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.
A private residential building in the Darnytskyi district lies partially destroyed by a Russian drone strike on December 27, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Andrii Khodkov/Apostrophe/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
(KYIV and LONDON) — Russia has carried out one of the biggest attacks on Kyiv in months, using an estimated 500 drones and 40 missiles, including powerful Kinzhal missiles, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The strikes began early Saturday morning and appeared to target power stations and residential area buildings in Kyiv as officials said at least 22 people have been injured, including two children, with 12 being taken to hospital.
In the wider Kyiv oblast, at least one woman has been killed and several apartment buildings were hit as fires broke out and rescue workers looked for people believed to be trapped under the rubble amid the destruction.
More than 2,600 apartment buildings and many schools have lost heating and an estimated 320,000 homes in the region had no electricity.
There were hits on Kyiv’s TPP-5 power plant and on the Bila Tserkva plant, according to officials, in another sign that Russia is attempting to break Ukraine’s energy infrastructure during the winter months.
The Ukrainian president said the attack was Russia’s “answer” to peace efforts, calling on Western countries to send more air defense systems.
Zelenskyy told journalists in a WhatsApp chat on Saturday –while already on the plane to the United States for his planned meeting with President Donald Trump — that Ukraine can only move toward peace if there are strong, legal security guarantees from the U.S. and Europe. He said Ukraine has agreed to “many different compromises,” but stressed they only make sense if the country is fully protected the day after a ceasefire.
Zelenskyy said everything depends on keeping allies together. “If the whole world – Europe and America – is on our side, together we will stop Putin,” he said.
Earlier this week, at least seven people were killed and 39 injured in Ukraine after Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of long-range drone strikes Wednesday night into Thursday morning, according to Ukrainian officials.
“Unfortunately, even on Christmas Eve and during Christmas night, the Russian army did not stop its brutal strikes against Ukraine, targeting our energy system and our people. There are brownouts in many of our cities and villages,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
“Russian troops are once again striking the cities of our east, and in Chernihiv, aid was being provided at the very moment of our conversation with the Patriarch to people wounded by a Russian drone that struck an ordinary residential building,” Zelenskyy added.
In this handout photo released by the Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Feb. 6, 2026, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Hamad Al Busaidi, US President Donald Trump’s Special Representative for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff and U.S. negotiator Jared Kushner meet ahead of the US-Iran talks, in Muscat, the capital of Oman. (Photo by Oman Foreign Ministry/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Negotiating teams from the United States and Iran are expected to meet on Friday in Oman, marking a reopening of nuclear talks following weeks of tensions and threats, as leaders in Tehran oversaw a deadly crackdown on widespread protests.
The U.S. side will be led by President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to the White House.
“The President has obviously been quite clear in his demands of the Iranian regime,” Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday during a press briefing. “Zero nuclear capability is something he’s been very explicit about.”
Iranian state-run media published photos and videos early on Friday of Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in the Omani capital, where he met with his local counterpart.
“Iran enters diplomacy with open eyes and a steady memory of the past year. We engage in good faith and stand firm on our rights,” Araghchi said on social media on Friday.
The talks, which were expected to begin at 10 a.m. local time, followed weeks of escalating tension between the U.S. and Iran, fueled in part by massive protests that have roiled Iran.
Those protests began in Tehran in late December in response to the collapse of the Iranian currency and the worsening of economic conditions, and then quickly took on a political character — with crowds on the streets openly calling for regime change.
Iranian authorities responded by launching a brutal crackdown on protests, according to observers. At least 6,495 protesters, along with hundreds of members of the state’s security forces, have been killed, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activist News Agency, an activist group. The group said it was reviewing thousands of other cases of possible deaths. ABC News cannot independently verify those figures.
As those protests escalated in January, Trump voiced concern for the protesters, saying, “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
Trump later in January said a “massive Armada” was heading toward the region. He warned Tehran to make a nuclear deal, saying another U.S. attack would be “far worse” than the U.S. strike on nuclear sites within Iran in June of last year.
The Iranian foreign minister responded by saying the country’s military had “their fingers on the trigger.”
Those tensions had to some extent begun to thaw by last week, when Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said he had instructed Araghchi to pursue “fair and equitable” talks with Washington. The White House had sought help from regional allies, who assisted in bringing Iran back to the negotiating table, according to both countries.
Araghchi said on Friday that any commitments made between the two countries “need to be honored,” adding, “Equal standing, mutual respect and mutual interest are not rhetoric — they are a must and the pillars of a durable agreement.”
Members of the Trump administration last held a series of nuclear talks with Iran in April and May 2025 in Oman. A round of those talks planned for June was scuttled after Israel launched aerial strikes on Iran, an attack that the U.S. later joined.
Senior U.S. officials have continued publicly voicing concerns about the Iranian leadership in the days since the latest round of talks were announced.
