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New year drone strike kills 24 in Russian-occupied Ukraine, Moscow says

A Ukrainian drone strike killed 24 people and injured at least 50 more as they celebrated the new year in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Russian officials said, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise despite diplomats hailing productive peace talks. Three drones struck a cafe and hotel in the resort town of Khorly on the Black Sea coast, the region’s Moscow-installed leader, Vladimir Saldo, said in a statement on Telegram on Thursday. He said one of the drones was carrying an incendiary mixture that sparked a blaze. On Thursday evening a Ukrainian military spokesperson told the Interfax Ukraine news agency that Kyiv’s forces exclusively targeted Russian military or energy sites. The general staff spokesperson did not refer specifically to Russian accounts of a strike on a hotel, but said all strikes by the Ukrainian military were published on a general staff social media page. “The Defence Forces of Ukraine adhere to the norms of international humanitarian law and strike exclusively at enemy military targets, fuel and energy facilities of the Russian Federation, and other legitimate targets,” Interfax quoted the spokesperson as saying. A number of Russian officials condemned the attack. The chair of the upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, said it strengthened Russia’s resolve to quickly achieve its goals in its almost four-year invasion of Ukraine. The strike “once again demonstrates the validity of our initial demands”, Matviyenko said. The statement follows claims from Moscow that Ukraine had launched a long-range drone attack against one of Vladimir Putin’s official residences in north-western Russia on Tuesday. Kyiv said the claims were a lie. Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its specialists had accessed the navigation system in one of the drones it claimed was used in the attack, and that data extracted confirmed that Putin’s residence was the target. The ministry did not share evidence of its findings, but officials said it would transfer the data to US officials “through established channels”. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the CIA had determined that no attempted attack had taken place. Donald Trump had initially said he was “very angry” about the purported attack, but he later posted a link on social media to a New York Post editorial describing the Russian claims as “bluster”. Russia’s defence ministry also released a video of a downed drone it said was involved in the attack. The night-time clip shows a man in camouflage gear, a helmet and a Kevlar vest standing near a damaged drone lying in snow. The man, his face covered, talks about the drone. Neither the man nor the defence ministry provided any location or date, and neither the video nor its claims could be independently verified. Kyiv has called the allegations of an attack on Putin’s residence a ruse to derail ongoing peace negotiations, which have gathered pace in recent weeks on both sides of the Atlantic. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in his new year address that a peace deal was “90% ready” but that the remaining 10%, believed to include key sticking points such as territory, would “determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe, how people will live”. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said on Wednesday that he, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, had a “productive call” with the national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany and Ukraine “to discuss advancing the next steps in the European peace process”. “We focused on how to move the discussions forward in a practical way on behalf of [the] peace process, including strengthening security guarantees and developing effective deconfliction mechanisms to help end the war and ensure it does not restart,” he wrote on X. Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, reaffirmed that European and Ukrainian officials planned to meet on Saturday, and Zelenskyy is expected to hold talks with European leaders next week. With additional reporting by the Associated Press

