Owner of Swiss bar where deadly New Year’s fire killed 40 detained by prosecutors: Officials
A general view of Le Constellation wine bar after a memorial ceremony in tribute to victims of the Crans-Montana bar fire on January 09, 2026 in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. Harold Cunningham/Getty Images
(LONDON) — Prosecutors on Friday detained the owner of a Swiss bar where a deadly New Year’s Day fire killed 40 people and injured 116 others, according to officials.
Jacques Moretti was placed in pre-trial detention after a meeting with prosecutors in Sion, the prosecutor’s office for Switzerland’s Valais region said.
The blaze ripped through Le Constellation, a popular bar in the resort town of Crans-Montana in the Swiss Alps, early on Jan. 1.
Moretti’s wife and business partner Jessica Moretti also attended the meeting but was not detained, according to the office. She was present at the bar during the fire and was burned on her arm.
“My constant thoughts are with the victims and those who are fighting today. This is an unimaginable tragedy,” Moretti told reporters outside the prosecutor’s office.
The bar had not had any inspections in the last five years, Swiss officials said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“There was a culture of reckless risk-taking”, Nicolas Féraud, the municipal chief of Crans-Montana, said at a press conference earlier this week. “This endangered customers and staff,” he said.
Féraud said that the municipal government had “never received any alerts” about problems in the bar. He also confirmed that there was an emergency exit in the basement, but could not say whether it was open, closed or blocked.
The blaze of “undetermined origin” broke out at the bar at about 1:30 a.m. local time on Jan. 1, the Cantonal Police of Valais said in a statement at the time of the fire.
On Jan. 2, the Valais attorney general told reporters that investigators are “pursuing several hypotheses” based on evidence they’ve gathered.
“We currently assume that the fire was caused by sparklers attached to champagne bottles that came too close to the ceiling,” she said at a news conference.
Self check-in kiosk are blocked off at Rafael Hernandez International Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. (Yadira Hernandez-Pico/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Despite the Federal Aviation Administration reopening the Eastern Caribbean airspace following the dramatic capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces, some American tourists said they remain stranded across the region.
As airlines scrambled on Sunday to add flights and get people home from the Caribbean, tourists such as Nydia Han said they remain stuck.
Han, an anchor and reporter for ABC Philadelphia station WPVI, said she and her family were supposed to fly from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Philadelphia on Sunday night. But now, she said she has been told by the airlines that she can’t get a flight home until Friday.
“Unfortunately, because of Maduro’s capture and airspace being closed, we are stuck here in Vieques,” Han said in a video she shared with ABC News.
The FAA issued a so-called notice to airmen (NOTAM) to airlines early Saturday that it was banning flights from entering the Eastern Caribbean airspace “due to safety-of-flight risk associated with ongoing military activity.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a social media post later on Saturday that the Caribbean airspace ban would expire at midnight Eastern time on Sunday.
Major U.S. air carriers — including Southwest, JetBlue, United, Delta and American — canceled hundreds of flights during the airspace ban and some are scrambling to add additional flights to the region to accommodate affected customers.
Delta says they’ve added 2,600 seats through extra flights on Monday and the airline says it’s working to reaccommodate all customers by Tuesday.
Delta said delays could occur in the Caribbean on Monday because of the increased airline capacity and recommended that customers with confirmed and rebooked tickets on Monday arrive three hours early to allow for crowded airports.
Customers without confirmed tickets should not go to the airport until they’ve been rebooked.
American Airlines has added a total of 7,000 more seats with 43 extra flights. On Monday, for the first time in over a decade, American will operate interisland flights in the Eastern Caribbean with two flights connecting Anguilla Wallblake, Anguilla (AXA) and Beef Island, BVI (EIS) to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Flights throughout the Caribbean — including other popular destinations such as Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Martin and St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands — were also canceled during the airspace ban, but some airports are getting back to normal.
Flights were arriving and departing from the Queen Beatrix International Airport in Oranjestad, Aruba, according to FlightRadar24.
About 29 flights into and out of Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Puerto Rico were canceled on Sunday, a far cry from the 400 inbound and outbound flights canceled on Saturday.
Billy Gunther of Florida said he and his wife are newlyweds and were wrapping up their stay at an Airbnb in Puerto Rico on Saturday when they got a notification that their flight was canceled.
Gunther told ABC affiliate station WZVN in Naples, Florida, that it could be another three days before he and his wife get a flight back home. Gunther said he has spoken to other tourists coping with flight cancellations.
