The dramatic collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime has thrown light into the dark corners of his rule, including the industrial-scale export of the banned drug captagon.

Victorious Islamist-led fighters have seized military bases and distribution hubs for the amphetamine-type stimulant, which has flooded the hidden market across the Middle East.

Led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, the rebels say they found a vast haul of drugs and vowed to destroy them.

HTS fighters allowed AFP journalists into a warehouse at a quarry on the outskirts of Damascus, where captagon pills were concealed inside electrical components for export.

A black-masked fighter, Abu Malek al-Shami, A black-masked fighter Abu Malek al-Shami claimed the factory was linked to Maher al-Assad and Amer Khiti.

Maher al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s brother, was a military commander and is now presumed on the run. He is widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade.

Syrian politician Khiti was placed under sanction in 2023 by the British government, which said he “controls multiple businesses in Syria which facilitate the production and smuggling of drugs”.

In a cavernous garage beneath the warehouse and loading bays, thousands of dusty beige captagon pills were packed into the copper coils of brand new household voltage stabilisers.

“We found a large number of devices that were stuffed with packages of captagon pills meant to be smuggled out of the country. It’s a huge quantity. It’s impossible to tell,” Shami said.

Above, in the warehouse, crates of cardboard boxes stood ready to allow the traffickers to disguise their cargo as pallet-loads of standard goods, alongside sacks and sacks of caustic soda. Caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide, is a key ingredient in the production of methamphetamine, another stimulant.

Assad fell at the weekend to a lightning HTS offensive, but the revenue from selling captagon propped up Assad’s government throughout Syria’s 13 years of civil war.

Captagon turned Syria into the world’s largest narco state. It became by far Syria’s biggest export, dwarfing all its legal exports put together, according to estimates drawn from official data by AFP during a 2022 investigation.

Experts – like the author of a July report from the Carnegie Middle East Center – also believe that Assad used the threat of drug-fuelled unrest to put pressure on Arab governments.

Captagon fuelled an epidemic of drug abuse in wealthy Gulf states, threatening social peace wrote Carnegie scholar Hesham Alghannam.

Assad, he wrote, “leveraged captagon trafficking as a means of exerting pressure on the Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world”, which it did in 2023 when it rejoined the Arab League bloc.

The caustic soda at the warehouse, in the Damascus suburbs, was supplied from Saudi Arabia, according to labelling on the sacks.

The warehouse haul was massive, but smaller and still impressive stashes of captagon have also turned up in military facilities associated with units under Maher Assad’s command. Journalists from AFP this week found a bonfire of captagon pills on the grounds of the Mazzeh airbase, now in the hands of HTS fighters who descended on the capital Damascus from the north.

Behind the smouldering heap, in a ransacked air force building, more captagon lay alongside other illicit exports, including off-brand Viagra impotence remedies and poorly forged $100 bills.

“As we entered the area we found a huge quantity of captagon. So we destroyed it and burned it. It’s a huge amount, brother,” said an HTS fighter using the nom de guerre “Khattab”.

“We destroyed and burned it because it’s harmful to people. It harms nature and people and humans.”

Khattab also stressed that HTS, which has formed a transitional government to replace the collapsed administration, does not want to harm its neighbours by exporting the drug – a trade worth billions of dollars.

An American citizen found in the suburbs of Damascus on Thursday says he was detained after crossing into the country by foot on a Christian pilgrimage seven months ago, raising hopes for other foreign nationals missing in Syria.

The man was identified later as Travis Pete Timmerman, aged 29, from Missouri, last seen in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, in late May.

He appears to be among the thousands of people released from Syria’s notorious prisons after rebels reached Damascus over the weekend, toppling President Bashar al-Assad and ending his family’s 54-year rule.

As video of Timmerman emerged online on Thursday, he was initially mistaken by some for Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in Syria 12 years ago. The footage showed a group of men gesturing at a shaken-looking, pale man with a beard who was lying on the floor, identifying him as “an American journalist”.

In the video, Timmerman could be seen lying on a mattress under a blanket in what appeared to be a private house. A group of men in the video said he was being treated well and would be returned home safely.

US officials said they were working to confirm Timmerman’s identity and provide support. Speaking in Aqaba in Jordan, secretary of state, Antony Blinken told reporters that Washington was “working to bring him home, to bring him out of Syria” but declined to comment further.

A Missouri State Highway Patrol bulletin earlier this year said Timmerman, from Urbana Missouri, had gone missing in Hungary in early June. Two months later, Hungarian police said Timmerman was last seen at a church in Budapest.

Timmerman’s mother, Stacey Collins Gardiner, told National Public Radio that he left for Budapest with the goal of writing about his Christian faith and helping people.

After losing contact with him during his stay in Hungary, Gardiner later learned that her son had gone to Lebanon. She heard the news of his discovery in media reports.

“I will hug him. … And then I probably won’t let him go,” she said, laughing. “I’ll say, well, thank God you’re still alive. And I’m so happy. Our prayers came true.”

A spokesperson for the US state department said: “We’re aware of reports of an American found outside of Damascus and seeking to provide support. Out of respect for his privacy, we have no further information to provide at this time.”

A statement from political affairs department of Syria’s recently-installed transitional government in Damascus said Timmerman had briefly been taken into their custody, while “a search is underway for American citizen Austin Tice.”

It said the new leadership in Damascus is ready “too cooperate directly with the US administration to search for American citizens disappeared by the former Assad regime.”

According to reporters at the scene, Timmerman said he went to Syria on a pilgrimage. He said he had crossed the border from Lebanon on foot before being detained, and imprisoned for seven months. Locals reported finding him naked and barefoot in the Damascus suburbs, while the Turkish state news agency Anadolu said he had been released from the notorious Sednaya prison.

Video shared by Syria television showed Timmerman saying a Syrian man had helped him and a woman escape the prison where they had been held following the collapse of the regime. Timmerman told Al Arabiya that he had heard others being tortured while he was in detention, but he had not been mistreated.

