Fire safety inspections hadn't been carried out since 2019 at the Swiss bar where a fire at a New Year's party left 40 people dead and over 100 injured, local authorities said Tuesday.
Investigators have said they believe sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited the fire at Le Constellation in the resort town of Crans-Montana when they came too close to the ceiling. Authorities are looking into whether soundproofing material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar.
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Nicolas Feraud, Mayor of Crans-Montana speaks during a press conference of the Crans-Montana Municipal Council following the fire that broke out at a New Year's party, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Cyril Zingaro/Keystone via AP)
Police officers carry a coffin with the body of one of six Italians at the Military Airport in Sion, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, following a devastating fire in a bar in Crans-Montana during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Swiss Minister of Justice Beat Jans and State Councillor Mathias Reynard lay flowers at the sealed off Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
People stand around floral tributes and candles placed outside the sealed off Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/ Antonio Calanni)
Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the bar managers. The two are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, according to the Valais region’s chief prosecutor.
The regulations in Valais call for annual fire safety inspections of buildings that are “accessible to the public," and regional authorities say they are the responsibility of the municipality. On Tuesday, the Crans-Montana municipality said that inspections of Le Constellation that included fire safety checks had been carried out in 2016, 2018 and 2019, and that modifications had been requested — but no issues with soundproofing measures had been raised.
The local council discovered after consulting documents after the fire that “periodic checks were not carried out between 2020 and 2025,” the head of Crans-Montana’s municipal government, Nicolas Féraud, told a news conference.
“We regret this bitterly,” he said, adding that it will be up to judicial authorities to determine what influence that may have had on the events that led to the fire.
Féraud said he couldn't immediately explain why safety inspections hadn't been conducted for such a long time.
Féraud said that, in September last year, an external expert had been asked to carry out a soundproofing analysis and had concluded that the bar complied with anti-noise rules, without making further remarks.
The severity of burns made it difficult to identify some victims of the fire that broke out at about 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples.
Investigators finished identifying the 40 dead on Sunday and said on Monday that they had identified all 116 people who were injured, from several countries.
On Monday, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it was opening a probe to assist the Swiss investigation and make it easier for families of French victims to communicate with Swiss investigators. Nine French citizens were killed, the youngest 14, and 23 were injured.
Féraud said reports from the inspections that were carried out mentioned a maximum capacity of 100 people on the bar's ground floor and 100 in its basement. It's unclear how many people were in Le Constellation when the blaze broke out and investigators have said that may never be known.
The municipality said the bar's owner obtained a permit to build a veranda in 2015 and also carried out interior work at the bar that did not require a permit.
It said it has now decided to ban the use of fireworks indoors and commission an external agency to carry out inspections of such establishments.
John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.
Nicolas Feraud, Mayor of Crans-Montana speaks during a press conference of the Crans-Montana Municipal Council following the fire that broke out at a New Year's party, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Cyril Zingaro/Keystone via AP)
Police officers carry a coffin with the body of one of six Italians at the Military Airport in Sion, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, following a devastating fire in a bar in Crans-Montana during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Swiss Minister of Justice Beat Jans and State Councillor Mathias Reynard lay flowers at the sealed off Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
People stand around floral tributes and candles placed outside the sealed off Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/ Antonio Calanni)
Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a self-governing Danish territory.
Tensions escalated after the White House said Tuesday that the “U.S. military is always an option,” even as a series of European leaders rejected President Donald Trump’s renewed demands and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Trump has floated since his first term the idea of acquiring the world’s largest island to ensure U.S. security in the Arctic.
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In 2017, as political outsider Donald Trump headed to Washington, Delcy Rodríguez spotted an opening.
Then Venezuela’s foreign minister, Rodríguez directed Citgo — a subsidiary of the state oil company — to make a $500,000 donation to the president’s inauguration. With the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro struggling to feed Venezuela, Rodríguez gambled on a deal that would have opened the door to American investment.
Around the same time, she saw that Trump’s ex-campaign manager was hired as a lobbyist for Citgo, courted Republicans in Congress and tried to secure a meeting with the head of Exxon.
