the people, a community of exquisitely trained artists marching to a beat, staying in tune and on message. In this year’s election season orchestras have been practicing the call for democratic thinking on a global scale, including in Los Angeles, Boston and Leipzig, Germany. Strikingly, this comes at a time when beleaguered orchestra musicians have also been demanding a more democratically minded workplace.
Throughout October and up to election day, Wild Up in L.A. has taken the lead in orchestral electoral activism. Its “Democracy Sessions” are an ongoing procession of interdisciplinary concerts, theatrical events, interactive gatherings, environmental presentations and gabfests in theaters, museums, libraries, parks, on neighborhood streets and around the L.A. River. Wild Up winds up its call for democracy with “Music to Vote By,” lunchtime solo acoustic sets, noon to 2 p.m., through Tuesday at the Democracy Center at the Japanese American National Museum Plaza in Little Tokyo.
Wild Up, itself, is a uniquely egalitarian collective, a chamber orchestra of composers and soloists, although one that nonetheless requires traditional leadership of its visionary founder, conductor Christopher Rountree. Rountree’s interdisciplinary “sessions” run from the musically sophisticated and accomplished to ad hoc and participatory funkiness, less designed to change minds than to relieve democracy anxiety.
A democracy zeitgeist, for instance, pervaded a performance at REDCAT of Louis Andriessen’s “De Staat,” a Dutch minimalist masterpiece from the mid-1970s. To intense rhythmic propulsion of piano and winds, four women vocalists intone excerpts from “The Republic,” in which Plato calls for rule of the people not the rule of music, fearful of a music that can alter “the most fundamental laws of the state.” Andriessen set out to show how mistaken Plato was.
Elsewhere, Rountree acted as an assembler, demonstrating democracy in action. In British composer Oliver Leith’s “Garland,” a kind of musical and theatrical tool kit, Rountree created a spectacle of song, dance, instrumental mayhem (whirly tubes, button whistles and the like added to the mix) and included amateur performers from the community hymn singing with the pros. It ended with a lovely appearance by a black horse all in the expanses of MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary. What does this have to do with the price of gasoline? Nothing more than a reminder that the quotidian world around us can be a hymn all by itself.
Wild Up’s performance of “Garland” at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.
(Josh Rose / Wild Up)
Germany is having its own brush with democracy with a recent election in which the far-right Alternative for Germany party won power in the central state of Saxony-Anhalt. The city of Leipzig borders that state, and its historic Gewandhaus Orchestra marked the days preceding the election with a democracy weekend it called “Reading the Signs.” The suggestion here was rather than falling for oversimplification and conspiracy theories when it comes to examining the interaction of “music, discourse and social action,” look to Beethoven.
That included a performance by Stegreif, an improvising orchestra that functions as a kind of German Wild Up. For Democracy Weekend, Stegreif “exploded” Beethoven’s “Eroica.”
It so happens that the Boston Symphony and Gewandhaus share a music director in Andris Nelsons, who has strived to bring the two orchestras together in joint projects. Sure enough, the BSO has been living up to its calling as the orchestra in the birthplace of American democracy. At Tanglewood, the orchestra’s summer home in the Berkshires, the orchestra celebrated the semiquincentennial with the premiere of Philip Glass’ “Lincoln” symphony and Yo-Yo Ma’s weeklong “We the People” residency, which offered a widely varied look at our democratic musical roots.
Then barely two weeks before the midterms, the BSO channeled Boston’s revolutionary spirit with explosive AI. At a time when much of the country sees artificial intelligence as a significant threat to democracy, the premiere of Tod Machover’s “already and not yet,” a concerto for orchestra with electronics bathed in AI, begs otherwise.
Machover’s brilliant new half-hour orchestral score asks AI for agency. It does so by treating the technology as stupid, musicians as creative artists and the audience as capable of opening its collective mind. It handles democracy not as a done deal, but a series of scary questions — and doesn’t trust the heartless machines for answers.
A commission in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the MIT Media Lab, “already and not yet” challenges us to make the world more beautiful by looking deeply into ourselves. The Media Lab is an unprecedented electronic playground born of AI. For one of the optimistic developers of AI, the musically minded computer scientist Marvin Minsky, the Media Lab functioned akin to a surgeon removing blockages to the imagination.
The interior of MIT’s groundbreaking Media Lab.
(Mark Swed)
Minsky was also a mentor to Machover, who has been at the Media Lab since the start and now heads the faculty. Machover’s AI is not a data collector in the sense of the commercial, data-gobbling, mind-numbing monstrosities lately foisted on the public. It becomes a new tool in his piece, not a way of life, something merely taught to listen and analyze in hopes of giving musicians a new idea or two.
