Israel has carried out a series of airstrikes in the Nabatieh district, south Lebanon, in response to Hezbollah rocket fire near a watchtower, in the deadliest attacks since a ceasefire came into effect last week.

The Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised there would be a strong response to Hezbollah’s attack, and the Israeli military later said it had “struck Hezbollah terrorists, dozens of launchers, and terrorist infrastructure throughout Lebanon”.

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least nine people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the two southern towns of Haris and Talousa. The Israeli bombing constituted the most significant attacks since the ceasefire was established on Wednesday.

The Israeli military had previously carried out several strikes over the past week, but at a lower intensity. Israeli media reported on Sunday that France, which is supposed to supervise the implementation of the deal, had accused Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement 52 times since its establishment.

Hezbollah had launched two rockets near a watchtower in the occupied Shebaa farms earlier on Monday night. They landed in an open area and caused no injuries. In a statement, the group said the attack on the watchtowers was an “initial warning defensive response” against “repeated violations” by Israel of the ceasefire agreement.

The resumption of tit-for-tat strikes in south Lebanon and north Israel has caused concern that fully-fledged fighting between Hezbollah and Israel could resume just five days after a ceasefire was announced.

Residents of Lebanon braced themselves for Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s attack on Monday night, with a witness saying that people started leaving Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah enjoys strong support, shortly after Netanyahu vowed to retaliate.

“We are tired, we can’t handle any more of this. People barely just got back to their homes,” said Ali, a resident of Beirut from Tyre, south Lebanon.

Fighting has taken a heavy toll in Lebanon, with almost 4,000 people killed by Israeli strikes, more than 1 million people displaced and £6.7bn in damages over the last 13 months. Residents of south Lebanon had just begun to return to their homes this week and begin repairs. In north Israel, more than 60,000 people remain displaced by Hezbollah rockets.

The ceasefire mandates that Israeli troops leave south Lebanon and Hezbollah’s fighters vacate the area south of the Litani River, about 18 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border, within 60 days. The deal ended 13 months of fighting that began after Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on 8 October 2023 “in solidarity” with Hamas’s attack a day prior.

A key point of contention in the ceasefire has revolved around Israel’s right to unilaterally enforce what it deems to be violations of the truce. Israel has sought assurances from the US that it could take action against Hezbollah on its own if the Lebanese army fails to stop Hezbollah from acting in south Lebanon.

Israeli officials have stressed that it will maintain the right to carry out attacks and reopen the front in Lebanon if it feels the ceasefire deal is not being respected.

During a tour in south Lebanon on Monday morning, the head of Israel’s military Lt Gen Herzi Halevi said: “We will attack with great force in the face of Hezbollah’s dangerous violations, this is what we will continue to do. We have plans and targets that are ready to be implemented at any moment.”

Hezbollah has said that Israel does not have the right to carry out attacks in Lebanon or fly its aircraft in Lebanese airspace, saying this would be an encroachment of Lebanese sovereignty. The Hezbollah MP, Hassan Fadlallah, said on Wednesday that the group is ready to respond if Israel violates the truce, saying the ceasefire agreement recognises “the right of the two parties to self-defence”.

Analysts have said that Hezbollah, weakened from more than a year of fighting, does not want to reignite a war with Israel but must play a balancing act by not appearing too docile in the face of continuing Israeli strikes.

Western diplomats have reportedly cautioned Israel to be less aggressive in its attacks on Lebanon and urged it to allow the monitoring mechanism, which is meant to supervise the ceasefire, to begin its work. US Maj Gen Jasper Jeffers arrived in Beirut on 27 November to co-chair the ceasefire committee alongside US envoy Amos Hochstein.

During a briefing with reporters on Monday, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the ceasefire had not broken down and that the US-led enforcement mechanism would address violations.

“If we do see violations of the ceasefire, we’ll go to the parties and tell them to knock it off,” Miller said.

A wave of airstrikes has pummelled hospitals and neighbourhoods in the rebel-held region of Idlib in northern Syria as Islamist insurgents continued to battle forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad after the militants’ lightning assault on Aleppo.

White Helmets civil defence forces based in Idlib, from where the insurgents had launched their attack, said Russian airstrikes had struck five healthcare facilities including a maternity hospital. At least 18 people were killed and 35 injured, they said, adding that they feared numbers could rise.

Russia, along with Iran, is a key backer of Assad and entered the Syrian civil war nearly a decade ago in support of his regime. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaeil told reporters on Monday that Tehran would continue to deploy military personnel to support Damascus “in accordance with the wishes” of the government.

Video from Idlib showed plumes of smoke rising over the city, streets covered in ash and cars on fire in a residential neighbourhood. In a photo shared by the White Helmets, a pile of rubble and cement was visible in a crater in a hospital courtyard.

“No one was prepared for bombardments on this scale over such a large area,” said Ismail Alabdullah, of the White Helmets. “Just now there was an attack on the city hospital in Idlib. Two people died as it caused the oxygen supply to the hospital to break down.”

Earlier on Monday, Iranian-backed Iraqi militias reportedly crossed into eastern Syria in an attempt to shore up struggling forces loyal to Damascus, battling an insurgency that has swept much of the country’s north-west as Islamist militants seized control of Aleppo.

The defence ministry in Damascus said it had deployed military reinforcements to Hama – where fierce fighting was reported to the city’s north – and other flashpoints as they attempted to mount a counterattack.

An officer with the Syrian army told Reuters that the Iraqi militia forces crossing the border were “fresh reinforcements being sent to aid our comrades on the frontlines in the north”. The Iraqi militants, which include fighters from Kataib Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun groups, arrived near the eastern Syrian town of Bukamal overnight to join units already deployed within Syria.

Muqdad Miri, a spokesperson for the Iraqi interior ministry, denied that any units from the Iraqi militias had crossed into Syria, calling reports “fabricated talk” that had spread on social media.

Forces loyal to Assad were unexpectedly swept from Syria’s second city over the weekend after an offensive spearheaded by Islamist militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who claimed swaths of new territory across northern Syria alongside rebel groups backed by Turkey.

