A number of high-profile, conservative influencers in the US have said they are “victims” of an alleged Russian disinformation campaign, after the Biden administration accused Moscow of carrying out a sustained campaign to influence the outcome of November’s presidential elections.

Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson published statements on Wednesday evening addressing allegations that a US content creation company they were associated with had been provided with nearly $10m from Russian state media employees to publish videos with messages in favour of Moscow’s interests and agenda, including over the war in Ukraine.

The justice department indictment does not name the company, but describes it as a Tennessee-based content creation firm with six commentators and with a website identifying itself as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on western political and cultural issues”.

That description exactly matches Tenet Media, an online company that hosts videos made by well-known conservative influencers Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and others.

The Guardian has contacted Tenet for comment. The company has not released a statement or commented on the allegations, or responded to other media organisations’ requests for comment, including the New York Times and CBS, according to their reporting.

Tenet Media’s shows in recent months have featured high-profile conservative guests, including Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and RNC co-chair Lara Trump, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Republican US senate candidate Kari Lake.

“The company never disclosed to the influencers – or to their millions of followers – its ties to [Russian state media company] RT and the Russian government,” US attorney general Merrick Garland said. His department described Wednesday’s indictment as the most sweeping effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the November presidential election.

The Tennessee-based company published English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to the indictment.

Pool, a popular podcaster with more than 2 million followers on X, said “should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.”

“Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show and the contents of the show are often apolitical.”

Johnson, who has 2.7 million followers on X, said he was “disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme”.

Rubin said on X that he “knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity” and that the allegations showed “that I and other commentators were the victims of this scheme.”

The justice department accuses two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, of covertly funding the Tennessee-based content company to publish videos in favour of Russia. The justice department says the company did not disclose that it was funded by RT and that neither it nor its founders registered as required by law as an agent of a foreign principal.

RT ceased operating in the US after major television distributors dropped it following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. RT responded with ridicule to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency: “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections.”

Garland said: “The justice department’s message is clear: We will have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic systems of government.”

The nearly 2,000 videos posted by the company have received more than 16m views on YouTube alone, prosecutors said. The company paid $8.7m to the production companies of three of the online stars it recruited, according to the indictment.

The commentators, who were not named in the indictment, did not know they were paid by RT, the Justice Department said.

In one instance, the indictment said, one of the RT employees asked the company to produce a video that would blame Ukraine and the United States for a mass shooting at a Moscow music venue, the justice department said, even though Islamic State had claimed responsibility. A company founder responded that one of the commentators is “happy to cover it”, according to the indictment.

As part of the indictment, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state media employees in its most sweeping effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the November presidential election.

The treasury department also sanctioned the RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, and nine other employees of the network over the campaign of disinformation around the elections. Simonyan is a “central figure in Russian government malign influence efforts” the department said.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report

The Biden administration has accused Russia of carrying out a sustained disinformation campaign targeted at American voters and meant to influence the outcome of November’s presidential elections.

In its most direct accusation of election meddling to date, the US government accused the state-financed RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and other Russian state-backed media of spearheading a covert campaign of disinformation promoting pro-Kremlin views laundered through their online and television networks.

The treasury department also sanctioned the RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, and nine other employees of the network over the campaign of disinformation around the elections. Simonyan is a “central figure in Russian government malign influence efforts” the department said.

It also accused RT of spending millions of dollars to “recruit unwitting American influencers” in order to spread a message meant to undermine confidence in the US elections system and US foreign policy goals, including support for Ukraine.

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, condemned the alleged disinformation campaign during a meeting of the justice department’s election threats task force, which included the FBI’s director, Christopher Wray, and other senior law enforcement leaders.

In a statement, Garland said that the US would charge two employees of Russia’s RT network with money laundering and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. RT was officially declared a foreign agent in the US in 2017.

The state department also announced on Wednesday that it would limit visa issuance for some employees of Russian state-backed media and also declare the Russian state media organisation Rossiya Segodnya as a foreign mission effectively acting on behalf of the Kremlin, requiring further disclosures about its employees and property in the US.

“We now know that RT, formerly known as Russia Today, has moved beyond being simply a media organisation,” the US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. “We know that RT has contracted with a private company to pay unwitting Americans millions of dollars to carry the Kremlin’s message to influence the US elections and undermine democracy.”

The US government also announced a Rewards for Justice (RFJ) offer of up to $10m (£7.6m) relating to information pertaining to foreign interference in a US election.

The disinformation crackdown was first reported by CNN before coordinated statements issued by the White House, which publicly condemned the actions, and the US Department of Justice, which announced a series of law enforcement actions including the charges against the RT employees.

According to Garland, the Kremlin directed Russian agencies to obtain website domains and spoof popular US news outlets like Fox News and the Washington Post, fooling American voters into reading Kremlin-produced news content that they thought was produced in the US.

“An internal planning document created by the Kremlin states that it is a goal of the campaign to secure Russia’s preferred outcome in the election,” Garland said in a statement on Wednesday.

Garland accused a Russian public affairs company called the Social Design Agency of driving readers to the websites to “reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies and interests and influence voters in the United States”.

The group “deployed influencers and paid social media advertisements” to drive traffic to the sites, he said. “They also created fake social media profiles, posing as US citizens, to post comments on social media platforms with links to the sites.”

The accusations came just one month after the White House accused Iran of leading a foreign interference programme. Senior intelligence and law enforcement agencies in August said that Iran was behind a hack of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, which led to campaign records including a dossier on the vice-presidential candidate JD Vance being leaked to a series of US news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post and Politico. CNN reported that the hackers managed to breach the Trump campaign through the email account of Trump ally Roger Stone.

Garland also condemned “increasingly aggressive Iranian activity” in order to influence the outcome of the US presidential election.

“We will be relentlessly aggressive, encountering and disrupting attempts by Russia and Iran, as well as China or any other foreign malign actor, to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy,” Garland said.

Garland added that the group was also dedicated to combating domestic threats against US public servants who administer elections in the US, saying they had been targeted with “heinous acts and threats of violence”.

“The US has long known that Moscow utilises a vast collection of tools, including malign influence campaigns and cyber activities, to undermine the interests of the United States, our democratic institutions and those of our allies,” said Miller.

Liz Cheney, the Republican former representative of Wyoming, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. The former legislator made the pronouncement on Tuesday at an event at Duke university in North Carolina. This move makes her the latest Republican to publicly say that they will not be supporting Donald Trump.

“I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” Cheney, daughter of former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, told the crowd. “And as a conservative, as somebody who believes in and cares about the constitution, I have thought deeply about this and the present danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, I am voting for Kamala Harris.”