“It was OK. I was fed. I was watered. The one difficulty was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to,” he said. “I was not beaten and the guards treated me decently.”

The discovery of one US citizen sparked hopes among some that those combing Syria’s expansive network of detention centres, jail cells, and military hospitals used to detain and torture people could locate others long disappeared under the reign of Bashar al-Assad.

Assad’s brutal regime collapsed rapidly amid a sweeping insurgent advance less than a week ago, with Syrians rushing to detention facilities to force open the doors and liberate those inside. Foreign nationals, including Lebanese and Jordanians, walked free among the tens of thousands of Syrians, including some who had been detained in unknown locations for decades.

Family and supporters of Austin Tice have long said they believe he is still alive, after he was captured in the Damascus suburb of Daraya in August 2012 while working as a freelance journalist for CBS, the Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers.

Multiple sources including a former Czech ambassador to Damascus, long the only point of contact between Syria and the western world, said Tice was being held by the Syrian state despite a video released in late 2012 that purported to show him in the captivity of an armed group.

US president Joe Biden has said his administration believed Tice was alive and remains committed to bringing him home, although he acknowledged earlier this week that “we have no direct evidence,” about Tice’s condition or status.

Blinken said that US officials have not given up trying to find Tice, whose case has been pursued by multiple administrations in an effort to find and free him.

“Every single day we are working to find him and to bring him home” Blinken said. “This is a priority for the United States.”

Jacob Tice, Austin’s brother, told Christiane Amanpour of CNN earlier this week: “We have heard from sources that have been vetted by the US government that Austin is alive and he has been well taken care of, those reports are recent, they are fresh and we have every confidence that they are accurate.”

The FBI has offered a reward of up to $1m for information that could facilitate Tice’s safe return, as investigators search the country. The US government’s chief hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, is reportedly in Beirut, while the US has conveyed messages to the insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham now in charge in Syria that locating Tice is a priority.

Mouaz Moustafa, who heads the DC lobby group the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), which liaises with both rebel groups and the US government, is in Damascus and scouring sites across Syria to try to locate Tice or trace his recent journey.

Maria Cure, of SETF, said: “He has made it a priority while he’s there to find all Americans wrongfully detained in Syria, including Majd Kamalmaz, Austin Tice and others whose names are not public.”

Associated Press contributed reporting

About 1.1 million people have been displaced since Syrian rebels launched the offensive that ousted former president Bashar al-Assad, the UN’s humanitarian agency has said, as fighting between different factions continues.

“As of 12 December, 1.1 million people have been newly displaced across the country since the start of the escalation of hostilities on 27 November. The majority are women and children,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.

Among those displaced are more than 100,000 people who have fled into Kurdish-administered areas in northern Syria amid escalating factional fighting and fears of retaliatory attacks.

Tensions appear to be concentrated primarily on the town of Manbij, north-east of Aleppo, and the mixed Arab and Kurdish town of Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria.

After the collapse of Assadist forces last week, Kurdish and Arab units fighting under the banner of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have advanced, in some places clashing with the Turkish-backed rebel groups of the Syrian National Army, in an effort to secure swaths of territory in northern and eastern Syria.

In a gesture of unity, the Kurdish-backed administrations of north-eastern Syria declared they would fly the flag of independence long used by opposition forces across the country, in order to “affirm the unity of Syria and its national identity”.

The SDF commander, Gen Mazloum Abdi, said US mediation had helped broker a ceasefire agreement in Manbij, but that his forces “continue to resist and stop the growing attacks from the west of the Euphrates”, as Turkish-backed rebel groups attempted to take control of the town. Despite the ceasefire, reports continued of fighting in the centre of Manbij.

“Our goal is to cease fire throughout Syria and enter into a political process for the future of the country,” said Abdi.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist faction that is in control of much of Syria, has not clashed with Kurdish-led forces. Rebel forces in eastern Syria, however, drove Kurdish fighters out of Deir Ezzour amid confusion about who controls the town and rising fears about the presence of Islamic State (IS) fighters in the area.

Turkey, which regards the SDF and associated Kurdish fighters as terrorist groups, has also launched attacks on Kurdish troops. Ankara-backed forces struck a Kurdish convoy that it said was carrying heavy weapons looted from Syrian government arsenals.

The SDF said its forces were “repelling an attack” by Turkish-aligned forces at the Tishreen dam, near Manbij. “Fierce clashes continue amid fears for the dam,” it said, blaming bombardment by Turkish warplanes and tanks.

An estimated 900 US troops remain in eastern Syria to back Kurdish forces and other rebel factions battling to prevent a resurgence by IS.

Abdi told Sky news that his forces had been forced to pause the fighting against IS in eastern Syria due to mounting attacks by Turkish forces, prompting fears of an escape or prison break by jihadist militants held in camps in the east of the country.

IS “is now stronger in the Syrian desert. Previously, they were in remote areas and hiding, but now they have greater freedom of movement since they face no issues with other groups and are not engaged in conflict with them,” he told Sky News.

His forces have witnessed an increase in IS activities in areas under SDF control, he added, including killing several members of the SDF near Al Hasakah.

Speaking before his departure to Turkey on a stop in Jordan, US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Thursday acknowledged “real and clear interests” by Turkey about the PKK, the Kurdish fighters that Ankara links to the SDF.

“At the same time, again, we want to avoid sparking any kinds of additional conflicts inside of Syria,” Blinken told reporters in Aqaba, Jordan.

“And part of that also has to be ensuring that IS doesn’t rear its ugly head again. And critical to making sure that doesn’t happen is the so-called SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, that we’ve been supporting,” he said.

Blinken later told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that Syrian civilians need to be protected, during a meeting at Ankara airport, according to the state department.

Amid the chaos and fighting, rights groups warned that civilians were suffering the most.

