KWRE AM

A catastrophic fire tore through a packed bar in the Swiss Alps shortly after the start of the new year, killing at least 47 people and leaving 115 others seriously injured, authorities said Thursday. Officials warned the toll could climb as many victims remain in critical condition, with local police confirming that many of the victims are expected to be identified as foreign nationals. Italy’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, who has been in regular contact with Swiss authorities, said that the confirmed death toll was 47 – with the youngest victim a 16-year-old who is being treated in a hospital.

The blaze erupted around 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day at Le Constellation, a popular nightlife spot in the ski resort town of Crans-Montana, in the canton of Valais. Police described the incident as an “unprecedented tragedy,” with emergency crews confronting scenes of chaos inside the crowded venue.

Valais cantonal police commander Frédéric Gisler said the immediate focus is on identifying those who died. Many of the victims were young people, Swiss President Guy Parmelin said, and they include both local residents and tourists from neighboring countries and beyond: “Behind these numbers are faces, names, families, destinies brutally interrupted,” Parmelin said, calling the fire one of the gravest disasters Switzerland has faced in recent years.

Investigators have launched a criminal probe to determine how the fire started, though officials stressed there is no suspicion of terrorism. Valais canton attorney general Beatrice Pilloud said an explosion was not believed to be the initial cause, though authorities think a widespread fire may have triggered a blast-like event inside the building. “At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.

Witness accounts suggest the fire spread with alarming speed. Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris who survived, told The Associated Press he saw waitresses carrying Champagne bottles with sparklers moments before flames engulfed the bar. One of his friends was killed and “two or three were missing,” he said. “I’m still in shock.” Other witnesses described people trapped in a basement area, scrambling up narrow stairs as smoke filled the space. Some smashed windows to escape, while others collapsed inside. A local journalist dining nearby said he saw people lying motionless on the floor as others screamed and tried to flee.

Firefighters and paramedics arrived within minutes, launching what officials called a massive rescue operation. By early morning, all injured victims had been evacuated to hospitals across Switzerland, and some burn patients were expected to be transferred abroad because local facilities were overwhelmed. A temporary no-fly zone was imposed over Crans-Montana to allow medical helicopters to operate freely, and authorities also opened a reception center and hotline to assist families searching for loved ones. Several victims could not be immediately identified due to the severity of their injuries, officials said.

Parmelin, who began his term as Switzerland’s rotating president on Thursday, said that the fire was “one of the worst tragedies that our country has experienced.” Parmelin announced that flags would fly at half-staff nationwide for five days. He also postponed a traditional New Year’s address out of respect for the victims’ families, writing that what should have been a celebration had become a moment of national mourning.

Local officials urged residents and visitors to exercise caution in the coming days, noting that medical services remain stretched thin in the busy ski region. Crans-Montana, located about 25 miles north of the Matterhorn, is scheduled to host an international Alpine Ski World Cup event later this month, though authorities said their immediate priority remains responding to the disaster and supporting those affected. Mathias Reynard, president of the Valais state council, said “this evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare.”

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Zohran Mamdani was sworn in Thursday as New York City’s 112th mayor, marking a historic moment as the city’s first Muslim mayor and one of its youngest leaders at age 34. The democratic socialist formally assumed office just after midnight in a private ceremony and later used his public inauguration speech to outline an ambitious, left-leaning vision centered on affordability, public services and expansive government action.

New York Attorney General Letitia James administered the oath shortly after the New Year began in the long-closed original City Hall subway station. Mamdani placed his hands on two Qurans: one from his grandfather and another from the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, believed to date back to the 1800s. He paid a required $9 fee and signed the city ledger, formally becoming mayor of the nation’s largest city.

Mamdani said after he was sworn in that “this is truly the honor and the privilege of a lifetime,” and described the ornate, decommissioned station as “a testament to the importance of public transit to the vitality, the health and the legacy of our city.”

Hours later, spectators gathered outside City Hall for the public inauguration. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont delivered a ceremonial oath, while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York offered opening remarks. The event also featured performances by Grammy-winning singer Lucy Dacus, actor Mandy Patinkin and New York City schoolchildren. Addressing the crowd, Mamdani said: “I was elected as a Democratic socialist and I will govern as a Democratic socialist,” he said, promising an aggressive approach to lowering costs and expanding city services. “We will govern expansively and audaciously. No longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.”

Sanders echoed that message, arguing that policies aimed at lowering housing, food and child care costs are mainstream, not extreme. “Demanding that the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes is not radical. It is exactly the right thing to do.” Ocasio-Cortez suggested that New York could become a testing ground for progressive policies nationwide. “If we can make it here,” she said, “we can make it anywhere.”