With the help of an AI operator, Manaswi Mishra, who is embedded in the orchestra, the AI becomes the “already” in “already and not yet.” It doesn’t have much use in the tumultuous first movement, “SMASH UP,” when the world is a mess and that’s our problem. In the ethereal second movement, “WAKE UP,” players become individual and AI spits out responses that read as ordinary electronic mimicry, but the players, if game, take that as a challenge. Weirdly the machine brings them to life and as individuals. In the last movement, “STAND UP,” the machine is tamed! We frolic in a new, sonic wonderland. Even Thoreau might approve!
Can AI-assisted utopian art save democracy? That’s a tall order. Let it first try to do something about the BSO. As conductor, Kent Nagano was the ultimate listener (he can cut off the AI when it’s not interesting). After the performance he told me the orchestra was always game. And he sandwiched Machover with lithe, colorful Mendelssohn performances (including the Fifth Symphony).
But this is an orchestra in revolt, and it looked it. Grim of mien, many players on the night I attended sported red flowers on their lapels, a sign of their dissatisfaction with the administration for not renewing Nelsons’ contract when it expires this summer, after 13 years leading the BSO. The orchestra claimed it was broadsided by the announcement that management and Nelsons did not have a shared vision. The players want a say, an orchestra as democracy and more than just AI’s version of agency.
Ironically, Nelsons, who signed a nondisclosure agreement, doesn’t seem to show much vision when it comes to democracy. The Latvian conductor did not participate in Tanglewood’s democracy concerts (although he did conduct excerpts from John Adams’ “Nixon in China,” which sounded, in the radio broadcast, as having such a heavy hand that there was no room for free thinking).
In Leipzig, Nelsons’ contribution to the Gewandhaus democracy weekend was no democracy at all, only an irrelevant program of Tchaikovsky and Dvorak standards. Leipzig, bursting like Boston with young people, has become a German tech hub, it too could have used a whirl with democratic AI.
Marc Marquez takes 44-point lead over Jorge Martin and can seal the MotoGP title in Qatar next weekend.
Published On 1 Nov 20261 Nov 2026
Reigning MotoGP champion Marc Marquez has won the Malaysian Grand Prix to take a 44-point lead over absent title rival Jorge Martin in the championship and inch closer to retaining his title.
The Ducati rider shot out of the blocks and beat his brother Alex, the pole-sitter, into the opening turn on Sunday in Sepang.
Alex Marquez was able to quickly regain the lead but ran wide a turn later to hand it back, and his brother made no mistakes from that point on to claim the chequered flag for the first time since 2018.
Victory moved seven-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez up to 399 points in the championship standings, 44 ahead of Martin, who did not compete after suffering a wrist fracture.
If Marc Marquez is able to extend his lead to 74 points at next week’s Qatar Grand Prix, he could seal an eighth championship title with two rounds remaining in the season.
“We did a perfect race, so I’m super, super happy,” said the winner, who won the race by more than four seconds.
“But my mentality still cannot change. I have to keep focus, keep pushing. There are not many races to go, but there are many moments left. So we must be super confident.”
Saturday’s sprint winner, Pedro Acosta of KTM, finished second while Gresini’s Alex Marquez was third.
After losing the lead to his brother, Alex Marquez was drawn into a duel with Acosta, who stuck to the wheel of the Gresini rider for several laps before expertly overtaking him at the midway point of the race.
By then, however, the distance to the leader had already grown too large to overcome.
Aprilia rider Marco Bezzecchi, an outside contender for the title, finished in sixth place after being overtaken late by both Trackhouse rider Ai Ogura and Tech3’s Enea Bastianini.
Marc Marquez’s main title rival, Martin, had initially looked set to return in Malaysia and briefly tried to compete in Saturday morning’s practice session.
However, the Aprilia rider was visibly struggling and eventually did not take part in qualifying, ending his weekend early to continue his recovery from the fracture he sustained in a crash at Phillip Island, Australia, last week.
The Spaniard, who won the title in 2024, conceded that his MotoGP title challenge was essentially over after his withdrawal.
The MotoGP season next moves to the Lusail International Circuit for the Qatar Grand Prix, which is set to go ahead next weekend despite pushback from riders concerned about going there during the United States-Israel war on Iran.
Ducati’s Spanish rider Marc Marquez holds a Spanish flag as he finishes first at the Malaysian Grand Prix [Mohd Rasfan/AFP]
Esteban Ocon has denied reports that his being dropped by Haas at the Mexico City Grand Prix was a consequence of a row with team principal Ayao Komatsu descending into a physical confrontation.
The Frenchman, 30, admitted in a statement on social media that “a difference in viewpoints led to a discussion with the parties involved”.