The rout of Syrian army forces from Aleppo, amid reports their defensive lines crumbled in the face of the advance, undermined Assad’s already fractured control of the country, which has relied heavily on support from Moscow and Tehran. As battles flared across north-western Syria with insurgents attempting to move south, Assad’s allies attempted to shore up support for Damascus, fuelling an already years-long proxy war.

The Syrian president moved to crush a popular uprising against him in 2011, which quickly spiralled into a bloody civil war. Damascus employed air support from Russia during a prolonged battle to retake Aleppo that ended in 2016, while Assad also deployed chemical weapons and siege tactics against his own people.

Damascus has remained dependent on Iranian ground troops as well as backing from Iranian-allied Iraqi militias to support flagging Syrian army forces in its attempt to keep control of the country.

The sudden loss of Aleppo left Assad and his regional partners, as well as their opponents, scrambling to adjust. After a meeting with Assad in Damascus on Sunday evening, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, labelled their talks a “useful, frank and friendly” discussion, adding that the Syrian president had “admirable … courage and spirit”.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, on Monday pledged “unconditional support” for Assad’s control of Syria during a phone conversation.

The US and the United Arab Emirates meanwhile held talks to discuss lifting sanctions on Assad if he were to cut ties with Iran and stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to five sources that spoke to Reuters.

The sources said the insurgents’ sweeping advance had shown a weakness in Assad’s partnership with Iran that could be exploited, although this could be undermined should Assad look to Tehran for further assistance in the mounting counteroffensive.

Nearly 50,000 people have been displaced in Syria in recent days, with the situation remaining “highly fluid”, the UN’s humanitarian agency said Monday.

The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said in a briefing on Monday that Assad was “a brutal dictator with blood on his hands, the blood of innocent civilians” and that Washington’s stance on his rule had not changed. He said the US wanted to see a de-escalation of fighting, and negotiations between the government in Damascus and opposition forces to end the civil war.

US sanctions on Syria remained fully in effect, he added, despite a looming potential expiry date later this month. “The Syrian regime has shown no change in behaviour that would indicate that our sanctions should change,” he said.

The Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, also discussed the sudden changes in Syria with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, telling him that “Syria’s security and stability are closely linked to Iraq’s national security and play a crucial role in regional security”, according to his office.

Araghchi arrived in Ankara for talks with the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, early on Monday morning. Ankara had previously made public overtures towards Damascus while backing rebel groups along Syria’s northern border. “We do not want to see an escalation of the civil war in Syria,” said Fidan after their meeting, and called for Damascus to “reconcile with its own people and legitimate opposition”.

With Islamist opposition militants in control of Aleppo, the White Helmets said they had expanded their rescue efforts there after Syrian and Russian strikes on the city. An airstrike targeted a central neighbourhood of Aleppo for the second day in a row, causing material damage and sparking fears about further reprisals by Damascus.

Alabdullah said: “We have a team in Aleppo and we’re doing everything we can to respond, but the regime is still bombing so we know we are going to face more difficulties. The situation is very difficult.”

Fuad, a university lecturer living in western Aleppo who requested a pseudonym for his own safety, said Aleppo’s new rulers had asked people to remain at home “for their safety, and to protect their property … people were allowed to go out to get food and necessities”.

“I heard they gave reassurances to residents that they will be safe, which is really important at this stage as people are scared,” he said.

The White Helmets said they had also broadened their operations to try to assist tens of thousands of displaced people to return to their homes across north-western Syria. “Supporting the return of forcibly displaced Syrians to their homes is one of our top priorities,” they said in a statement.

Oubadah Alwan, a spokesperson for the White Helmets, said it advocated caution in their returns because of unexploded ordnance. “Our teams are working to clear and secure areas after attacks, but of course with so many attacks happening they are spread thin,” he said.

The crisis in Syria is the result of President Bashar al-Assad’s refusal to engage in political dialogue with the opposition, and not external interventions, the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said after meeting his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, for emergency talks in Ankara.

Araghchi, by contrast, blamed intervention by Israel for the crisis. But the two sides appeared to agree on the need to convene an urgent summit between Turkey, Iran and Russia, the three main external powers inside Syria.

These three powers have been meeting to discuss Syria’s political future as part of the Astana process since January 2017. A total of 22 meetings have been held in that format, but Turkey believes Syrian intransigence has led to a lack of progress.

Araghchi said he wanted the Astana process to be revived as quickly as possible, reflecting the need on all sides to reassess their diplomatic positions due to the Syrian Islamist militia the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Syrian National Army (SNA) – the coalition of Turkey-linked rebels formerly called the Free Syrian Army – seizing swathes of territory from the control of Assad, including Syria’s second city of Aleppo. Turkey supports the SNA, and is refusing to call for any withdrawal from Aleppo.

Iran and Russia, Assad’s key backers, are urging Turkey to persuade the forces it supports to end the offensive before it leads to the breakup of Syria, the fall of Assad, or the country falling into the hands of extremist Islamists.

It is not clear what Turkey’s ultimate objectives in Syria will be, but it is striking how many other regional actors, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, do not want Assad to fall even if they would like Iranian influence to be reduced. Most Gulf states have normalised relations with Syria but received little in return.

Fidan said at the joint press conference: “It would be wrong to explain recent developments in Syria with foreign intervention. The latest developments show the need for Damascus to reconcile with its people and the legitimate opposition.”

Calling on the Assad government to come to the negotiating table, he added: “We don’t want to see cities falling into ruin; we don’t want to see people displaced. Stopping refugee flow and having people returning to their homes is essential.” But he also warned against excessive external interventions, and said Turkey could act as a mediator between the armed opposition groups and Assad.

Araghchi said “terrorist groups in Syria had connections to the United States and Israel”, and this “caused mistrust” in Syria. He was referring to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a mainly Kurdish group operating in eastern Syria that Ankara insists is linked with the PKK, a Kurdish group operating inside Turkey.

Fidan said Turkey and Iran had agreed to coordinate their actions against the SDF, but it was unclear if this was more than rhetoric. Araghchi – who had been in Damascus the day before – said his talks with Fidan “were very direct, transparent, constructive and friendly”.

Discussing Syria’s political future, Araghchi did not directly criticise Assad’s intransigence, instead saying: “Necessary measures must also be taken for good governance in Syria.”

