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WASHINGTON — The head of the FBI’s New York field office has been named co-deputy director of the bureau, replacing Dan Bongino following his recent departure, an FBI spokesperson said Friday.

Christopher Raia, who helped lead the response to the deadly truck attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day last year, was picked to run the New York office in April after having served as a top counterterrorism official at FBI headquarters. A former Coast Guard officer, Raia joined the FBI in 2003 and during the course of his two-decade career has investigated violent crime, drugs and gangs as well as overseen counterterrorism and national security investigations.

As a career FBI agent, Raia is a more conventional selection for the FBI’s No. 2 job than was Bongino, a popular conservative podcaster who had previously served as a Secret Service agent but had never worked for the FBI until being selected by the Trump administration last year.

Raia is expected to serve as co-deputy director alongside Andrew Bailey, the former Missouri attorney general who was named to the job last August. He is scheduled to start next week.

He became the head of the New York field office after his predecessor, James Dennehy, who was reported to have resisted Justice Department efforts to scrutinize agents who participated in politically sensitive investigations, was forced to retire.

Bongino announced last month that he was departing the bureau following a brief and tumultuous tenure. He officially ended his tenure last week.

No immediate successor was named for Raia in New York.

GUATIRE, Venezuela — The United States and Venezuela said Friday they were exploring the possibility of restoring diplomatic relations, as a Trump administration delegation visited the South American nation.

The visit marks a major step toward warming icy relations between the historically adversarial governments. U.S. military forces captured former President Nicolás Maduro last weekend in Caracas and took him to New York to face federal charges of drug-trafficking.

The small team of U.S. diplomats and a security detail traveled to Venezuela to make a preliminary assessment about the potential reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, the State Department said in a statement.

Venezuela’s government on Friday said it plans to send a delegation to the U.S. but it did not say when. Any delegation traveling to the U.S. will likely require sanctions to be waived by the Treasury Department.

In a statement, the government of acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez said it “has decided to initiate an exploratory process of a diplomatic nature with the Government of the United States of America, aimed at the re-establishment of diplomatic missions in both countries.”

President Donald Trump has placed pressure on Rodriguez and other former Maduro loyalists now in power to advance his vision for the future of the nation — a major aspect of which would be reinvigorating the role of U.S. oil companies in a country with the worlds’ largest proven reserves of crude oil.

The U.S. and Venezuela cut off ties in 2019, after the first Trump administration said opposition leader Juan Guaidó was the rightful president of Venezuela, spiking tensions. Despite the assertions, Maduro maintained his firm grip on power.

The Trump administration shuttered the embassy in Caracas and moved diplomats to nearby Bogotá, Colombia. U.S. officials have traveled to Caracas a handful of times since then. The latest visit came last February when Trump’s envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell met with Maduro. The visit resulted in six detained Americans being freed by the government.

MARTIGNY, Switzerland — Switzerland held a national day of mourning on Friday for the 40 people who died in an Alpine bar fire during a New Year’s Eve celebration, as prosecutors requested one of the managers to be placed in pretrial detention.

Valais region’s chief prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud said in a statement the detention of the man was needed to avoid a “risk of flight.” The man’s wife and co-manager will remain free under judicial supervision, the statement said.

A Swiss business register lists French couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti as the owners of Le Constellation bar, in the Alpine resort of Crans-Montana, where a fire broke out less than two hours after midnight on Jan. 1. As well as the fatalities, 116 people were injured, many of them seriously.

Local media reported that Moretti was being held in custody pending the court’s decision after the couple were questioned by prosecutors in Sion on Friday morning.

Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the owners, who are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm, and involuntarily causing a fire.

A memorial service and a minute’s silence marked Friday’s national homage, while church bells across Switzerland rang out for five minutes, beginning at 2 p.m. Across the country, people gathered to light candles, put down flowers for the victims and followed the national ceremony that was livestreamed on public television.

Speaking at the memorial ceremony in Martigny, Swiss President Guy Parmelin said that “the memory of that terrible night illuminates the faces of the 156 victims, their happy days, their carefree spirit.”