“The Iranian regime does not reflect the people of Iran, nor their culture rooted within a deep history,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday. “I know of no other country where there’s a bigger difference between the people who lead the country and the people who live there.”
The virtual U.S. Embassy in Iran posted on Thursday a security alert again calling for all U.S. citizens to depart Iran, provided it’s safe for them to do so.
“If you cannot leave, find a secure location within your residence or another safe building,” the alert said.
Leavitt on Thursday said Trump was seeking a deal with Iran, but, she added, “I would remind the Iranian regime that the President has many options at his disposal, aside from diplomacy, as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world.”
A screen grab from a video shows Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber carries out a strike in settlement of Vilcha in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine on December 23, 2025. (The Russian Ministry of Defense/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Russia launched a “massive” drone and missile strike on Ukraine overnight into Tuesday morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram, prompting power outages in several regions around the country, according to the Energy Ministry in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 635 drones and 38 missiles into the country overnight, of which 587 drones and 34 missiles were shot down or suppressed. The impacts of missiles and drones were reported across 21 locations, the air force said.
Monday’s night’s attack was the largest Russian combined strike since Dec. 6, according to Ukrainian air force data analyzed by ABC News, and the third largest of the war to date.
Zelenskyy said Russia was “primarily targeting our energy sector, civilian infrastructure and literally all aspects of daily life.”
At least three people were killed — one person in Kyiv, one in Khmelnytskyi and a 4-year-old child in Zhytomyr — Zelenskyy said. At least 13 regions were targeted, he added. Local officials reported that at least 11 people were also injured across Ukraine.
The Energy Ministry said in a post to Telegram that “emergency power cuts have been introduced in a number of regions of Ukraine. As soon as the security situation allows, rescue workers and energy specialists will begin to repair the damage caused by the attack in order to restore power supply to the regions as quickly as possible.”
“Emergency power cuts will be lifted once the situation in the power grid has stabilized,” the ministry added.
Zelenskyy said the attack “sends an extremely clear signal about Russia’s priorities” as representatives from the warring parties engage in the latest round of U.S.-sponsored shuttle diplomacy intended to secure a peace deal.
“The attack comes just before Christmas, when people want to be with their families, at home, in safety,” he wrote. “The attack actually comes at the height of negotiations aimed at ending this war.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy said, “simply cannot accept the need to stop killing.”
“This means that the world is not putting enough pressure on Russia,” he added. “We need to react now. We need to push Russia towards peace and guaranteed security.” Zelenskyy also called for “air defense for Ukraine, funding for arms purchases, the supply of energy equipment” to help blunt Russian attacks.
Ukraine continued its own long-range strike campaign overnight, with the Russian Defense Ministry reporting the downing of at least 44 drones.
Airports in Volgograd, Grozny, Magas and Vladikavkaz were temporarily closed amid the attacks, according to Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya.
In the Stavropol region, Gov. Vladimir Vladimirov said an attempted drone attack targeted facilities in Budennovsk, causing a fire in an industrial zone.
In the Rostov region, Gov. Yury Slyusar said drone debris damaged a fence and set fire to a house under construction in the village of Grushevskaya, which was later extinguished.
Meanwhile, on the diplomatic front, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators returned home after meetings with U.S. officials in Miami over the weekend.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in remarks published Tuesday that Russia is waiting for information from the U.S. on talks with Ukrainian and European officials, after which he said Moscow would assess whether any developments “match the spirit of Anchorage” — referring to the summit between Putin and President Donald Trump in Alaska in August.
Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev said he had returned to Moscow after taking part in the Miami talks. Earlier, the Kremlin said he would brief Putin on his return.
Vice President JD Vance on Monday said recent talks had achieved a “breakthrough” in that “all the issues are actually out in the open.”
Peskov, though, told the Rossiya-1 television channel on Tuesday that Russia does not know what Vance was referring to.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said in social media posts on Monday that he will be briefed by the Ukrainian negotiating team on Tuesday morning. “There are 20 points of the plan,” he said. “Not everything is perfect so far, but this plan is in place.”
Zelenskyy said there is now a framework of security guarantees with European nations and the U.S. The “bilateral” and “legally binding” deal with the U.S. will need to be reviewed by Congress, he added. “As of today, this all looks quite solid and dignified. For now, however, these are working drafts prepared by our military.”
“This indicates that we are very close to a real outcome,” Zelenskyy added, noting that work was ongoing on a separate draft agreement regarding Ukraine’s economic recovery.
“There are certain things we are not prepared to accept,” Zelenskyy said. “And there are things — of that I am sure — that the Russians are not prepared to accept either. The Americans are currently continuing negotiations with Russian representatives. They will hold talks, and then we will receive feedback from them.”