But he said he “categorically rejected any reports or allegations suggesting that any form of physical violence was used to resolve any differences of any nature”.
His statement followed a report in France’s L’Equipe, external which said that a meeting between Komatsu and Ocon “ended abruptly, perhaps even physically”.
The decision to stand Ocon down from the rest of the Mexico weekend came after he had had a dispute with race engineer Laura Mueller about tyre choice during second practice on Friday.
Mueller had informed him that plans to run the soft-compound tyre had been changed and he would now use the medium.
He replied: “No, no. I want to do soft… don’t do that to me, come on.”
The team have not issued any further information what happened after the session.
So far, Haas have only said that Ocon has been dropped for this weekend’s race.
The team announced last month that he would be leaving Haas at the end of the season. He is being replaced by the Brazilian Rafael Camara, leader of the Formula 2 championship and a member of the Ferrari driver development programme.
Neither Haas not sources within Ocon’s management have commented on whether Ocon will drive for Haas again at any of this year’s remaining races.
Ocon’s statement on Saturday continued: “I strongly condemn violence in all its forms and firmly believe that disagreements should always be handled with professionalism, respect, and mutual understanding.
“I kindly ask that speculation be avoided while the matter is being addressed. Further updates will be communicated in due course.”
Hamilton said his pole, on his 43rd start for Ferrari, was “one of the greatest feelings”.
It is not the first time he has qualified fastest for Ferrari – that was when he took sprint pole at the Chinese Grand Prix last year, in only his second race for the team.
But that was followed by a difficult debut season, when he looked a shadow of his former self, and was pretty much taken to the cleaners by Leclerc.
Hamilton’s record is such that his performances last year left many perplexed – not least himself. He was consistently down on himself, even saying at one low point in the summer of 2025 that he was “just useless” and suggesting Ferrari should change drivers.
As this followed a similarly challenging final year for Mercedes, it inevitably led to questions about his future, whether age was catching up with him. After all, he had no explanations for his performances himself.
His form has improved this year, with a car that he finds much more to his liking, and he has a number of times referenced these perfectly valid questions. He did so again on Saturday.
“It’s impossible to rank 105 pole positions,” he said. “They have all been unique in their own way. It feels more special in this period where they’re not every week and it’s the first one with Ferrari in red.
“I’ve now had pole with three different teams, which is pretty phenomenal. And all the questions people had about whether a 40-year-old has still got it, there you go.”
The battle between Hamilton and Leclerc has been much more even this year.
Hamilton leads his team-mate by eight points in the championship and in qualifying there is nothing to choose between them – it is now 12-10 in their head-to-head and Leclerc is ahead on average pace by just 0.037secs, when the gap was 0.15secs last year.
“I have been fortunate to have many great experiences with Mercedes over the years,” said Hamilton. “We have had sprint pole but I have been really dreaming and eyeing for that first pole with the team.
“Charles is very, very quick over one lap. He has had an engineer he has worked with for years. It’s an environment he is very aware of and used to.
“I am still settling in and learning, with new engineers this year. We have really found a good rapport and are really doing a great job. There is lots more to come, we just have to keep on at it, but what an amazing feeling to get that first.”
Hamilton goes into the race with less knowledge than his rivals, a breakdown in second practice meaning he was not able to do his race-simulation run.
“It will will be a massive challenge to find the right balance but I am hopeful, it will be challenging and tough,” he said.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc headed McLaren’s Lando Norris in Friday practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli, who is poised to clinch his first world title on Sunday, was fourth fastest behind team-mate George Russell.
Only a victory by Russell or Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton can theoretically stop Antonelli becoming champion on Sunday. Even then, Antonelli only needs ninth place if Russell wins and 10th if Hamilton does.
Leclerc, who topped both sessions on Friday, was 0.103 seconds quicker than Norris, with Russell just 0.003secs further adrift.
Antonelli was 0.217secs off the pace, and ahead of the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar.
Leclerc’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton was 11th overall after stopping on track with a technical problem before completing his qualifying simulation runs on the soft tyre.
Behind Hadjar, Racing Bulls duo Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson sandwiched Pierre Gasly’s Alpine, while McLaren’s Oscar Piastri completed the top 10.
Verstappen and Lawson face a trip to the stewards after a collision in the stadium early in the session.
“I don’t think it’s called unlucky,” said Verstappen. “Maybe not very smart behaviour what he was trying to do there.
“At the end of the day it is not going to change my weekend, but if I were him I would act a little smarter and when you’re fighting for your seat it’s not very smart behaviour.”
Lawson is one of three drivers competing for two seats at Racing Bulls, Red Bull’s junior team, next year, alongside current team-mate Arvid Lindblad and Bulgarian Formula 2 front-runner Nikola Tsolov.
