Around 40 killed, 115 hurt in Swiss resort bar blaze on New Year’s Day, police say
Photo by Harold Cunningham/Getty Images
(LONDON) Around 40 people were killed and 115 others were injured early on New Year’s Day, when a fire ripped through a popular bar in a resort town in the Swiss Alps, police said.
The Swiss president said the fire caused one of the worst tragedies that the country has ever experienced.
A blaze of “undetermined origin” broke out at the Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana at about 1:30 a.m. local time, the Cantonal Police of Valais said in a statement.
Investigators were working on Thursday to determine the cause of the fire, officials said during a morning press conference. The incident was not being investigated as an attack, they added.
“A large contingent of police, firefighters, and rescue personnel immediately responded to the scene to assist the numerous victims,” police said in their statement.
A no-fly zone was put in place over Crans-Montana, police said in their statement. The resort town is popular with skiers and sits in Switzerland’s southern Sierre District in the Canton of Valais.
Police have not released the identities of those who were killed in the blaze. Officials on Thursday said it was likely, given the popularity of the area with travelers, that some of the deceased were tourists who traveled to the Alpine town to ski and to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
The French Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement that at least two French nationals were among the injured. Both were being treated in local hospitals, the ministry said. French officials were “in constant contact with the Swiss authorities in case other nationals are affected,” the ministry added.
ABC News’ Tom Soufi-Burridge contributed to this report.
A huge banner displayed in Revolution Square depicts a missile attack on board a US Carrier painted in US flag colors in the Persian Gulf on January 26, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Iranian military forces are prepared to “immediately” retaliate against any U.S. attack, Tehran’s top diplomat warned on Wednesday, as more American military assets arrived in the region and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to launch a new attack on the country.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in a post to X on Wednesday that Iran’s “brave Armed Forces are prepared — with their fingers on the trigger — to immediately and powerfully respond to ANY aggression against our beloved land, air and sea.”
“Valuable lessons learned” during the 12-day conflict with Israel and the U.S. in June “have enabled us to respond even more strongly, rapidly and profoundly,” Araghchi wrote.
“At the same time, Iran has always welcomed a mutually beneficial, fair and equitable NUCLEAR DEAL — on equal footing, and free from coercion, threats, and intimidation — which ensures Iran’s rights to PEACEFUL nuclear technology, and guarantees NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS,” the foreign minister added.
“Such weapons have no place in our security calculations and we have NEVER sought to acquire them,” he wrote.
Araghchi issued the warning after Trump touted what he called a “massive armada” heading toward Iran, which he said was “ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”
Trump urged Iran to make “a fair and equitable deal” regarding its nuclear program, key facilities and personnel of which were among the targets attacked by Israel and the U.S. in June.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!,” Trump said a social media post.
Trump referred to the strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last summer. “As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again,” Trump added.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by three destroyers, arrived in the Middle East earlier this week, bolstering the U.S. military presence in the region.
The carrier is carrying a complement of strike aircraft, while the accompanying destroyers are armed with Tomahawk missiles.
The naval buildup adds some 5,000 American troops to the region, swelling an already robust American military footprint spread across multiple bases across the Middle East, such as Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
In total, more than 30,000 U.S. troops are deployed across the Middle East. The USS Abraham Lincoln is the first U.S. aircraft carrier to operate in the region since last summer.
Araghchi on Wednesday denied any request for new talks Tehran and Washington, D.C., though said Iran was in touch with “various intermediaries.”
“Our position is clear. Negotiations cannot take place under threats, and any talks must be conducted in conditions where threats and excessive demands are set aside,” Araghchi said.
The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Thursday that Iran is “ready for sincere and genuine negotiations with America,” as quoted by the state-aligned Tasnim News Agency. Ghalibaf warned that though Trump “may be able to start a war,” he cannot foresee how it will end.
Trump’s latest threats focused on Iran’s nuclear program, which — alongside Tehran’s ballistic missile arsenal and its use of regional proxy forces — has been a key and longstanding concern for the U.S., Israel and their regional partners.
Trump’s Wednesday social media post did not mention Tehran’s bloody suppression of nationwide anti-government protests over the past month. The demonstrations began in late December in response to the collapsing value of the national currency — the rial — before morphing into a wider anti-regime movement which drew backing from dissidents abroad and Western governments.
Trump lent his support to protesters in mid-January, urging them to “KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” He added, “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
The president then appeared to back off the prospect of imminent U.S. strikes on Iran, saying Tehran had informed him that the killing of protesters and executions of those arrested had stopped.
The major security crackdown appears to have suppressed the massed demonstrations. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) — which relies on a network of activists in Iran for its reporting and has been accurate during previous unrest — said Wednesday that at least 6,373 people had been killed in the protests.
