Nine people were killed and others injured when a driver ploughed a car into a crowd at a street festival in Vancouver on Saturday evening.

Police said they were confident the incident was not an act of terrorism. A 30-year-old man who had been driving a black SUV was arrested.

“We can confirm nine people have died after a man drove through a crowd … Our thoughts are with all those affected by this tragic incident, Vancouver police posted online.

The festival, held on a balmy spring day, drew nearly 100,000 people, many of whom were families with young children. Lapu Lapu Day is named after chief Lapulapu an Indigenous resistance fighter in the Philippines, who led his men to defeat the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in battle in 1521. Saturday’s festival was the second annual event for the city and organisers advertised a street parade, artisans, cultural activities, a giant basketball tournament and local food vendors. The six-time Grammy-winning musical group Black Eyed Peas headlined a concert event.

Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, paused general election campaigning to address the country on Sunday morning.

“Those families are living every family’s nightmare,” said a visibly emotional Carney. “I know that I join all Canadians in mourning with you. I know that Canadians are united with you.” Carney referenced “Bayanihan,” the Filipino value of community serving those in need. “This spirit upon which we must draw in this incredibly difficult time. We will comfort the grieving. We will care for each other. We will unite in common purpose.”

Carney said he had been briefed by national security officials who believed the attacker acted alone and that there was no active threat to the public.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the Filipino president, said he was “completely shattered” by the incident and said his government conveyed the “deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and to the strong and thriving Filipino community in Canada”.

The incident happened shortly after 8pm local time. A photo posted to X half an hour before showed a busy street with young people looking at the wares of rows of food truck vendors.

Footage posted online showed a black SUV with a damaged bonnet parked on a street littered with debris as first-aiders tended to people lying on the ground.

One witness told CTV News he saw a vehicle driving erratically in the area of the festival just before the crowd was hit. The Vancouver Sun said thousands of people had been in the area.

“I didn’t get to see the driver, all I heard was an engine rev,” said Yoseb Vardeh, a food truck operator, in an interview with Postmedia. “I got outside my food truck, I looked down the road and there’s just bodies everywhere. He went through the whole block, he went straight down the middle.”

Kris Pangilinan, a Toronto-based journalist attending the festival, told CBC news [the driver] just slammed the pedal down and rammed into hundreds of people. It was like seeing a bowling ball hit – all the bowling pins and all the pins flying up in the air.”

“It was like a war zone … There were bodies all over the ground,” he said.

Festival attenders held the suspect until police could arrive. Police said man was known to them “in certain circumstances”.

Video circulating on social media showed a young man in a hoodie with his back against a chain-link fence, alongside a security guard and surrounded by bystanders screaming and swearing at him. “I’m sorry,” the man said, holding his hand to his head.

Police set up a 24-hour assistance centre to help anyone who had been unable to contact relatives or friends who were at the festival.

The Vancouver mayor, Ken Sim, said: “Our thoughts are with all those affected and with Vancouver’s Filipino community during this incredibly difficult time.”

The incident happened shortly before Canadians go to the polls on Monday after a frenetic election race where candidates have wooed voters on issues including rising living costs and tackling Donald Trump’s tariffs. Carney is favoured to win after promising voters he would stand up to Washington’s sweeping import levies.

The New Democratic party (NDP) leader, Jagmeet Singh, had attended the festival to meet voters. He left about an hour before the incident.

“Having been at the Lapu Lapu festival, this is a festival with kids there and families there,” Singh said. “I don’t have the words to describe the pain that I’m feeling now at the lives that were lost … We don’t know the motives, we don’t know any of the details. But, ultimately, this is something that targeted the Filipino community and the Filipino community right now is reeling.”

The NDP cancelled four other events in the province schedule for Sunday. The Liberals cancelled event in Hamilton, Ontario, but Carney is still expected to travel to Vancouver later on Sunday to meet Sim and British Columbia’s premier, David Eby. The Conservatives added an event with the Filipino community in Mississauga, Ontario for Sunday.

King Charles said he and his wife were “profoundly saddened” by the attack and “send our deepest possible sympathy at a most agonising time for so many in Canada”.

Vancouver had more than 38,600 residents of Filipino heritage in 2021, representing 5.9% of the city’s total population, according to Statistics Canada, the agency that conducts the national census.

Nine people were killed and others injured when a driver ploughed a car into a crowd at a street festival in Vancouver on Saturday evening.

Police said they were confident the incident was not an act of terrorism. A 30-year-old man who had been driving a black SUV was arrested.

“We can confirm nine people have died after a man drove through a crowd … Our thoughts are with all those affected by this tragic incident, Vancouver police posted online.

The festival, held on a balmy spring day, drew nearly 100,000 people, many of whom were families with young children. Lapu Lapu Day is named after chief Lapulapu an Indigenous resistance fighter in the Philippines, who led his men to defeat the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in battle in 1521. Saturday’s festival was the second annual event for the city and organisers advertised a street parade, artisans, cultural activities, a giant basketball tournament and local food vendors. The six-time Grammy-winning musical group Black Eyed Peas headlined a concert event.

Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, paused general election campaigning to address the country on Sunday morning.

“Those families are living every family’s nightmare,” said a visibly emotional Carney. “I know that I join all Canadians in mourning with you. I know that Canadians are united with you.” Carney referenced “Bayanihan,” the Filipino value of community serving those in need. “This spirit upon which we must draw in this incredibly difficult time. We will comfort the grieving. We will care for each other. We will unite in common purpose.”

Carney said he had been briefed by national security officials who believed the attacker acted alone and that there was no active threat to the public.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the Filipino president, said he was “completely shattered” by the incident and said his government conveyed the “deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and to the strong and thriving Filipino community in Canada”.

The incident happened shortly after 8pm local time. A photo posted to X half an hour before showed a busy street with young people looking at the wares of rows of food truck vendors.

Footage posted online showed a black SUV with a damaged bonnet parked on a street littered with debris as first-aiders tended to people lying on the ground.

One witness told CTV News he saw a vehicle driving erratically in the area of the festival just before the crowd was hit. The Vancouver Sun said thousands of people had been in the area.

“I didn’t get to see the driver, all I heard was an engine rev,” said Yoseb Vardeh, a food truck operator, in an interview with Postmedia. “I got outside my food truck, I looked down the road and there’s just bodies everywhere. He went through the whole block, he went straight down the middle.”