“The situation is exacerbating an acute and longstanding crisis, with overcrowded camps and severely damaged infrastructure and a lack of water, power, healthcare, food and weather-appropriate shelter,” said Human Rights Watch.

The non-profit organisation also warned of widespread ill-treatment by Turkish-backed rebel groups in the area, including unlawful detentions, sexual violence and torture, land theft and extortion.

Adam Coogle, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said: “Amid the extraordinary events taking place in Syria, intense fighting and fear of retaliation and violence by armed groups is displacing thousands of civilians to areas unprepared for such an influx.”

Syria’s interim government vowed on Thursday to institute the “rule of law”. “All those who committed crimes against the Syrian people will be judged in accordance with the law,” the new government’s spokesperson, Obaida Arnaout, told AFP.

He also said that the country’s constitution and parliament would be suspended during a three-month transition.

“A judicial and human rights committee will be established to examine the constitution and then introduce amendments,” Arnaout said.

Policies allowing out gay people to serve in the US military have been denounced as part of a “Marxist” agenda aimed at prioritising social justice above combat-readiness by Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s embattled defence secretary pick.

The assertion was among many contentious “anti-woke” views expressed in Hegseth’s latest book, The War on Warriors, published this year, in which he lambasted a previous policy – known as don’t ask, don’t tell (DADT) – that tolerated gay service members as long as they did not disclose their sexual orientation, while also excoriating its repeal.

DADT was introduced as a compromise during Bill Clinton’s presidency in 1993 to allow lesbians and gay men to serve in the military in the face of opposition from senior commanders. The policy overturned a previous blanket ban that had been in place since the second world war.

It was repealed in 2011 during the presidency of Barack Obama following numerous complaints of discrimination resulting from the dishonourable discharges of armed service personnel after their sexuality had come to light.

Hegseth – whose nomination has become imperilled following allegations of drunkenness, sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement – has denounced DADT as the start of ideological “tinkering” with the armed forces for social justice ends, CNN reported .

But he has also voiced regret over its repeal, calling it “a breach in the wire” that opened the path to a wider ideological and cultural change in the armed forces.

Recalling how he was getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan when the policy was annulled, he wrote: “Our commander briefed the unit, peppered with a few jokes. You know, infantry stuff.

“We mostly laughed it off and moved on. America was at war. Gays and lesbians were already serving in the military. I had seen the enemy with my own eyes. We needed everybody.”

He now says that inclusive and tolerant attitude was a mistake, suggesting it paved the way for admitting transgender people into the military and allowing women to serve in combat roles, from which they were barred until a 2013 reform.

“It started with Clinton under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’,” Hegseth told the conservative broadcaster, Ben Shapiro, in an interview this year in which he cited a military recruitment advertisement of a soldier with two lesbian mothers as illustrative of a shift in military culture.

“At least when it was an ‘Army of One’, they were, you know, [a] tough-looking, go get ’em army,” he said.

“Now you just have the absurdity of ‘I have two mommies and I’m so proud to show them that I can wear the uniform too.’ So they, it’s just like everything else the Marxists and the leftists have done. At first it was camouflaged nicely and now they’re just open about it.”

Hegseth’s aversion to gay people in the military and women in combat was expressed before Trump nominated him for a cabinet position that would give him decision-making power over both policies.

Interviewed this week by CNN, Hegseth – a former army national guard soldier and Fox News host – declined to say whether he still believed it was a mistake to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell.

He also said he supported “all women serving in our military” – despite previously arguing that their presence led to an “erosion in standards”.

Hegseth repeatedly took issue with the concept of female combatants in a chapter of his latest book titled “The (deadly) obsession with women warriors”.

“I’m going to say something politically incorrect that is perfectly commonsensical observation,” he wrote. “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bike. We need moms, but not in the military, especially in combat units.”

In another provocative passage, he wrote: “If you train a group of men to treat women equally on the battlefield then you will be hard pressed to ask them to treat women differently at home.”

Hegseth conflated the issue of women and gay people in the military in comments to Fox News in 2015, Meidas News reported.

“Through don’t ask, don’t tell and women in the military and these standards, they’re going to inevitably start to erode standards because they want that one female special operator, that one female Green Beret, that one female Army Ranger, that one female Navy Seal, so they can put them on a recruiting poster and feel good about themselves – and [that] has nothing to do with national security,” he said.

President-elect Donald Trump’s appointee to advise him on Middle East affairs, Massad Boulos, is reported to have significant discrepancies between his public profile and documented business background, casting doubt on the thoroughness of the former president’s vetting process.

Corporate records reviewed by the New York Times reveal that Boulos, father-in-law to Tiffany Trump, is frequently described as a billionaire mogul, but actually manages a truck dealership in Nigeria that generated less than $66,000 in profit last year. The company, SCOA Nigeria PLC, is valued at approximately $865,000, with Boulos’s personal stake worth just $1.53, according to the securities filings in the Times report.

The advisory position, which does not require Senate confirmation, follows Boulos’s prominent role in Trump’s 2024 campaign outreach to Arab American voters, particularly in key swing states like Michigan. Boulos positioned himself as a critical intermediary, helping Trump navigate complex political sentiments within Arab American communities – and doing Arab-language interviews with media in the region.

While Boulos has been active in Arab American political circles, his murky business background and lack of diplomatic and policy expertise raises questions about the depth of the vetting process conducted by Trump’s team – who were also said to be caught-off guard by accusations against Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth.

During the campaign, Boulos pounded the pavement in Michigan to tout Trump’s foreign policy record, claiming he was “the only president in modern US history who did not start any wars”, despite Trump resupplying Saudi Arabia with an arms package, including precision bombs and munitions, for its brutal war in Yemen.

Boulos’s political connections are multifaceted. He’s reported to maintain relationships with various Lebanese political figures, including Christian politician Sleiman Frangieh, an ally of Hezbollah whom the militant group endorsed for president.

Boulos’s own background includes a failed parliamentary run in Lebanon in 2009. It was his son Michael’s marriage to Tiffany in Mar-a-Lago in 2022 that significantly elevated the family’s political profile.

