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One of the co-owners of the Swiss bar where 40 people died in a fire on New Year’s Eve has been detained.

Sources told Swiss media that Jacques Moretti, a French national, was a potential flight risk.

The blaze at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana left 116 people injured. Many of the victims were aged under 20.

It emerged this week that the bar in the ski resort had not undergone safety checks for five years.

Jacques Moretti and his French wife Jessica, who own the bar together, had been placed under criminal investigation by Swiss prosecutors.

They are both suspected of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence, the prosecutors’ office in Valais said.

The prosecutors have said they believe the fire started when people celebrating the New Year raised champagne bottles with sparklers attached, setting light to sound-insulating foam on the ceiling of the basement bar.

On Friday, Switzerland staged a minute of silence on a national day of mourning for the victims of the fire.

Church bells then rang across the country for five minutes.

Trains and trams came to a halt and Zurich airport briefly paused operations.

At a local commemoration staged in Crans-Montana, there was a standing ovation for firefighters.

Reporting from NEW YORK — The National Enquirer kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with Donald Trump leading up to the 2016 presidential election, people familiar with the arrangement told The Associated Press.

The detail came as several media outlets reported on Thursday that federal prosecutors had granted immunity to National Enquirer chief David Pecker, potentially laying bare his efforts to protect his longtime friend Trump.

President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty this week to campaign finance violations alleging he, Trump and the tabloid were involved in buying the silence of a porn actress and a Playboy model who alleged affairs with Trump.

Several people familiar with the National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they signed nondisclosure agreements, said the safe was a great source of power for Pecker, the company’s chief executive.

The Trump records were stored alongside similar documents pertaining to other celebrities’ catch-and-kill deals, in which exclusive rights to people’s stories were bought with no intention of publishing to keep them out of the news. By keeping celebrities’ embarrassing secrets, the company was able to ingratiate itself with them and ask for favors in return.

But after the Wall Street Journal initially published the first details of Playboy model Karen McDougal’s catch-and-kill deal shortly before the 2016 election, those assets became a liability. Fearful that the documents might be used against American Media, Pecker and the company’s chief content officer, Dylan Howard, removed them from the safe in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration, according to one person directly familiar with the events.

The AP cannot say whether the documents were destroyed or simply were moved to a location known to fewer people.

American Media did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pecker’s immunity deal was first reported Thursday by Vanity Fair and the Journal, citing anonymous sources. Vanity Fair reported that Howard also was granted immunity.

Court papers in the Cohen case say Pecker “offered to help deal with negative stories about [Trump’s] relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.”

The Journal reported Pecker shared with prosecutors details about payments that Cohen says Trump directed in the weeks and months before the election to buy the silence of McDougal and another woman alleging an affair, porn star Stormy Daniels. Daniels was paid $130,000, and McDougal was paid $150,000.

Although Trump denies the affairs, his account of his knowledge of the payments has shifted. In April, Trump denied he knew anything about the Daniels payment. He told Fox News in an interview aired Thursday that he knew about payments “later on.”

In July, Cohen released an audio tape in which he and Trump discussed plans to buy McDougal’s story from the Enquirer. Such a purchase was necessary, they suggested, to prevent Trump from having to permanently rely on a tight relationship with the tabloid.

“You never know where that company — you never know what he’s gonna be —” Cohen says.

“Maybe he gets hit by a truck,” Trump says.

“Correct,” Cohen replies. “So, I’m all over that.”

Pecker is cooperating with federal prosecutors now, but American Media previously declined to participate in congressional inquiries.

In March, in response to a letter from a group of House Democrats about the Daniels and McDougal payments, American Media general counsel Cameron Stracher declined to provide any documents, writing that the company was “exempt” from U.S. campaign finance laws because it is a news publisher and it was “confident” it had complied with all tax laws. He also rebuffed any suggestion that America Media Inc., or AMI, had leverage over the president because of its catch-and-kill practices.

“AMI states unequivocally that any suggestion that it would seek to ‘extort’ the President of the United States through the exercise of its editorial discretion is outrageous, offensive, and wholly without merit,” Stracher wrote in a letter obtained by the Associated Press.