Iran is concerned that its position inside Syria, including its supply routes into Lebanon and into Syria, will be weakened by the unexpected surge of the largely Turkish-backed forces that have seized Aleppo and moved towards Hama, farther south.

Iran’s position has already been weakened inside Gaza and Lebanon, and Tehran cannot afford to see its influence reduced further by Assad being toppled.

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, expressed their unconditional support for Assad and “restoring constitutional order” after speaking by phone on Monday. Iran and Russia have been working together to prop up Assad since the surprise Russian military intervention to protect Assad in 2015.

It is widely assumed Turkey broadly approved of the HTS-led offensive in advance, but Turkey denies this, and at minimum insists it did not expect to see Syrian army defences collapse as fully they have. In the hurriedly arranged talks in Ankara, Fidan said he did not want the crisis to escalate or the territorial integrity of Syria challenged.

But Turkey has a motive to back the offensive, since it feels for months Assad has rebuffed its efforts to secure a political settlement inside Syria. Such a deal would open the way for hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees inside Turkey to return to their homeland. More than 2 million people fled to Turkey during the civil war in 2011.

But Turkey feels Assad has spurned talks by setting preconditions such as demanding Turkish troops leave Syria or Ankara end its support for groups such as the Syrian National Army. Instead, Assad had continued to target Idlib, the stronghold of the opposition inside Syria, pushing thousands of people toward the border with Turkey. This in turn had only deepened Ankara’s fears regarding the acute refugee crisis in Turkey, which has cost the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his party significant political support.

The danger for the Syrian opposition groups is that they find themselves marginalised by the three great powers. Critics say the Astana process has become a mechanism for normalising the military presence of its three sponsors, while minimising interstate friction, and leaving the opposition out in the cold.

The last meeting of the Astana process in Kazakhstan in November, for instance, made no progress over the basic issues of the composition of a committee to draw up a new Syrian constitution – or even the venue where the committee would meet.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist militant group that has surged to global attention by launching a surprise and successful offensive in Syria over the past week, has long been the country’s most powerful rebel faction. Now its tens of thousands of fighters have seized a major city, cut a strategic highway and forced the military of Bashar al-Assad into a hasty retreat across a swath of the country, opening a new phase in a 13-year civil war that many presumed was over.

What is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham?

This sudden turn of events is shocking but not entirely surprising, veteran observers say.

“Everyone watching Syria knows it has been a tinderbox under very great pressure both domestically and from regional powers for years. The war has been continuing in the background … The scale of the gains made by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is surprising but not the offensive if you look at what the group has been saying and signalling,” said Charlie Winter, a Syria expert and director of ExTrac, a UK-based risk intelligence platform.

For about five years, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which means Movement for the Liberation of Greater Syria, has controlled the north-western Syrian province of Idlib, where it has set up what it calls the Syrian Salvation government to run schools, clinics and courts for an estimated 4 million people. Idlib thus provides a secure territorial base but also a steady stream of funding from taxes among other resources.

The group’s forces are reportedly well-trained but lightly equipped, though heavier weapons have been seized from Syrian government troops during the advances of recent days. HTS leads a rough coalition of ideologically aligned smaller factions, including groups made up of Uzbek, Tajik and Turkmen militants who have been based in Syria for many years. There may be a “smattering” of veteran western European Islamists among them, analysts said.

Where did HTS come from and who is its leader?

Formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, HTS was originally founded by al-Qaida to exploit opportunities offered by the collapse of Syria into civil war. It was swiftly successful, building a fearsome reputation for insurgent attacks and suicide bombings against regime forces and other enemies. Though broadly committed to the same project of establishing a new Islamic caliphate based in Syria and Iraq, the group became a bitter enemy of the Islamic State, and eventually split from al-Qaida too.

The leader throughout its 13-year existence has been Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a, better known as Abu Muhammed al-Jawlani, who is 42 and is thought to have been born in Syria from a family that had fled the Golan Heights after the 1967 war during which Israel occupied the mountainous area.

Little is known about Jawlani’s early years but he has described fighting with insurgents against US-led coalition forces after the invasion in 2003 before being detained with thousands of other militants in 2006. He was then imprisoned for five years in a series of US-run and Iraqi prisons before being released in 2011 and returning to Syria with six others to lead al-Qaida’s push there.

Experts say Jawlani not only distanced itself from al-Qaida but, having been targeted by Islamic State from early in the civil war, fought hard against its brutal rivals. Over the following years, Jawlani’s fighters sought, with limited success, to win the acquiescence of local communities by providing basic administration and security, rather than simply through fear. In 2021, Jawlani’s efforts to rebrand HTS culminated in an interview with US public broadcasters – though the $10m (£7.9m) reward for information leading to his arrest by US authorities remains.

This strategy led to a fierce debate among analysts. Though the US and Russia, Turkey and other states designate HTS as a terrorist group, some analysts have considered it as breaking with the extreme violence and fanaticism of many previous groups.

They point out that its aims are explicitly local, stripped of any broader vision of a much wider war against the west or Middle Eastern rulers that characterised Islamic State, and that the group has enforced Islamic codes of behaviour less strictly than many expected, recently withdrawing “morality police” from the streets after public protests.

Other experts are convinced that the group’s core thinking remains faithful to the main principles of extremist Islamist ideologies, even if its day-to-day behaviour and tactics are different. They point to thousands of arbitrary detentions in areas under its control and say any idea that HTS is a new and pragmatic form of Islamic militancy is entirely misguided.

Why launch an offensive now?

It is unclear why the HTS chose this moment to launch an offensive and recapture Aleppo, once a bastion of resistance to the Assad regime. One factor may be the military weakness of Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based militia that provided crucial support for Damascus but has been hard hit in its war with Israel. Another may be the distraction of Iran and Russia, both key supporters of Assad. HTS claims the “aggression” of the regime against the people of Idlib had become unbearable.

Whatever the truth, the offensive has already had a huge strategic impact. “It took 100 days for Aleppo to fall in 2016, and only 48 hours for it to be recaptured,” said Winter. “This takes us back to the middle of the last decade in terms of how the war could end.”

