First Thing: Swiss investigators race to identify victims after 40 killed in resort bar fire | Crans-Montana fire
Good morning.
Swiss investigators are racing to identify the victims of a fire that tore through a crowded bar, killing about 40 people and injuring 115 who were celebrating at a New Year’s Eve party in the Alpine ski resort of Crans-Montana.
President Guy Parmelin has said the country will hold five days of mourning, describing the blaze as one of the most traumatic events in Switzerland’s history. “It was a drama of an unknown scale,” he said, paying tribute to the many “young lives that were lost and interrupted”.
A talented young Italian golfer, Emanuele Galeppini, on Friday became the first named victim.
Parmelin said Switzerland owed it to those young people, who had their “projects, hopes and dreams” cut short, to ensure such a tragedy never happened again.
How did the fire start? The fire broke out at 1.30am on Thursday in the town’s Le Constellation bar, but it’s not yet clear what set off the blaze. Some witnesses said it started after sparklers or flares were put into champagne bottles.
How long will it take to identify the dead? Swiss police have warned it could take days or even weeks, leaving an agonising wait for family and friends.
Mamdani pledges ‘new era’ for New York and vows to govern ‘audaciously’
Zohran Mamdani vowed to “reinvent” New York City in a speech on his first day as mayor, promising “a new era” for America’s largest city and an ambitious start to his term of office.
The 34-year-old political star and democratic socialist, who a year ago was a virtually unknown state assemblyman, is the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of south Asian descent and the first to be born in Africa. He is also the first to be sworn in using the Qur’an.
Mamdani said a “moment like this comes rarely and rarer still is it that the people themselves whose hands are upon the levers of change”.
What else did he say? Mamdani did not shy away from his socialist politics. “I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being called radical,” he said to loud cheers from the gathered crowd. He ended by saying: “The work has only just begun.”
Venezuela is open to negotiating an agreement with the US to combat drug trafficking, the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, has said, but he declined to comment on a reported CIA-led strike on a Venezuelan docking area that Donald Trump claimed was used by cartels.
Maduro, in the pre-recorded interview with the Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, reiterated his belief that the US wants to force a change of government in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through its months-long pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August.
“What are they seeking? It is clear that they seek to impose themselves through threats, intimidation and force,” Maduro said, later adding that it was time for both nations to “start talking seriously, with data in hand.”
In other news …
George Clooney has lashed out at Donald Trump for criticising France’s decision to grant the Hollywood actor and his family French citizenship. Referring to the US midterm elections, Clooney responded: “We have to make America great again. We’ll start in November.”
The daughter of the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, who is likely being prepared as his successor, has accompanied her parents on her first public visit to the Kumsusan mausoleum to pay respects to former leaders, ahead of an event that lead to her succession being formalised.
Victoria Jones, the daughter of the actor Tommy Lee Jones, has been found dead in a San Francisco hotel. Jones, 34, was discovered in the early hours of New Year’s Day, according to TMZ, which cited law enforcement sources.
The largest protests in Iran for three years entered a fifth day yesterday amid reports of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces, with state-affiliated media confirming at least two people had been killed.
Stat of the day: More than 60 Henri Matisse artworks donated to Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris
The Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris has received an “extraordinarily generous” donation of 61 works by Henri Matisse that have been kept in the artist’s family. Most of the donated art – which includes paintings, drawings, etchings, lithographs and a sculpture – features the painter’s daughter Marguerite.
Culture pick: Marty Supreme review – Timothée Chalamet a smash in spectacular screwball ping-pong nightmare
Following every dizzying spin of Chalamet’s table tennis hustler, Josh Safdie’s whip-crack comedy serves sensational shots – and a smart return by Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s a marathon sprint of gonzo calamities and uproar, a sociopath-screwball nightmare like something by Mel Brooks – only in place of gags there are detonations of bad taste, cinephile allusions, alpha cameos, racism and antisemitism and erotic adventures.
Don’t miss this: ‘I don’t want to resent the thing I love’ – Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor on romance, rationing and retirement
Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor both have bigger films on release but are hugely proud of The History of Sound, which has been four years in the making. They talk about the vulnerability of singing, the cost of inhabiting a role – and rationing future parts.
Climate check: From rent to utility bills – the politicians and advocates making climate policy part of the affordability agenda
A group of progressive politicians and advocates are reframing emissions-cutting measures as a form of economic populism as the Trump administration derides climate policy as a “scam” and fails to deliver on promises to tame energy costs and inflation.
Last Thing: South Park writer buys ‘Trump Kennedy Center’ domain name
Donald Trump may be remaking the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts into a pool of his self-reflection, but a writer for South Park, the TV series that better reflects the obsessions and tendencies of the administration than any political pundit, has purchased the rights to trumpkennedycenter.org.
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