Cheney’s announcement, which was met with cheers from the audience, puts her on the growing list of lifelong Republicans who will be voting against Trump. In March, former vice-president Mike Pence told Fox news that he will not be endorsing his former running mate in November, citing Trump’s actions on 6 January and course reversals on issues such as forcing China to sell TikTok.

Other prominent Republicans to vote against the party’s nominee include Adam Kinzinger, the former republican representative for Illinois; Olivia Troye, who worked in the Trump administration as homeland security adviser to Pence; and Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump’s former press secretaries, all of whom spoke at the recent Democratic national convention in Chicago. These appearances follow years of establishment Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, known as “Never Trumpers”, decrying Trump and the risks they see him posing to the health of the nation.

On Tuesday, a day before Cheney’s announcement, Jimmy McCain, son of former Republican senator John McCain, said that he would also be voting for the Democrat’s ticket due to what he sees as Trump’s animus and disrespect toward the military.

“I care about my family, I care about equal rights for everyone in this country. I care about all of this, and you know, as much as I stayed as an independent I decided it was time to move on and do what I believe in,” McCain told CNN on Tuesday.

Cheney has long been a detractor of Trump. In 2021 she was one of ten republicans to vote to impeach Trump after the 6 January riot. Weeks later Cheney was voted out of her leadership role among House republicans. During a closed-door vote before her ousting, Cheney was reportedly booed after voicing criticisms of Trump.

Donald Trump lobbed his usual insults and accusations at Kamala Harris and Tim Walz during a town hall aired on Fox News and then falsely claimed that migrants from around the world are pouring into the US.

The pre-taped interview aired Wednesday evening. The former president walked onto the stage in a Pennsylvania arena to cheers, applause and chants of “USA” from his supporters.

The town hall, hosted by Sean Hannity, comes less than a week before Trump and Kamala Harris meet on the debate stage and as both presidential candidates’ campaigns have drilled down on the US’s six so-called battleground states: Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. Election forecaster Nate Silver predicted that Pennsylvania is likely to be the “tipping point” for the election.

It also aired hours after two students and two teachers were shot and killed at Apalachee high school in Georgia. When asked about the shooting, Trump said: “It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons and we’re going to make it better. We’re going to heal our world. We’re going to get rid of all these wars that are starting all over the place because of incompetence … We’re going to make it better.”

As he often does, Trump spent time lambasting the Biden-Harris administration over crime, immigration and the intersection of the two issues. Calling the vice-president the “border czar”, he falsely claimed that 20 million people – many of whom he claims have come straight out of prisons and “insane asylums” – have “poured into our country”. He also made mention of reports about an apartment in Aurora, Colorado, being taken over by gang members. Harris was never given the title of border czar.

Trump also made reference to family members of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz posting a photo with “Nebraska Walz’s for Trump” T-shirts and thanked them for endorsing him. The photo is reportedly of distant cousins of Walz’s who are related to the Minnesota governor on his father’s side, the Associated Press reports.

After incorrectly thanking Walz’s father for his endorsement, he called Walz “weird” in an ongoing attempt to turn the tables on Walz, who began calling Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, weird during stops and interviews for Harris’s campaign.

Fox News also played out-of-context, seconds-long news clips of Harris in an effort to support Trump’s claims that policies from the Biden-Harris administration have caused inflation and to call out her alleged flip-flopping on implementing a fracking ban.

On Thursday Fox News will air part two of the town hall with Trump and Hannity.

Two students and two teachers were killed at a Georgia high school on Wednesday in a mass shooting authorities say was committed by a 14-year-old male student at the school.

At least nine others were taken to the hospital following the incident at Apalachee high school in Winder, about 50 miles north-east of Atlanta.

Officials said at an afternoon press conference that the suspect was alive and in custody, and surrendered quickly as officers, including two school resources officers, entered the campus and confronted him.

Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia bureau of investigation, took the unusual step of naming the minor, Colt Gray, as the suspect. He said the suspect would be charged as an adult with four counts of murder.

“What is more important for me to mention here to you is my heartfelt sympathy to the parents, the students that were here,” he said.

He did not disclose what kind of firearm was used, or how it was obtained.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation later issued a statement revealing that it had investigated online threats to commit a school shooting in 2023 and local law enforcement interviewed a 13-year-old subject and his father in nearby Jackson county. The statement did not identify the teen, but Georgia officials said the statement was in connection to the subject in custody.

“The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them. The subject denied making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject,” the FBI said, adding that there was no probable cause to make an arrest.

The Barrow county sheriff, Jud Smith, became emotional as he spoke to reporters late on Wednesday afternoon.

“This hits home for me. I was born and raised here. I went to school in this school system, my kids go to this school system. I’m proud of this school system,” he said, holding back tears.

“My heart hurts for these kids. My heart hurts for our community. But I want to make it very clear that hate will not prevail in this county … Love will prevail over what happened today, I assure you of that.”

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris separately condemned the killings. The US president called on Congress to pass tighter new gun laws, in a statement issued by the White House, and the US vice-president and Democratic party nominee for president in the November election, called it a “senseless tragedy” and called for “an end to this epidemic of gun violence”.

Harris added: “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Students at the school spoke of their terror at hearing gunshots and the sound of screaming outside their classrooms. It was the 385th mass shooting in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Other reports said five high schools in the region, including Apalachee, had received phone calls on Wednesday morning threatening that a shooting would take place.

Video on local TV stations showed students gathered on the school’s football field, and at least two people airlifted to local hospitals by helicopter.

A spokesperson for the Grady Health System in Atlanta said it received one gunshot victim. An official at Piedmont Athens regional hospital, speaking under condition of anonymity, said one adult was in surgery with a gunshot wound to the stomach, and a minor was being treated for unspecified injuries.

Biden, in a statement, said the shooting was “another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart”, and called on Republicans in Congress to work with Democrats and pass “commonsense gun safety legislation” including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and universal background checks for gun buyers.

“These measures will not bring those who were tragically killed today back, but it will help prevent more tragic gun violence from ripping more families apart,” the president said.

Students caught up in the shooting described hearing gunshots and screaming. Senior Sergio Caldera, 17, told ABC News he was in chemistry class when he heard shooting.

“My teacher goes and opens the door to see what’s going on. Another teacher comes running in and tells her to close the door because there’s an active shooter,” Caldera said.

He said the teacher locked the door and the students ran to the back of the room and huddled together. Someone pounded on his classroom door and shouted “open up!” multiple times, he said, followed by gunshots and screams after the knocking stopped.