A judge ruled on Monday that Tesla chief executive Elon Musk is still not entitled to receive a $56bn compensation package even though shareholders of the electric vehicle company had voted to reinstate it six months ago.

The ruling by the Delaware judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the court of chancery, follows her January decision that called the pay package excessive and rescinded it, surprising investors. The decision cast uncertainty over Musk’s future at the world’s most valuable carmaker. Tesla’s board argued the enormous payment scheme was necessary to keep Musk involved in the company, an argument that the billionaire, already the world’s richest man, echoed.

McCormick also ordered Tesla to pay the attorneys who brought the case $345m, well short of the billions they initially requested.

Tesla has said in court filings that the judge should recognize a subsequent June vote by its shareholders in favor of the pay package for Musk, the company’s driving force who is responsible for many of its advances, and reinstate his compensation. Tesla and its shareholders argued that Musk had reached the milestones originally stipulated when the pay package was drawn up.

Tesla originally devised Musk’s payment package in 2017, setting conditions for Musk to receive 12 different tranches of stock options depending on whether the company hit certain revenue and market targets. Shareholders approved that package by a wide margin in 2018, but one investor filed a suit claiming that the board had been misleading and the package was unfair. Some prominent shareholders such as Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and the California state teachers’ retirement system voted against the pay package to no avail.

When the pay package was approved in June, Musk said in response on stage at a Tesla event: “I just want to start off by saying, hot damn, I love you guys!”

He did not immediately respond to McCormick’s most recent decision, but he has lambasted her in the past and urged other business owners to stay away from Delaware, where most US companies file their incorporation paperwork due to friendly tax policies. Musk moved Tesla’s physical headquarters from California to Texas, though the pay package case continued before the Delaware judge.

McCormick previously ruled that Tesla’s board conducted a “deeply flawed” process to determine Musk’s payment.

McCormick found that the board was rife with personal conflicts and stacked with Musk’s close allies, such as his former divorce attorney.

Joe Biden has been criticised by some of his own supporters for issuing a pardon to his son Hunter that he had previously sworn not to give.

The president’s volte face drew predictable fire from Republicans, led by the president-elect, Donald Trump, who used it to raise the case of the jailed ringleaders of the 6 January 2021 assault on the US Capitol, who he has suggested he will pardon when he returns to the White House.

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Yet it was condemnation from fellow Democrats – some of whom said he had handed Trump justification for his own use of the presidential pardon power – that seemed likely to carry greater sting.

Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, said Biden had risked his own reputation and legacy.

“While as a father I certainly understand President @JoeBiden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” Polis posted on X.

“This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.

“When you become President, your role is Pater familias of the nation. Hunter brought the legal trouble he faced on himself, and one can sympathize with his struggles while also acknowledging that no one is above the law, not a President and not a President’s son.”

Hunter Biden was convicted by a court in Delaware last June of lying on a gun licence application at a time when he was addicted to cocaine. He was later convicted of separate tax evasion charges in a court in California.

He was scheduled to be sentenced for both convictions in hearings this month.

Biden justified his pardon by insisting that Hunter’s prosecutions had been driven by “raw politics” and would not have been pressed had his father not been president.

That interpretation was rejected by Greg Stanton, a Democratic House member for Arizona.

“I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong,” he posted on social media.

“This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”

There was further condemnation from Michael Bennet, a Democratic senator for Colorado, who was prominent among those calling for Biden to step aside as the party’s presidential nominee last summer following a bad debate performance.

“President Biden’s decision put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all,” he wrote on X.

Peter Welch, a Democratic senator for Vermont, said the pardon was “as the action of a loving father, understandable – but as the action of our nation’s Chief Executive, unwise”.

In similar vein, Greg Landsman, a Democratic congressman for Ohio, posted: “As a father, I get it. But as someone who wants people to believe in public service again, it’s a setback.”

Joe Walsh, an anti-Trump former Republican congressman who endorsed Biden for president, called the pardon deflating because it enabled Trump to validate his own much-criticised pardons of friends and supporters.

“This just furthers the cynicism that people have about politics,” he told MSNBC. “That cynicism strengthens Trump because Trump can just say: ‘I’m not a unique threat. Everybody does this. If I do something for my kid, my son-in-law, look, Joe Biden does the same thing.’ I get it, but this was a selfish move by Biden which politically only strengthens Trump.”

In the Atlantic magazine, Jonathan Chait argued that the president had undermined the democratic values that he had previously championed.

“Principles become much harder to defend when their most famous defenders have compromised them flagrantly,” he wrote.

“With the pardon decision, like his stubborn insistence on running for a second term he couldn’t win, Biden chose to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.”

Some Democrats leaped to Biden’s defence.

“Hunter. Here’s the reality. No US [attorney] would have charged this case given the underlying facts,” Eric Holder, an attorney general under Barack Obama, wrote on X.

“Had his name been Joe Smith the resolution would have been – fundamentally and more fairly – a declination. Pardon warranted.”

Jasmine Crockett, a Texas member of the House of Representatives, went further, saying: “Let me be the first to congratulate the president.”

“At the end of the day, we know that we have a 34-count convicted felon that is about to walk into the White House,” she told MSNBC, referring to Trump’s conviction by a New York court on document falsification charges relating to hush money paid to a porn actor.

Alluding to allegations against several of Trump’s cabinet nominees, she added: “For anyone that wants to clutch their pearls now because [Biden] decided that he was going to pardon his son, I would say take a look in the mirror because we also know that … this cabinet has more people accused of sexual assault than any incoming cabinet probably in the history of America.”

Sarah Longwell, another anti-Trump Republican strategist who endorsed Kamala Harris’s presidential bid, wrote: “‘Trump is worse’ is never a good argument to justify bad behavior.

“Biden knows it’s wrong. That’s why he committed over and over to not doing it. It doesn’t make him the same as Trump. It doesn’t erase how singularly corrupt Trump’s current appointments are. It’s simply wrong and we should say so, lest we forget that right and wrong still exist and awareness of it matters in our President.”

Donald Trump seized on Hunter Biden’s pardon to drop one of his strongest hints yet that he intends to grant clemency to at least some of the instigators and participants of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by a mob trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” the US president-elect posted on his Truth Social platform.