Former Enquirer employees who spoke to the AP said that negative stories about Trump were dead on arrival dating back more than a decade when he starred on NBC’s reality show “The Apprentice.”

In 2010, at Cohen’s urging, the National Enquirer began promoting a potential Trump presidential candidacy, referring readers to a pro-Trump website Cohen helped create. With Cohen’s involvement, the publication began questioning President Obama’s birthplace and American citizenship in print, an effort that Trump promoted for several years, former staffers said.

The Enquirer endorsed Trump for president in 2016, the first time it had ever officially backed a candidate. In the news pages, Trump’s coverage was so favorable that the New Yorker magazine said the Enquirer embraced him “with sycophantic fervor.”

Positive headlines for Trump were matched by negative stories about his opponents, including Hillary Clinton: An Enquirer front page from 2015 said “Hillary: 6 Months to Live” and accompanied the headline with a picture of an unsmiling Clinton with bags under her eyes.

England captain Ben Stokes says he is proud of the way his players “held firm” to win the fourth Ashes Test after a wave of criticism during the build-up to the match.

A failure to capitalise on good positions after they surrendered the Ashes inside only 11 days of cricket, questions over their preparation and attitude, plus off-the-field issues related to drinking are among the headlines to have blighted the tour.

But a pulsating four-wicket victory in the space of two days in Melbourne, in front of jubilant travelling supporters, meant England avoided the prospect of an Ashes clean sweep.

Stokes said he was “very proud” of the way his side reacted to secure victory at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, ending an 18-match winless streak in Australia.

“On the back of everything we had to deal with in this game, I couldn’t be prouder of the way we held firm as a group and as individuals as well,” Stokes told Test Match Special.

“You get tested as leaders within sporting teams and organisations in different ways.

“That was a test of character, a test of qualities of leadership. The way we went about it, not only in public, in terms of all the media and all that sort of stuff.”

Stokes said there was no sense from his players they had been distracted by the extra scrutiny following their controversial mid-series break in Noosa.

He said: “Behind the scenes, it was important that everyone’s focus was on the cricket.

“It would have been so easy to put our focus and attention on all that stuff outside the dressing room. At the end of the day, the most important thing is what we need to do out there.

“I thought the way we bowled this week was exceptional, the way we went about that run-chase was exceptional.”

Stokes said his side are now determined to end the series with another victory in the fifth and final Test in Sydney, which starts on 3 January [23:30 GMT, 2 January].

“It is a very proud moment knowing how tough this tour has been and how everything has gone before this tour coming here,” Stokes added.

“So to get that win in over a long period of time we have been waiting for is pretty pleasing.

“We still have one more to go, and the focus has not moved away from that. We had two games, and we want to get two results go our way.”

Red ribbons and Palestinian flags were seen in London at a vigil calling for the release of thousands of Palestinians being held without charge in Israeli prisons. The vigil focused on Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, who’s been held for nearly one year. Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic was there.

Meanwhile, Caf has increased the prize money for the winners of Afcon from $7m (£5.2m) to $10m (£7.5m).

The surprise announcement about the future of Afcon was made by Motsepe after a meeting of Caf’s executive committee in Morocco before the start of the 2025 finals in Rabat on Sunday.

The biennial hosting of Afcon has long caused issues with the football calendar, with the vast majority of recent tournaments held midway through the European club season.

However, Caf remained committed to scheduling the tournament every two years – not least as it needs the revenue raised from the finals to reinvest in the game on the continent.

Caf had made a resolution for Afcon to be held in a June-July slot from 2019 onwards and began its new plan in Egypt that year.

But the Covid-19 pandemic and weather conditions in host nations in Central and West Africa meant the 2021 and 2023 editions in Cameroon and Ivory Coast respectively were staged in January and February instead.

Fifa’s expanded 32-team Club World Cup was held in June and July this year, forcing Caf to opt for mid-season dates once again.

As a result this year’s Afcon in Morocco will take place over Christmas and the New Year for the first time, with the final on 18 January.

The dates for the finals in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in 2027 are yet to be announced, and that will be swiftly followed by another Afcon in 2028 – with the hosts of that edition yet to be decided.