Lyela Sayarath, another student, told CNN how the shooter was unable to gain access to a classroom, and she listened as he turned and fired on students in a hallway.

“They didn’t let him in and you could hear the gunshots,” she said. “He never really talked; he was pretty quiet.”

Speaking of his previous school attendance, she added: “He wasn’t there most times, he either wouldn’t come to school or would skip class.”

Ashley Enoh said she was at home she received a text message from her brother, a senior at Apalachee, a school with about 1,900 students.

“Just so you know, I love you,” the text read.

Students were evacuated to the school’s football field, and later allowed to reunite with their families.

Merrick Garland, the attorney general, said FBI and ATF agents were on the scene, and the justice department “stands ready” to provide the GBI and local authorities any assistance they needed.

“I’m devastated for the families who have been affected by this terrible tragedy,” he said at a press conference at the justice department addressing alleged Russian interference in US elections.

The mayor of Atlanta, Andre Dickens, issued a statement on X. “My prayers are with the high school students, staff, and families affected by the act of violence in Winder, Georgia,” he wrote.

“APD [Atlanta police department] has also been on standby in case other law enforcement agencies need assistance with this incident. May God comfort the victims and their loved ones in the difficult days ahead.”

The FBI field office in Atlanta dispatched agents to the high school to support local law enforcement, said Jenna Sellitto, a spokeswoman for the office.

People in Winder, a city of 18,000 some 50 miles (80km) north-east of Atlanta, gathered in a park for a prayer vigil later Wednesday night.

Some leaned on each other or bowed their heads in prayer, while others lit candles to honor the dead.

“We are all hurting. Because when something affects one of us it affects us all,” said Power Evans, a city councilman who addressed the gathering. “I know that here tonight, all of are going to come together. We’re going to love on one another … We’re all family. We’re all neighbors.”

The US has seen hundreds of shootings inside schools and colleges in the past two decades.

The Gun Violence Archive reported there had been 384 mass shootings in the US this year before Wednesday’s incident in Georgia, and more than 11,500 killed by gunshots, excluding suicide. The group considers a mass shooting to be one in which four or more victims are killed or shot, not including the shooter.

Kris Brown, president of the gun control advocacy group Brady, said: “Students across the country are returning to classrooms this week, and already we are witnessing yet another devastating school shooting. There is no world in which this is acceptable, no world in which our children should be forced to run and hide from shooters in school hallways, no world in which loved ones should have to wait (as parents in Winder are) to learn if their child will return home from school alive.”

“Thoughts, prayers, and platitudes will never be enough. Gun violence is an all-too American crisis that demands action.”

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

Kamala Harris condemned the deadly shooting that occurred at a high school in Winder, Georgia on Wednesday, calling it a “senseless tragedy” and saying “we have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country”.

The US vice-president and Democratic nominee for president paused before she began a speech about economic matters on the election campaign trail in North Hampton, New Hampshire, to address the incident.

She shook her head and called the killings “outrageous” in commenting on the first mass shooting at a school since she became the nominee.

“We’re still gathering information about what happened, but we know that there were multiple fatalities and injuries, and our hearts are with all the students, the teachers and their families,” she said.

She added: “Of course, we are grateful to the first responders and the law enforcement that were on the scene. But this is just a senseless tragedy, on top of so many senseless tragedies, and it’s just outrageous that every day in our country, in the United States of America, that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive.”

Visibly frustrated, Harris continued: “It’s senseless. It is. We’ve got to stop it, and we have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all. You know, it doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Four people have been confirmed dead and multiple others injured. The suspect is currently in custody, according to authorities.

Joe Biden also issued a statement, saying: “Jill and I are mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence and thinking of all of the survivors whose lives are forever changed.

“What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart,” he added before calling on Republicans to “finally say ‘enough is enough’”, and pass more gun control legislation.

In a separate statement on Wednesday, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said that the justice department “stands ready” to support Winder’s community.

“I am devastated for the families that have been affected by this terrible tragedy,” Garland said.

Meanwhile, posting on his Truth Social account, Donald Trump called the shooter a “sick and deranged monster”, adding: “Our hearts are with the victims and loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, GA.”

Canada’s New Democratic party says it has “ripped up” a key agreement with prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, sowing uncertainty into the country’s politics as party leaders brace for a possible election.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh made the surprise announcement on social media on Wednesday afternoon, accusing Trudeau of “caving” to corporate greed. “The Liberals have let people down. They don’t deserve another chance from Canadians,” he said.

After Trudeau’s Liberals won a minority of seats in parliament in 2021, the NDP agreed to support the party in order to shield them from confidence votes that could bring down the government. The deal, called a confidence and supply agreement, was scheduled to run until June 2025.

In exchange for supporting the Liberals, the NDP was able to push through a new dental care program for low-income Canadians, plans for a national pharmacare programme and legislation to ban the use of replacement workers during a lockout or strike.

But the Liberals have experienced a dramatic collapse in support in recent months while the Conservatives have surged in the polls and are widely seen as the clear frontrunners in a looming federal election. At the same time, a string of policies championed by the NDP and passed into law has made it difficult for the NDP to untangle itself from the Liberal brand.

Singh defended the decision, citing an “even bigger battle ahead” in the form of “Conservative cuts” to the government programmes.

“From workers, from retirees, from young people, from patients, from families – [Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre] will cut in order to give more to big corporations and wealthy CEOs,” said Singh. “The fact is, the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people. They cannot be change, they cannot restore the hope, they cannot stop the Conservatives. But we can.”

Conservatives had previously attacked Singh as a “sellout” for his role in the deal and Poilievre last week called on Singh and the NDP to cancel their deal with the Liberals and trigger a fall election campaign.

The NDP decision does not trigger an election, but the party said it was “ready for an election, and voting non-confidence will be on the table with each and every confidence measure”.

The second ever Māori queen in the eight-dynasty reign of the Kiingitanga movement in New Zealand has ascended to the throne in an emotional ceremony attended by thousands at Turangawaewae marae.

On Thursday morning Māori leaders hailed her as the “new dawn”.

Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki, the only daughter and youngest child of the former Māori King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, was revealed as the new queen on the final morning of the six-day tangihanga (funeral) of her father, marking the beginning of a new generation in the resistance movement.

Kiingi Tuheitea died peacefully in his sleep on Friday, aged 69, after heart surgery.