It was the latest in a series of supportive comments by Trump on behalf of those convicted for their part in the onslaught, which resulted in the deaths of five people at the time. Additionally, four police officers involved in trying to beat back the rioters killed themselves in the days and months after the attack.

Now the granting of a pardon by the sitting president, Joe Biden, to his son appears to have been taken by Trump as a fresh justification.

The 2021 assault spawned one of the biggest criminal investigations in US history, resulting in federal charges being filed against nearly 1,500 people. About 1,000 have either been found guilty or pleaded guilty.

The investigation is ongoing. The FBI said last month it was seeking nine people in connection with violent assaults on police officers on the day.

Despite the seriousness of the offences, Trump has been publicly itching for months to act on behalf of those imprisoned, whom he has labelled “hostages” and “political prisoners”.

In March, he wrote that one of his first acts in office, if re-elected, would be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!”

He has repeated the vow several times, including in an appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists in July, when asked if he would grant a pardon.

“Oh, absolutely, I would. If they’re innocent, I would pardon them,” he said.

But he has stopped short of promising a blanket pardon. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control,” he told CNN.

Some of those convicted and given the longest sentences did not take part in the violence inside the Capitol but were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges connected with organising the attack. They include Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, and Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, which has been described as a neo-fascist organisation that promotes political violence.

Whatever distinctions Trump and his campaign team have in mind, there is little question that hopes are high among many of those in custody that a pardon could be forthcoming.

Lawyers for Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys member given a 17-year prison sentence last year after being convicted of a spate of crimes including seditious conspiracy and intimidation or threats to prevent officers from discharging their duties, have said they would be requesting a pardon.

Biggs claimed at his trial that he was following Trump’s orders.

Lawyers for several of those convicted have unsuccessfully sought to delay sentencing hearings since Trump won last month’s presidential election, on the basis that clemency might be at hand.

Among those incarcerated, at least one has little doubt about the prospects of imminent freedom.

Jake Lang, who is charged with several offences, including charging police officers, posted in celebratory fashion on social media after Trump’s election win, the BBC reported.

“COMING HOME!!!!,” he wrote. “THE JANUARY 6 POLITICAL PRISONERS ARE FINALLY COMING HOME!!!!”

A spade-tooth whale – thought to be the world’s rarest whale species – is undergoing dissection in New Zealand, in the first ever examination of a complete specimen.

Spade-toothed whales are a type of beaked whale named for their teeth resembling the spade-like “flensing” blade once used to strip whales of their blubber. Just seven have been documented since the 1800s, with all but one found in New Zealand.

The five metre-long male whale washed ashore in Otago, in the South Island in July, prompting excitement from cetacean specialists whose knowledge of the creatures had relied entirely on a series of bones and tissue discovered from those specimens found decades apart.

International and local scientists assembled on Monday, alongside local Māori , to begin an examination of the whale at the Invermay Agresearch Centre in Mosgiel, a city outside Dunedin.

The atmosphere inside the centre has been one of “reverence” for the animal, said Anton van Helden, a science adviser at the department of conservation and a global expert on the spade-toothed whale.

“We’re working around a dead animal, but it’s telling us about how it [lived], and also that’s unpacking all of the life stories of the people involved around it,” he said.

Van Helden, the lead author on a paper that gave the species its name, said the opportunity to examine the whale is “an incredible moment”.

“Beaked whales are the most enigmatic group of large mammals on the planet, they are deep divers that are rarely seen at sea.”

“This one is the rarest of the rare, only the seventh specimen known from anywhere in the world, and the first opportunity we have had to undertake a dissection like this,” he said.

The first example of a spade-toothed whale was found in 1874, when the species was described based on a lower jaw bone and two teeth found in the Chatham Islands, off the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. DNA taken from the tissue of two buried specimens, a mother and calf, in 2010 allowed scientists to describe what it looked like. In 2017, another specimen was beached very remotely in Waipiro Bay, north of Gisborne, and buried before being dissected.

In a 2012 study on the spade-toothed whale, published in Current Biology, scientists note that several species of beaked whale live in the South Pacific Ocean, which has some of the world’s deepest ocean trenches. The cetaceans are believed to be “exceptionally deep divers” the study said, spending their time far below the surface hunting squid and small fish.

The examination of the whale is expected to take five days. Researchers are primarily concerned with describing the species and understanding how it lives.

They will be methodically looking at the whale’s stomach layout (which is different in every species of beaked whale), how it creates sound, how many vertebrae it has, its blubber weight, its throat structure and more – the findings of which could also inform how human threats to the species are managed.

Scientists are working with local Māori from Ōtākou, who have customary rights over the area where the whale washed up. Māori consider whales a taonga – sacred treasure of cultural significance – said Tūmai Cassidy, who is contributing to the study.

“Whales are incredibly important animals in our culture … our arrival to Aotearoa [New Zealand] is deeply tied to whales and like other cultures around the world we utilise different parts of their bodies.”

Cassidy said Māori from Ōtākou have been closely involved in the process since the whale washed ashore, and the opportunity to offer Indigenous knowledge and collaborate with western science is a “epic privilege and huge opportunity.”

When complete, Ōtākou Māori will give the whale’s skeleton to the Otago Museum but will hold the jawbone for cultural purposes.

Researchers suspect that orcas may be reviving a peculiar fashion statement of sorts not seen since the 1980s.

Scientists in Washington state have observed at least one orca balancing salmon on its head, a trend known as the “dead salmon hat”. They spotted the stylish killer whale this autumn in Puget Sound.

It is likely that these marine mammals are not just sporting these hats to look chic for their deep-sea neighbors. These fishy accessories are multipurpose, allowing the wearers to enjoy a snack as they travel along on their oceanic journey.

The strange phenomenon was first documented in 1987, when a female orca was observed to be wearing a salmon hat for nearly the duration of that year. Within a few weeks, two other orcas, creatures known for being highly intelligent and social, began to adopt her unique fashion.

Yet the trend seemed to disappear just as suddenly as it had appeared – as the salmon hats already seemed to be out of fashion by 1988.