A May meeting with dozens of Arab American leaders in Michigan highlighted the challenges of Boulos’s political positioning. The gathering, which included Trump adviser Richard Grenell, reportedly became tense when Grenell repeated controversial comments about removing Palestinians from Gaza’s “waterfront property”, causing frustration among attendees.

Trump announced the appointment on Truth Social in early December, describing Boulos as “a skilled negotiator and a steadfast advocate for PEACE in the Middle East”.

If appointed, Boulos would inherit a Middle East in profound crisis, with Israel’s destructive and more than year-long war in Gaza leading to at least 45,000 dead Palestinians and international arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. The portfolio also includes a new era for Syria as rebels toppled longtime autocrat Bashar al-Assad and war-torn Lebanon with ongoing strikes between Hezbollah and Israel.

The appointment also follows a pattern of Trump selecting family-connected individuals for key positions, with Boulos joining Ivanka Trump’s father-in-law, Charles Kushner, who was named as the potential US ambassador to France.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect in the New York murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is agitated and irritated about his treatment since he was arrested on Monday and held in a Pennsylvania jail, according to his lawyer.

Thomas Dickey, a veteran Pennsylvania trial lawyer who began representing Mangione on Tuesday, said that his client’s angry outburst as he was being led into an extradition hearing earlier this week was a product of his frustration.

“He’s irritated, agitated about what’s happening to him and what he’s being accused of,” the attorney told CNN.

Mangione cried out cryptic words when he was outside the Blair county, Pennsylvania, courthouse where he faces extradition to New York on murder and other charges. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, he shouted out: “It’s completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience!”

Dickey said Mangione’s anger was in part because of his lack of legal representation until that moment. After the lawyer and Mangione met, his demeanor changed, Dickey told CNN.

“Look at the difference between when he went in and when he came out, once he … finally had legal representation and now he has a spokesperson and someone that’s going to fight for him.”

Thompson, 50, was killed on 4 December in midtown Manhattan as he was walking to attend UnitedHealthcare’s annual investors’ meeting. The commissioner of the New York police department, Jessica Tisch, announced that detectives had made a positive match between the ghost gun that the suspect had in his possession when he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and three 9mm shell casings at the murder scene.

The casings had the words “delay”, “deny” and “depose” written on them in a possible echo of a 2010 book criticizing the healthcare insurance industry titled Delay, Deny, Defend.

Tisch has also said that police have made a match between Mangione’s fingerprints and those retrieved from a water bottle and snack bar wrapper found at the crime scene.

Dickey has questioned the credibility of police statements, urging the public to keep an open mind about his client. He told CNN that until he had seen the evidence and had a chance to interrogate it, such claims should be treated with caution.

The match between the gun and the shell casings was made on the basis of fingerprints and ballistics, he said. “Those two sciences, in and of themselves, have come under some criticism in the past, relative to their credibility, their truthfulness, their accuracy.”

On the evidence, he said: “As lawyers, we need to see it. We need to see: how did they collect it? How much of it? And then we would have our experts … take a look at that, and then we would challenge its admissibility and challenge the accuracy of those results.”

Mangione is fighting extradition to New York. His next court appearance is scheduled for 23 December.

He is being held in a cell on his own, away from other inmates, at a Pennsylvania state institution, SCI Huntingdon. While News Nation was broadcasting live from outside the correctional facility on Wednesday, inmates screamed out of their cells to complain about the conditions they and Mangione are being held in.

“Conditions suck!” one inmate could be heard yelling.

“Free Luigi!” shouted another.

The NYPD’s ongoing investigation into the CEO’s murder is focusing on a possible motive. Law enforcement officials have said that when the suspect was arrested he was carrying a notebook that talked about killing an executive at a corporate event.

Officials told the New York Times that the notebook contained the passage: “What do you do? You wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents.”

Police say they also found on Mangione’s possession a three-page handwritten note which they have described as a manifesto.

There is no indication the man charged with killing the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, was ever a client of the medical insurer and may have targeted it because of its size and influence, a senior police official said on Thursday.

Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives for the New York police department, told NBC New York in an interview on Thursday that investigators had uncovered evidence that Luigi Mangione had prior knowledge UnitedHealthcare was holding its annual investor conference in New York City.

Mangione also mentioned the company in a note found in his possession when he was detained by police in Pennsylvania.

“We have no indication that he was ever a client of UnitedHealthcare, but he does make mention that it is the fifth-largest corporation in America, which would make it the largest healthcare organization in America. So that’s possibly why he targeted that that company,” said Kenny.

Mangione remains jailed without bail in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested on Monday after being spotted at a McDonald’s in the city of Altoona, about 230 miles (about 370km) west of New York City. His lawyer said he had not seen any evidence yet linking his client to the crime.

Mangione’s arrest came five days after the killing of Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel was caught on camera.

Police say the shooter waited outside the hotel, where United Healthcare was holding its investor conference, early on the morning of 4 December. He approached Thompson from behind and shot him before fleeing on a bicycle through Central Park, then heading to a bus depot.

Mangione is fighting attempts to extradite him back to New York so that he can face a murder charge in Thompson’s killing. A hearing has been scheduled for 30 December.

The 26-year-old, who police say was found with a “ghost gun” matching shell casings found at the site of the shooting, has been charged in Pennsylvania with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. His lawyer, Thomas Dickey, said his client is not guilty.

Mangione is an Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family. On Wednesday, police said investigators are looking into an accident that injured Mangione’s back and sent him to an emergency room in July 2023. Kenny described it as a “life-changing injury”.

In social media posts, Mangione described undergoing spinal surgery last year to alleviate chronic back pain, and advised people with similar conditions to push back against doctors who suggested they had to live with pain.

Police are also looking at his writings about the injury and his criticism of corporate America and the US healthcare system.