Switzerland to hold five days of mourning after 40 killed in resort fire

Switzerland will hold five days of mourning after an “unprecedented” fire 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. The country’s president, Guy Parmelin, described 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”. Switzerland owed it to those young people, who had their “projects, hopes and dreams” cut short, to ensure such a tragedy never happened again, added the president. Witnesses said the fire broke out at 1.30am in the town’s Le Constellation bar after sparklers or flares were put into champagne bottles. Two women told the French broadcaster BFMTV a bartender carried a female member of staff who was holding one of the bottles. The flames set fire to the ceiling. Within seconds the blaze had spread, engulfing a crowded basement packed with revellers. Many were teenagers. One of the women described a crowd surge as people desperately tried to escape up a narrow flight of stairs. Ulysse Brozzo, 16, an instructor at a local ski school, said several of his friends were in the club at the time. He said he had spoken to some who were safe, but had yet to hear from others he knew were inside when the fire broke out. A friend of a friend was in a coma at Sion hospital. “It’s a total tragedy,” he said. “There were hundreds of people inside.” Video posted by survivors showed the blaze taking hold immediately above the bar. Other footage showed grim scenes of orange flames billowing from a ground-floor lounge and several people lying motionless on the street. The canton prosecutor for Valais, Beatrice Pilloud, said she could not comment on reports that lighted candles had caused the inferno. “An investigation is taking place. It will identify the exact circumstances of what happened,” she said, confirming that the basement steps were very narrow. She said it was too early to draw any conclusions about emergency exits. Frédéric Gisler, the canton’s police commander, said his officers arrived at the scene at 1.32am, two minutes after receiving an emergency call. He described the situation as “unprecedented”. A red alert was issued, with multiple firefighting teams, 42 ambulances and 13 helicopters sent to the area. “Their first mission was to provide care to the victims … and direct them to the various hospitals. The firefighters at the same time secured the site,” he said. The injured were dispatched to hospitals in Sion, Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich. Parmelin – speaking in his first day in the job as Switzerland’s new head of state – said some of those who survived were “severely injured”. They had suffered serious burns, as well as damage to their lungs. Lausanne university hospital said it was treating 22 patients aged between 16 and 26. The hospital’s general manager, Claire Charmet, said eight of them were resuscitated on arrival. They were now being treated in critical and specialised care units. “This will be a long and intensive process, lasting several weeks, perhaps even months,” she said. Investigators now have the grisly task of identifying the victims and taking DNA samples from their families. Some of those caught up in the fire were visiting the ski resort from neighbouring countries. Italy’s foreign ministry said 16 of its nationals were missing and 12 were among the injured. The morning after the tragedy, two women held each other and wept in front of the police cordon outside Le Constellation, while mourners left flowers. The club itself, which is frequented by younger people and tourists, was surrounded by white police tents. Shortly before 1pm a Swiss police forensics team entered the restricted zone. Behind the building, an apartment block – also called Le Constellation – had smashed windows where firefighters had attempted to let the smoke from the blaze escape. Crans-Montana is a bustling resort town of about 10,000 people perched high in the Valais canton of the Swiss Alps, with a view across the valley to the famed Matterhorn mountain. Unlike nearby Verbier, which attracts a wealthy anglophone crowd, Crans-Montana is popular mainly with wealthy Europeans. But Le Constellation itself was more of a cheap and cheerful bar for younger people and tourists. Brozzo, the ski instructor, said the venue was set over two floors, with a bar on the main floor and narrow stairs leading to a basement nightclub below, where he speculated it would have been possible for people to have become trapped and incapacitated from smoke inhalation. He said shisha pipes were available to smoke. “What people are saying is that the charcoal on the shisha could have spilled and caused the fire,” Brozzo said. Swiss officials called the blaze a embrasement généralisé. The French firefighting term describes how a fire can trigger the release of combustible gases. These then ignite violently and cause what English-speaking firefighters would term a flashover or a backdraft. Speaking on Thursday morning, Mathias Reynard, the president of the Valais canton, said what should have been a moment of celebration “turned into a nightmare”. He said he was devastated by the tragedy. “I can’t hide from you that we are all shaken by what happened overnight in Crans,” he told a press conference. Le Constellation opened in 2015 and could accommodate up to 300 people inside, with another 40 on a heated terrace, French media reported. The bar’s Facebook and Instagram pages appear to have been deleted and are unavailable. The owner of the Dédé clothing store, directly across the street from Le Constellation, said the venue was a popular destination for younger people – including the children of her friends, who would often drink there from as young as 14 years old. François, 17, a ski instructor who said he had often partied at the bar, said new year parties were known as being more lax in terms of checking the age of bar entrants. The town relies heavily on a largely European clientele who come to ski, eat in several Michelin-starred restaurants and shop at Moncler and Louis Vuitton stores. It has about 3,000 hotel rooms and 10,000 residents. In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on people to show caution in the coming days. They urged them to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.