Kris Pangilinan, a Toronto-based journalist attending the festival, told CBC news [the driver] just slammed the pedal down and rammed into hundreds of people. It was like seeing a bowling ball hit – all the bowling pins and all the pins flying up in the air.”

“It was like a war zone … There were bodies all over the ground,” he said.

Festival attenders held the suspect until police could arrive. Police said man was known to them “in certain circumstances”.

Video circulating on social media showed a young man in a hoodie with his back against a chain-link fence, alongside a security guard and surrounded by bystanders screaming and swearing at him. “I’m sorry,” the man said, holding his hand to his head.

Police set up a 24-hour assistance centre to help anyone who had been unable to contact relatives or friends who were at the festival.

The Vancouver mayor, Ken Sim, said: “Our thoughts are with all those affected and with Vancouver’s Filipino community during this incredibly difficult time.”

The incident happened shortly before Canadians go to the polls on Monday after a frenetic election race where candidates have wooed voters on issues including rising living costs and tackling Donald Trump’s tariffs. Carney is favoured to win after promising voters he would stand up to Washington’s sweeping import levies.

The New Democratic party (NDP) leader, Jagmeet Singh, had attended the festival to meet voters. He left about an hour before the incident.

“Having been at the Lapu Lapu festival, this is a festival with kids there and families there,” Singh said. “I don’t have the words to describe the pain that I’m feeling now at the lives that were lost … We don’t know the motives, we don’t know any of the details. But, ultimately, this is something that targeted the Filipino community and the Filipino community right now is reeling.”

The NDP cancelled four other events in the province schedule for Sunday. The Liberals cancelled event in Hamilton, Ontario, but Carney is still expected to travel to Vancouver later on Sunday to meet Sim and British Columbia’s premier, David Eby. The Conservatives added an event with the Filipino community in Mississauga, Ontario for Sunday.

King Charles said he and his wife were “profoundly saddened” by the attack and “send our deepest possible sympathy at a most agonising time for so many in Canada”.

Vancouver had more than 38,600 residents of Filipino heritage in 2021, representing 5.9% of the city’s total population, according to Statistics Canada, the agency that conducts the national census.

Thousands of people queued to visit Pope Francis’s tomb in Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica the day after heads of state, royalty and hundreds of thousands of mourners attended his funeral in Rome.

Many crossed themselves and took photos on their phones as they filed past the tomb, marked simply with the name Franciscus.

“Pope Francis for me was an inspiration, a guide,” said Elias Caravalhal, a Rome resident who came “to thank him for what he has done”.

Susmidah Murphy, who was visiting the city from her home in India, said: “It’s unbelievable that he’s no more with us. It’s sad that we don’t get popes like this very often.”

Many of those mourning the late pope were anxious about who would succeed him.

Romina Cacciatore, 48, an Argentinian translator living in Italy, said Pope Francis had transformed the Roman Catholic church into “something more normal, more human. I’m worried about what’s coming.”

Maria Simoni, 53, from Rome, said: “I hope we get another pope as skilled as Francis at speaking to people’s hearts, at being close to every person, no matter who they are.”

Tatiana Alva, 49, from Peru, said Francis had been “very kind, humble. He used language young people could understand. I don’t think the next pope can be the same but I hope he will have an open mind and be realistic about the challenges in the world right now.”

A special mass was held on Sunday morning in St Peter’s Square led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, who is the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Francis. About 200,000 people attended, according to the Vatican.

More than 220 cardinals will meet at the Vatican on Monday morning to decide the date that the conclave to elect the next pope will begin.

Only cardinals under the age of 80 – 135 in total – are eligible to take part in the conclave, which will begin its deliberations after the completion of nine days of official mourning for Francis.

Jean-Claude Hollerich, a cardinal from Luxembourg, has said he expects the conclave to start within a day or two of the end of the mourning period on 4 May. It must start by 10 May.

Reinhard Marx, a German cardinal, said on Saturday the conclave would last just “a few days”.

The cardinal-electors – about 80% of whom were appointed by Francis – will cast four votes a day until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority. The news that a successor has been chosen will be communicated by white smoke emitted from the Sistine Chapel.

Cardinals were expected to pay their respects at Francis’s tomb at Santa Maria Maggiore on Sunday.

Conservative and progressives will intensify efforts to shape the future of the Roman Catholic church in the coming days as 135 cardinals prepare to be sequestered in the Sistine Chapel in order to choose a successor to Pope Francis.

The group of cardinals who will vote for the next leader of about 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide are less predictable than ever before, with the vast majority having no experience of a papal conclave. A much wider geographic spread of cardinals adds to the uncertainty.

Eight in 10 of those eligible to vote in the conclave were appointed by Pope Francis in the past 12 years. Twenty became cardinals only in December last year. Many had never met each other before heading to Rome over the past week after the pope’s death last Monday.

The papal conclave is expected to begin formal deliberations next week. But discreet ad hoc discussions and lobbying in the Vatican’s corridors, dining rooms and magnificent gardens have gathered pace over recent days.

“In fact, conversations have probably been going on for some time, certainly since the start of this year, because the trajectory of Pope Francis’s health has been clear,” said Miles Pattenden, a historian of the Catholic church at Oxford University.

More than 20 cardinals have been identified as papabile – candidates for the papacy – by Vatican observers. However, few frontrunners at the start of the process make it through successive rounds of voting. In 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was not considered a papabile, but by the end of the conclave he was Pope Francis.

Some cardinals who are not thought to be in the running for the job are likely to be pushing their favoured candidates, especially among less experienced colleagues.

Among those likely to be lobbying for a conservative successor to Francis are Raymond Burke, a Donald Trump-supporting US bishop, and Gerhard Müller, a German who warned last week that the church could split if an orthodox pope is not elected.

The progressive camp includes Jean-Claude Hollerich from Luxembourg, Timothy Radcliffe from the UK and Michael Czerny from Canada.

Critics accused Francis of packing the college of cardinals with his supporters in making more than 100 appointments during his papacy. But Pattenden said: “Historically, no pope has been able to control the election of his successor.”

There were clear conservatives and progressives among the cardinals, but “it’s a spectrum”, he added. “There are some who hold conservative views on certain issues but liberal views on other issues – for example, sexuality and climate change.

“Francis was more inclined to promote his ideological confreres, but he didn’t exclusively appoint those who appeared to agree with him. He had other priorities – to make the college of cardinals as inclusive as possible, which meant choosing men from very small Catholic communities like Iran and Algeria and Mongolia and balancing it away from its rich European and North American heartlands.”