Verstappen added: “When he saw me coming, he suddenly started to accelerate. I don’t know what was going through his head, that he wanted to drive me off the track in the hairpin.
“That’s not very sensible behavior from someone in his position, to pick a fight with me.”
The first session was marked by 10 of the 11 teams running ‘rookie’ drivers in their cars.
One of them was Cadillac’s Colton Herta, who the team are considering promoting to a race seat in place of Valtteri Bottas next season.
Initially, the team felt his running in Mexico had given him enough points under the F1 system to earn a ‘superlicence’, which is required to race in F1.
But further investigation by governing body the FIA revealed the American nine-time Indycar race winner is still one point short and will have to complete one further practice session this year to secure his licence.
The team plan to do that before the end of the season.
The officer faces charges after allegedly striking a fleeing construction worker with an SUV during an immigration raid.
Published On 30 Oct 202630 Oct 2026
A grand jury in Texas has indicted a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer accused of deliberately running over a Mexican construction worker during an operation in Houston this month.
ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the October 10 incident, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare announced on Friday.
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Criminal charges against federal immigration officers have been rare during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, although several encounters involving officers have prompted investigations.
Morales is accused of striking 48-year-old Miguel Parra-Hernandez, an immigrant who has lived in Harris County for more than 30 years. Teare said that Parra-Hernandez had no criminal record.
Parra-Hernandez was running away from federal agents when an unmarked black Jeep Cherokee struck him in a car park near Clay Road and Highway 6, according to investigators. He suffered multiple fractures to his right leg and an ankle injury which required surgery.
The indictment follows a dispute between local prosecutors and federal authorities over what happened. ICE has maintained that Parra-Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle, dismissing the allegations that the officer intentionally struck him as “reckless and false.”
It shows the SUV crossing a median and pursuing Parra-Hernandez as he runs away. Although another vehicle obscures the moment of impact, the video shows the man on the ground moments later.
Authorities also released body-camera footage on Friday. In the recording, Morales can be heard acknowledging that he struck Parra-Hernandez with his vehicle.
Teare also accused federal authorities of failing to cooperate with the investigation, including by removing the Jeep before local investigators could examine it for potential evidence.
A search warrant obtained by local media shows investigators had not been granted access to the vehicle as of October 23.
The case has also raised questions about the operation’s intended target. ICE said agents were searching for a man identified as Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, whom they believed to be travelling with Parra-Hernandez.
But Mendoza-Cervantes’s daughter told The New York Times that her father died in 2017. Parra-Hernandez’s family has disputed that the two men knew each other.
The Morales indictment comes as the Harris County District Attorney’s Office continues investigating the fatal shooting of another Mexican, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, on July 7.
An ICE officer, Gregory Feathers, has been accused of firing at the vehicle Salgado Araujo was driving on his way to work in Houston.
Federal authorities said the officer acted in self-defence, a claim the surviving passengers in the vehicle dispute.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Tuesday failed to secure a grand jury indictment against a former White House staffer who provided dramatic but disputed testimony against President Trump before a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection, according to two people familiar with the matter.
A grand jury in Washington rejected prosecutors’ request to return an indictment against Cassidy Hutchinson, said the people, who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case. It’s the latest setback in the Justice Department’s efforts to persuade grand jurors in the nation’s capital to bring politically sensitive cases.
Details of prosecutors’ allegations against Hutchinson were not immediately clear, but Republican lawmakers had accused her of lying under oath in her explosive testimony in 2022 about Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The effort to indict Hutchinson was hardly isolated. It is part of a surge in politically sensitive actions by the Justice Department in the run-up to next week’s midterm elections targeting perceived adversaries of the president, including a new attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and a search by federal agents of the home of outspoken Trump critic and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
It’s highly unusual for grand juries to decline to return indictments, but the Justice Department under Trump has been rebuked by citizens in the nation’s capital in a number of high-profile cases. A grand jury in Washington earlier this year declined to indict Democratic lawmakers in connection with a video they recorded urging U.S. service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believe to be unlawful.
Hutchinson declined to comment through her lawyer on Tuesday.
Hutchinson said Trump was angry and defiant on Jan. 6
Hutchinson’s testimony, at a surprise hearing announced just 24 hours earlier, was seen at the time as particularly compelling given her proximity to power as special assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff.
She described an angry, defiant president who was trying to let armed protesters avoid security screenings at a rally that morning to protest his 2020 election defeat and who later grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the Capitol. And when the events at the Capitol spiraled toward violence, with the crowd chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” she testified that Trump declined to intervene.
Trump at the time denied on his social media platform, Truth Social, much of what Hutchinson said. He called her a “total phony” and “bad news.”