Mamdani’s election last year capped a crowded race in which he defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo running as an independent and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. During the campaign, he faced skepticism over his experience and the feasibility of his proposals, and he struck a more moderate tone on public safety, pledging to retain Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Throughout his remarks, Mamdani emphasized unity, saying he stood with both those who supported him and those who did not. The new mayor ran on a platform focused on affordability, including freezing rents for certain apartments, eliminating bus fares and making child care free and universal for young children. He has said much of the funding would come from higher taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million annually — a move that would require approval from state lawmakers. While legislative Democrats have shown openness to such measures, Gov. Kathy Hochul has consistently opposed raising taxes, signaling instead that she prefers alternative revenue sources.

Following the ceremony, Mamdani joined supporters at an Inauguration Day block party along the Canyon of Heroes, the Broadway corridor known for ticker-tape parades. Tens of thousands were expected to attend, far beyond the roughly 4,000 invited to the formal event. Mamdani had said ahead of the festivities: “We wanted to ensure that as we celebrated the beginning of our administration, it was a celebration that was not simply for the typical people who would be invited to an inauguration, but in fact, for everyone. This is not my success. It’s our success. It’s not my administration. It’s our administration. Similarly, it’s not my inauguration. It’s for all of us.”

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Journalist and author Tatiana Schlossberg – daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, and granddaughter of late President John F. Kennedy — died Tuesday at age 35 following a battle with leukemia, her family announced.

The news was shared through social media by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum: “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the statement read.

Schlossberg revealed her terminal diagnosis in a deeply personal essay published in The New Yorker this past November, sharing that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, including a rare mutation known as Inversion 3. Doctors discovered the cancer in May 2024 after she gave birth to her second child, when routine blood work showed an abnormally high white blood cell count. She wrote of receiving the diagnosis: “I did not — could not — believe that they were talking about me. I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew.”

Schlossberg spent weeks hospitalized at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York, followed by chemotherapy at home, bone marrow transplants and participation in multiple clinical trials, including immunotherapy. Her sister Rose was a stem cell match and donated cells for her first transplant. “My brother was a half-match, but he still asked every doctor if maybe a half-match was better, just in case,” she wrote of her younger brother, Jack.

In her essay, Schlossberg described the emotional weight of her illness on her family, particularly her mother, who has endured repeated personal loss. “For my whole life, I have tried to be good… and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”  When doctors later told her that treatment could extend her life only briefly, she wrote: “During the latest clinical trial, my doctor told me that he could keep me alive for a year, maybe. My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me.”

Schlossberg and physician George Moran were married in September 2017 in a ceremony at her family’s home on Martha’s Vineyard, after meeting when they were undergraduates at Yale University. The couple share two children, a son born in 2022 and a daughter born in May 2024. Schlossberg wrote candidly about missing much of her daughter’s first year due to the risk of infection following her transplants. “I didn’t ever really get to take care of my daughter—I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her.”

Schlossberg wrote that she focused on spending time with her family after her diagnosis — especially her young children: “Mostly, I try to live and be with them now. But being in the present is harder than it sounds, so I let the memories come and go. So many of them are from my childhood that I feel as if I’m watching myself and my kids grow up at the same time. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking I’ll remember this forever, I’ll remember this when I’m dead. Obviously, I won’t. But since I don’t know what death is like and there’s no one to tell me what comes after it, I’ll keep pretending. I will keep trying to remember …My son knows that I am a writer and that I write about our planet,” she wrote. “Since I’ve been sick, I remind him a lot, so that he will know that I was not just a sick person.”

An accomplished environmental journalist, Schlossberg worked at The New York Times and contributed to outlets including The Atlantic and The Washington Post.  She held a bachelor’s degree from Yale and a master’s degree from Oxford, and had been planning further research on ocean conservation before her diagnosis.

Schlossberg is survived by her husband, George Moran and their two children; her parents Edwin and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg; as well as sister Rose, and brother Jack.

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The father of NASCAR star Denny Hamlin has died, and his mother remains hospitalized in critical condition after a destructive house fire tore through their North Carolina home over the weekend.

Local officials confirmed that Dennis Hamlin, 75, died from injuries sustained in the blaze, while his wife, Mary Lou Hamlin, 69, was critically injured and transferred to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Burn Center in Winston-Salem for treatment.

The fire broke out Sunday evening at a two-story home in Stanley, about 20 miles northwest of Charlotte, in Gaston County. Emergency crews were dispatched shortly after 6 p.m. and arrived to find the residence largely engulfed, with flames visible throughout the attic. The structure later collapsed due to the extent of the damage. Investigators said the cause of the fire has not yet been determined and remains under investigation.

Officials said Dennis and Mary Lou Hamlin were found outside the home after narrowly escaping the flames but had suffered “catastrophic injuries while escaping.” Both were initially transported to CaroMont Regional Medical Center, where Dennis Hamlin later died. Mary Lou Hamlin was subsequently moved to a specialized burn facility.

The home is owned by a real estate company managed by Denny Hamlin, according to property and business records cited by authorities. While the house appears to be a total loss, fire officials noted that some vehicles, along with racing memorabilia stored in the garage, were salvaged.