In 2013, more than half of cardinal electors were European. Now, the proportion has dropped to 39%, while 18% come from Asia, 18% from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 12% from sub-Saharan Africa.

Francis also sought to lower the age profile of the college of cardinals. Seven of those appointed last December were under the age of 60, with one – Mykola Bychok, a Ukrainian-born bishop in Melbourne – only 44. Cardinals were appointed from Peru, Ecuador, Algeria and Iran in an attempt to tilt the balance away from Europe.

The first vote will be taken soon after the conclave convenes, and then each morning and afternoon until a candidate secures a two-thirds majority.

The cardinals will be “under quite a lot of pressure to choose quite quickly,” Pattenden said. “The world’s eyes are on them, and the Catholic faithful might find it a bit disconcerting if they’re still in the conclave in June or in July.”

In the past century, most conclaves have lasted two to three days. The longest conclave, in the 13th century, lasted two years and nine months, and the shortest was in 1503 when a result came within hours.

The bookmakers’ favourites to succeed Francis are Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s chief diplomat, and Luis Antonio Tagle, a Filipino cardinal.

Speculation on the outcome of the conclave has already become one of the most popular betting markets this year. Leighton Vaughan Williams, a professor of economics and finance at Nottingham Business School, told AFP: “What was once a pursuit confined largely to Renaissance Roman bankers and courtiers has evolved into a multimillion-dollar global market accessible at the click of a button or a tap on a crypto wallet.”

He said the speed with which betting activity had taken off this year “underscores an enduring cultural fascination with the papacy, amplified by media coverage and popular culture”.

A murder inquiry has been launched after a bestselling German novelist was found dead on a houseboat in Hamburg having been violently attacked, police have said.

Alexandra Fröhlich, 58, whose novels have had prominence on Germany’s bestseller lists, was found on Tuesday morning, investigating authorities said.

The case was quickly passed to the murder squad amid evidence she had been attacked. Authorities have refused to give more details other than saying forensic evidence had been gathered and a coroner’s report submitted.

According to the local broadcaster NDR, citing police sources, Fröhlich was shot. Investigators have issued an appeal for potential witnesses who may have observed suspicious activity on or around the long cerise houseboat in which Fröhlich resided, on the Holzhafen bank of the River Elbe in the eastern Moorfleet district.

Her son discovered her body on Tuesday morning, according to police, who believe she died between midnight and 5.30am.

“According to current information, relatives found the 58-year-old woman lifeless on her houseboat and alerted the fire brigade, who were only able to confirm the woman’s death,” a police spokesperson told local media. “After evaluating traces and evidence, the investigating authorities now believe that the woman died as a result of violence.”

The spokesperson said investigators were looking into possible suspects and whether the killer may have been known to Fröhlich. “Given the ongoing investigation, no further information can be provided at this time,” he said.

Media reported that divers were at the scene of the crime, amid speculation that the weapon could have been thrown into the Elbe.

Fröhlich started out as a journalist, initially in Ukraine where she founded a women’s magazine in Kyiv. She later worked as a freelance journalist in Germany for women’s and other magazines such as Stern, before turning her hand to writing novels.

In 2012 she published her debut novel, My Russian Mother-in-Law and other Catastrophes, which she said was based on her own experience of being married to a Russian. It entered the bestseller list of Der Spiegel magazine, one of the closest-observed indicators of fiction and nonfiction sales in Germany, where it remained for several months. It was subsequently translated into French. A critic at the time described it as “a hilarious west-east satire”.

In 2016 she published the crime novel Death is a Certainty, which was similarly successful, and in 2019 she followed this with Skeletons in the Closet. Both were published by Penguin. Her novels were characterised by a mix of humour, family tales and social topics.

A murder inquiry has been launched after a bestselling German novelist was found dead on a houseboat in Hamburg having been violently attacked, police have said.

Alexandra Fröhlich, 58, whose novels have had prominence on Germany’s bestseller lists, was found on Tuesday morning, investigating authorities said.

The case was quickly passed to the murder squad amid evidence she had been attacked. Authorities have refused to give more details other than saying forensic evidence had been gathered and a coroner’s report submitted.

According to the local broadcaster NDR, citing police sources, Fröhlich was shot. Investigators have issued an appeal for potential witnesses who may have observed suspicious activity on or around the long cerise houseboat in which Fröhlich resided, on the Holzhafen bank of the River Elbe in the eastern Moorfleet district.

Her son discovered her body on Tuesday morning, according to police, who believe she died between midnight and 5.30am.

“According to current information, relatives found the 58-year-old woman lifeless on her houseboat and alerted the fire brigade, who were only able to confirm the woman’s death,” a police spokesperson told local media. “After evaluating traces and evidence, the investigating authorities now believe that the woman died as a result of violence.”

The spokesperson said investigators were looking into possible suspects and whether the killer may have been known to Fröhlich. “Given the ongoing investigation, no further information can be provided at this time,” he said.

Media reported that divers were at the scene of the crime, amid speculation that the weapon could have been thrown into the Elbe.

Fröhlich started out as a journalist, initially in Ukraine where she founded a women’s magazine in Kyiv. She later worked as a freelance journalist in Germany for women’s and other magazines such as Stern, before turning her hand to writing novels.

In 2012 she published her debut novel, My Russian Mother-in-Law and other Catastrophes, which she said was based on her own experience of being married to a Russian. It entered the bestseller list of Der Spiegel magazine, one of the closest-observed indicators of fiction and nonfiction sales in Germany, where it remained for several months. It was subsequently translated into French. A critic at the time described it as “a hilarious west-east satire”.

In 2016 she published the crime novel Death is a Certainty, which was similarly successful, and in 2019 she followed this with Skeletons in the Closet. Both were published by Penguin. Her novels were characterised by a mix of humour, family tales and social topics.

Vladimir Putin was one of the first world leaders to offer help to Iran in the aftermath of a massive explosion at a container depot in a key port near the strait of Hormuz, dispatching several emergency planes to the area.

Fires still blazed nearly 24 hours after the explosion at the giant Shahid Rajaee port in southern Iran, the nation’s most strategically important port and chief artery for its world trade. The death toll had risen to at least 28 and the numbers injured had risen to more than 1,000.

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, flew to Bandar Abbas, a city 20 miles to the west of the port in Hormozgan province, to be briefed on the investigation and rescue operation.