But as all fashion is cyclical, the accessories have seemingly made a comeback as of November. A 32-year-old male orca known as J27 Blackberry was photographed flaunting the same salmon hat trend at Point No Point, Washington, just off Whidbey Island in Puget Sound.

Researchers are still baffled by the abrupt resurgence.

“Honestly, we have no idea why this started again, why it happens or why it seems to be started again,” Deborah Giles, a researcher heading the team at Wild Orca, told New Scientist.

Scientists speculate that the salmon hats may be a way to combat a lack of food options in certain areas of the sea in the same way that hikers might bring snacks with them on a long trek.

It could also possibly be some sort of playful behavior in reaction to a larger than usual number of salmon in the region this year. If an orca has gorged on salmon until it is satisfied, it may be choosing to store the leftovers on its head for later because the fish are too tiny and slippery to hold under their fins.

Orcas have a reputation for being clever when it comes to their meals, but even a healthy access to salmon has not prevented the discerning species from the threat of extinction.

Jaguar unveiled its much-hyped electric concept car in Miami on Monday, just hours after leaked images of the rebranded vehicle were circulated online.

Early online reaction suggests the concept car might appear more familiar to fans of Barbie or the Pink Panther than the traditional owners of a Jag.

Unveiled in two colours, Miami pink and London blue, the new electric car, called the Type 00, is described by the brand as a “concept with bold forms and exuberant proportions to inspire future Jaguars”.

The model features the Jaguar logo laser-etched into a brass ingot on each side of the car, which themselves open to reveal rear-facing cameras that provide a view for the driver similar to conventional wing mirrors via screens located in the cabin.

The most eye-catching features, bar the colours, include the lack of a rear windscreen, with rear-view cameras instead installed under gold patches behind the front wheel.

Above sizeable wheels and wheel arches, the car’s front end is capped by a windscreen that appears to meld into the side windows, which taper towards the back of the car, contributing to what Autocar describes as “a wraparound effect reminiscent of a racing helmet”.

The British carmaker sparked controversy this November when it released a series of dramatic changes, including a new design and logo, written as JaGUar, ahead of becoming a fully electric brand.

Jaguar said the new car uses a dedicated electric platform which should return up to 478 miles of range while rapid charging will add 200 miles of charge in 15 minutes.

The production-ready version of the Type 00, which will be made in the UK, is set to be revealed late in 2025.

Although prices have not yet been confirmed, it is expected to cost more than £100,000.

Jaguar will launch three new electric cars in 2026, having taken new cars off sale more than a year ago to focus on its rebrand.

Adrian Mardell, chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, said: “The magic of Jaguar is close to my heart – an original British luxury brand unmatched in its heritage, artistry and emotional magnetism.”

Prior to the launch, a spokesperson said the firm was “aware of images circulating online ahead of Jaguar’s official reveal at Miami Art Week”.

Responding to the photos, Jaguar confirmed that the colours at least were accurate. The spokesperson said: “For the design vision, we have chosen Miami pink and London blue. Miami pink celebrates the vibrancy of the city while London blue, a modern take on the opalescent silver blue of the E-Type, is a nod to Jaguar’s British heritage.”

The jettisoning of much of that traditional heritage has been trailed in teaser ads featuring diverse models and no actual cars and the tagline “copy nothing”, a break from advertising tradition that has generated widespread publicity and controversy, including criticism of Jaguar in some quarters for selling “woke” cars.

Jaguar executives said that the carmaker had to target a new generation as it transitioned from selling diesel models.

The carmaker, which is owned by India’s Tata group, has been slower than many rivals to embrace electric cars, selling only one model, the ageing Jaguar I-Pace. However, it is investing £18bn to produce battery versions of its lineup alongside petrol cars. Deliveries of the electric Range Rover, made in its main factory in Solihull in the West Midlands, will start at the end of next year.

Jaguar unveiled its much-hyped electric concept car in Miami on Monday, just hours after leaked images of the rebranded vehicle were circulated online.

Early online reaction suggests the concept car might appear more familiar to fans of Barbie or the Pink Panther than the traditional owners of a Jag.

Unveiled in two colours, Miami pink and London blue, the new electric car, called the Type 00, is described by the brand as a “concept with bold forms and exuberant proportions to inspire future Jaguars”.

The model features the Jaguar logo laser-etched into a brass ingot on each side of the car, which themselves open to reveal rear-facing cameras that provide a view for the driver similar to conventional wing mirrors via screens located in the cabin.

The most eye-catching features, bar the colours, include the lack of a rear windscreen, with rear-view cameras instead installed under gold patches behind the front wheel.

Above sizeable wheels and wheel arches, the car’s front end is capped by a windscreen that appears to meld into the side windows, which taper towards the back of the car, contributing to what Autocar describes as “a wraparound effect reminiscent of a racing helmet”.

The British carmaker sparked controversy this November when it released a series of dramatic changes, including a new design and logo, written as JaGUar, ahead of becoming a fully electric brand.

Jaguar said the new car uses a dedicated electric platform which should return up to 478 miles of range while rapid charging will add 200 miles of charge in 15 minutes.

The production-ready version of the Type 00, which will be made in the UK, is set to be revealed late in 2025.

Although prices have not yet been confirmed, it is expected to cost more than £100,000.

Jaguar will launch three new electric cars in 2026, having taken new cars off sale more than a year ago to focus on its rebrand.

Adrian Mardell, chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, said: “The magic of Jaguar is close to my heart – an original British luxury brand unmatched in its heritage, artistry and emotional magnetism.”

Prior to the launch, a spokesperson said the firm was “aware of images circulating online ahead of Jaguar’s official reveal at Miami Art Week”.

Responding to the photos, Jaguar confirmed that the colours at least were accurate. The spokesperson said: “For the design vision, we have chosen Miami pink and London blue. Miami pink celebrates the vibrancy of the city while London blue, a modern take on the opalescent silver blue of the E-Type, is a nod to Jaguar’s British heritage.”

The jettisoning of much of that traditional heritage has been trailed in teaser ads featuring diverse models and no actual cars and the tagline “copy nothing”, a break from advertising tradition that has generated widespread publicity and controversy, including criticism of Jaguar in some quarters for selling “woke” cars.

Jaguar executives said that the carmaker had to target a new generation as it transitioned from selling diesel models.