The dead included 5,993 protesters, 113 people under the age of 18, 214 government-affiliated personnel and 53 non-protesting civilians, HRANA said. The organization said it is still reviewing 17,091 reports of other deaths.
A total of 42,486 people have been arrested in the demonstrations since they began on Dec. 28, including 11,018 injured protesters with serious wounds, according to HRANA.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that the U.S. regional buildup represents a “baseline” for defense.
“We have to have enough force and power in the region just on a baseline to defend against that possibility that at some point, as a result of something, the Iranian regime decides to strike at our troop presence in the region,” Rubio said.
Rubio also said that it was an “open question” and “no one knows” who would fill a leadership void in Iran if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was removed from power.
Rubio asserted that protests across Iran due to a free-falling economy show “that [the] regime is probably weaker than it has ever been.”
If the regime were to fall, he said the U.S. could “hope” for a “transition” like the one it is attempting to facilitate in Venezuela.
But Rubio added that he “would imagine it would be far more complex … because you’re talking about a regime that’s been in place for a very long time.”
Greenland residents and political leaders have publicly rejected suggestions by U.S. President Donald Trump that the Arctic island could become part of the United States. Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, has emphasized that its future will be decided by its own people, with officials stating that the island is not for sale and does not wish to become American. (Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were expected to meet Wednesday at the White House with top diplomats from the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland, its semiautonomous territory, U.S. officials said, as tensions escalate amid President Donald Trump’s threats to “acquire” the island — possibly even by military force.
When asked about his strong personal interest in the world’s largest island, Trump repeatedly cites its rare earth minerals and other natural resources he says are critical to U.S. national security.
“One way or the other, we are going to have Greenland,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday. He told the New York Times last week that his desire to take over the territory is “what I feel is psychologically needed for success.”
At the same time, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen argues Trump using the U.S. military to seize Greenland would mark “the end of NATO” because Denmark, a NATO ally, like the U.S., is obligated to come to the island’s defense, as are other European NATO allies.
The European Union’s defense commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, echoed her grave hypothetical scenario, contending Europe would be forced to confront the U.S. if Greenland’s NATO allies had to protect it from an American takeover attempt.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has downplayed the diplomatic alarms, saying the alliance is “not at all” in crisis and offered assurances it was focused on securing the Arctic from inroads by China and Russia, something Trump has said Greenland, and Denmark, have failed to do.
Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said Wednesday’s meeting was aimed at understanding the U.S. position after weeks of heated rhetoric from Trump and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who has said the U.S. has a “right” to Greenland and has notably declined to rule out military force to secure it.
“Our reason for seeking the meeting we have now been given,” Rasmussen said, “was to move this whole discussion, which has not become less tense since we last met, into a meeting room where we can look each other in the eye and talk about these things.”
But Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, was more direct ahead of the Washington meeting.
“We are now facing a geopolitical crisis,” he said. “If we have to choose between the U.S. and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark, NATO, and the EU.”
On Tuesday, when was asked about the prime minister’s comments, Trump told reporters, “That’s their problem. I disagree with them. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Danes shocked by US rhetoric toward Greenland Danish and Greenlandic officials have said consistently that Greenland is not for sale, even as Rubio appeared to try to temper Trump’s strong rhetoric — and defuse congressional opposition to using force — by floating the idea of the U.S. buying the island, saying Trump has talked about doing so since his first term.
A source familiar with the emerging rift said the policy pronouncement came as a shock, and that the U.S. goal to buy the island was never communicated to Copenhagen — which the source said had never received an offer of any kind.
State Department officials under Rubio had never driven a Greenland policy aimed at acquiring it, the source said, and Copenhagen had been satisfied with bilateral relations through most of 2025.
That changed in December, when Trump appointed Louisiana GOP Gov. Jeff Landry to be his special envoy to Greenland, a move designed to steer policy from the White House instead of through the State Department, the source said.
Vance, who traveled to Greenland last March, said last Thursday, “I guess my advice to European leaders and anybody else would be to take the president of the United States seriously.”
Following some of Trump’s comments that he wanted Greenland to be part of the U.S., which came days after he ordered the American military to attack Venezuela, Danish and Greenlandic officials in Washington went to Capitol Hill to voice concerns to lawmakers.
A source familiar with those meetings said there was a tone shift among Republicans, who said they took the president’s threats seriously – not as a laughing matter.
The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee emerged from his meeting with the Danish envoys foreclosing any suggestion the future of Greenland was in dispute.
“I think it has been made clear from our Danish friends and our friends in Greenland that that future does not include a negotiation,” Sen. Roger Wicker said.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of American lawmakers was crossing the Atlantic for meetings in Copenhagen at the end of this week.
Arctic security as a central argument Trump has said the U.S. would demand sovereignty over the island for its own national security purposes, suggesting China and Russia could pose a threat to America by taking the island themselves.
“Basically, their defense is two dog sleds,” Trump said of Greenland, where the U.S. has a military base and 150 troops stationed. “In the meantime, you have Russian destroyers and submarines and China destroyers and submarines all over the place.”
Danish officials have pointed to new investments there and a willingness to work with NATO and the U.S. on protecting the island. The kingdom announced a $6.5 billion Arctic defense package last year.
Denmark’s top lawmaker overseeing defense said the threat to the island did not come from the east, but instead from the U.S., its NATO ally across the Atlantic.
“It is my job to be on top of security in Greenland and I get all relevant information about it,” Rasmus Jarlov wrote in a post on X. “I can assure you that your fantasies about a big threat from China and Russia against Greenland are delusional. You are the threat,” he wrote of the U.S. “Not them.”
Provocations from China and Russia have been more concentrated near Alaska than Greenland, said Connor McPartland, who noted China has minimal commercial interests on the island and there’s been no uptick in Russian or Chinese naval activity near the island.
McPartland, who was the deputy director of the Pentagon’s Office for Arctic and Global Security until September, said Trump’s attention to Arctic security comes as a needed focus on an overlooked region.
“Caring about the Arctic is not just caring about the Arctic,” he said. “It has ramifications for our global security, not just in this one little sliver of at the top of the world.”
“In my office, we’d like to say that the Arctic is the front door to the homeland, because most of the really existential threats to the United States that we think about [like a] nuclear missile … are going to fly over the pole to get to the continental United States,” said McPartland, who is now an an assistant director with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative.
“It’s the fastest way to get to the United States, from Russia, from North Korea, from Iran, from China.”
A 1951 treaty between the U.S. and Greenland allows the American military, which has downsized its presence to only one base in Greenland, to upscale its footprint as it wants. During the Cold War, the U.S. had 17 military installations there.
“There aren’t really problems to be solved by the United States controlling Greenland,” said McPartland. “We can build infrastructure, we can station troops, we can operate from Greenland almost at will, as long as we recognize the sovereignty of Denmark and Greenland.”
People, including a man holding a placard that shows Greenland covered in an American flag, Xed out and that reads: Our Land, Not Yours”, gather to march in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and his announced intent to acquire Greenland on January 17, 2026 in Nuuk, Greenland. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Thousands of people thronged the snowy streets of the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk on Saturday to have their say on a transatlantic crisis that has shaken the 76-year-old NATO alliance.
“Greenland for Greenlanders,” “Our land, not yours,” and “Yankee go home” were among the signs held aloft by marchers, accompanied by a plethora of red-and-white Greenlandic flags.
The 56,000 Greenlanders who inhabit the world’s largest island — which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — have found themselves at the center of a geopolitical storm, as U.S. President Donald Trump wages an escalating pressure campaign to acquire the territory despite intense opposition from Greenlanders, Danes and America’s NATO allies.
The message of the weekend march in Nuuk was clear. But many Greenlanders fear that their voices are being lost in the transatlantic furor, Pele Broberg — the leader of the pro-independence Naleraq party — told ABC News.
“We are currently being caught in broader political conflicts driven by opposition to Donald Trump, because we are just a stepping stone between the Europeans and the Americans,” Broberg said.
“Everybody is busy and stepping on Greenland to make a point that Donald Trump is a bad man,” he added. “I’m not a pro-Trump guy. I’m not pro anything with the U.S. with regards to how they’re handling this situation.”
‘Territories don’t have any rights’ Naleraq is the second-largest party and the official opposition in Greenland’s parliament. While Greenlandic political parties have agreed on independence as a shared eventual goal, Naleraq is widely seen as pushing for a more immediate breakaway from Denmark. The party is also considered by observers to be the most open to U.S. cooperation.
Broberg was clear that he considers Copenhagen at least partly responsible for the crisis engulfing Greenland. “The problem is that everybody talked about the Greenlandic people without the Greenlandic people,” he said.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has repeatedly said that Greenland belongs to Greenlanders and that no decision on the island’s future can be made without their agreement. But Broberg said that the framing of Trump’s bid to acquire Greenland as an attack on Denmark has sown confusion.
“Either Greenland truly belongs to the Greenlandic people, or it is treated as part of the Danish Kingdom. In practice, it cannot be both,” he said. Copenhagen, he said, “has managed to marginalize the Greenlandic government … They have managed to make it a matter of the Danish Kingdom and not the Greenlandic people.”
“Territories don’t have any rights — peoples have rights,” Broberg added.
Broberg said he believes there is “no doubt” that the Danish government is using the current crisis to undermine the goal of Greenlandic independence, using the threat of U.S. domination as a foil.
The Greenlandic government — currently led by the Demokraatit party — and Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen have made clear they have no intention of joining the U.S.