With choking smoke and air pollution spreading across the area, schools and offices in Bandar Abbaswere ordered closed on Sunday, state TV reported. The health ministry urged residents to avoid going outside until further notice and to use protective masks.

Early indications were that the explosion appears to have been an accident rather than a deliberate attack. The Tehran prosecutor’s office said it had filed charges against a variety of media outlets of different political persuasions, a reflection of officials’ concern at speculation that the explosion was an act of terror or due to mistakes by the army.

CCTV footage circulating on Iranian media showed a localised fire starting five minutes after midday in a single container and then spreading rapidly to other containers, and port workers starting to run away. A vast explosion then occurs within two minutes, knocking out the camera.

The interior ministry launched an inquiry. No official explanation has been given for the explosion yet but there were growing reports that the storage of chemicals in containers in high temperatures may have been to blame.

Evidence of previous, smaller incidents was being cited, as well as claims that much of the regime surrounding health and safety protocols, especially concerning the inspection of chemical storage, had been contracted out.

The Kremlin website said Putin had conveyed his “words of sincere sympathy and support to the families of the victims as well as his wishes for a recovery to all those injured”. Russia dispatched planes carrying specialist firefighters.

The explosion happened just as a third round of talks between the US and Iran started, designed to lead to fresh controls being placed on Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of US sanctions.

The Iranian foreign ministry described the talks, mediated by Oman and held in Muscat, as serious, practical and more detailed than those previously. Another round of talks is due to be held in a week’s time.

Survivors of the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen and their families have gathered at the site in northern Germany to officially commemorate the 80th anniversary of its liberation by British troops.

Representatives of victims’ associations and the military took part in the ceremony along with the British deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner.

During the second world war, Soviet prisoners of war and later Jewish prisoners were held at the camp under extremely hostile conditions.

According to the foundation responsible for the upkeep of the camp as a memorial site, about 20,000 prisoners of war and at least 52,000 concentration camp prisoners died there, including Anne Frank, the Jewish diarist, and her sister, Margot.

Debbie Morag, who was born in Bergen-Belsen’s displaced persons’ camp in 1948, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, and now lives in Israel, told the participants: “My father had the number 126,715 on his arm, a symbol not only of brutality, but of perseverance.

“My mother carried her memories silently, yet they filled our home. I often say that I absorbed the Holocaust with my mother’s milk – that’s how deeply it is connected to me.”

Accompanying about 180 British Jews, including survivors and their relatives, the UK’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, read a psalm.

Lola Hassid Angel, 88, from Greece, described the camp in an interview with the Guardian earlier this month as “an abomination that historians will one day refer to as a dark page but which we, as the last survivors, are duty-bound to describe”.

At the ceremony, another survivor, 100-year-old Albrecht Weinberg, from Germany, recalled being taken half-dead by train from Auschwitz to Belsen. “I found myself lying amid the dead and the living on a wagon in Bergen-Belsen. Our bodies were tipped out. Two days later, a tank drove in. I thought now I’ll finally be freed by death, but it was British soldiers coming to liberate us. They later told me I’d weighed 29kg [4st 8lb].”

At the time in April 1945, the Guardian reported how a senior medical officer with the British army had witnessed thousands of typhus, typhoid and tuberculosis cases on entering the camp, calling it “the most horrible, frightful place” he had ever seen.

“There was a pile – 60 to 80 yards long, 30 yards wide, and 4ft high – of the unclothed bodies of women all within sight of several hundred children. Gutters were filled with rotting dead and men had come to the gutters to die, using the kerbstones as back rests,” the correspondent David Woodward wrote.

Accounts from the camp by soldiers and journalists were spread around the world and proved more shocking in many ways than other discoveries of death camps to the east, such as Treblinka, Sobibor and Auschwitz, as they had either been demolished to hide evidence of the crimes committed there, or emptied of their inmates, who, like Weinberg, were sent on death marches.

At Belsen, the camp construction and the evidence of what had taken place there remained intact. Some of the Nazi soldiers involved in the death machine were still on site.

The sheer number of prisoners and the conditions at the camp led to mass outbreaks of dysentery, typhus and malnutrition, leading to about 500 deaths a day, most during the final weeks of the war. A documented 14,000 survivors died by the end of June 1945, many of whose digestive systems had been unable to cope with the food they were given after the liberation of the camp.

On one of the hottest days in London marathon history, it was a novice over 26.2 miles who played it coolest of all. As temperatures climbed towards 20c, almost everyone in the elite men’s field – including Eliud Kipchoge, the greatest ever, and the Olympic champion Tamirat Tola – slowed at the 30km drinks station to grab their bottles and quench their thirst.

But one athlete, the 30-year-old Kenyan Sabastian Sawe, decided water could wait and in only his second marathon he summoned a kick so devastating that he left everyone else floundering within seconds. “I saw that I had an opportunity to push and I did,” Sawe said after crossing the line in 2hr 2min 27sec, the second quickest time in London marathon history.

It was not just the sudden injection of pace caught everybody by surprise. It was the staggering 13min 56sec surge between 30km and 35km that followed. To put that time into context, it is just 12sec slower than the world record for a 5km parkrun, set by the Irish international runner Nick Griggs.

What makes Sawe’s story even more extraordinary is that he only started training seriously in his early 20s and began competing extensively on the international circuit at 27. “My focus was education first, and then I run,” he said. “I think the secret is training and discipline and trusting the process. With that everything is possible.”

Second place was claimed by the half-marathon world record-holder, Jacob Kiplimo, who was 70sec back. Tola was fifth in 2:04.42 while Kipchoge, a four-time winner, sixth in 2:05.25.

The leading British man, Mahamed Mahamed, was ninth in 2:08.52 while the Paris Olympic triathlon champion, Alex Yee, was 14th in his debut marathon in 2:11.08.

“My legs have never felt like this before,” Yee said. “There were definitely a lot more dark moments than in Paris today. Once I got to 32k-33k, there was a lot of pain there. My legs were cramping. I had to keep fighting through that, and I am pretty proud to get to the finish line. To be the second Brit is pretty special.”

However, one man that appreciated Yee’s efforts was Kipchoge, who texted the Briton before the race. “He gave me a punch on the back when he ran past at the finish,” Yee said. “It seemed like he had way more energy to go.”