Hutchinson’s description of the altercation inside the presidential SUV was regarded as particularly explosive, even as she acknowledged during her testimony that she was relaying what she had heard from a White House security official and did not have firsthand knowledge of the episode because she was not there.
Her account was quickly disputed.
In March 2024, House Republicans released a previously undisclosed transcript of the Select Committee’s interview with a Secret Service officer who drove the presidential SUV. That transcript of the presidential limo driver contradicted some of Hutchinson’s testimony but corroborated other aspects of her account, including Trump’s attempt to join the mob scene at the Capitol.
The driver described the president as insistent on going to the Capitol but said he did not see the altercation that Hutchinson described. The driver said Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel” and also said: “I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.”
Hutchinson has alleged that members of Trump’s inner circle dangled job opportunities and financial assistance while she was cooperating with the committee. She also testified in a closed-door interview released by the committee that a former lawyer of hers — a former ethics counsel in the Trump White House — told her “the less you remember, the better.”
“It feels ridiculous, because in my heart I knew where my loyalties lied, and my loyalties lied with the truth,” she told the committee. “And I never wanted to diverge from that.” The former attorney has disputed that account.
The U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump in 2021 on allegations that he incited the mob that attacked the Capitol, but he was later acquitted by the Senate. The Justice Department under Biden charged Trump with felony offenses, accusing him of illegally working to overturn his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the Capitol attack, but then-special counsel Jack Smith abandoned the case after Trump’s 2024 presidential victory. Longstanding Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution.
Hutchinson, a native of Pennington, New Jersey, previously worked in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and interned for Republicans, including Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli sealed his ninth victory of the season with victory at the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was second and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen third.
Mercedes’ Antonelli, 20, can become the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history if he finishes ninth or higher at the Mexico City Grand Prix next weekend.
Here are my ratings for how the drivers performed across the whole weekend in Texas.
Kimi Antonelli – 10/10
A superb weekend under the added pressure of having his first opportunity to seal the championship. Produced an outstanding lap for pole and then controlled the race beautifully, making the one-stop work while many around him needed two.
Charles Leclerc – 9.5/10
Very close to a perfect weekend himself. Fastest in both Friday practice sessions, qualified fourth and then raced brilliantly in his Ferrari to second, including late passes on Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.
Max Verstappen – 8.5/10
Quick all weekend and put the Red Bull on the front row, but the poor start immediately made his race more difficult. Recovered well despite problems with the car and still came away with a sixth consecutive podium.
Lewis Hamilton – 7.5/10
Another strong weekend but behind team-mate Leclerc for the majority of it. Fastest in final practice, only narrowly behind Leclerc in qualifying and fought his way back to fourth after Ferrari committed to the two-stop strategy.
Lando Norris – 8/10
Recovered well from eighth on the grid but qualifying should have been better as his quickest Q3 lap was deleted for track limits. McLaren’s decision to leave him out on ageing tyres cost him late on, so fifth was not entirely of his own making.
Isack Hadjar – 8.5/10
An excellent turnaround after struggling badly with the Red Bull during practice. Qualified a superb third, ran strongly in the race and eventually finished sixth despite throttle mapping problems and moving aside for team-mate Verstappen.
Oscar Piastri – 6.5/10
A fairly subdued weekend by the McLaren man’s standards. Seventh in qualifying and seventh in the race, although the first-lap battle with George Russell went against him and the stewards decided the Mercedes driver was at fault.
George Russell – 5.5/10
A disappointing weekend given what the other Mercedes achieved. Admitted both of his Q3 laps were poor and then picked up a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage in his battle with Piastri, eventually finishing eighth.
Liam Lawson – 8/10
Another quietly excellent weekend from Lawson. Racing Bulls sacrificed a proper Q3 attempt to preserve tyres for Sunday and he converted ninth on the grid into ninth at the finish to score again.
Pierre Gasly – 8/10
Probably extracted just about everything available from the Alpine. Missed Q3 but fought his way back into the points after an early dice with Haas’ Oliver Bearman.
Race delayed by two hours before being cancelled due to low visibility despite a sellout crowd at Phillip Island.
Published On 25 Oct 202625 Oct 2026
The final Australian MotoGP at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit has been called off due to heavy rain, ruining the farewell for one of the championship’s most beloved circuits.
It was a crushing blow for the sold-out crowd at Phillip Island on Sunday before the Australian Grand Prix moves to the streets of Adelaide next year.
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The Moto2 and Moto3 races were cancelled first, and the MotoGP race was delayed by two hours due to the weather before organisers threw in the towel and finally called it off at 3:40pm (04:40 GMT).