At the Te Whakawahinga (raising up) ceremony in the small town of Ngāruawāhia, Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki, 27, was ushered to the throne by the Kiingitanga advisory council, a group of 12 elders from assorted tribes who chose her as the queen of Māoridom. The role is not automatically inherited, and the late Kiingi Tuheitea also has two sons.

Tekau-Maa-Rua chairman Che Wilson said Te Whakawahinga was an important ceremony dating back eight generations. “We follow the tikanga of our ancestors who created the Kiingitanga to unify and uplift our people and we have chosen Nga Wai Hono i te po as our new monarch.” She was anointed with sacred oils and blessed with the Bible used to crown the first Māori king in 1858.

Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki has a masters of Māori cultural studies from Waikato University, and received her moko kauae (chin tattoo) at aged 19 as a gift to her father and the years he spent on the throne. The second-youngest monarch in Māoridom, Nga Wai hono i te po Paki had been close to her father’s side to many events in the past several years, and tears and joy greeted the news of her crowning at Ngāruawāhia, Stuff reported.

The Kiingitanga was founded in 1858 as a force to resist colonisation and try to preserve Māori culture and land. It has no legal mandate and while the monarch role is largely ceremonial, it is also considered to be the paramount chief of several tribes.

Since the election of New Zealand’s conservative National party-led government in October, the Kiingitanga has played an increasingly prominent role in bringing Māori together in opposition to proposed policies considered by many to be a rollback of Māori rights. Kiingi Tuheitea called a series of nationwide meetings to protest these and proposed changes to the principles of the Treaty, and was considered to be a beacon of hope.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi lawyer Annette Sykes, who has spent her career fighting for the rights of Māori, said the new Queen represents the future she has been aiming for.

“She’s inspiring, the revitalisation and reclamation of our language has been a 40 year journey for most of us and she epitomises that, it is her first language, she speaks it with ease. Political, economic and social wellbeing for our people is at the heart of what she wants and in many ways she is like her grandmother, who was adored by the nation.”

Sykes said it was exciting that the council of men had chosen a woman to lead, which would not have been a foregone conclusion.

“She’s the new dawn, and the deliberations that took part over a few days over a wise council of advisers that made the decision for the motu, for the Māori world, must be congratulated.

“We’ve all watched her grow up, she’s very humble, I’ve watched her mature into this woman who has this thirst for authentic knowledge and brings this into the modern world. She’s someone who wears Gucci, and she wears moko kauae. She is leading us into uncharted and turbulent waters, and she will do it with aplomb.”

Nga Wai Hono i te Po Paki met then Prince Charles in London in 2022, and told Re: News she had taken the trip to honour her ancestors, but that it had been difficult reflecting on the brutal impacts of colonisation on Māori in New Zealand. “I’ll be honest, my greatest desire of all is for all Māori land to be returned to Māori.”

Kiingi Tuheitea’s mother, Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangitaaku, became the first Māori queen in 1966.

Kiingi Tuheitea’s body was flanked by a guard of honour including local tribe Ngaati Maahanga and the New Zealand defence force to the Waikato river, where a flotilla of waka was taking him to the sacred Taupiri mountain for burial.

The second ever Māori queen in the eight-dynasty reign of the Kiingitanga movement in New Zealand has ascended to the throne in an emotional ceremony attended by thousands at Turangawaewae marae.

On Thursday morning Māori leaders hailed her as the “new dawn”.

Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki, the only daughter and youngest child of the former Māori King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, was revealed as the new queen on the final morning of the six-day tangihanga (funeral) of her father, marking the beginning of a new generation in the resistance movement.

Kiingi Tuheitea died peacefully in his sleep on Friday, aged 69, after heart surgery.

At the Te Whakawahinga (raising up) ceremony in the small town of Ngāruawāhia, Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki, 27, was ushered to the throne by the Kiingitanga advisory council, a group of 12 elders from assorted tribes who chose her as the queen of Māoridom. The role is not automatically inherited, and the late Kiingi Tuheitea also has two sons.

Tekau-Maa-Rua chairman Che Wilson said Te Whakawahinga was an important ceremony dating back eight generations. “We follow the tikanga of our ancestors who created the Kiingitanga to unify and uplift our people and we have chosen Nga Wai Hono i te po as our new monarch.” She was anointed with sacred oils and blessed with the Bible used to crown the first Māori king in 1858.

Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki has a masters of Māori cultural studies from Waikato University, and received her moko kauae (chin tattoo) at aged 19 as a gift to her father and the years he spent on the throne. The second-youngest monarch in Māoridom, Nga Wai hono i te po Paki had been close to her father’s side to many events in the past several years, and tears and joy greeted the news of her crowning at Ngāruawāhia, Stuff reported.

The Kiingitanga was founded in 1858 as a force to resist colonisation and try to preserve Māori culture and land. It has no legal mandate and while the monarch role is largely ceremonial, it is also considered to be the paramount chief of several tribes.

Since the election of New Zealand’s conservative National party-led government in October, the Kiingitanga has played an increasingly prominent role in bringing Māori together in opposition to proposed policies considered by many to be a rollback of Māori rights. Kiingi Tuheitea called a series of nationwide meetings to protest these and proposed changes to the principles of the Treaty, and was considered to be a beacon of hope.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi lawyer Annette Sykes, who has spent her career fighting for the rights of Māori, said the new Queen represents the future she has been aiming for.

“She’s inspiring, the revitalisation and reclamation of our language has been a 40 year journey for most of us and she epitomises that, it is her first language, she speaks it with ease. Political, economic and social wellbeing for our people is at the heart of what she wants and in many ways she is like her grandmother, who was adored by the nation.”

Sykes said it was exciting that the council of men had chosen a woman to lead, which would not have been a foregone conclusion.

“She’s the new dawn, and the deliberations that took part over a few days over a wise council of advisers that made the decision for the motu, for the Māori world, must be congratulated.

“We’ve all watched her grow up, she’s very humble, I’ve watched her mature into this woman who has this thirst for authentic knowledge and brings this into the modern world. She’s someone who wears Gucci, and she wears moko kauae. She is leading us into uncharted and turbulent waters, and she will do it with aplomb.”

Nga Wai Hono i te Po Paki met then Prince Charles in London in 2022, and told Re: News she had taken the trip to honour her ancestors, but that it had been difficult reflecting on the brutal impacts of colonisation on Māori in New Zealand. “I’ll be honest, my greatest desire of all is for all Māori land to be returned to Māori.”

Kiingi Tuheitea’s mother, Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangitaaku, became the first Māori queen in 1966.

Kiingi Tuheitea’s body was flanked by a guard of honour including local tribe Ngaati Maahanga and the New Zealand defence force to the Waikato river, where a flotilla of waka was taking him to the sacred Taupiri mountain for burial.