The women’s race broke up quickly and soon there were only three women out in front: Sifan Hassan, the Olympic champion and 2023 winner; Tigist Assefa, the second fastest woman in history and the Paris silver medallist; and Joyciline Jepkosgei, the 2021 winner and no slouch herself.

Everyone knew that Hassan had the fastest finish. But Assefa and Jepkosgei were determined not to let it get that far. One surge, just after 10 miles, briefly left the Dutchwoman 20 metres back. Another, before halfway, broke her.

Assefa and Jepkosgei were through 13.1 miles in 66min 40sec, but as the miles ticked by they increasingly began to watch each other rather than the clock. But Assefa had plenty left in the tank to ensure that when she made her move after 23 miles it quickly proved decisive.

The Ethiopian took victory in 2:15.50, which was quick enough to surpass Peres Jepchirchir’s women’s only world record, which applies to races where women are not paced by men, by 26sec.

“When I crossed the line, I just felt extreme happiness,” Assefa said. “I was very, very happy to win the race. I really wanted to win today, and after Paris, where I finished second again, I really have trained hard.”

Jepkosgei was second in 2:18.44, with Hassan third in 2:19.00. However Assefa’s split for the second half of the race – 69min 10sec – showed how much the pace slowed.

Eilish McColgan was the leading British female athlete, finishing eighth in 2:24.25 to beat her mother Liz’s personal best by more than two minutes – although, as she conceded, things are very different these days.

“Shoe technology is a world apart from my mum’s era,” she said. “My mother drank water and flat coke to get around, so you can’t compare like for like. I’m obviously still happy to break my mum’s record but it is different.”

“I’m a bit shocked at how bad I felt at about 5km and 10km,” McColgan said. “But what I’m most proud of is that I ground it out and still managed to run a Scottish record and be first Brit as well.”

On one of the hottest days in London marathon history, it was a novice over 26.2 miles who played it coolest of all. As temperatures climbed towards 20c, almost everyone in the elite men’s field – including Eliud Kipchoge, the greatest ever, and the Olympic champion Tamirat Tola – slowed at the 30km drinks station to grab their bottles and quench their thirst.

But one athlete, the 30-year-old Kenyan Sabastian Sawe, decided water could wait and in only his second marathon he summoned a kick so devastating that he left everyone else floundering within seconds. “I saw that I had an opportunity to push and I did,” Sawe said after crossing the line in 2hr 2min 27sec, the second quickest time in London marathon history.

It was not just the sudden injection of pace caught everybody by surprise. It was the staggering 13min 56sec surge between 30km and 35km that followed. To put that time into context, it is just 12sec slower than the world record for a 5km parkrun, set by the Irish international runner Nick Griggs.

What makes Sawe’s story even more extraordinary is that he only started training seriously in his early 20s and began competing extensively on the international circuit at 27. “My focus was education first, and then I run,” he said. “I think the secret is training and discipline and trusting the process. With that everything is possible.”

Second place was claimed by the half-marathon world record-holder, Jacob Kiplimo, who was 70sec back. Tola was fifth in 2:04.42 while Kipchoge, a four-time winner, sixth in 2:05.25.

The leading British man, Mahamed Mahamed, was ninth in 2:08.52 while the Paris Olympic triathlon champion, Alex Yee, was 14th in his debut marathon in 2:11.08.

“My legs have never felt like this before,” Yee said. “There were definitely a lot more dark moments than in Paris today. Once I got to 32k-33k, there was a lot of pain there. My legs were cramping. I had to keep fighting through that, and I am pretty proud to get to the finish line. To be the second Brit is pretty special.”

However, one man that appreciated Yee’s efforts was Kipchoge, who texted the Briton before the race. “He gave me a punch on the back when he ran past at the finish,” Yee said. “It seemed like he had way more energy to go.”

The women’s race broke up quickly and soon there were only three women out in front: Sifan Hassan, the Olympic champion and 2023 winner; Tigist Assefa, the second fastest woman in history and the Paris silver medallist; and Joyciline Jepkosgei, the 2021 winner and no slouch herself.

Everyone knew that Hassan had the fastest finish. But Assefa and Jepkosgei were determined not to let it get that far. One surge, just after 10 miles, briefly left the Dutchwoman 20 metres back. Another, before halfway, broke her.

Assefa and Jepkosgei were through 13.1 miles in 66min 40sec, but as the miles ticked by they increasingly began to watch each other rather than the clock. But Assefa had plenty left in the tank to ensure that when she made her move after 23 miles it quickly proved decisive.

The Ethiopian took victory in 2:15.50, which was quick enough to surpass Peres Jepchirchir’s women’s only world record, which applies to races where women are not paced by men, by 26sec.

“When I crossed the line, I just felt extreme happiness,” Assefa said. “I was very, very happy to win the race. I really wanted to win today, and after Paris, where I finished second again, I really have trained hard.”

Jepkosgei was second in 2:18.44, with Hassan third in 2:19.00. However Assefa’s split for the second half of the race – 69min 10sec – showed how much the pace slowed.

Eilish McColgan was the leading British female athlete, finishing eighth in 2:24.25 to beat her mother Liz’s personal best by more than two minutes – although, as she conceded, things are very different these days.

“Shoe technology is a world apart from my mum’s era,” she said. “My mother drank water and flat coke to get around, so you can’t compare like for like. I’m obviously still happy to break my mum’s record but it is different.”

“I’m a bit shocked at how bad I felt at about 5km and 10km,” McColgan said. “But what I’m most proud of is that I ground it out and still managed to run a Scottish record and be first Brit as well.”

Israel will come under sustained legal pressure this week at the UN’s top court when lawyers from more than 40 states will claim the country’s ban on all cooperation with the UN’s Palestinian rights agency Unrwa is a breach of the UN charter.

The five days of hearings at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague have been given a fresh urgency by Israel’s decision on 2 March to block all aid into Gaza, but the hearing will focus on whether Israel – as a signatory to the UN charter – acted unlawfully in overriding the immunities afforded to a UN body. Israel ended all contact and cooperation with Unrwa operations in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem in November, claiming the agency had been infiltrated by Hamas, an allegation that has been contested.

Unrwa supplies food, schooling and medical services to 2 million people in Gaza. The UN World Food Programme said on Friday it had run out of stocks for kitchens serving hot food inside Gaza. The Unrwa commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of engineering a human-made famine, and even the US president, Donald Trump, said he had urged Israel to allow food into Gaza.