‘It happened in seconds’: sudden inferno brings horror to Swiss ski resort

The new year had passed its first hour and the party in Le Constellation was in full swing with revellers dancing to thumping hip-hop. Dawn was far off and the teenagers and twenty-somethings were in no hurry to leave the bar. It was, after all, New Year’s Day. Outside, darkness draped Crans-Montana, a ski resort in the Swiss Alps with a reputation for posh luxury. Le Constellation, however, had few pretensions: a cavernous venue with TV screens on the top floor to watch sport, and a basement with low lighting, loud music and a dancefloor. It attracted a young crowd, including under-18s, mainly from Switzerland and continental Europe, and early on Thursday morning hundreds thronged the venue to see in 2026. Many would not live to see the sunrise. Investigators are still investigating the cause of the horror that began at 1.30am. Two witnesses said a bartender carried a female member of staff on his shoulders who was holding a champagne bottle that contained a lit sparkler, or flare, near the wooden ceiling above the bar area. An unverified photo posted on social media showed a white flame coming from a magnum of champagne. Others speculated that charcoal for shisha pipes may have spilled. Whatever the origin, flames began to lick across the ceiling of the basement bar. Video posted on social media, also unverified, showed people, silhouetted by fire, hastening through the venue while music continued to play. Some patrons used sweaters to try to extinguish flames, a witness said. The blaze turned into what Swiss officials called an embrasement généralisé, a term for a fire that releases combustible gases that can ignite violently, triggering what English-speaking firefighters call a flashover or backdraft. Le Constellation became an inferno. “The whole ceiling was in flames and the fire spread really fast. It happened in seconds,” two survivors, identified as Emma and Albane, later told the French network BFMTV. The conflagration was so sudden that some thought it was an explosion. Screams and cries filled the basement as people tried to escape. Many surged towards a door leading to a narrow flight of stairs. Others smashed windows that turned black and opaque. Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris, felt as if he was suffocating. He used a table to push a plexiglass pane out of its casing, allowing him to flee the “total chaos”, he told Associated Press. From the street, people rushed to help. “I thought that my little brother was inside so I came and I tried to break the window to help people to exit,” one man told the BBC. He saw people “burning from head to foot, no clothes any more”. Some witnesses likened the scene to a horror film. Dominic Dubois described an appalling spectacle as flames engulfed the venue. “You could see the orange, the orange, yellow, red,” he told Reuters. Police reached the scene at 1.32am, two minutes after reports of smoke. Bystanders and first responders worked together to pull people from oven-like temperatures into the cold outside, Dubois said. “One of the priorities was to get everyone warm ... the curtains of the restaurant were used.” A UBS bank branch opened to offer refuge, he said. “All the tables were pushed aside and people entered and it was warm in there, there was more light as well, so the triage was down there.” All through the night convoys of fire engines, police vehicles and about 40 ambulances raced to Crans-Montana, a picturesque area of snowy peaks and pine forests transformed into what may be one of the worst disasters in Switzerland’s recent history. About 10 helicopters joined the response. As news spread, parents and other relatives of those who had been inside the bar made their way to the scene. “There were people screaming, and then people lying on the ground, probably dead,” Samuel Rapp, 21, a local resident, told Reuters. “They had jackets over their faces.” Rapp said he had seen videos showing revellers trampling each other to escape. “People were shouting, ‘help me, please help us’.” Dozens of the injured, many in serious condition, swiftly filled hospitals in the Valais canton. More than a dozen were taken to Zurich university hospital, 150 miles to the north. A hospital in Lausanne that treated 22 patients said ages ranged from 16 to 26. Hospitals in neighbouring countries are expected to treat some victims. About 40 people died and 115 were injured, the Valais canton police commander, Frédéric Gisler, told a news conference, adding that the community was devastated. There was no detail given about the ages or nationalities of the dead. By 1pm bright sunshine lit up incongruous scenes in the centre of Crans-Montana: fake reindeer and Christmas decorations amid emergency vehicles, posters for new year parties amid huddles of hushed bystanders. Switzerland’s president, Guy Parmelin, visited the scene, where forensic teams worked behind white screens. Families were still awaiting news of loved ones, he said. “Some don’t yet know if their children have died.” Switzerland will fly flags at half-mast for five days, Parmelin said. “What was meant to be a moment of joy has turned the first day of the year in Crans-Montana into a day of mourning affecting the entire country and beyond.” Many of the dead were young people with “projects, hopes and dreams”, he said. Valais canton’s attorney general, Beatrice Pilloud, rejected arson or terrorism as probable causes of the fire. “At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” she told reporters. Asked about emergency exits in the bar, she said it was too early to draw conclusions. There had been no arrests and there were no suspects, she said. As darkness fell across Crans-Montana on Thursday evening, blotting out its view of the Matterhorn mountain, shock and disbelief hovered over the town. Le Constellation was an institution, a bar that served mainly locals, not tourists. Unlike many other bars and clubs, it often had no cover charge and so attracted young people. Dozens of local teenagers, some in tears, gathered by the police cordon and laid flowers. The impromptu vigil drew Milica Lazic, who said she had heard no news about a friend who worked at the bar. Tourists continued to shop, ski and eat at restaurants. “I don’t think it means they don’t care, but they don’t know anyone involved,” said Ernesto Perila, 56, a cafe owner. “Life goes on, the world continues. I don’t think badly of anyone for that.” In the chill air, forensic teams, cloaked by the screens, continued their work.