“Due to limited visibility affecting the operation of the medical helicopter the MotoGP Grand Prix race has been cancelled,” MotoGP said in a statement.
“The MotoGP riders will do a lap behind the safety car and stop on the main straight to greet the fans.”
Riders say farewell to fans in final parade
The dark clouds and pelting rain brought down the visibility around the circuit, affecting the medical helicopter, which would take 45 minutes to reach the circuit from mainland Melbourne in an emergency.
Other than two years lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, the seaside track south of Melbourne had been a fixture on the world championship calendar for 30 years and produced some of Australian motorcycling’s most memorable moments.
Australian two-time world champion Casey Stoner celebrated six wins there in succession from 2007 to 2012 while compatriot Mick Doohan sealed his fifth and final world title with victory in the 1998 race.
The raincoat-clad fans who persevered through the precipitation were treated to a farewell lap from the MotoGP riders, who waved as they slowly made their way around a soaking wet track.
Home racer Jack Miller did his best to entertain his supporters with a series of tricks, including a stand-up wheelie over the finish line, before heading over to the grandstand and throwing his gloves and boots into the crowd.
The seaside track south of Melbourne had been a fixture on the world championship calendar for 30 years and produced some of Australian motorcycling’s most memorable moments [AFP]
Miller dejected, sigh of relief for Martin
The Pramac Racing rider, a strong performer in the wet, cut a dejected figure when he was interviewed after completing his lap.
“This is a tough pill to swallow,” said the 31-year-old, who will be leaving MotoGP at the end of the season after more than a decade to join Pata Maxus Yamaha in the World Superbike Championship.
“You know, I was praying for rain all weekend. We got the rain, but obviously, we weren’t organised enough to get the racing going, so it’s a tough one.
“You guys deserve better. Honestly, all of you have done a fantastic job turning out for Phillip Island.”
Rain had been expected for the weekend, but MotoGP did not revive its 2023 strategy for the circuit when the Grand Prix was moved ahead to Saturday and the sprint scheduled for Sunday.
That sprint race three years ago was eventually called off.
The cancellation of the race also ended the opportunity for seven-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez to extend his lead in the championship standings, particularly after his title rival Jorge Martin was declared unfit to compete in the race after fracturing his wrist.
Martin held the championship lead heading into the weekend but finds himself 10 points behind Marquez after failing to finish Saturday’s sprint following a gruesome crash.
On Sunday, Martin’s Aprilia team said he would not travel back to Spain to undergo treatment, however, boosting the 2024 champion’s hopes of racing at next week’s Malaysian Grand Prix and remaining in the title fight.
He came into the weekend insisting he was going to try to apply the “same mindset as I had all year – one race at a time”.
But on Saturday he acknowledged that this one was a new kind of weekend.
“It does feel a little bit different,” he said. “But the goal stays the same. I just need to keep doing my job. And, actually, I feel like I can enjoy more driving, everything.
“But, of course, we’re going to do the race tomorrow. We’re going to try and win. And then we’ll see what happens. Obviously, I’m in a very good position.”
Antonelli is typically accompanied by his father, Marco, at grands prix, but he said this weekend he had brought other people with him as well to help keep him in the right frame of mind.
“I have a great group of people around me,” he said. “I have a lot of friends here as well, so we enjoy the evenings together.
“We play cards in the evening, so we’re just doing the fun stuff. And that’s what helps, to just relax a little bit and just connect with the mind, and then once you go on track you are back full focus.”
The maths suggest the most likely scenario is that Antonelli will not win the title on Sunday – it would, as he put it on Thursday, require “something catastrophic to happen to the others”.
If this is a bit of an overstatement – Russell and Hamilton would need only to crash together on the first lap, for example – the fundamental truth is real.
Kimi Antonelli took pole position for the United States Grand Prix on the weekend on which he can potentially clinch his first world title.
The Mercedes driver beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 0.179 seconds, with the Dutchman’s team-mate Isack Hadjar third ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.
Antonelli whooped with delight as he took his first pole position since the Belgian Grand Prix in July and said: “It feels good to be back.”
The 20-year-old Italian will become world champion on Sunday if he wins the race in Austin with Hamilton lower than fourth and Russell lower than eighth.
Hamilton is already below that position having qualified fifth, while Russell will start sixth ahead of the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
Antonelli’s pole came as something of a surprise after the Ferraris had topped all three practice sessions and Verstappen had looked strong through the second part of qualifying.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” said Antonelli’s engineer Peter Bonnington, emphasising that his charge’s first lap in final qualifying was good enough for pole.
Verstappen had been fourth quickest in Q2 despite being on used tyres but he found his car lacked the requisite grip in the final session.