A total of 45 countries and organisations, including the UN itself, have requested an advisory opinion from the 15-strong judging panel on Israel’s actions. The only countries likely to defend Israel in court are the US and Hungary.

Israel has submitted a written defence, but is not due to make an oral submission this week.

The hearings represent the biggest test of Israel’s defiance of international law since the ICJ’s landmark rulings in January, March and June of 2024 that ordered it to take immediate steps to allow aid to enter Gaza unhindered. In July 2024, the ICJ also found Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories was unlawful.

Israel has largely refused to comply with the advisory orders attached to these rulings, adding to the crisis of confidence in the credibility of the international legal system.

The Palestinian rights group Al-Haq said it was “imperative” that Israel’s seat at the UN general assembly be withdrawn if Israel ignored another ICJ advisory opinion, saying the public’s faith in international law “hangs in the balance”.

The legal challenge arose from a 137 to 12 vote at the UN general assembly in December to seek an ICJ advisory opinion on whether Israel, as a signatory to the UN charter, was violating the immunities and privileges that member states are required to give to UN bodies such as Unrwa.

The agency does not just supply aid to Palestinians, but also runs medical services and schools in Gaza, West Bank and neighbouring states. Six Unrwa schools in East Jerusalem have already been shut, the subject of a separate domestic court challenge brought by Adalah, a Palestinian legal rights group.

The UN’s legal claim is backed by more than 1,500 pieces of documentation, including proceedings of the UN security council, the general assembly and UN agencies setting out Unrwa’s genesis, its status within the UN structure and its 1967 operational agreements with Israel.

The ICJ, as the UN’s top court responsible for inter-state disputes, sets store by UN findings. The UN will be represented by its new legal counsel, Elinor Hammarskjöld, a Swedish lawyer and diplomat.

At issue are two Knesset bills passed on 28 October that declared Unrwa harboured terrorists, and instructed the government to end all cooperation and contact with the organisation, including the supply of visas to Unrwa international staff. It has become part of a wider Israeli threat to withhold visas to staff of NGOs that criticise Israel.

On 2 March, Israel, independently of its decision to freeze out Unrwa, suspended the supply of all aid into Gaza in a bid to crush Hamas. France, Germany and the UK last week condemned as unacceptable remarks by the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, linking the supply of aid to political pressure on Hamas.

In a version of the Israeli government’s defence, UK Lawyers for Israel said in a paper last week that Israel had a right to terminate its agreement with Unrwa and to ban the UN and its agencies from carrying out activities on its sovereign territory, especially in wartime. Moreover, Israel was free to choose how to comply with its obligations to facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population, and was not required to do so under the auspices of Unrwa, the paper claimed.

The group also claims that the ICJ does not have the capacity, or neutrality, to determine a case that largely turns on disputed facts, including whether Unrwa had been fatally infiltrated by Hamas, and whether alternatives to Unrwa such as the WFP can deliver aid.

In what looked like a shot across UN’s bows before the case, the US justice department told the New York district court on Thursday that Unrwa and its staff did not enjoy immunity in the US courts, reversing the Biden administration’s view. The move, in theory, opens the way for victims of Hamas terrorism to seek compensation from Unrwa officials.

In a measure of the existential crisis facing Unrwa, the UN has appointed a former British diplomat, Ian Martin, to undertake a review of the agency’s future role and finances.

Meta is facing a second set of lawsuits in Africa over the psychological distress experienced by content moderators employed to take down disturbing social media content including depictions of murders, extreme violence and child sexual abuse.

Lawyers are gearing up for court action against a company contracted by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, after meeting moderators at a facility in Ghana that is understood to employ about 150 people.

Moderators working for Majorel in Accra claim they have suffered from depression, anxiety, insomnia and substance abuse as a direct consequence of the work they do checking extreme content.

The allegedly gruelling conditions endured by workers in Ghana are revealed in a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

It comes after more than 140 Facebook content moderators in Kenya were diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder caused by exposure to graphic social media content.

The workers in Kenya were employed by Samasource, an outsourcing company that carries out content moderation for Meta using workers from across Africa. Majorel, the company at the centre of the allegations in Ghana, is owned by the French multinational Teleperformance.

One man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he attempted suicide owing to the nature of his work. His claims his contract was subsequently terminated and he has returned to his home country.

Facebook and other large social media companies employ armies of content moderators, often based in the poorest parts of the world, to remove posts that breach their community standards and to train AI systems to do the same.

Moderators are required to review distressing and often brutal pictures and videos to establish whether they should be removed from Meta’s platforms. According to workers in Ghana, they have seen videos of a person being skinned alive and a woman being beheaded.

The moderators claim mental health care offered by the firm was unhelpful, was not delivered by medical doctors, and that personal disclosures made by staff about the effects of their work were circulated among managers.

Teleperformance disputed this, saying it employed licensed mental health professionals who are registered with the local regulatory body and hold a master’s degree in psychology, counselling, or another mental health field.

The legal case is being prepared by a UK-based nonprofit, Foxglove. It would be the second case brought by content moderators in Africa, after Samasource workers in Kenya sued in 2023.

Foxglove said it was “urgently investigating these shocking abuses of workers” with a view to using “every tool at our disposal, including potential legal action” to improve working conditions.

It is working with a Ghanaian firm, Agency Seven Seven, on preparing two possible lawsuits. One would allege psychological harms and could involve a group of moderators, and the other unfair dismissal, involving the moderator from east Africa whose contract was terminated after he attempted suicide.

Foxglove’s co-executive director Martha Dark said: “These are the worst conditions I have seen in six years of working with social media content moderators around the world.

“In Ghana, Meta is displaying nothing short of a complete disregard for the humanity of its key safety workers upon whom all its profits rely: content moderators. They are treated as objects who can be used up, burned out and replaced with no care whatsoever for the permanent damage to their mental and physical wellbeing.”

Dark said basic wages for content moderators in Accra were below living costs, incentivising them to work overtime, for which pay is understood to be even lower than normal rates. Moderators faced deductions from their pay for failing to meet performance targets, she added.

Contracts seen by the Guardian show that the base wage starts at about 1,300 Ghanaian cedis a month – just over £64. This is supplemented by a system of performance-related bonuses, the upper range of which amounts to about 4,900 cedis (£243) a month, significantly less than the estimated cost of living in Accra.