He added: “Our country is appalled by this tragedy. It bows before the memory of those who are no longer with us. It stands by the bedside of those who are about to embark on a long road to recovery.”

Investigators have said they believe sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited the fire 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. Fire safety inspections hadn’t been carried out since 2019.

The severity of burns made it difficult to identify some victims, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. Police have said many of the victims were in their teens to mid-20s.

An autopsy has been ordered for five of the six Italian victims and has been delegated to the prosecutors’ offices in Milan, Bologna, and Genoa, where the bodies of the victims have been returned.

“What happened is not a disaster: It’s the result of too many people who didn’t do their job or who thought they were making easy money,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said during a press conference on Friday. “Those responsible must be identified and prosecuted.”

Meloni said the State Attorney General’s Office has contacted the Swiss Attorney General to follow the investigation. She also confirmed that the Rome Prosecutor’s Office has started a separate probe.

“The families have my word that they will not be left alone while they seek justice,” she added.

The Paris prosecutor’s office Monday 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 of them aged 14, and 23 others were injured.

MINNEAPOLIS — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration’s decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration’s decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday’s killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. Specifically, she said she’s worried the FBI won’t share evidence with state investigators.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn’t sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.

A grieving wife speaks

The prosecutor’s announcement came as Minneapolis braced for another day of protests over Good’s killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Ore.

Good’s wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday, saying “kindness radiated out of her.”

“On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good’s shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of people turning up to the scene to vent their outrage at the ICE officers and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets.” The day began with a charged demonstration outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.

City workers, meanwhile, removed barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good’s shooting. Officials said they would leave up a makeshift shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

Shootings in Portland

The shootings in Portland took place outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. A man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, were shot inside a vehicle, and their conditions were not immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to move from the street to the sidewalk, to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good’s shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn’t immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good’s was.

The biggest crackdown yet

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good’s death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.

In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.

A deadly encounter seen from multiple angles

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Several bystanders captured footage of Good’s killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

Officer identified in records

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minn., in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

NEW ORLEANS — Federal immigration officers are pulling out of a Louisiana crackdown and heading to Minneapolis in an abrupt pivot from an operation that drew protests around New Orleans and aimed to make thousands of arrests, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The shift appeared to signal a wind-down of the Louisiana deployment that was dubbed “Catahoula Crunch” and began in December with the arrival of more than 200 officers. The operation had been expected to last into February and swiftly raised fears in immigrant communities.

The Trump administration has been surging thousands of federal officers to Minnesota under a sweeping new crackdown tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. More than 2,000 officers are taking part in what the Department of Homeland Security has called the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever.

The officers in Minneapolis have been met with demonstrations and anger after an ICE officer fatally shot a woman on Wednesday.

Documents obtained by the AP indicated that federal officers stationed in Louisiana were continuing to depart for Minneapolis late this week.

“For the safety of our law enforcement, we do not disclose operational details while they are underway,” DHS said Friday in response to questions about whether the Louisiana deployment was ending in order to send officers to Minnesota.

In December, DHS deployed more than 200 federal officers to New Orleans to carry out a monthslong sweep in and around the city under Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, who was also the face of aggressive operations in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Bovino has been seen in Minneapolis this past week.

“Catahoula Crunch” began with a target of 5,000 arrests, the AP first reported. The operation had resulted in about 370 arrests as of Dec. 18, according to DHS.

The operation heavily targeted the Hispanic enclave of Kenner just outside New Orleans, leading immigrant-run businesses to close down to protect customers and out of a fear of harassment.

Documents previously reviewed by AP showed the majority of people arrested in the Louisiana crackdown’s first days lacked criminal records and that authorities tracked online criticism and protests against the deployment.

Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry welcomed the crackdown. But New Orleans’ Democratic leaders called the 5,000-arrest target unrealistic and criticized videos that showed agents arresting or trying to detain residents, including a clip of a U.S. citizen being chased down the street by masked men near her house.

New Orleans’ Democratic leaders have been more welcoming of a National Guard deployment that President Donald Trump authorized after Landry asked for help fighting crime. The troops arrived just before the New Year’s Day anniversary of a truck attack on Bourbon Street that killed 14 people.