Little is known about Mangione’s mental state in recent months, but it appears he was withdrawing from close relationships. Kenny said in the NBC interview that Mangione’s family had reported him missing to San Francisco authorities in November.

Associated Press contributed to this story

A troop of Japanese macaques that has called an Australian city park home for four decades will be prevented from reproducing because of worries about ongoing inbreeding.

The monkeys, which have been a unique attraction for Launceston in Tasmania since the 1980s, will die out over the next 25 to 30 years as a result of a council decision on Thursday to sterilise the males in the troop.

Ten monkeys were gifted to Launceston by Japanese sister city Ikeda in 1980, in exchange for 10 wallabies.

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The macaque troop at City Park currently has 26 individuals, including 14 males, two infants born in the last week, and one pregnant female who was in labour at the time of publication.

Launceston City Council is concerned about a lack of genetic diversity among the monkeys, with warnings that continued breeding would leave the enclosure overcrowded and negatively affect health and wellbeing.

Japanese macaques, also known as snow monkeys, live around 30 years.

Under Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, they are not listed as suitable for live importation, which means that new monkeys cannot be introduced to the City Park enclosure.

There are two other Japanese macaques in captivity domestically, in South Australia, but councillors ruled out the option of transporting monkeys interstate.

A council meeting on Thursday afternoon, which voted 10-1 in favour of sterilisation, was told there were signs of miscarriages and stillbirths in the troop.

Veterinary advice said the best way forward was for surgical reproductive control of males, as opposed to culling or neutering some reproductive animals.

In 2000, it was revealed the herpes B virus had spread through the monkeys but discussions about euthanising the troop were not well-received.

“We know the Launceston community cares very much about the welfare of the City Park monkeys,” the Launceston mayor, Matthew Garwood, said. “That’s a sentiment that’s also very much shared by both councillors and staff.

“The inability to introduce new genetic stock and the serious impacts on their health and wellbeing means we need to begin to consider the future of the troop.

“[The] decision was a difficult one but it prioritises the welfare of the monkey troop so we can keep them as healthy and happy as possible for as long as possible.

“[The] monkeys will still be with us for decades to come and we’ll continue to care for them to the highest possible standards.”

Garwood said he would write to the mayor of Ikeda to explain the decision.

Councillor Andrea Dawkins, who supported the motion, said community expectations had changed.

“Perhaps if we were offered this opportunity [to have monkeys] now, we wouldn’t say yes,” Dawkins, an animal welfare advocate, said. “Animals in captivity purely for the enjoyment of people is something that we’ve moved through.”

“We respect that ongoing relationship [with Ikeda] … We understand this is something that people used to do as a show of goodwill and connection.”

Ikeda is home to the world’s oldest known wombat, a 35-year-old male that was gifted by Launceston more than three decades ago.

Councillor Joe Pentridge, the only one to vote against the motion, said that while there was a lack of genetic diversity among the macaques, he did not support sterilising them.

“I don’t believe it’s the right solution,” he said. “That’s not going to fix our overcrowding, that’s not going to fix the bad management that we’ve been doing for a lot of years.”

“We’ve got too many people without balls these days, and they feel comfortable by removing everyone else’s.”

Desexing of male monkeys is expected to take place across two years.

Graeme Crook, a former zoologist who worked with captive primates for 20 years, said preventing breeding could result in tension within the macaque troop.

“You’re not allowing a natural behaviour, and that can cause all sorts of issues psychologically,” he said. “You’ll get females who really want a baby who can’t have one, who kidnap other babies – all that sort of thing happens.”

Monkeys have been a feature of Launceston’s City Park for than a century; the park has also exhibited the thylacine, and exotic species such as the brown bear and deer.

World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.

The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.

Although a viable mirror microbe would probably take at least a decade to build, a new risk assessment raised such serious concerns about the organisms that the 38-strong group urged scientists to stop work towards the goal and asked funders to make clear they will no longer support the research.

“The threat we’re talking about is unprecedented,” said Prof Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Pittsburgh. “Mirror bacteria would likely evade many human, animal and plant immune system responses and in each case would cause lethal infections that would spread without check.”

The expert group includes Dr Craig Venter, the US scientist who led the private effort to sequence the human genome in the 1990s, and the Nobel laureates Prof Greg Winter at the University of Cambridge and Prof Jack Szostak at the University of Chicago.

Many molecules for life can exist in two distinct forms, each the mirror image of the other. The DNA of all living organisms is made from “right-handed” nucleotides, while proteins, the building blocks of cells, are made from “left-handed” amino acids. Why nature works this way is unclear: life could have chosen left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins instead.

Scientists have already manufactured large, functional mirror molecules to study them more closely. Some have even taken baby steps towards building mirror microbes, though constructing a whole organism from mirror molecules is beyond today’s know-how.

The work is driven by fascination and potential applications. Mirror molecules could be turned into therapies for chronic and hard-to-treat diseases, while mirror microbes could make bioproduction facilities, which use bugs to churn out chemicals, more resistant to contamination.

The fresh concerns over the technology are revealed in a 299-page report and a commentary in the journal Science. While enthusiastic about research on mirror molecules, the report sees substantial risks in mirror microbes and calls for a global debate on the work.

Beyond causing lethal infections, the researchers doubt the microbes could be safely contained or kept in check by natural competitors and predators. Existing antibiotics are unlikely to be effective, either.

“Unless compelling evidence emerges that mirror life would not pose extraordinary dangers, we believe that mirror bacteria and other mirror organisms, even those with engineered biocontainment measures, should not be created,” the authors write in Science.

“We therefore recommend that research with the goal of creating mirror bacteria not be permitted, and that funders make clear that they will not support such work.”

Dr Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author on the report, was working towards a mirror cell but changed tack last year after studying the risks in detail.

“We should not be making mirror life,” she said. “We have time for the conversation. And that’s what we were trying to do with this paper, to start a global conversation.”

Prof Paul Freemont at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the report, called it an “excellent example of responsible research and innovation”.