Abortion may no longer be a top priority for Democratic voters ahead of 2026 midterms, polls show

Up to seven states will vote on abortion rights this year. But recent polling indicates that Democrats may not be able to count on the issue in their efforts to drive votes in the 2026 midterms, after making abortion rights the centerpiece of their pitch to voters in the elections that followed the fall of Roe v Wade. In 2024, 55% of Democrats said abortion was important to their vote, according to polling from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). But in October of this year, just 36% of Democrats said the same. By contrast, abortion remained about as important to Republicans in both 2024 and 2025, PRRI found. PRRI’s findings mirror a September poll from the 19th and SurveyMonkey, which found that the voters who cared most about abortion are people who want to see it banned. During the 2024 election, abortion was seen as the Democrats’ strongest issue, after the 2022 overturning of Roe sparked a wave of deeply unpopular state-level abortion bans. Kamala Harris put abortion rights at the heart of her presidential campaign, while Democratic Senate candidates and Super Pacs poured an astounding $175m into abortion-related TV ads – far more than any other issue. Donald Trump, who enabled Roe’s collapse by appointing three conservative justices to the US supreme court, repeatedly tried to downplay the fight over abortion rights, viewing it as a political liability and a sure-fire boost for Democrats. But the power of the issue turned out to be overstated in 2024. Trump handily won the popular vote and Republicans ended up with control of both houses of Congress. Still, the president has largely avoided further action on the issue at the federal level, focusing instead on initiatives like cracking down on immigration, instituting steep tariffs and bulldozing the federal workforce. The tumult has further yanked Americans’ attention away from abortion, said Melissa Deckman, PRRI’s CEO. “It’s just hard to catch your breath, because every day there’s a new, outrageous thing happening with the administration,” Deckman said. Abortion, she added, has been replaced as a top issue by affordability and the economy. “That seems to be first and foremost for everyone. But it’s also, for Democrats, the state of democracy writ large. We consistently find that Democrats are more concerned about the health of democracy.” August polling from the group Emilys List, which champions Democratic women who support abortion rights, found that voters are now prioritizing the economy over abortion. But it also found that 49% of female voters consider threats to abortion rights to be a “dealbreaker”. Abortion remains a galvanizing issue in state supreme court elections, which now often have the final word on the legality of state-level abortion restrictions. Advocates are currently working to secure enough signatures to get abortion rights measures on the state ballots in Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon and Virginia. Idaho, Oregon and Virginia’s proposed measures would protect abortion access, while Nebraska and Montana’s measures would eliminate it. Two states, Nevada and Missouri, have already confirmed that they will have abortion-related measures on the ballot. (Nevada passed an abortion rights measure in 2024, but it must past a second time before the constitution can be amended.) In the past, Democrats have hoped that these kinds of measures, which voters tend to support, will elevate their candidates. But in 2024, voters backed abortion rights while rejecting Democratic candidates. Trump won four states that voted in support of ballot measures that added abortion rights to their state constitutions. Some of those measures have also proven to be less gamechanging than advocates originally hoped. In 2024, Missouri voters decided to amend the state constitution to protect abortion rights, making the state – which at the time banned virtually all abortions – the first state in the country to repeal a post-Roe ban. However, a protracted legal battle over the exact implications of the measure have repeatedly blocked Missouri abortion clinics from offering the procedure. Now, in 2026, voters will be asked whether they want to repeal the measure they passed just two years ago. “It just feels like such a messaging failure, to not understand and not be able to communicate that these people are going to continue to decimate abortion access,” said Alisha Dingus, executive director of the DC Abortion Fund, which helps people get the procedure. “I would like to see more politicians who are more comfortable talking about abortion more regularly.” The flagging attention to abortion is having a trickle-down effect on fundraising efforts by abortion rights advocates. Donations to the DC Abortion Fund dropped precipitously in 2025, as post-Roe rage donations evaporated and economic struggles led reliable donors to stop giving. Data indicates that US abortions have increased over the past few years, thanks in large part to online access to abortion pills. But Dingus fears that funding will dry up for women who need to travel to clinics for abortions. Right now, the DC Abortion Fund gives out about $3,800 to dozens of people per week to support costs associated with abortions – but Dingus isn’t sure how much longer the money will last. “What I see is going off the cliff in 2026, because we can only stretch those additional dollars for so long,” Dingus said.

Le Constellation bar fire in Switzerland: what we know so far

Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 115 injured, many of them seriously, after a fire at a bar in the Swiss Alps during a new year celebration at a luxury ski resort. The blaze ripped through the packed bar, Le Constellation, early on Thursday in Crans-Montana, one of the top-ranked ski destinations in Europe, which lies about 25 miles (40km) north-west of Zermatt. Swiss police believe about 40 people died. The victims are believed to come from several countries. The Swiss president, Guy Parmelin, said many of them were young people with “projects, hopes and dreams”. Investigators said there was no indication of terrorism or arson. Many of the victims could not be identified immediately because of the severity of their burns. Work is under way to name the victims and inform their families but “that will take time and for the time being it is premature to give you a more precise figure”, the Valais canton police commander, Frédéric Gisler, said. “We are devastated,” he told a news conference after one of the worst tragedies in recent Swiss history. What happened? The fire raged through Le Constellation at about 1.30am (00.30 GMT) as revellers in the packed bar were ringing in the new year. “The party was in full swing … music and champagne flowing freely,” a local resident told 24 heures, a Lausanne newspaper. Ambulances were parked outside the bar hours later and broken windows could be seen while the ground floor of the bar was strewn with abandoned shoes. Local media described a “smell of burning still in the air”. A tourist from New York filmed bright orange flames leaping from the bar, and told Agence France-Presse he had seen people running and screaming in the dark. A witness speaking to the French broadcaster BFMTV described people breaking windows to escape the blaze, some badly injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said he had seen about 20 people scrambling to get out and likened the scene to a “horror movie” as it unfolded across the street. The head of the regional government, Mathias Reynard, said: “This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare.” How many people were hurt? The police have said about 40 people are believed to have died and about 115 were injured in the blaze. Many of the victims were in their teens and 20s, officials said. Witnesses described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from the basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a small doorway. Investigators said they would work to determine whether fire safety protocols had been maintained. Le Constellation had a maximum capacity of about 300 people. The hospitals in Valais canton were full and had declared a state of emergency, with the injured being transported to various hospitals across Switzerland. Some patients may need to be sent to clinics in neighbouring countries, officials said. Helicopters and ambulances were sent to the scene to assist victims who were from several countries, officials said. The intensive care unit and operating room at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Valais state council president Mathias Reynard said. Sixteen Italians have been reported missing, while about a dozen more Italian nationals are being treated in hospital following the blaze, Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani said. There are 60 people being treated at a hospital in Sion. Lausanne University Hospital, which was treating the most severely injured among the victims, said the 22 patients in its care were aged between 16 and 26. Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris, survived the blaze by using a table to push a plexiglass window out of its casing, allowing him to escape the “total chaos” inside the bar where he said he felt like he was suffocating. One of his friends died and “two or three were missing”, he told the Associated Press. He said he had not seen the fire start, but did see waitresses arrive with champagne bottles containing sparklers. Unverified video showed several sparklers burning in bottles as the waitstaff entered the room. What caused it? Investigators said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire as experts had not been able to go inside the building. However, officials said there was no sign of terrorism or arson. “At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” said Beatrice Pilloud, the public prosecutor of the Valais canton. Officials called the blaze that raged through the crowded bar an “embrasement généralisé”, a firefighting term describing how a fire can trigger the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently and cause what English-speaking firefighters would call a flashover or a backdraft. The municipality of 10,000 residents had banned New Year’s Eve fireworks owing to a lack of rainfall in the past month, according to its website. Two women later told BFMTV they had been inside when they saw a barman carrying a female server on his shoulders. She was holding a lit candle in a bottle that set fire to the wooden ceiling. The flames quickly spread and caused the ceiling to collapse, they said. A photograph posted on social media showed a woman in a black dress holding a magnum of champagne in the basement of the bar. A large white flame could be seen coming from the top of the bottle. Unverified video footage showed the ceiling of the basement nightclub in flames as patrons fled the scene. Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report.