“So, you have a lot of people who are anxious, that they don’t know when they’re going to come home,” Gunther said.
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.”
Iranian protesters participate in a pro-Government rally in Tehran, Iran, on January 12, 2026. The rally takes place in Tehran against the recent anti-government unrest, opposition to the U.S. and Israel in Iran, and in support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — The death toll from major anti-government protests in Iran reached at least 2,000 as of Tuesday, according to data published by the the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), over 16 days of unrest.
U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday, “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price.”
“I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” Trump added.
At least 10,721 people have been arrested, HRANA said in an earlier update on Tuesday, in protests that have been recorded in 606 locations in 187 cities across all 31 Iranian provinces. Among the dead are at least nine children, the group reported.
The HRANA data relies on the work of activists inside and outside the country. ABC News cannot independently verify these numbers. The group earlier on Tuesday said 646 people had been killed. The Iranian government has not provided any death tolls during the ongoing protests.
Iranian state-aligned media, meanwhile, has reported that more than 100 members of the security forces have been killed in the unrest. HRANA said that 133 military and security personnel were among those killed in the protest wave to date, along with one prosecutor.
Trump on Monday announced a 25% tariff on any country doing business with Iran, after repeatedly warning Tehran against the use of force to suppress the ongoing protests.
“Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,” Trump said in a social media post on Monday. “This Order is final and conclusive.”
In response to the announcement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the position of Beijing — which is a key trading partner for Tehran — “is very clear — there are no winners in a tariff war. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
China “supports Iran in maintaining national stability,” she added. “We have always opposed interference in other countries’ internal affairs and the use or threat of force in international relations.”
Trump’s national security team are expected to meet at the White House on Tuesday to discuss his options for intervention in the Islamic Republic.
One U.S. official told ABC News that among the options under consideration are new sanctions against key regime figures or against Iran’s energy or banking sectors.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested reporters on Monday that military options remain open to Trump.
The president, she said, “is always keeping all of his options on the table and air strikes would be one of the many, many options on the table for the commander in chief. Diplomacy is always the first option for the president.”
Citing “escalating” protests and increased security measures, the State Department also urged Americans to leave Iran.
“U.S. citizens should expect continued internet outages, plan alternative means of communication, and, if safe to do so, consider departing Iran by land to Armenia or Türkiye,” a new security alert posted on the U.S. “virtual” Embassy Tehran website on Monday stated.
Protests have been spreading across the country since late December. The first marches took place in downtown Tehran, with participants demonstrating against rising inflation and the falling value of the national currency, the rial.
As the protests spread, some have taken on a more explicitly anti-government tone.
The theocratic government in Tehran — headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — moved to tame the protests, with security forces reportedly using tear gas and live ammunition to disperse gatherings.
A sustained national internet outage has been in place across the country for several days. Online monitoring group NetBlocks said on Tuesday that the “nationwide internet shutdown” had been ongoing for 108 hours.
The United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Tuesday that hundreds of people had been killed and thousands arrested.
Turk said he was “horrified by the mounting violence against protesters” and urged Iranian authorities to immediately halt all forms of violence and repression, and restore full access to internet and telecommunications.
Khamenei and top Iranian officials have said they are willing to engage with the economic grievances of protesters, though have framed the unrest as driven by “rioters” and “terrorists” sponsored by foreign nations — prime among them the U.S. and Israel — and supported by foreign infiltrators.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the wave of protests as a “terrorist war” while speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran.
Also on Monday, state television broadcast footage of pro-government rallies organized in other major cities.
The footage showed crowds waving Iranian flags in Tehran’s Revolution Square. State television described the Tehran demonstration as an “Iranian uprising against American-Zionist terrorism.”
Dissident figures abroad, meanwhile, have urged Iranians to take to the street and overthrow the government.
Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi — who from his base in the U.S. has become a prominent critic of the Iranian government — on Monday appealed to Trump to act in support of the protesters.
“I have called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom and to overwhelm the security forces with sheer numbers,” Pahlavi wrote on X. “Last night they did that. Your threat to this criminal regime has also kept the regime’s thugs at bay. But time is of the essence.”
“Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran,” Pahlavi added.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian, Morgan Winsor, Meredith Deliso, Anne Flaherty, Mariam Khan, Othon Leyva, Britt Clennett, Joseph Simonetti and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