“Whilst the authors clearly point out the need for an open and transparent debate on the development of mirrored living organisms, there is also a need to identify the promise and positive uses of mirror chemistry in biological systems, albeit in a limited and perhaps future regulated manner,” he said.

World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.

The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.

Although a viable mirror microbe would probably take at least a decade to build, a new risk assessment raised such serious concerns about the organisms that the 38-strong group urged scientists to stop work towards the goal and asked funders to make clear they will no longer support the research.

“The threat we’re talking about is unprecedented,” said Prof Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Pittsburgh. “Mirror bacteria would likely evade many human, animal and plant immune system responses and in each case would cause lethal infections that would spread without check.”

The expert group includes Dr Craig Venter, the US scientist who led the private effort to sequence the human genome in the 1990s, and the Nobel laureates Prof Greg Winter at the University of Cambridge and Prof Jack Szostak at the University of Chicago.

Many molecules for life can exist in two distinct forms, each the mirror image of the other. The DNA of all living organisms is made from “right-handed” nucleotides, while proteins, the building blocks of cells, are made from “left-handed” amino acids. Why nature works this way is unclear: life could have chosen left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins instead.

Scientists have already manufactured large, functional mirror molecules to study them more closely. Some have even taken baby steps towards building mirror microbes, though constructing a whole organism from mirror molecules is beyond today’s know-how.

The work is driven by fascination and potential applications. Mirror molecules could be turned into therapies for chronic and hard-to-treat diseases, while mirror microbes could make bioproduction facilities, which use bugs to churn out chemicals, more resistant to contamination.

The fresh concerns over the technology are revealed in a 299-page report and a commentary in the journal Science. While enthusiastic about research on mirror molecules, the report sees substantial risks in mirror microbes and calls for a global debate on the work.

Beyond causing lethal infections, the researchers doubt the microbes could be safely contained or kept in check by natural competitors and predators. Existing antibiotics are unlikely to be effective, either.

“Unless compelling evidence emerges that mirror life would not pose extraordinary dangers, we believe that mirror bacteria and other mirror organisms, even those with engineered biocontainment measures, should not be created,” the authors write in Science.

“We therefore recommend that research with the goal of creating mirror bacteria not be permitted, and that funders make clear that they will not support such work.”

Dr Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author on the report, was working towards a mirror cell but changed tack last year after studying the risks in detail.

“We should not be making mirror life,” she said. “We have time for the conversation. And that’s what we were trying to do with this paper, to start a global conversation.”

Prof Paul Freemont at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the report, called it an “excellent example of responsible research and innovation”.

“Whilst the authors clearly point out the need for an open and transparent debate on the development of mirrored living organisms, there is also a need to identify the promise and positive uses of mirror chemistry in biological systems, albeit in a limited and perhaps future regulated manner,” he said.

Two people have been taken to hospital after a fairground ride “failed and crashed” in Birmingham, the West Midlands fire service said.

Officers and paramedics attended the scene at Centenary Square, Birmingham, at 7.30pm on Thursday after the ride dropped to ground level “whilst in operation”, according to the fire service.

“This incident involved a fairground ride that had failed and crashed,” the fire service said.

“The ride dropped to ground level whilst in operation.”

Thirteen people were treated at the scene, however, none of their injuries were life-threatening.

“Two women were treated by ambulance staff for injuries not believed to be serious and conveyed to Midland Metropolitan university hospital,” a West Midlands ambulance service spokesperson said. “Nine women and two men were assessed by medics before being given self-care advice and discharged at the scene.”

The BBC reported a witness seeing a number of “girls who appeared to be injured”. They were seen walking away from the area.

The same witness told the BBC he saw “one girl who seemed to have her face cut”.

The fire service added that they were not working to rescue any other people from the crash.

Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju capped a stunning ascent to the pinnacle of chess by dethroning China’s Ding Liren to become the youngest ever world champion on Thursday in Singapore.

The 18-year-old from Chennai dramatically snatched the decisive victory from a dead-drawn position in the final contest of their best-of-14-games showdown when Ding made one of the worst blunders in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay. The 32-year-old defending champion resigned moments later after a game that lasted 58 moves and just over four hours, sealing Gukesh’s 7½-6½ win in the three-week match and rendering moot the widely expected prospect of tiebreaker matches on Friday afternoon.

In doing so, Gukesh shattered the age record held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he toppled Anatoly Karpov in 1985.

Gukesh admitted he didn’t initially recognize Ding’s rook move (55 Rf2??) as a blunder, saying it took a few seconds to spot that his opponent’s bishop was trapped. He could barely conceal his excitement upon the discovery, while a devastated Ding could only bury his head in his hands.

“When I realized it, it was probably the best moment of my life,” said Gukesh, who brings home the $1.35m (£1.06m) winner’s share of the $2.5m prize fund along with the sport’s most prestigious title.

Ding, playing with the favored white pieces, was slightly better out of the opening but Gukesh was able to unlock his pieces and stabilize in the middlegame. The draw appeared inevitable when material starting coming off the board in bunches starting with move 19.

But a game that appeared bound for a peaceful result suddenly became complicated when Ding sacrificed a pawn in exchange for a simpler position. That left Gukesh with no choice but to fight on and he was more than happy to punish his foe in a grueling endgame under mounting time pressure.

That’s when Ding finally cracked.

“I was totally in shock when I realized I made a blunder,” Ding said. “His facial expression showed that he was very happy and excited and I realized I made a blunder. It took some time to realize it.”

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was among the first to congratulate Gukesh after he became only the second world champion from India along with Viswanathan Anand, who held the crown from 2007 through 2013.

“Historic and exemplary!” Modi wrote on X. “Congratulations to Gukesh D on his remarkable accomplishment. This is the result of his unparalleled talent, hard work and unwavering determination.”

After Ding resigned, the tears flowed as Gukesh sat at the board overcome by emotion while hundreds of his supporters set off scenes of jubilation in the spectators’ area.