About 40 killed and 115 injured in fire at bar in Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana

About 40 people are believed to have been killed and 115 injured after a fire tore through a crowded bar during a New Year’s Eve party in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana. Swiss police confirmed several dozen partygoers were dead. The victims could not be immediately identified because of the severity of their burns, the ministry said. It confirmed arson was not responsible, with the blaze thought to be the result of an accident. A police spokesperson in the canton of Valais in south-west Switzerland said the fire started at about 1.30am local time (0030 GMT) in a bar called Le Constellation, which is popular with tourists, as revellers rang in the new year. “More than a hundred people were in the building and we are seeing many injured and many dead,” he said. Video from the scene shows orange flames billowing from inside the ground-floor bar and lounge. Screams can be heard as well as loud music. Several people were seen collapsed outside the building, which is located in the centre of the Valais resort. Two women told the French broadcaster BFMTV that they were inside Le Constellation when they saw a bartender carrying a female member of staff on his shoulders. She was holding a lit candle in a champagne bottle that set fire to a wooden ceiling. The flames quickly spread and collapsed the ceiling, they said. A photo showed a woman in a black dress in the basement of the bar, holding a magnum of champagne. A large white flame can be seen coming from the top of the bottle. One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door. Another witness speaking to BFMTV described partygoers breaking windows to escape the fire, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames. He likened what he saw to a horror movie as he watched from across the street. The morning after the tragedy, two women held each other and wept in front of the police cordon outside Le Constellation, while mourners left flowers. The club itself, which is frequented by younger people and tourists, was surrounded by police tents. Shortly before 1pm a Swiss police forensics team entered the tents. Behind the building, an apartment block – also called Le Constellation – had smashed windows where firefighters had attempted to let the smoke from the blaze escape. Crans-Montana is a bustling resort town of about 10,000 people perched high in the Valais canton of the Swiss Alps, with a view across the valley to the famed Matterhorn mountain. Unlike nearby Verbier, which attracts a wealthy anglophone crowd, Crans-Montana is popular mainly with wealthy Europeans. But Le Constellation itself was more of a cheap and cheerful bar for younger people and tourists. Ulysse Brozzo, 16, an instructor at the ESS ski school, said several of his friends were in the club at the time. He said he had spoken to some who were safe, but had yet to hear from others he knew were inside when the fire broke out. A friend of a friend was in a coma at Sion hospital. “It’s a total tragedy,” he said. “There were hundreds of people inside.” The venue was set over two floors, he said, with a bar on the main floor and narrow stairs leading to a basement nightclub below, where he speculated it would have been possible for people to have become trapped and incapacitated from smoke inhalation. He said shisha pipes were available to smoke. “What people are saying is that the charcoal on the shisha could have spilled and caused the fire,” Brozzo said. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday morning, Mathias Reynard, the president of the Valais canton, said what should have been a moment of celebration “turned into a nightmare”. The police commander Frédéric Gisler said: “I can’t hide from you that we are all shaken by what happened overnight in Crans.” Patients had been dispatched to hospitals in Sion, Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich, he said. “At the moment we are considering this a fire and we are not considering the possibility of an attack,” the prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud said, adding that authorities had opened a full investigation. She said authorities were trying to get the bodies of the victims to their families. “A lot of resources have been put into forensics to identify the victims. These resources are intended to allow us to get the bodies to the families as soon as possible,” she said. Some of the victims are from other countries, said Stéphane Ganzer, the head of security for the Valais canton. The 22 injured patients being treated at Lausanne university hospital are reported to be aged between 16 and 26. General manager Claire Charmet said eight of them were resuscitated on arrival. They were now being treated in critical and specialised care units. “This will be a long and intensive process, lasting several weeks, perhaps even months,” she said. A reception centre and helpline have been set up for affected families, Lathion said. “We’re just at the beginning of our investigation, but this is a internationally renowned ski resort with lots of tourists.” French media said Le Constellation was a well-known spot in Crans-Montana. It opened in 2015 and could accommodate up to 300 people inside, with another 40 on a heated terrace. The bar’s Facebook and Instagram pages appear to have been deleted and are unavailable. Its owners are reportedly a French couple, originally from Corsica. The owner of the Dédé clothing store, directly across the street from Le Constellation, said the venue was a popular destination for younger people – including the children of her friends, who would often drink there from as young as 14 years old. François, 17, a ski instructor who said he had often partied at the bar, said new year parties were known as being more lax in terms of checking the age of bar entrants. The town relies heavily on a largely European clientele who come to ski, eat in several Michelin-starred restaurants and shop at Moncler and Louis Vuitton stores. It has about 3,000 hotel rooms and 10,000 residents. With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