A Teleperformance spokesperson said content moderators enjoyed “strong pay and benefits, including monthly pay that is roughly 10 times the country’s minimum wage for domestic moderators, and 16 times the minimum wage for those who have relocated from other countries, when including project allowance, transportation allowance, language premium and more – all of which are automatically paid to the moderator and are not performance-based”.

Foxglove’s researcher Michaela Chen said she had seen photos of moderators’ living quarters, in which they were “crammed five to a flat, two to a room”. She said there appeared to be a culture of secrecy, including surveillance from managers, who follow workers into the toilets during breaks.

This extends to moderators’ work for Meta. She said: “Workers spend all day working on Meta’s platforms, moderating to Meta’s standards and using Meta’s systems, but at the same time, moderators are told constantly: ‘You do not work for Meta,’ and are forbidden from telling anyone they do.”

Teleperformance said moderators were “offered housing in … one of the most upscale and well-known residential and commercial neighbourhoods in Accra”.

The spokesperson described the housing as “safe, with strong security” and having air conditioning, recreation facilities, including gyms and pools.

Carla Olympio, a partner at Agency Seven Seven, said she believed a personal injury case could succeed in Ghana’s courts and would set a precedent establishing that worker protections extend to psychological harms as well as physical injury.

“[There is] currently a gap in our laws because they haven’t necessarily caught up with the new developments that cover technology and virtual work,” she said.

Rosa Curling, a co-executive director at Foxglove, said it was seeking for the court to “order immediate changes to the content moderators’ workplace”, including proper safeguards and psychiatric care.

A spokesperson for Teleperformance said: “At TP in Ghana, we take our content moderation work seriously. From the very beginning during the interview process, within the employee contract and through employee training and resiliency testing, we are fully transparent with our prospective moderators regarding the content they might see during their work to help keep the internet safe for our communities. We have robust people management systems and workplace practices, including a robust wellbeing programme staffed by fully licensed psychologists to support our content moderators throughout their content moderation journey.”

Meta said the companies it worked with were “contractually obliged to pay their employees who review content on Facebook and Instagram above the industry standard in the markets they operate”.

The tech company said it took “the support of content reviewers seriously”, including detailing expectations around counselling, training and other support in contracts with the companies it outsourced.

It said all content moderators signed client confidentiality agreements because they were dealing with user information which needed to be protected and for their own safety, but moderators may discuss their jobs with doctors and counsellors, and some aspects with family members.

• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Environmental conservation groups are expressing major concerns over Donald Trump’s recent proclamation to reverse fishing regulations across the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine national monument, a federally protected area in the central Pacific Ocean spanning nearly 500,000 sq miles.

As one of the most pristine tropical marine environments in the world, the monument is now at risk following Trump’s decision last week to unleash American commercial fishing in the area with far-reaching environmental consequences.

Established by George W Bush in 2009 and expanded by Barack Obama in 2014, the monument encompasses seven federally protected islands and atolls, as well as 165 seamounts – underwater mountains that are biodiversity hotspots.

In addition to being home to many threatened, endangered and depleted species including 22 kinds of seabirds, green and hawksbill turtles, giant clams, bumphead parrotfish, dolphins and whales, the monument contains fragile ecosystems surrounding some of the world’s most ancient coral colonies.

It is also home to Kingman Reef, the most undisturbed coral reef within the US. According to Unesco, Kingman Reef has the greatest proportion of apex predators of any coral reef ecosystem that has been studied in the world. It hosts various shark species roam including grey reef sharks, as well as as oceanic white tips, hammerheads and silky sharks – all of which provide critical ecological balance.

Trump’s proclamation – which American Samoan tuna lobbyists heavily advocated for – allows US-flagged vessels to fish commercially within 50 to 200 nautical miles of the monument’s boundaries. The proclamation – which comes as more than 80% of the world’s coral reefs have been hit by the worst global bleaching event on record – also directs the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to “amend or repeal all burdensome regulations that restrict commercial fishing” in the area.

As part of his quest to make the US the “world’s dominant seafood leader”, Trump called the regulations “so horrible and so stupid”, saying that American fishers are being “forced to go and travel four to seven days to go and fish in an area that’s not as good”.

David Henkin, an attorney for the environmental conservation group Earthjustice, pushed back on Trump’s claims that federal regulations are hindering American fishers.

“When he is saying that fisher folks from Hawaii or American Samoa need to travel for days to go fish. Well, you need to travel for days to get to these remote Pacific islands. They’re some of the most remote places on Earth … and they’re certainly not right next to Hawaii,” Henkin said.

According to a 2023 study, in the last five years, the US-flagged purse-seine fleet only spent 0.52% of their effort fishing in the two areas where commercial fishing is currently allowed in the Pacific Islands Heritage area.

Echoing similar sentiments as Henkin, David McGuire, the founder of the shark conservation group Shark Stewards, said: “It’s grandstanding … These fishermen don’t travel 2,000 or 3,000 miles … They’re already out there, four or five hundred miles. There is no incentive for them to go to the more central islands.”

Environmental experts also point to Trump’s mass firings across the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – which manages the monument – as well as his efforts to set the federal government’s top scientific agencies on to a “non-science trajectory”.

“You will no longer have staff, you won’t have the science and you won’t have the management biologists in Washington or elsewhere at universities that are funded by National Fisheries or Noaa,” McGuire said.

Other concerns surrounding the proclamation’s environmental impact is the potential rise in illegal fishing as well as bycatch. Research has shown that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) accounts for one of every five fish caught in the wild.

Speaking to the Guardian, Arlo Hemphill, Greenpeace’s US project lead on ocean sanctuaries, said: “Having a legal commercial fishery provides cover for illegal fishing. If you just see a fishing boat going through waters, you are not there watching what they’re catching.”

Furthermore, despite sharks playing a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, more than 100m of the oft-misunderstood animals are killed every year as part of bycatch and shark-finning.

Douglas McCauley, a marine biology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, warned that the proclamation can have profound impacts on shark conservation. “You can catch a lot of the tuna that you want, but you also catch and kill many sharks,” he said.

Essential to nutrient cycling, prey and invasive species control, as well as disease reduction, sharks have existed for over 450m years. Yet Trump’s proclamation can rapidly undo years of shark conservation in just minutes. “If you open up a section of ocean that has all of these very long-lived, slow-growing sharks, you can decimate 100 years of conservation in almost 15 minutes of fishing because it takes so long for those sharks to rebound and regrow their populations,” McCauley said.