“I probably got so emotional because I did not really expect to win from that position,” Gukesh said. “I was going to press it for as long as it as I could possibly press, but I thought, ‘It’s OK. We are going to play for five, six hours. It’s going to end in a draw, and let’s focus on the tiebreaks.’

“But then suddenly after Rf2, I saw [the game] was actually done. I was already preparing myself to go through that huge tiebreak fight and suddenly it was all over and I had achieved my dream. I’m not someone who shows a lot of emotions, but I think this one can be forgiven.”

Last year Ding became the first men’s world chess champion from China by defeating Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi in Kazakhstan, capturing the title abdicated by longtime world No 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway. But he’d played very sparingly in the 19 months since then amid a well-documented bout with depression, including a nine-month hiatus to prioritize his mental health.

He entered the title match having gone 28 classical games without a win, a dreadful run of form that saw him drop to 23rd in the world rankings and prompted the oddsmakers to install him as roughly a 3-1 longshot in the match. But he sprang a major surprise in Game 1 by winning as black, ending the 304-day winless streak with a riveting opening salvo.

Game 2 was a quiet draw, before Gukesh roared back with a win in Game 3. The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th games were each draws. Gukesh won on Sunday in Game 11 before Ding struck back in Monday’s Game 12. The 13th game on Wednesday saw Ding hold on in a high-wire draw, leaving the score at 6½-all entering Thursday’s finale at Resorts World Sentosa, an island resort off Singapore’s southern coast.

While Ding had been regarded as the underdog in the match due to his unremarkable form, he would have gone off as a slight favorite if Game 14 was drawn and the match was settled on Friday with a series of tiebreak games with faster time controls.

“Champions always step up to the moment,” the fifth-ranked Gukesh said. “Obviously the past two years he hasn’t been in great shape, but he came here. He was obviously struggling during some of games. He was probably not at his best physically. But he fought in all games. He fought like a true champion.”

Gukesh, commonly known as Gukesh D, became the third-youngest grandmaster in history at 12 years and seven months. In April, at 17, he stunned the chess establishment by winning the eight-man Candidates tournament in Toronto to become the youngest ever challenger for the world championship, finishing top of a stacked field that included Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.

That Gukesh was even playing for the world title was a historic achievement. Until April, teenagers had had an indifferent record in the Candidates over the years. Only Bobby Fischer in 1959 and Carlsen in 2006, both then 16, were younger than Gukesh, and both were also-rans.

“My journey, it’s been since the time I started playing chess at six and a half, seven [years old],” Gukesh said. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment for more than 10 years. Every chess player wants to experience this moment and very few get the chance. To be one of them is … I think the only way to explain it is I am living my dream.”

President Emmanuel Macron is expected to name a new prime minister on Friday after days of deadlock over finding a candidate to replace Michel Barnier, whose ousting by parliament pushed France into a fresh crisis.

Barnier was toppled in a historic no-confidence vote on 4 December and there had been expectations Macron would announce his successor in an address to the nation even a day later.

But in a sign of the stalemate in French politics after inconclusive legislative elections this summer, he did not name his successor then and has now missed a 48-hour deadline he gave at a meeting of party leaders on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Macron left France on a daylong trip to key EU and Nato ally Poland but shortened the visit in an apparent bid to finalise the appointment.

“The statement naming the prime minister will be published tomorrow [Friday] morning,” said an aide to the president, asking not to be named, late on Thursday just after Macron touched down from the trip to Poland.

“He is finishing his consultations,” the aide added, without giving further details.

The announcement is likely to come in a written statement, with the new cabinet to be revealed at a later date.

Whoever is named will be the sixth prime minister of Macron’s mandate after the toppling of Barnier, who lasted only three months. The new premier faces an immediate challenge in thrashing out a budget to pass parliament.

Each prime minister under Macron has served successively less time in office and there is no guarantee the new premier will not follow this pattern.

Macron remains confronted with the complex political equation that emerged from the snap parliamentary polls – how to secure a government against a no-confidence vote in a bitterly divided lower house where no party or alliance has a majority.

All the candidates widely floated so far have encountered objections from at least one side of the political spectrum.

“They are stuck,” said a person close to Macron, asking not to be named and lamenting that “each name gets blocked”.

“No one is in agreement around the president,” added the source, expressing hope Macron will surprise everyone with an unexpected choice.

Macron’s rumoured top pick, veteran centrist Francois Bayrou, raises hackles on the left – wary of continuing the president’s policies – and on the right, where he is disliked by influential former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Beyond Bayrou, prime ministerial contenders include former Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve, current defence minister Sebastien Lecornu, a Macron loyalist, and former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Another name being discussed in the media is Roland Lescure, a former industry minister, but the nomination of the former Socialist risks inflaming the right.

These “are names that have been around for years and haven’t seduced the French. It’s the past. I want us to look to the future,” said Greens leader Marine Tondelier.

“The French public want a bit of enthusiasm, momentum, fresh wind, something new,” she told France 2 television.

Polls indicate the public is fed up with the crisis. Just over two-thirds of respondents to one Elabe poll published on Wednesday said they want politicians to reach a deal not to overthrow a new government.

But confidence is limited, with around the same number saying they did not believe the political class could reach agreement.

In a separate IFOP poll, far-right National Rally (RN) figurehead Marine Le Pen was credited with 35% support in the first round of a future presidential election – well ahead of any likely opponent.

She has said she is “not unhappy” that her far-right party was left out of the horse-trading around the government, appearing for now to benefit from the chaos rather than suffer blame for bringing last week’s no-confidence vote over the line.

In a critical looming moment, Le Pen on 31 March 2025 faces the verdict in an embezzlement trial on charges she denies. If convicted, she could lose the chance of standing in the 2027 elections and with it her best chance yet of winning the Élysée Palace.