More women reporting abuse in Norway as member of royal family to go on trial for rape

Staff at Norway’s largest women’s health organisation have seen a rise in the number of women reporting abuse and sexual assault at the hands of their partners ahead of the rape trial of a member of the royal family, saying they hope the case helps to “break taboos”. Marius Borg Høiby, the 28-year-old son of the Norwegian crown princess, is due to stand trial in February on 32 charges including four counts of rape, the domestic abuse of a former partner and the illegal filming of a number of women without their knowledge or consent. His lawyer, Petar Sekulic, has said that Høiby “denies all charges of sexual abuse, as well as the majority of the charges regarding violence”. His client would “present a detailed account of his version of events before the court”, he added. Høiby, whose mother is the crown princess, Mette-Marit, and whose stepfather is the crown prince, Haakon, Norway’s future king, could face 10 years in prison if he is found guilty of the most serious charges. May Britt Buhaug, the secretary general of the women’s public health organisation Sanitetskvinnene, said her staff had recorded a rise in the number of women reporting experiences of domestic violence and sexual assault, which they expected to increase further when the trial started. “Staff at our women’s health centres have seen an increase in women who make contact to ask for help and advice after experiences of violence and sexual assault. Media coverage of cases such as Høiby’s lower the threshold to ask for help. That women ask for help more easily is a positive effect. Openness breaks taboos,” said Buhaug. According to statistics from the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS), one in 10 women in Norway have experienced serious violence from an intimate partner. Buhaug said: “Although tragic, it seems that this case can contribute to break the silence around intimate partner violence and rape.” Meanwhile, an explosive new book, which Høiby unsuccessfully tried to prevent from being published, claims he has personally sold drugs on the streets of Oslo. Høiby has denied the allegations. The negative headlines appear to have energised republicans. The king is Harald V, who has been the monarch since 1991 and is now 88. Because of the law of primogeniture used until 1990, it is his second child, Haakon, who is heir to the throne and not his elder child, Märtha Louise. Craig Aaen-Stockdale, the leader of the group Norge som republikk (Norway as a republic), said its membership had more than tripled in the last two years – largely, he said because of the accusations against Høiby. “In an otherwise democratic, egalitarian and liberal country the Norwegian royal family occupies a bit of a blind spot and has traditionally seen high levels of support. However, many Norwegians are now reconsidering their position on the royal family, who were previously viewed as a relatively harmless bunch,” he said. “The ongoing omniscandal has really tarnished the reputation of the younger royals, including the future heir. In a few years we may be in a situation where the head of state has a chronically ill wife [Mette-Marit recently said she would have to have a lung transplant] and a son in prison. That is not fair on anybody.” But Torgeir Pedersen Krokfjord, a co-author of the book White Lines, Black Sheep, which published the drug allegations, said the royal family remained popular among most Norwegians and had emerged relatively unscathed. “One can only imagine how it must have been for them to deal with all this through the years, while battling health issues at the same time,” he said. The royal palace and Høiby’s lawyer have been contacted for comment.