The charm offensive flopped. Within weeks of taking office, Trump, urged by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, made restoring Venezuela’s democracy his driving focus in response to Maduro’s crackdown on opponents. But the outreach did bear fruit for Rodríguez, making her a prominent face in U.S. business and political circles and paving the way for her own rise.
Nearly a decade later, as Venezuela’s interim president, Rodríguez’s message — that Venezuela is open for business — seems to have persuaded Trump. In the days since Maduro’s stunning capture Saturday, he’s alternately praised Rodríguez as a “gracious” American partner while threatening a similar fate as her former boss if she doesn’t keep the ruling party in check and provide the U.S. with “total access” to the country’s vast oil reserves. One thing neither has mentioned is elections, something the constitution mandates must take place within 30 days of the presidency being permanently vacated.
▶ Read more about Delcy Rodríguez and her relationship with Trump
Russian officials indicated in 2019 that the Kremlin would be willing to back off from its support for Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela in exchange for a free hand in Ukraine, according to Fiona Hill, an adviser to President Donald Trump at the time.
The Russians repeatedly floated the idea of a “very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and Ukraine,” Hill said during a congressional hearing in 2019. Her comments surfaced again this week and were shared on social media after the U.S. stealth operation to capture Maduro.
Hill said Russia pushed the idea through articles in Russian media that referenced the Monroe Doctrine — a 19th-century principle in which the U.S. opposed European meddling in the Western Hemisphere and in return agreed to stay out of European affairs. It was invoked by Trump to justify the U.S. intervention in Venezuela.
Even though Russian officials never made a formal offer, Moscow’s then-ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, hinted many times to her that Russia was willing to allow the United States to act as it wished in Venezuela if the U.S. did the same for Russia in Europe, Hill told The Associated Press this week.
Read more about the former adviser’s remarks
On the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, there is no official event to memorialize what happened that day, when the mob made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, battled police at the Capitol barricades and stormed inside, as lawmakers fled. The political parties refuse to agree on a shared history of the events, which were broadcast around the globe. And the official plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol has never been hung.
Instead, the day displayed the divisions that still define Washington, and the country, and the White House itself issued a glossy new report with its own revised history of what happened.
Trump, during a lengthy morning speech to House Republicans away from the Capitol at the rebranded Kennedy Center now carrying his own name, shifted blame for Jan. 6 onto the rioters themselves. Democrats meanwhile reconvened members of the House committee that investigated the attack for a panel discussion to prevent what Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., described as the GOP’s “Orwellian project of forgetting.”
▶ Read more about the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack
Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a Danish territory.
This weekend’s U.S. military action in Venezuela has heightened fears across Europe, and Trump and his advisers in recent days have reiterated the U.S. leader’s desire to take over the island, which guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.
“It’s so strategic right now,” Trump told reporters Sunday.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested the meeting with Rubio in the near future, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland’s government website.
Previous requests for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.
▶ Read more about Trump’s interest in Greenland
Trump said Tuesday that the nation would provide 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., pledging to use proceeds from the sale of this oil “to benefit the people” of both countries. The Venezuelan government had no immediate comment on this announcement. White House is organizing a meeting Friday with U.S. oil company executives from companies like Exxon and Chevron to discuss Venezuela, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the plans.
The administration is withholding funding for programs that support needy families with children in five Democratic-led states over concerns about fraud — California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program, will require the states to provide extra documentation to access the funds, but the administration did not detail the fraud allegations. Gov. Kathy Hochul said New York is prepared to litigate to maintain support for some of the poorest American families.
Trump voters interviewed by AP journalists around the country praised the operation and expressed faith in Trump’s course — but not always limitless faith. Trump’s intensifying rhetoric about expanding U.S. power elsewhere in the hemisphere made some of his die-hard supporters nervous.
Polling conducted in the immediate aftermath of the military operation suggested that many Americans are unconvinced that the U.S. should step in to take control of the country.
FILE - Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez smiles during a press conference at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas Venezuela, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)
Graffiti that reads in Spanish, "Trump: murderer, kidnapper, pedophile, damned," left, and "Long live peace," covers a kiosk during a march to demand President Nicolas Maduro's return, in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, three days after U.S. forces captured him and his wife. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
FILE - The northern lights appear over homes in Nuuk, Greenland, on Feb. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
President Donald Trump speaks to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