A review of the large mysterious drones reported flying over parts of New Jersey in recent weeks has shown many are actually manned aircraft being flown lawfully, a White House official said on Thursday.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, said there were no reported sightings in any restricted airspace. He added that the US Coast Guard had not uncovered any foreign involvement from coastal vessels.

“We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus,” Kirby said, echoing statements from the Pentagon and New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy.

Separately on Thursday, one US senator called for mysterious drones spotted flying over sensitive areas in New Jersey and other parts of the mid-Atlantic region to be “shot down, if necessary”, even as it remains unclear who owns them.

“We should be doing some very urgent intelligence analysis and take them out of the skies, especially if they’re flying over airports or military bases,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat of Connecticut, on Thursday as concerns about the drones spread across Capitol Hill.

The drones appear to avoid detection by traditional methods such as helicopter and radio, according to a state lawmaker briefed on Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security.

In a post on the social media platform X, the assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia described the drones as up to 6ft (1.8 meters) in diameter and sometimes traveling with their lights switched off. The Morris county Republican was among several state and local lawmakers who met with state police and homeland security officials to discuss the spate of sightings that range from the New York City area through New Jersey and westward into parts of Pennsylvania, including over Philadelphia.

The devices did not appear to be being flown by hobbyists, Fantasia wrote.

Dozens of mysterious night-time flights started last month and have raised growing concern among residents and officials. Part of the worry stems from the flying objects initially being spotted near the Picatinny Arsenal, a US military research and manufacturing facility; and over Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster. Drones are legal in New Jersey for recreational and commercial use, but they are subject to local and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations and flight restrictions. Operators must be certified by the FAA.

Most, but not all, of the drones spotted in New Jersey were larger than those typically used by hobbyists.

The number of sightings has increased in recent days, though officials say many of the objects seen may have been planes rather than drones. It is also possible that a single drone has been reported more than once.

Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that the drones do not appear to threaten public safety. The FBI has been investigating and has asked residents to share any videos, photos or other information they may have.

Two Republican Jersey Shore-area congressmen, Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, have called on the military to shoot down the drones.

Smith said a coastguard commanding officer briefed him on an incident over the weekend in which a dozen drones followed a motorized coastguard lifeboat “in close pursuit” near Barnegat Light and Island Beach state park in Ocean county.

Lt Luke Pinneo with the US Coast Guard told the Associated Press on Wednesday “that multiple low-altitude aircraft were observed in vicinity of one of our vessels near Island Beach state park”.

The aircraft were not perceived as an immediate threat and did not disrupt operations, Pinneo said. The coastguard is assisting the FBI and state agencies in investigating.

In a letter to the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, Smith called for military help dealing with the drones, noting that Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst had the capability “to identify and take down unauthorized unmanned aerial systems”.

However, a Pentagon spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, told reporters on Wednesday that “our initial assessment here is that these are not drones or activities coming from a foreign entity or adversary”.

On Tuesday, the senators of New York and New Jersey issued a letter to the homeland security department, the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI, demanding a briefing on the drone sightings as soon as possible.

In the joint letter, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker and Andy Kim urged the government agencies to “brief us as soon as possible on how your agencies are working with federal and local law enforcement to identify and address the source of these incursions”.

“In addition to potential privacy concerns raised by these aerial systems, we are also especially concerned about how these drones may harm public safety,” they said.

Meanwhile Illinois’s Democratic representative, Raja Krishnamoorthi, said to NewsNation on Wednesday that he thought China might be conducting the drones in the US.

“It’s a non-trivial chance … It’s definitely a possibility, and the likelihood that they can then access data that is collected by these drones is very high,” he said.

“You can easily imagine a situation where these drones are flying over sensitive sites in the DC airspace,” he added, referring to Chinese-made drones.

Many municipal lawmakers have called for more restrictions on who is entitled to fly the unmanned devices. At least one state lawmaker proposed a temporary ban on drone flights in the state.

“This is something we’re taking deadly seriously. I don’t blame people for being frustrated,” Murphy said earlier this week. A spokesperson for the Democratic governor said he did not attend Wednesday’s meeting.

The Republican assemblyman Erik Peterson, whose district includes parts of the state where the drones have been reported, said he also attended Wednesday’s meeting at a state police facility in West Trenton. The session lasted for about 90 minutes.

Peterson said DHS officials were generous with their time, but appeared dismissive of some concerns, saying not all the sightings reported had been confirmed to involve drones.

So who or what is behind the flying objects? Where are they coming from? What are they doing? “My understanding is [officials] have no clue,” Peterson said.

The kanji character kin – which can mean gold or money – has been chosen as Japan’s word of the year to reflect the country’s medal sweep at the Paris Olympics and a damaging financial scandal inside the ruling party.

The single character, which can also be read as kane (money), was unveiled this week at Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, whose head priest, Seihan Mori, reproduced it with a huge brush on a white washi paper canvas.

The character that best captured the zeitgeist attracted 12,148 votes out of 221,971 cast, according to the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, which has organised the annual contest since 1995.

It is the fifth time that kin has been selected, thanks to its association with the feats of Japanese athletes during years when the Olympics are held. It last won in 2021, when Japan had its best-ever haul of 27 gold medals at the pandemic-delayed Games in Tokyo.

But this year’s choice also reflects public anger with the Liberal Democratic party, which suffered heavy losses in October’s lower house election over revelations that dozens of its MPs had siphoned profits from official functions into secret slush funds.

“Both gold medals and political money have captured the public’s attention,” Mori said, according to the Asahi Shimbun, which noted that some may have voted for kin after a year of rising prices during the cost-of-living crisis and a recent spate of high-profile robberies.

Mori said he had been surprised by the choice, having expected wa – which means circle – to be chosen to reflect public solidarity with people living in Ishikawa prefecture, the region hit by a deadly earthquake on New Year’s Day.

In acknowledgment of the quake’s impact, the second most popular choice was sai, meaning disaster, while third place went to sho – soar or fly – which forms part of the name of the Japanese Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani.