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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said a peace agreement to end the war with Russia is "90% ready", in a New Year address that largely focused on resistance to Moscow's full-scale invasion, BBC reported. 

Zelensky said the remaining 10% of the agreement to end nearly four years of conflict would "determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe".

In his own New Year speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his troops that "we believe in you and our victory".

Around 40 people have died after a fire ripped through a bar in a ski resort in southern Switzerland, police have said. A further 115 people are injured, many of them "severely".

The fire broke out at around 01:30 (00:30 GMT) during new year celebrations in a bar called Le Constellation in Crans-Montana, BBC reported. 

Officials investigating the incident have not confirmed any cause, but categorically ruled out an attack.

Zohran Mamdani was a trailblazing candidate whom many in his city of 8 million -- some with hope, some with trepidation -- expect to be a disruptive New York mayor.

The democratic socialist's plans for his first day in office on Thursday nod to his politics and priorities, without straying far from his predecessors with a sober official midnight oath-taking followed by a more celebratory ceremony in the afternoon.

New York law spells out that four-year mayoral terms start on the January 1 after elections. To avoid any ambiguity about who's in charge of America's most populous city, it has become a tradition to hold a small midnight swearing-in.

Mamdani has chosen as the site of his midnight oath the Old City Hall subway stop, which was decommissioned in the middle of the previous century and is accessible only a few times a year through guided tours.

The subway site, according to Mamdani’s transition team, reflects his "commitment to the working people who keep our city running every day."

Mamdani, a 34-year-old former state lawmaker, promised a freeze on rents and free buses and childcare, building a campaign around affordability issues that some have seen as a path forward for his Democratic Party around the country ahead of midterm elections.

Mamdani inspired a record-breaking turnout of more than 2 million voters and took 50 percent, nearly 10 points ahead of Andrew Cuomo running as an independent and well ahead of Republican Curtis Sliwa.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who was among Mamdani's earliest prominent backers, was to administer the midnight oath to Mamdani. During the first administration of President Donald Trump, James began investigating his business practices in New York, resulting in a judge finding in 2024 that Trump fraudulently overstated his net worth to dupe lenders. The Trump administration has targeted James during his second term, accusing her of mortgage fraud.

Grant Reeher, a Syracuse University political science professor, said the role James was to play in the inauguration sent a message to core supporters that Mamdani is "going to be independent of the president.”

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his administration was removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland but he added in his social media post that federal forces will "come back" if crime rates go up.

Local leaders in those cities and Democrats have said the deployments, which have faced legal setbacks and challenges, were unnecessary. They have accused the Trump administration of federal overreach and of exaggerating isolated episodes of violence to justify sending in troops.

Trump, a Republican, has said troop deployments in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Memphis and Portland were necessary to fight crime and protect federal property and personnel from protesters.

"We are removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, despite the fact that CRIME has been greatly reduced by having these great Patriots in those cities, and ONLY by that fact," Trump wrote.

"We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!"

Judges overseeing lawsuits filed by cities challenging the deployments have consistently ruled that the Trump administration overstepped its authority and found that there is no evidence to support claims that troops are necessary to protect federal property from protesters.

Trump's announcement came shortly before a federal appellate court ruled on Wednesday that his administration had to return hundreds of California National Guard troops to Governor Gavin Newsom's control.

The U.S. Supreme Court on December 23 blocked Trump's attempt to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois, a ruling that undercut his legal rationale for sending soldiers to other states.

The court said the president's authority to take federal control of National Guard troops likely only applies in "exceptional" circumstances.

"At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois," the court's majority held in an unsigned order.

The local leaders who opposed Trump's deployment of the National Guard said on Wednesday the legal challenges compelled him to end the deployments in those cities.