The carmaker, which is owned by India’s Tata group, has been slower than many rivals to embrace electric cars, selling only one model, the ageing Jaguar I-Pace. However, it is investing £18bn to produce battery versions of its lineup alongside petrol cars. Deliveries of the electric Range Rover, made in its main factory in Solihull in the West Midlands, will start at the end of next year.

Donald Trump announced on Monday he has picked investment banker and Republican mega-donor Warren Stephens to serve as ambassador to the UK.

“Warren has always dreamed of serving the United States full time,” wrote Trump in a social media post. “I am thrilled that he will now have that opportunity as the top Diplomat, representing the U.S.A. to one of America’s most cherished and beloved Allies.”

Stephens is chairman, president and CEO of Stephens Inc, a privately owned financial services firm headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, according to the firm’s website.

The businessman has donated regularly to conservative causes, although not always in support of Trump. Stephens initially poured money into efforts to oppose Trump’s 2016 run, but he later supported Trump’s 2020 presidential run. In 2023, Stephens donated in support of Asa Hutchinson’s presidential run. In 2024, according to Federal Election Commission filings, he donated at least $2m to Make America Great Again Inc, a pro-Trump Super Pac.

In his announcement, Trump called Stephens’s company a “wonderful financial services firm” and praised Stephens for “selflessly giving back to his community as a philanthropist”.

A 2017 report by the Guardian revealed that Stephens held a 40% stake in a payday loan company, Integrity Advance, that the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) took action against in 2015 for allegedly employing predatory lending practices. The revelation was produced through the Paradise Papers reporting project, which investigated multinational companies’ use of tax havens to shelter their money.

According to the 2015 CFPB report, Integrity Advance allegedly misled loan recipients by obscuring the total cost of the loans and requiring borrowers to pay back loans through pre-authorized electronic transfers.

• Reuters contributed reporting

Georgian police have fired teargas to try to disperse thousands of pro-EU demonstrators rallying in the centre of Tbilisi amid a deepening political crisis in the Black Sea nation.

The country’s prime minister hours earlier had vowed “no negotiations” with the opposition, enraged by the ruling Georgian Dream party’s decision to shelve EU accession talks after it claimed victory in an election they decried as fraudulent.

The Caucasus country of about 3.7 million has been rocked by turmoil since the 26 October parliamentary elections, with Georgian Dream facing accusations of betraying the country’s longstanding ambition of joining the EU and instead moving Tbilisi closer to Moscow.

Opposition lawmakers are boycotting the country’s parliament and the pro-EU president is seeking to throw out the election results in the constitutional court.

Prime minister Irakli Kobakhidze refused any potential negotiations with the opposition, as Monday marked five consecutive nights of clashes between protesters and riot police outside the parliament in central Tbilisi.

Thousands of demonstrators, waving Georgian and EU flags and shouting “Georgia”, were on the streets again, including in the second city of Batumi, to protest against the government’s decision to suspend EU accession talks.

Police quickly moved the crowds away from the parliament, which has been targeted in recent nights of protest.

As the crowds regathered away from parliament, authorities fired teargas at protesters, some of whom launched fireworks at the police into the early hours of Tuesday.

Kobakhidze claimed on Monday that the protests were “funded from abroad” and vowed “there will be no revolution in Georgia”.

He also lambasted western countries for failing to condemn “organised violence” by protesters, as they have criticised excessive force by Georgian police.

Those on the streets of Tbilisi said they were just as defiant about not backing down. “We don’t care about their orders, they are breaking the law every day,” Giorgi, 35, told AFP. “We have to stand here and protest against this dictatorship that is coming,” he added.

An AFP reporter saw several dozen young protesters standing still in front of a wall of masked riot police, singing the Georgian national anthem. Others took refuge in a church opposite the parliament while hundreds were hit by teargas.

Rights groups and pro-EU president Salome Zourabichvili have slammed the police’s forceful crackdown over the last week.

Zourabichvili, who backs what she calls a “resistance movement” against Georgian Dream, said Monday that those detained by police “have been subjected to systematic beatings”. The “majority of the arrested protesters have injuries to their heads and faces, broken face bones, eye sockets, open wounds”, she said.

Authorities are accusing the protesters of turning violent and endangering public safety. Dozens have been injured in the protests since Thursday including demonstrators, police and journalists, according to officials and activists, though the exact numbers were unclear.

Some protesters have launched fireworks towards police, started fires and thrown projectiles, while police have been seen charging into and forcibly detaining protesters. Authorities have also deployed water cannon, teargas and rubber bullets against the crowds. More than 200 were detained during the first four nights of protest, the interior ministry said.

Tbilisi has seen numerous bouts of protest over the past two years, as the Georgian Dream party has pushed through legislation targeting civil society, independent media and the LGBTQ community. Brussels has warned those policies are incompatible with membership of the bloc.

Georgia’s constitution commits the country to seeking membership of the European Union, and opinion polls have regularly shown 80% of the country in favour. The prime minister has said that joining the bloc “by 2030” is still his “top priority”.

Zourabichvili has asked the constitutional court to annul the election result, declaring the new parliament and government “illegitimate”.

Critics accuse Georgian Dream, in power for more than a decade, of having steered the country away from the European Union and closer to Russia, an accusation it denies.

Russia on Monday defended Georgia’s crackdown on protesters. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tbilisi is acting to “stabilise” the situation, accusing protesters of wanting to “stir up” unrest.

He also said he drew a “direct parallel” with Ukraine’s 2014 “Maidan” protest, which ousted a Kremlin-backed leader who reneged on an EU partnership agreement.

The unprecedented search of a landfill in Canada for the remains of two murdered Indigenous women entered a critical yet “difficult” stage as teams braced for the possibility of finally recovering the victims of a convicted serial killer.

On Monday morning, trucks began carrying excavated material from a Winnipeg landfill, said the Manitoba premier, Wab Kinew, as he outlined the immense scope of a search aiming to bring some closure to grieving families.

In July, a Manitoba judge handed down a life sentence to Jeremy Skibicki for the “jarring and numbing” murders of four Indigenous women: Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and an unidentified woman who was named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman) by Indigenous leaders.