NASCAR released a statement offering condolences to the family: “NASCAR extends its deepest condolences to Denny Hamlin and the entire Hamlin family. Dennis Hamlin instilled a love of racing in his son, and sacrificed greatly to develop Denny into a world-class talent in the sport. We also continue to offer our thoughts and prayers to Denny’s mother, Mary Lou, and hope for her full recovery.”

A three-time Daytona 500 winner, Hamlin currently ranks tied for 10th on NASCAR’s all-time Cup Series wins list with 60 victories and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished drivers of his generation. The tragedy comes just months after Hamlin, 45, captured the 60th victory of his NASCAR Cup Series career, a milestone he dedicated to his father. He has long credited his parents—particularly his father—with making extraordinary sacrifices to support his racing ambitions from an early age. Hamlin said after that October win: “He’s the one who got me into racing, took me to the track when I was five, sold everything they had, you know, we almost lost our house a couple times, and just tried to keep it all going. I’m just glad he was able to see 60.”  Hamlin had previously also shared that his father’s health had been declining and acknowledged the emotional significance of that victory: “I know for a fact this is my last chance for my dad to see it. I don’t want him going and never getting to see the moment,” he said at the time.

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New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs is facing serious criminal charges stemming from an alleged altercation at his Massachusetts home earlier this month, according to court filings and a police report obtained by multiple outlets.

Diggs, 32, has been charged with felony strangulation or suffocation and misdemeanor assault and battery related to an incident that allegedly occurred on Dec. 2 at his $2.5 million residence in Dedham, about 15 miles south of Boston. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Dedham District Court on Jan. 23, just days before the AFC Championship Game, should the Patriots advance that far in the playoffs.

The incident allegedly happened on Dec. 2 at Diggs’ $2.5 million home in Dedham, Mass., a suburb of Boston located just 15 miles south of the city. The alleged victim, who told police she worked for Diggs as a personal chef, reported that she approached Diggs about back pay she claimed he owed her, and things quickly escalated. According to the police report, the woman told police that she was in her bedroom when Diggs walked in after the two had “been having an ongoing text exchange over money owed to [her].” In one message, the woman wrote, “You will be paying me out for the season & the money you said you would give me,” with Diggs responding, “I don’t gotta do a mf thing…You can get whoever you want,” followed by, “You got my address, tell them come take the money.”

Diggs and the woman began to discuss the matter, which “apparently angered” the NFL star. The victim alleges that Diggs then “smacked her across the face,” and she pushed him away, with Diggs then accused of again attacking the woman, who alleged that he “tried to choke her using the crook of his elbow around her neck.” The victim told police that she “did have trouble breathing and could’ve blacked out,” and also alleged that “as she tried to pry [Diggs’] arm away, he tightened his grip.”   The police report stated the alleged victim stated that “he said that she is normally paid by wire transfer, and the initial agreement was for weekly pay. She said that since she has been working, she has been getting paid monthly instead … As of now, she said that she still believes she is owed a month’s pay.” (per Boston25).

The woman left the home that night and initially reported the incident to police on Dec. 16, but declined to file formal charges at that time. She later changed her mind and formally requested charges be filed on Dec. 23. She told investigators she quit her job with Diggs the night of the alleged incident and later received messages from him asking her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Diggs, who is in the first season of a three-year, $69 million contract with the Patriots, has strongly denied the allegations. His attorney, David Meier, said in a statement: “Stefon Diggs categorically denies these allegations. They are unsubstantiated, uncorroborated, and were never investigated — because they did not occur. The timing and motivation for making the allegations is crystal clear: they are the direct result of an employee-employer financial dispute that was not resolved to the employee’s satisfaction. Stefon looks forward to establishing the truth in a court of law.”

Another attorney for Diggs, Michael DiStefano, appeared remotely in court during a recent motion hearing, arguing that the police report and related documents should remain sealed due to concerns about prejudicial publicity. DiStefano also told the court that Diggs has made a financial offer in an attempt to resolve the dispute, saying, “As we speak, they’re working to come to an agreement on that.” The judge overseeing the case is expected to decide whether court records will be impounded and may also consider a request to push the arraignment to March.

The Patriots acknowledged the situation in a statement, saying: “The New England Patriots are aware of the accusations that have been made regarding Stefon Diggs. Stefon has informed the organization that he categorically denies the allegations. We support Stefon. We will continue to gather information and will cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities and the NFL as necessary. Out of respect for all parties involved, and given that this is an ongoing legal matter, we will have no further comment at this time.”

The NFL also confirmed it is aware of the case, stating, “We are aware of the matter and have been in contact with the club. We have no further comment at this time.”

Diggs is in his 11th NFL season, and first with New England after signing in March. He has recorded 82 receptions for 970 yards and four touchdowns through 16 games this year.

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