Antonelli said: “We got pole so we will try to win tomorrow but Max has been very quick and Isack did an incredible job so it is not going to be easy.
“We try to get a good start and hopefully lead into Turn One and try to set the pace, even though it’s going to be very tight.”
Verstappen said: “Q3 was not good, Q1, Q2 were nice but for whatever reason in run one and two just didn’t have a nice balance. No mistakes, just not enough grip. But if it’s still a P2, I take it.”
Ferrari have an upgrade on their car this weekend, focused on a new floor, but Leclerc was downplaying expectations.
“It felt good but it is not the gain I have seen or heard about,” Leclerc said. “It is small gains but we could still see them on the car. It is a small step forward and we started the weekend on the right foot with a good balance and that is the outstanding thing with this Friday.
“It has been a very clean Friday for me, but the others seem to be gaining more than us from Friday to Saturday and seeing the little gap there is, it is not going to be so easy tomorrow.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris was seventh fastest, although the world champion did not set a time on his qualifying simulation run on soft tyres after making a mistake at Turn 16.
Norris was the fastest on the long runs, at about 0.2secs on average faster than Verstappen, but cannot be compared as he was running the hard tyre.
McLaren have introduced the first of three consecutive planned upgrades this weekend, but he was not happy with his performance.
“Difficult,” Norris said. “The pace is not bad. We seem a step away from Red Bull and Ferrari, probably Mercedes as well, but the car is very difficult to drive, too difficult to be consistent and get a nice feeling consistently.
“To get the car be quick we just have to try so hard to be perfect and you can’t be perfect. I am sure everyone has similar problems in a way but we are just not quick enough yet to be there consistently enough.”
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was eighth quickest, ahead of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar and Haas driver Oliver Bearman.
The track is built on former marshland and that has made it difficult for organisers to keep it in good condition, but the four-time champion rejected that as a reason not to try to solve the issue.
“You can use the excuse that the soil is the problem but then you should have known that and you need to make sure that you reinforce it more,” Verstappen said.
“Last year, for example, you pull around 5-6G in a corner, but I had some impacts, vertical load, which was over 9G on my spine, which I can tell you is really not fun, and especially the older you get, you think about that more and more.”
Verstappen said the problem was likely to be exacerbated this year because although the cars from 2022-25 had lower ride-heights overall, the way the cars are run under the latest regulations means they are running lower in corners than last season.
That’s because of the switch between having the front and rear wings open in drag-reduction mode on the straights and closing in corners means the cars drop down towards the ground when they brake.
“You bottom out way harder, because when the wings close and the ride-height comes down, under braking is actually a very stressful moment, and I know around here in some places, it’s very bumpy under braking,” he said.
“Especially when it’s like these kind of awkward bumps, not just bumps from the track getting older, but the surface underneath the soil just moving up and down, sometimes (it’s) very hard to expect, or if you’re like a tiny bit offline, you don’t know what is there, because no-one really drives here sometimes.
“I can tell you from the checks that I’ve done from my spine, the bottom end doesn’t look that great.
“I know that’s part of racing. I know that can be part of sport, but it’s also further damage from the cars that we had the last few years.
“And now if we continue with finding this acceptable to drive on, then you are going to suffer with that much more.”
And the DRC’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner said in a statement last week that “giving (Rwanda President) Paul Kagame this platform would help polish the image of an authoritarian leader whose government has helped fuel a devastating war in our country”.
She pointed out that the US had sanctioned the Rwandan army and four senior officers for their role in destabilising the region, conducting military operations inside the DRC and supporting, training and fighting alongside the M23 rebel group.
She added that F1 “should require credible, independent guarantees that no money used to host the race comes from conflict-linked minerals or the exploitation of Congolese resources”.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton said: “Africa is a place that deserves to have a grand prix. It’s about more than just one country. It’s about the continent itself, and there are so many beautiful countries within it.
“The people are so lovely. The culture is so rich, and I think it’s important that we get to show that to the world. We get to do that with our sport. We get to go to all these different countries, and people see some of these countries they didn’t really know too much about.
“All of a sudden, it becomes something that’s on the screen, and kids are talking about it. They go to school talking about it. So, I’m really, really hopeful for that grand prix.”
However, the Ferrari driver added: “Going there doesn’t mean that you neglect the things that are happening there.
“So hopefully many people start to educate themselves a little bit more about what is happening there and what has happened there for hundreds of years. I hope that does spark the conversation.
“And then I guess I’ll finish it off with this: I think we need to make sure we’re pushing to free Congo, free Sudan, free Syria, free Palestine. I think there’s a lot of peace that I’m hoping we get to at some stage.”
Six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek has called an early finish to what she described as “one of the most challenging” seasons of her career.