Other marine animals at risk in the monument are sea turtles. With six of the global seven sea turtle species being classified as threatened or endangered worldwide due to human activity, many come into the islands to feed around the reefs.

However, Trump’s proclamation puts them at risk in various ways, with McCauley saying: “Either they take a hook and bite on to the hook or drown because they cannot come up to breathe in a longline fishery, or they are scooped up and drown in the course of purse-seine fishing.”

Speaking to the Guardian, Solomon Kaho’ohalahala, a Hawaiian elder and leader with the Pacific Island Heritage Coalition, which advocates for the monument, pointed to the interconnectedness of the islands to the broader ocean.

“It’s an integrated kind of ecosystem that isn’t isolated by just the islands themselves … It’s difficult to think that we can divide them into separate areas and then be successful in preserving all of them. It doesn’t work that way,” he said.

For environmental experts, in addition to fragile ecosystems, Trump’s proclamation will negatively impact American fishers in the long run, leading to higher seafood prices for American consumers.

Research has repeatedly shown spillover benefits from large marine protected areas including increases in catch rates outside of the areas. Opening up the monument for commercial fishing will have what Hemphill describes as the “opposite effect” of what Trump’s administration hopes for.

“The current administration has its mentality of ‘let’s become the greatest seafood producer.’ But if you take everything, then you over-exploit and the populations collapse. Then what you’ll see in the long term is actually a reduction of catch,” he said.

Similarly, Kaho’ohalahala said: “Opening this sacred place for exploitation is short-sighted and does not consider current or future generations of Pacific People who rely on a healthy ocean, and know this special ocean space as our ancestral home.”

With mounting concerns surrounding the Trump administration’s environmental impact, marine experts are urging the public to consider the ecological and cultural significance of marine regulated areas that are akin to national parks.

“It’s a special piece of America… It’s as if we had just allowed commercial hunting into a place like Yellowstone,” McCauley said.

Donald Trump’s private golf resort in South Florida will next week host one of the world’s leading purveyors of chlorine dioxide, a potentially life-threatening form of industrial bleach that is claimed without evidence to be a cure for cancer, Covid and autism.

Andreas Kalcker is among 50 listed speakers at the “Truth Seekers Conference”, a two-day event opening on Thursday at the US president’s resort, Trump National Doral Miami. The event features several anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists who have been brought together by the far-right commentator Charlie Ward.

Kalcker, a German national thought to be living in Switzerland, markets the bleach under the brand name “CDS”, for chlorine dioxide solution. His online brochures claim that the toxic chemical, which he admits is a disinfectant, can “eliminate pathogens” that cause disease.

He boasts it is “possibly the greatest medical discovery of the last 100 years”.

Government health authorities in the US and Spain have denounced the remedy as fraudulent, saying it is no different from drinking bleach. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned that it can cause serious and even life-threatening side-effects, including dehydration, diarrhoea and kidney injury.

Kalcker’s appearance at Thursday’s conference is the latest indication that potentially dangerous alternative health approaches are being emboldened and are proliferating during Trump’s second term in the White House. The US president’s choice of the prominent vaccine skeptic, Robert Kennedy Jr, to head the Department of Health and Human Services has spread alarm through medical circles.

Kennedy, who until 2023 led the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, has talked about treating the current measles outbreak in Texas with cod liver oil. He also praised without any evidence two doctors in Texas whom he claimed had “healed” 300 children with measles using the inhaled steroid budesonide.

At his confirmation hearings for the health secretary job, Kennedy directly mentioned chlorine dioxide. He praised Trump’s handling of pandemic, saying the president had not only speeded up the search for a Covid vaccine but had looked at “all of the different remedies including … even chlorine dioxide”.

Kennedy’s remark helped solve one of the enduring mysteries of Trump’s first term. In April 2020, early in the pandemic, he astonished medical scientists around the world by advocating the use of “disinfectant” as a treatment for Covid.

At a White House press conference, Trump said: “I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”

Kennedy’s confirmation comments clarified that Trump was indeed referring to chlorine dioxide, a toxin that been falsely claimed as a “miracle cure” for autism, cancer, malaria and HIV/Aids.

Since Trump re-entered the White House in January his new administration has overseen an unprecedented censorship of government information relating to science. Several federal public health websites and databases have gone dark.

The FDA website page that describes chlorine dioxide as a “powerful bleach typically used for industrial water treatment”, and warning that it can be life threatening, has been taken down and replaced with a “page not found” notice.

However, a press release from 2019 publicizing an FDA announcement on the dangers of chlorine dioxide can still be found on the FDA website.

It states: “The US Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to purchase or drink a product sold online as a medical treatment due to a recent rise in reported health issues. Chlorine dioxide products, when mixed, develop into a dangerous bleach which has caused serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.”

The main distributor of “miracle cure” bleach in the US, Mark Grenon, was sentenced to five years in prison for selling an “unapproved and misbranded drug” in October 2023. His sons Jonathan and Jordan Grenon were sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison.

Kalcker is one of the most prominent peddlers of the bleach remedy. He has had success selling chlorine dioxide through many Latin American countries, including Bolivia and Mexico.

He wraps his product in pseudo-scientific language, calling himself Dr Kalcker and claiming he is a specialist in “electromolecular medicine”. He has set up what he calls a training institute, and claims without evidence that his products can lead to “recovery” from autism, dramatic improvement in Parkinson’s disease, and healing from “vaccine damage”.

“Kalcker presents himself as a doctor, is very clever, and has created a product that sounds and looks plausible. But at the same time he is promoting the lunatic idea that autism is caused by parasites,” said Fiona O’Leary, a campaigner against pseudoscience who has autistic children.

In 2021, Kalcker was investigated by Argentinian authorities and charged with falsely promoting bleach as a medical cure following the death of a five-year-old boy who had been given chlorine dioxide by his parents.

In addition to promoting his remedy on stage at Trump’s Doral resort, Kalcker will be selling books about his bleach product at a vendor stall.

The Guardian asked Trump’s resort whether it was appropriate to allow its space to be used to promote a potentially dangerous bleach remedy, but received no immediate reply.

The organiser of the Doral conference, Charlie Ward, is an associate of the president’s son, Eric Trump. He has promoted a number of conspiracy theories including QAnon.

In a speech in 2022 recorded by the monitoring group Media Matters he downplayed the Holocaust, saying that fewer people had died as a result of it than through vaccines. “More people have been killed by the jab than were killed in the Holocaust,” he said.