Kinew said on Monday: “While I am professionally obligated to remind everyone that we don’t know what the odds of the situation being successful are, in terms of recovering the remains of Morgan and Marcedes, we can say with confidence that we have a chance for this search to succeed. No matter what lies ahead, we can say we tried and we made the effort for these families.”

The murders were first uncovered in 2022, when the remains of Rebecca Contois, a member of Crane River First Nation, were found in a dumpster near Skibicki’s home. Police later found more remains in a city landfill.

The daunting search, the subject of a fierce political battle, requires sifting through nearly 20,300 cubic metres of material with rakes and by hand. The process is so intensive that new infrastructure was built after tens of millions of dollars was granted by the federal government. Power lines, roads, parking lots and changing facilities were built this year. Kinew said a massive steel heated building was also constructed to allow teams to sift though wet material by hand while outside temperatures plunge below -20C.

Of the 45 search technicians hired, including family liaisons, a forensic anthropologist, a health and safety officer, and a director of operations, half are Indigenous.

Kinew warned that the coming months of the search, which he said marked the fourth stage, would be a “difficult” part of the effort and could “stretch on for a very long period of time”.

In anticipation of the new phase of the search, teams have removed nearly 19,000 tonnes of material in an area of the Prairie Green landfill they suspect could hold the remains of the women – aided by newspapers and milk cartons marked with dates that tell roughly when the garbage was placed in the area.

Kinew has spent time with the families leading up to the search and on Sunday – a grim anniversary of two years from when the Harris family first learned from police that’s where her remains likely are – spent time with the Harris and Myran families.

“We stood with them in ceremony, and this morning, I was there with two family members as we watched the first blue truck of landfill material come down to the search facility,” he said. “It is an intense emotion that you feel, standing on that site with those families.”

The premier, who made a search of the landfill a priority when he campaigned for Manitoba’s top job in 2023, said excuses given by police and the previous government for why a search was not possible had been “systematically disproven”.

“I hope the search concludes quickly, with the result that the families are looking forward to,” he said. “We can then move on, helping them walk through the next stages of their healing journeys and of grieving their loved ones, who were taken from them in what are some of the worst crimes that we’ve ever seen in the history of our province.”

A woman who admitted to drinking and who was driving well over twice the speed limit when she smashed into a golf cart, killing a bride who had just got married at a South Carolina beach, was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in prison.

Jamie Lee Komoroski, 27, pleaded guilty at the Charleston county courthouse to reckless homicide, felony DUI causing death and two counts of felony DUI causing great bodily injury before her sentencing.

Police said she drank in several bars on 28 April 2023 and was driving 65mph on a narrow Folly Beach road with a speed limit of 25mph when she slammed into the golf cart, which was leaving a wedding.

The bride, 34-year-old Samantha Miller, died still wearing her wedding dress. The groom suffered a brain injury and numerous broken bones. The cart was thrown 100 yards (91 meters) by the crash.

The groom, Aric Hutchinson, will receive $863,300 in a financial settlement connected to the wreck, according to reports from June. Hutchinson has spoken about losing his wife, describing her as an “amazing human being who should never have been taken”.

In an interview with ABC, he broke down as he struggled to recall the incident. “The last thing I remember her saying is she wanted the night to never end,” Hutchinson told Good Morning America (GMA).

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. That night going from an all-time high to an all-time low, it’s pretty tough to try to comprehend,” said Hutchinson on GMA, but declined to comment on Komoroski.

After pleading guilty, Komoroski said she realized now she was addicted to alcohol and did not care how her actions affected others. She promised to spend the rest of her life helping addicts and warning of the dangers of drinking and driving. She said she was “devastated, deeply ashamed and sorry” for what she did.

“I wish I could go back and undo this terrible tragedy. But I cannot. I will live the rest of my life with intense regret for what happened that night,” she said.

Before the sentencing, Miller’s father told Komoroski he was disgusted that she appeared to never take responsibility. He told her she could apologize, but he would not listen to a word.

“The rest of my life I’m going to hate you and when I arrive in hell and you come there, I will open the door for you,” Brad Warner said. “You have ruined so many people’s lives.”

Komoroski, 27, pleaded guilty at the Charleston county courthouse to reckless homicide, felony DUI causing death and two counts of felony DUI causing great bodily injury.

The bride’s mother had previously lashed out at Komoroski, saying she made “a conscious choice” that turned deadly.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Lisa Miller said to Fox News. “This person chose to drink, get behind the wheel and plow down my daughter. This is a conscious choice that a young lady made.”

The Guardian contributed reporting

Full-size replica swords sold as souvenirs at a popular Harry Potter exhibition in Tokyo have fallen foul of Japan’s strict weapons control law and been recalled.

The 86cm stainless steel blade, which comes mounted on a wooden plaque, is described on the Warner Bros website that promotes the event as an “authentic recreation of Godric Gryffindor’s sword”.

But the tip of the blade was found to be sharp enough for the police to inform Warner Bros in November that possession without a special licence was illegal under Japan’s 1958 firearms and sword control law.

More than 350 replica swords were sold – at 30,000 yen (US$200) – between May 2023 and April 2024 but the police appear to have only recently become aware of its potential illegality.

The company is asking buyers to return the sword for a refund due to what it calls a “distribution issue”, with notices in Japanese and English posted on its website.

A number of the swords were available on online marketplaces in Japan but appear to have been removed.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the fictional sword is said to be 1,000 years old and commissioned by the founder of the Hogwarts school for wizards.

Tight restrictions on weapons contribute to keeping violent crime rates in Japan very low, with the annual number of shooting incidents, which usually involve yakuza gangsters, rarely breaching double figures.

A television reporter received a police caution for holding a gun without a licence during a sequence on hunting, while even ceremonial swords need to be registered with authorities.

Crimes involving weapons do occur occasionally. A 78-year-old man was arrested in July 2023 in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, for attacking his septuagenarian neighbour with a ceremonial samurai sword during an argument over noise in their apartment block.

The Warner Bros tour opened in 2023 on the site of the former Toshimaen amusement park. The facility features sets from the hit films, such as the London Ministry of Magic, and is billed as the largest indoor Harry Potter attraction in the world.