Poland’s Swiatek failed to qualify for the end-of-season WTA Finals – for the first time since 2019 – after pulling out of the Ningbo Open on Tuesday with a thigh injury.
Shortly afterwards, the 25-year-old announced she was bringing a largely barren season to a close, in order to recharge over a longer period of time before returning in 2027.
Former long-time world number one Swiatek – who has ended a season without a Grand Slam title for the first time since 2021 – has dropped to ninth in the rankings.
“The past few months, or actually the past couple of years, have been incredibly intense,” said Swiatek, who will have an opportunity to complete the career Grand Slam at the Australian Open in January.
“I feel I need to rest and recover my body fully, so that’s exactly what I will do – [for] a bit longer this time.”
Her most recent Grand Slam triumph came at Wimbledon last year.
Swiatek has managed one WTA title this season – the Canadian Open in August – and ends 2026 with a 42-16 win-loss record.
On Saturday, she lost to fellow Pole Maja Chwalinska in the Wuhan Open semi-finals, only her fourth defeat in 23 matches.
“I’m especially proud of the work we’ve done in the second half of the year and the progress that came with it,” said Swiatek, who needed treatment on her thigh but played on against Chwalinska.
“It gives me a lot of confidence in what’s ahead.”
Grand Designs viewers were left disgruntled as Kevin McCloud returned to a build from 25 years ago.
Viewers issued the same complaint (Image: Channel 4)
Grand Designs viewers claimed to “turn off” the Channel 4 programme as they rushed to social media to share their complaints.
Kevin McCloud’s architectural programme has been airing a new series, which has so far seen a ‘pink cloud house’ in London built by an eccentric couple, and a Cornwall family home designed to overlook the sea. On Wednesday, 14 October, the Channel 4 show took viewers back in time 25 years, revisiting a build in Yorkshire.
It looked back on earlier Grand Designs clips, where Chris and Gill designed and built their dream home from a 19th-century Mill. Kevin shared at the start of the episode: “West Yorkshire has always been a place of innovation, manufacturing and mills.”
He spoke about the disrepair of one mill, before it was brought back to life by “gutsy pioneers”. Kevin continued: “25 years ago, Chris and Gill put that same spirit of innovation into the restoration of one of these forgotten buildings.
“They took an abandoned mill and turned it into a high-tech home, and they did it in proper Yorkshire style – no nonsense, with grit.” Gill and Chris had bought the derelict 19th-century mill in 1999, without seeing the site.
“What a dump,” Kevin had declared at the time. But the couple were determined to transform it, and had high ambitions for “a radical hybrid home”. Looking back on the build, Kevin went on: “Amazingly, it’s been a quarter of a century since I last saw Chris and Gill, that is a really long time! So long in fact, that you have to ask, have they changed? Is the building as radical as it looked then, and most importantly, how well has that building over 25 years looked after them?”
As Kevin shared their story from over two decades ago, and reflected on where Gill and Chris were now, viewers were disgruntled at the revisit, rather than a new project on their screens. A number of fans quickly took to social media to share their frustrations.
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“Another pointless edition of #granddesigns,” one person fumed, as another said: “Always disappointing seeing ‘new’ @granddesigns and its the revisited version.” Someone else said: “There obviously hasn’t been many new ‘grand design’ projects in the country over the last few years as it’s a ‘revisited’ episode four shows into the new series.” Someone else replied by saying they’ve “turned it off”, as another added: “Was exactly my point too.”
Someone else wrote: “#granddesigns revisit, in other words, it’s a repeat.” However, other viewers were more excited about the revisit episode, with one sharing: “I can’t wait! This one was amazing at the time.” Someone else declared: “This was one of my favourite GD’s of all time.”
Ahead of the new series airing, Kevin spoke about the success of Grand Designs, and was asked about if the series has changed the way people build houses. He replied: “It is very chicken and egg, what came first?
“I think the great thing about television is that it can reflect society, and I think television is at its best when it is able to do that and hold a mirror up and say, this is us now. Channel 4 are very good at doing this, I think it is one of the most compelling things about the channel.
“Grand Designs has been going forever, and so the question is whether it holds a mirror up and I believe the answer is yes, it does so because we have no real formula. We find projects in the real world and we observe, that is it.
“Grand Designs strengths and its longevity are down to the fact it doesn’t really have a format other than that. It has a beginning and a conclusion, but what happens in the middle is not up to us, it is up to the people who are building. We, of course, go out of our way to find interesting and challenging projects that are more at the margins, that show us where we might be as a society in 5,10, 20 years time, not just where we are now. So, my short answer is possibly, but it is much more important for us to show examples of stuff which show the rest of society how we might be building and living in the future.”