After that, the continent’s biggest tournament will become a quadrennial tournament taking place in the same year as the European Championships.

Motsepe said the decision had been made in conjunction with Fifa president Gianni Infantino and the world governing body’s general secretary Mattias Grafstrom – and that Caf “have to compromise”.

Emma Groves, 35, from Belfast, was refused entry to Switzerland and detained at Zurich airport after making an easy mistake when packing

A woman was turned away from her holiday destination and held in custody after making one crucial error while travelling. Emma Groves, 35, from Belfast, made her way to Dublin Airport for a four-night break in Zurich, Switzerland on December 1 this year.

The pair dropped off their luggage and completed check-in before passing through security without any problems. Emma had reserved the Aer Lingus flight approximately three weeks earlier after spotting a hotel she fancied visiting on TikTok.

However, it wasn’t until the duo reached border control in Zurich that they discovered Emma had made a grave blunder which left her devastated. Following the loss of her passport several weeks beforehand, Emma had requested a replacement document, which arrived at her home.

Yet after discovering her original passport, she failed to destroy it and stored it in a drawer alongside her moisturisers and fake tan products.

Emma explained: “I had grabbed it [passport] the night before and give my passport to my boyfriend, he minds them because I do lose everything. Only the night before I thought ‘my goodness am I going to be able to travel, the gold has completely faded off’ this which is strange for it being a new passport. It was in a drawer with all my moisturisers and fake tans. So I did think it’s probably just rubbed off.”

Upon reaching the Swiss border, Emma discovered her passport had been flagged as cancelled. She recalled: “He just said ‘do you have another one’ and then it kind of clicked. The border police came and got me and my boyfriend.

“We went into this room and said we realised what had happened. I said I’ve got a new one but I’ve grabbed the old one so he said because it had been cancelled it was an invalid document.”

Emma was informed she would need to be flown back to Dublin before she could re-enter the country using her valid passport. Her boyfriend chose to remain in the country and await Emma’s return.

Emma found herself placed in a “weird” airport hotel, which she likened to a “mini prison”, containing roughly 20 beds separated by curtains.

She explained: “They put me in an airport hotel and I was in there for about three or four hours, but it was just like a room with a lot of beds in it separated by curtains. I just sat and watched Stranger Things get me through.

“It was scary enough in the hotel because there were a lot of people in there, and there kind of wasn’t really any security or even a locked door. It was a weird room.

“[In Dublin] we used a machine to drop off the luggage, but then we did have to go over to a desk to leave them, and she checked the passport and stuff. The passports were scanned so you’d think they would pick up if it was cancelled.

“Border security in Switzerland said I shouldn’t have been able to get that far. It wasn’t until like 6pm that they told me I’d be getting on the flight at 8pm.”

It’s understood that Aer Lingus verifies that a presented passport corresponds to the passenger’s identity and remains valid. In instances where a passport has been cancelled but remains in date, the discrepancy would be spotted upon entry to another country.

Emma was then accompanied around the airport by a chaperone before being boarded onto the aircraft first, as her passport had been seized. She was given a set of documents which stated she was denied entry and had her passport confiscated.

Upon her return to Dublin, her mother met her with her replacement passport, allowing her to purchase fresh flights to Zurich, which she described as an “expense she didn’t need”.

Emma explained: “When I flew over, I actually initially wasn’t going to bring the forms back, but my mum was like ‘just take them’, so I flew out fine but when I got to the Swiss border again the border control lady was like ‘oh this doesn’t make sense it says you’ve already been here but you haven’t left’.’I give her the forms and she was like ‘oh okay that kind of explains it’ and I got through.”

Emma was informed by border officials that she would face no future travel difficulties due to it being an honest mistake. A representative from Aer Lingus stated: “Passengers travelling with Aer Lingus are responsible for ensuring they have all relevant travel documentation and compliance with relevant laws and regulations of the countries they are flying to, from, or transiting through. Passports used for travel must be valid and in date. If a travel document is not valid for travel, passengers may be refused entry when they reach their planned destination, as was the case in this instance.”