“If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” Nielsen said during a press conference earlier this month. “Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”
The next general election in Greenland is scheduled for 2029, the year Trump’s second term ends.
Amid Trump’s threats, the leaders of all five political parties holding seats in Greenland’s parliament also released a joint statement. “We do not want to be Americans, we do not want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” they said.
A bipartisan U.S. Congressional delegation traveled to Denmark last weekend in a bid to reassure Danes and Greenlanders of their support. Delegation leader Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said at an event in Copenhagen, “I hope that the people of the Kingdom of Denmark do not abandon their faith in the American people.”
Broberg, whose party placed second in last year’s elections with 24% of the vote, suggested there had been a damaging lack of communication between Nuuk and Washington.
“The problem is that they are reacting out of panic rather than having a clear strategy,” Broberg said of the Greenlandic government. “I encouraged them last year, before the elections, to actually go to speak to the U.S. representatives. But they didn’t want to do that because they felt insulted by the way they were talked about.”
‘This started with Trump’ Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Frederiksen at that time dismissed the proposal as “absurd.”
President Joe Biden’s administration also showed a keen interest in Greenland, though it engaged in a softer approach. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the island in 2021 and told reporters he was there “because the United States deeply values our partnership and wants to make it even stronger.”
His trip followed bilateral successes in 2020 — before Trump left office — that saw the U.S. reopen its Nuuk consulate, expand cooperation at the American Thule Air Base, since renamed as the Pituffik Space Base, and agree to a new economic collaboration strategy.
Broberg said it is clear that Greenland is part of the long-term, bipartisan U.S. strategic picture. But the crisis over the island’s sovereignty, he said, “started with Donald Trump.”
“We’re not a pro-Trump or pro-U.S. party,” he said. “We’re a pro-Greenland party. We don’t tolerate anything of what came out of the American president’s mouth with regards to Greenland and its people’s rights.”
Broberg, a former Greenlandic foreign minister, urged dialogue. “You have to work this problem, not become the problem,” he said.
Still, Broberg acknowledged that the situation “has escalated to a point where simple solutions are no longer available,” citing the brewing transatlantic trade war. “I don’t see a way out of this that doesn’t involve an election in Greenland.”
Broberg said Naleraq foresees a free association agreement with Denmark twinned with a defense-and security-agreement with the U.S., under which Washington would gain exclusive rights to military operations on the island.
“Under the current defense agreement, the U.S. does not hold full military exclusivity over Greenland,” he said, referring to the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement that gave the U.S. military access across the island. “That’s why you can see that Donald Trump looked at the stationing of troops this week as an escalation, as a provocation.”
Broberg also said Naleraq has discussed the formation of a Greenlandic coast guard — with personnel potentially numbering in the low thousands — to help guard Greenland’s 27,000-mile coastline.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed suggestions that a larger U.S. military footprint on Greenland can address his purported concerns over Russian and Chinese presence in the High North. “I could put a lot of soldiers there right now if I want. But you need more than that. You need ownership,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One this month.
Nonetheless, Broberg said his party is “genuinely interested” in working with the U.S. on security and trade. “We are, from a political point of view, looking to be globalist. We are a free trade country. We don’t impose tariffs on anybody, no matter what,” he said.
Asked if he was currently in touch with the Trump administration, Broberg replied, “Not at all.”
Trump has been dismissive of Greenland’s prime minister. After Nielsen said the island would not join the U.S., Trump told reporters, “That’s their problem. I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Subs in the fjords Trump’s reasoning for wanting “complete and total control” of Greenland is the purported threat posed by Russia and China in the Arctic.
NATO allies have said they agree that regional military capabilities and readiness should be bolstered. Last year, Copenhagen announced a $6.5 billion Arctic defense package in response to U.S. criticism that it had failed to adequately protect Greenland.
And last week, eight NATO nations sent small contingents of troops to Greenland for what they said were military exercises. In an interview early this week, Broberg was fiercely critical of what he described as that “very stupid” move, saying he felt it would be interpreted as “an escalation” by the U.S.
Broberg also said it was a mistake to send the troops to Nuuk and Greenland’s west coast. “The Russians are on the east coast, they’re in the northeast,” he said.
“If they really wanted to placate the US … they should put them on the northeast coast where nobody lives,” Broberg added.
Asked whether the Russian-Chinese threat to Greenland was genuine or concocted, Broberg replied, “I think the truth is somewhere in between … You don’t have smoke without some fire.”
But he noted that hunting parties — traveling over the frozen terrain quickly and quietly on dogsleds, a mode of transport Trump appeared to mock when criticizing Danish military capabilities in Greenland — “have, on occasion, reported seeing submarines near the coast or fjords.”
“We have never been told what kind of subs there are. But the presumption is Russian subs. So there is some truth to it. But if it’s crawling with them, or if it’s one every 10 years — I have no idea.”