UK papers on Thursday focused on the seven-year public inquiry into the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, which concluded that the deaths of 72 people were avoidable and blamed “decades of failure” by central government to stop the spread of combustible cladding combined with the “systematic dishonesty” of the multimillion-dollar companies producing it.

The Guardian headlined its story “Grenfell: a disaster caused by ‘dishonesty and greed’”. It reported that police are now “under pressure to accelerate the criminal investigation” into the blaze, although it could be another 12 to 18 months before police can send files to prosecutors to consider charges.

The Times splashed on “Killed by greed and a culture of dishonesty”, writing that police and prosecutors were “facing calls to bring criminal charges” over the tragedy after the “devastating inquiry” uncovered a “litany of failings”.

The Daily Mail asked “Will they EVER get justice?” on its front page, reporting that families bereaved by the disaster “will have been forced to wait a decade before they find out if justice will be done”.

“Everyone failed them”, the i headlined, featuring a composite image of the victims faces and reporting that “PM Keir Starmer apologises to victims on behalf of British state as bereaved families say ‘justice has been stolen away from us’.”

The Financial Times led with “Official failings and industry deceits led to Grenfell tragedy, inquiry finds”. The inquiry found that deregulation was “put before safety”, cladding warnings “were ignored”, and that “Manufacturers manipulated testing”, the paper wrote.

The Daily Mirror’s front page was filled with images of the victims above the headline: “Now get them justice”.

The Metro ran with “Grenfell: the 26-year countdown to disaster”, writing that warning signs that could have averted the tragedy were “ignored for at least 26 years”.

The Daily Express headlined its story “72 killed by: dishonesty indifference complacency”, writing that the “damning report” had exposed the “‘path to disaster’ that turned Grenfell Tower into death trap”.

The Sun splashed on “Now put them in the dock”, writing, “Grenfell culprits must face court”.

The Daily Telegraph splashed on “Sewage leak bosses to face two years’ jail” but also featured Grenfell on its front page, writing “Grenfell ‘crooks and killers’ will not face justice until 2026”.

• Russian forces shelled a residential area of the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring three, prosecutors said. Kostiantynivka lies north-east of Pokrovsk, the sector seeing the heaviest fighting on the eastern part of the 1,000km (600-mile) frontline.

• It came after Russia struck the city of Lviv in western Ukraine on Wednesday, killing seven people, including children. That was a day after a Russian missile attack killed more than 50 people in the central city of Poltava, in one of the deadliest single strikes of the invasion.

• In Lviv, Wednesday’s attack killed a woman and her three daughters, leaving their husband and father as the only immediate survivor, Ukrainian officials said. “After today’s attack, only the man in this photo survived. His wife Yevgenia and their three daughters – Yaryna, Daryna and Emilia – were killed in their own home,” said the Lviv mayor, Andriy Sadovy. “I don’t know what words to say to support Yaroslav – the father. Today we are all with you.”

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Ukraine’s military was accomplishing all the tasks set out in its operations in Russia’s Kursk region. “It is very important that absolutely all the tasks set out in our Kursk operation are being accomplished,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address after referring to frontline reports from Ukraine’s commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi.

• The deputy US national security adviser Jon Finer met Zelenskiy and other officials in Kyiv on Wednesday to discuss priorities in the war for the remainder of Joe Biden’s term as president, US officials said. Finer received an update on how the Kursk incursion was proceeding, the officials said. One US official said among the topics discussed were ways to use a prospective $50bn loan to Ukraine backed by Russian assets. Finer also met jointly with Ukraine’s prime minister, energy minister and regional representatives to discuss energy security and recovery after recent Russian airstrikes, US officials said.

• Germany’s military put a first Iris-T SLM air-defence system into service on its own soil on Wednesday, citing Russia’s aggressive posture. Before installing its own, Germany delivered four Iris-T SLM systems to Ukraine to intercept Russian rockets, drones and missiles. In Germany, the surface-to-air system forms part of the European Sky Shield Initiative, which also includes long-range defences against ballistic missiles. It was necessary because Vladimir Putin had broken disarmament treaties and “deployed missiles as far as Kaliningrad”, said Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, at the inauguration ceremony at a base in Todendorf near the northern city of Hamburg.

• Scholz insisted on Wednesday that Berlin would not slacken in its military support for Ukraine, after reports in mid-August that aid would be curtailed due to budget constraints. The government called that report incorrect, and on Wednesday, Scholz said: “Germany’s support for Ukraine will not cease. We have made provisions, struck [defence] deals and secured the funding in good time so that Ukraine can continue to fully rely on us in future.” Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov, visited Germany on Wednesday.

• Capacity was reduced at one unit of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant after Russian attacks damaged the country’s electricity transmission system, nuclear firm Energoatom said on Wednesday. There was no accident at the plant itself, but output was reduced after “hostile shelling of Ukrenergo’s infrastructure” and “significant fluctuations in the parameters of the grid”. Electricity generation at the unit was reduced by 33%.

• Russia said it was pressing on with its offensive in Ukraine’s east, claiming to have captured the village of Karlivka, which if confirmed would be the latest in a string of territorial gains. Karlivka is about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Pokrovsk, a major Russian target that lies on a key supply route for the Ukrainian army.

• A Ukrainian government reshuffle has come with one major surprise: the departure of Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister who courted western support for his country’s defence. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was among those on Wednesday to hail Kuleba’s performance, calling him to voice his “great appreciation and friendship” from their time working together, the US state department said. Kuleba’s deputy, Andriy Sybiga, was set to be nominated as his replacement, said David Arakhamia, head of Zelenskiy’s party.

• Ukrainian shelling of the Russian border village of Novaya Tavolzhanka in the Belgorod region killed three people on Wednesday, said the Belgorod governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov.

• Poland wants to ramp up its production of 155mm artillery rounds in case Russia attacks Nato, a senior official said. Some Nato officials say Russia might be ready to attack in five to eight years’ time. Moscow has regularly dismissed such claims. “Our ambition … is to have the ability to fill up Polish warehouses in parallel to achieving a full, independent capacity to produce ammunition in Poland, within five to eight years,” Maciej Idzik, board member of the state-owned Polish Armaments Group (PGZ), told Reuters.

• Demand for 155mm artillery rounds soared when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Like many of its allies, Poland has sent its own stock to Ukraine. It lacks the capacity to produce the rounds from scratch and instead is assembling them from purchased components. Idzik said PGZ needed 24 months to launch production of all the necessary parts, and aimed to be able to turn out about 100,000 a year.

Donald Trump’s tiny social media empire has seen its extraordinary stock market rally wiped out by a steep sell-off.

Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Truth Social, closed below $17 on Wednesday, reversing all their gains since the company’s rapid rise took hold in January.

The former president has been prohibited by a lock-up agreement from starting to sell shares in the firm until late September. While his majority stake in the firm is still worth some $2bn on paper, its value has fallen dramatically from $4.9bn in March.

As a business, TMTG is not growing rapidly. It generated sales of just $4.13m in 2023, according to regulatory filings, and lost $58.2m.

Nor is Truth Social growing rapidly as a platform. While TMTG has not disclosed the size of its user base, the research firm Similarweb estimated that in March it had 7.7m visits – while X, formerly Twitter, had 6.1bn. That same month, however, TMTG was valued at almost $10bn on the stock market.

The former president is potentially on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of penalties following two civil trials, taking a significant chunk out of his personal fortune. Trump Media has, however, previously insisted that there is no “conceivable sign anywhere” that Trump plans to sell shares in TMTG.

After being banned from Twitter and then eschewing the platform once the ban had been lifted, Trump recently returned to X. He participated in a lengthy interview on the platform with its owner, Elon Musk.

TMTG’s short-lived surge on the market was driven by its transformation into a so-called “meme stock”, joining a small bevy of stocks, most famously the video games retailer GameStop, which rattled Wall Street by staging unexpected, volatile rallies.

Digital World Acquisition Corp, a shell company, first announced plans to merge with TMTG and take Trump’s fledgling media firm public in October 2021. But the process was stalled by a series of legal hurdles.

Earlier this year, as Trump dominated the Republican primaries, and it became clear that TMTG would finally land on the stock market, Digital World’s stock was drawn center stage.

The volume of trading in Digital World – how many of its shares changed hands – increased exponentially. On one day in December, fewer than 100,000 shares were traded; on one day in January, 29.7m shares were traded.

As with other meme stocks, interest was heightened by a flurry of internet memes, urging retail investors to buy in. What made this different was that many of the memes were being shared on Truth Social: the platform owned by the very company Digital World was set to take public.

When Digital World and TMTG finally combined in March, it initially poured fuel on the fire. But as GameStop and AMC Entertainment have shown, the peaks reached during these rapid rallies typically set the stage for an almighty crash.

Donald Trump’s tiny social media empire has seen its extraordinary stock market rally wiped out by a steep sell-off.

Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Truth Social, closed below $17 on Wednesday, reversing all their gains since the company’s rapid rise took hold in January.

The former president has been prohibited by a lock-up agreement from starting to sell shares in the firm until late September. While his majority stake in the firm is still worth some $2bn on paper, its value has fallen dramatically from $4.9bn in March.

As a business, TMTG is not growing rapidly. It generated sales of just $4.13m in 2023, according to regulatory filings, and lost $58.2m.

Nor is Truth Social growing rapidly as a platform. While TMTG has not disclosed the size of its user base, the research firm Similarweb estimated that in March it had 7.7m visits – while X, formerly Twitter, had 6.1bn. That same month, however, TMTG was valued at almost $10bn on the stock market.

The former president is potentially on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of penalties following two civil trials, taking a significant chunk out of his personal fortune. Trump Media has, however, previously insisted that there is no “conceivable sign anywhere” that Trump plans to sell shares in TMTG.

After being banned from Twitter and then eschewing the platform once the ban had been lifted, Trump recently returned to X. He participated in a lengthy interview on the platform with its owner, Elon Musk.

TMTG’s short-lived surge on the market was driven by its transformation into a so-called “meme stock”, joining a small bevy of stocks, most famously the video games retailer GameStop, which rattled Wall Street by staging unexpected, volatile rallies.

Digital World Acquisition Corp, a shell company, first announced plans to merge with TMTG and take Trump’s fledgling media firm public in October 2021. But the process was stalled by a series of legal hurdles.

Earlier this year, as Trump dominated the Republican primaries, and it became clear that TMTG would finally land on the stock market, Digital World’s stock was drawn center stage.

The volume of trading in Digital World – how many of its shares changed hands – increased exponentially. On one day in December, fewer than 100,000 shares were traded; on one day in January, 29.7m shares were traded.

As with other meme stocks, interest was heightened by a flurry of internet memes, urging retail investors to buy in. What made this different was that many of the memes were being shared on Truth Social: the platform owned by the very company Digital World was set to take public.

When Digital World and TMTG finally combined in March, it initially poured fuel on the fire. But as GameStop and AMC Entertainment have shown, the peaks reached during these rapid rallies typically set the stage for an almighty crash.

The United Nations children’s agency has said that a polio vaccination campaign to inoculate more than 640,000 children in Gaza is surpassing expectations at the end of the first phase of the programme.

Describing the campaign as a “rare bright spot” in almost 11 months of war, Unicef said that 189,000 children had been reached so far as more than 500 teams were deployed across central Gaza this week.

It said Israel and Hamas observed limited pauses in the fighting to facilitate the campaign, with UN agencies involved now hoping to expand the campaign to the harder-hit north and south of the territory for the next two phases.

The campaign was launched after Gaza had its first reported polio case in 25 years – a 10-month-old boy, now paralysed in the leg.

Health experts have warned of disease outbreaks in the territory, where the vast majority of people have been displaced, often multiple times, and where hunger is widespread.

Hundreds of thousands of people are crammed into squalid tent camps with few if any public services.

The vaccinations were being undertaken even as fighting continued in Gaza, with the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry saying 42 people had been killed over the past 24 hours and 40,861 people since the war began.

The head of the UN’s main agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote on Wednesday: “Great progress! Every day in the Middle Areas of #Gaza, more children are getting vaccines against #Polio.”

“While these polio ‘pauses’ are giving people some respite, what is urgently needed is a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages and the standard flow of humanitarian supplies including medical and hygiene supplies [into Gaza],” Lazzarini posted on X.

Despite the success of the polio campaign, diplomatic efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire, release hostages held in Gaza and return many Palestinians jailed by Israel, have faltered.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, insisted on Monday that Israeli troops would remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the southern edge of Gaza bordering Egypt, one of the main sticking points in reaching a deal.

However on Wednesday, Ron Dermer, the country’s strategic affairs minister, appeared to suggest that Israel may be prepared for a full withdrawal in a negotiated second phase of any deal.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Dermer said: “In phase one, Israel is going to stay on that line until we have a practical solution on the ground that can convince the people of Israel … that what happened on 7 October will not happen again. That Hamas will not rearm.

“And once you’ve concluded those negotiations, while you’re in a ceasefire for phase one, in order to get to phase two and a permanent ceasefire, that’s when you can discuss long-term security arrangements on the Philadelphi corridor.”

Hamas, which wants any agreement ending the war to include a withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza, says such a condition, among some others, would prevent an accord. Netanyahu says the war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.

The impasse is frustrating Israel’s international allies and the 15 members of the UN security council, where Slovenia holds the presidency for September.

Slovenia’s ambassador to the UN, Samuel Žbogar, said on Tuesday that patience was running out and the global body would probably consider taking action if a ceasefire could not be brokered soon.

The senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the only way a deal could be reached was if Israel agreed to a US proposal on 2 July, endorsed by the security council, and accepted by the group. Israel and Hamas blame conditions added by each other for the failure to clinch a deal.

On Wednesday, the German government spokesperson Wolfgang Büchner said the killing of six Israeli hostages whose bodies were discovered at the weekend “has once again made clear that a ceasefire that opens the way to the freeing of all hostages held by Hamas must now have the highest priority. Other considerations should stand back.”

He called on all involved in the negotiations to show flexibility and readiness to compromise, and said an agreement could also help to de-escalate regional tensions.

However, a new poll released this week found Israelis deeply pessimistic that a deal could be brokered, amid nationwide fury at the government over Netanyahu’s handling of the hostage negotiations.

In its monthly poll, the Israel Democracy Institute found that 73% of respondents described themselves as pessimistic regarding the chances of a deal succeeding, while only 21% said they were optimistic.

Agencies contributed to this report

The US and its allies are capable of threatening and destroying all of Russia and China’s nuclear launch sites with conventional weapons, creating what two experts describe as a potentially unstable geopolitical situation.

Prof Dan Plesch and Manuel Galileo, from Soas University of London, describe a “quiet revolution in military affairs” reflecting increased US military power relative to Moscow and Beijing, particularly in missile technology.

They argue that this could create the conditions for a fresh arms race as China and Russia try to respond – and even create a risk of miscalculation in a major crisis as either country could resort to launching nuclear weapons to get ahead of the US.

In a paper published on Thursday, Plesch and Galileo write that the US has “a plausible present day capacity with non-nuclear forces to pre-empt Russian and Chinese nuclear forces” – giving it a military edge over the two countries.

There are, the authors estimate, 150 Russian remote nuclear launch sites and 70 in China, approximately 2,500km (1,550 miles) from the nearest border, all of which could be reached by US air-launched JASSM and Tomahawk cruise missiles in a little more than two hours in an initial attack designed to prevent nuclear weapons being launched.

“The US and its allies can threaten even the most buried and mobile strategic forces of Russia and China,” the authors write, with an estimated 3,500 of the JASSM and 4,000 Tomahawks available to the US and its allies.

New developments also mean that JASSMs (joint air-to-surface standoff missiles) can be launched on pallets, using the Rapid Dragon system, from unmodified standard military transport aircraft, such as the C-17 Globemaster or C-130 Hercules.

“Our analysis predicts that only Russian mobile and Chinese deeply buried strategic systems may be considered at all survivable in the face of conventional missile attacks and are far more vulnerable than usually considered,” they add.

Plesch and Galileo argue there is insufficient public discussion about the strategic capabilities of the US if there were to be a major confrontation, arguing that debates about a conflict involving Russia and China tend to be focused on regional dynamics, such as the war in Ukraine or a possible invasion of Taiwan.

“US global conventional firepower is underestimated, which threatens both the realities and the perceptions of strategic stability,” they write, adding that any hybrid use of nuclear weapons alongside conventional missiles would complicate an already fraught picture.

Though few believe a major confrontation between the US and either Russia or China is possible, the invasion of Ukraine has dramatically increased global uncertainty. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warned in March that Moscow would be willing to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty or independence was threatened.

The two authors argue that a strategic concern is whether Russia or China fear the US’s military capabilities to the point where they justify a new arms race. “The US 2024 Threat Assessment itself highlighted Chinese fear of a US first strike as motive for Chinese nuclear arms buildup,” they said.

The strength of the US conventional missile capabilities is such that it “pressures Russia and China to put their missiles on hair trigger”, ready to be launched immediately, the authors write. “The US would be on the receiving end for any mistaken launch one of them makes,” they add.

Last year, China began deploying a small number of nuclear weapons – a total of 24 – with their launchers, according to research from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute – and the US warned it may have to increase the size of its deployed warheads in response.

Plesch and Galileo warn that the changes in military power come at a time when arms control is declining. In 2019, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces arms control treaty, which had prohibited the US and Russia from having ground-launched missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500km, was allowed to lapse – leaving both sides to redeploy them.

They argue the emerging situation justifies a renewed focus on arms control, as suggested by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, in July 2023, when he called for a special session of the UN general assembly to be held on disarmament.

More than a quarter of advertisers are planning to cut spending on Elon Musk’s X over concerns about the social media platform’s content and trust in the information disseminated, according to new global research.

Advertising revenue flowing to X has been in freefall since Musk bought the site, then known as Twitter, for $44bn (£38bn) in October 2022, claiming it had not lived up to its potential as a platform for “free speech”.

However, Musk’s erratic and controversial behaviour on X, where he has almost 200 million followers, has fuelled a backlash from advertisers who have cut back or stopped running promotions there.

Research by data firm Kantar, based on interviews with 18,000 consumers and 1,000 senior marketers around the world, has found that 26% of marketers are planning to cut back ad spend on X in 2025.

“Marketers are brand custodians and need to trust the platforms they use,” said Gonca Bubani, a director at Kantar. “X has changed so much in recent years and can be unpredictable from one day to the next. It is difficult to feel confident about your brand safety in that environment.”

Kantar has been conducting the study annually for several years. The figures for 2024 show that the exodus is rapidly gathering pace, with 14% of marketers saying they would pull budgets this year.

Figures from eMarketer highlight the rapid commercial decline of the platform in recent years, with the company’s global revenues peaking in 2021 at $4.46bn, of which the UK accounted for $366m, about 8% of the total.

In 2022, global revenues dropped to $4.14bn. Since the world’s richest man took over the site at the end of that year, they have more than halved, with annual revenue forecast to fall to $1.9bn by the end of this year, with UK revenues predicted to be just $160m.

“Advertisers have been moving their marketing spend away from X for several years,” said Bubani. “The stark acceleration of this trend in the past 12 months means a turnaround seems unlikely.”

The advertiser exodus is just one in a run of commercial headaches for Musk – who has come in for criticism over posts relating to topics including antisemitism, the recent riots in the UK and US politics – the latest of which is a ban on X in Brazil.

Brazil is one of its biggest global markets, with more than 20 million users. But Brazil’s supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold a ban on X after the company refused to obey court orders requiring the removal of profiles accused of spreading disinformation, and for the social network to name a local legal representative.

The Kantar research suggests marketers’ trust in ads on X continues to decrease, from 22% in 2022 to 12% this year. Only 4% of marketers think ads on X provide brand safety.

Last month, X moved to sue a global advertising alliance and several major companies, including Unilever, Mars and CVS Health, accusing them of unlawfully conspiring to shun the social network and intentionally causing it to lose revenue.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk tweeted at the time.

Last year, Musk delivered a profanity-laced message to advertisers pulling money from X during an on-stage interview at an event in New York.

An X spokesperson said: “Advertisers know that X now offers stronger brand safety, performance and analytics capabilities than ever before, while seeing all-time-high levels of usage.

“Our brand safety rate is on average 99% as validated by DoubleVerify and Integral Ads Science, which is reflected by the fact that the majority of advertisers are increasing their investment in X, as shown by Kantar’s data.”

A leading breast cancer surgeon claims many media reports that the supermodel Elle Macpherson treated breast cancer with alternative therapies have left out crucial information, risking people being misinformed.

News organisations, including this publication, reported that after Macpherson was diagnosed with HER2 positive oestrogen receptive intraductal carcinoma in 2017, she decided not to follow standard medical advice from doctors.

She told the Australian Women’s Weekly magazine that she instead followed “an intuitive, heart-led, holistic approach” and rejected surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

But Macpherson says she did undergo a lumpectomy, which is a type of surgery that involves removing a breast lump.

In itself, a lumpectomy may in some cases be an appropriate, standard medical treatment for the condition, said Prof Chris Pyke, the director of medical services at the Mater private hospitals in Brisbane.

Pyke, a cancer surgeon and breast cancer risk quantification expert, said HER2 positive oestrogen receptive intraductal carcinoma in many cases could more accurately be described as a type of non-invasive precancer that has the potential to become aggressive if left untreated.

“Intraductal means precancerous, so the cancer cells have formed but they are still housed inside the ducts in the breast,” Pyke said.

“Left to its own devices, a certain proportion of these cases will turn into invasive cancer during the next year. But the number is not high – about 5%. It’s quite possible that just removing that lump all by itself could have been sufficient treatment.”

Media reports, which are based on the Women’s Weekly’s exclusive interview with Macpherson about the launch of her new book, lack detail about the size of the precancer or the grade of the cells, or other risk factors Macpherson may or may not have had.

Guardian Australia has asked the publisher of her book, Penguin Random House, and the Women’s Weekly, if those details were asked for or provided, or if they have specific details about her treatments, both conventional and alternative.

“On top of just removing it, for this particular type of disease, sometimes radiotherapy is added and we can help guide patients on that depending on how big the area of precancerous change was, what the grade of the cells were, and sometimes there’s gene expression profiling that can be added on top of that to help make decisions and inform risk,” Pyke said.

It is unclear if Macpherson underwent gene expression profiling.

Pyke said about one-third of patients will have a mastectomy recommended at initial diagnosis, “not because it is severe” but because more than one-quarter of the breast is affected. Removing enough tissue with a lumpectomy alone in these cases could significantly distort the breast, so mastectomy and reconstruction may be offered.

It is also unclear whether Macpherson was diagnosed because she felt a lump, or because she underwent screening and the condition was detected through imaging, which may also make a difference to treatment recommendations and how important radiation, chemotherapy and mastectomy may be.

“The biggest thing for breast cancer, until we find the cause, is that early diagnosis is the most important thing,” Pyke said. “If you find breast cancer, even invasive cancer, early before you can feel it, there’s very little chance it’s going to shorten your life.”

He said for patients with the earliest forms of breast cancer, they “need to be offered every treatment option that has the same outcome”. That means if a patient has intraductal carcinoma, “they may have been offered lumpectomy by itself; lumpectomy and radiotherapy; or mastectomy as well,” Pyke said.

For early detected disease, “those three things have the same outcome, as far as preventing that type of precancer spreading anywhere”.

All options are offered because some patients may prefer a mastectomy over a lumpectomy due to fear of recurrence. While lumpectomy followed by radiation offers similar long-term survival rates to mastectomy, there is a slightly higher risk of recurrence with lumpectomy alone.

There are also drugs, including immune-modulation drugs, that may be tried, and Pyke said it is important for patients to be part of these treatment decisions. Someone who chooses more conservative treatment like lumpectomy alone might then be screened more regularly to monitor for any recurrence or spread, he said.

With growing concerns about overdiagnosis and overtreatment of some forms of non-aggressive breast cancers and precancers, some experts advocate for a more conservative treatment before undergoing surgery, with lots of monitoring and support from healthcare providers, Pyke said, and he emphasised it is OK for patients to ask questions about their treatment.

“The truth is, most people with a cancer diagnosis will do something on top of what we [medical doctors] recommend,” he said.

“Almost everyone does meditation, or takes a vitamin, and I say if it won’t interfere with the treatment, do it. And the second thing I say is that the only things which have been proven to treat cancer are surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and hormone treatments.”

Vicki Durston, the director of policy, advocacy and support services at Breast Cancer Network Australia, said providing the correct, full context to Macpherson’s treatment and her decisions “are so important to get the messaging right to alleviate fears and cut through the noise”.

She said media reports “are confusing for people that are currently in treatment” and some were now starting to question their own choices and approach.

“It’s important that when high-profile figures like Elle Macpherson share their story, they need to understand that their story has enormous impact and reach,” she said.

Dr Brooke Nickel, a National Health and Medical Research Council emerging leader research fellow with the University of Sydney who has researched media reporting of healthcare, including cancer, said Macpherson also owns a wellness company and patients should factor that in when considering her comments while also consulting doctors.

Speaking generally, Nickel added: “The public and patients alike really need to be wary of celebrities, and increasingly social media influencers, who discuss this kind of wellness or alternative therapy approach and who may be profiting from associations with brands and products.

“This wellness movement often aligns itself with the women’s health movement, which is about autonomy, empowerment and legitimate criticisms of patriarchal medical systems. This whole rise with celebrities and influencers adopting the women’s empowerment language has taken the wellness movement to the next level, and often, what they’re discussing is not based on evidence.”