Thousands had gathered in Vancouver this weekend to mark Lapu Lapu Day, a celebration of a Filipino national hero who fought against Spanish colonisation, when a car-ramming attack killed at least 11 and injured dozens more.

Datu Lapulapu, the chief of Mactan, an island now part of the central Visayas region of the Philippines, defeated Spanish forces led by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. Primary accounts of that day are limited, but Lapulapu’s victory has become a symbol of bravery and resistance to colonial rule.

British Columbia officially recognised 27 April as Lapu Lapu Day in 2023, with local officials noting the date was an opportunity to “learn more about the history of people in British Columbia of Filipino heritage and to celebrate their contributions to the vibrancy and prosperity of the province”.

The province is home to a significant Filipino community, with 172,915 people of Filipino origin living in British Columbia in 2021, about 3.46% of the population.

The Philippines’ former president Rodrigo Duterte named 27 April as Lapu Lapu Day, making it a special working public holiday for the country, and a non-working holiday for Lapu-Lapu City on Mactan Island, in the centre of the county.

In Lapu-Lapu City, which was named after the national hero, festivities stretched for almost a month this year and featured a special market, parade and re-enactment of the Battle of Mactan.

Organisers of the celebrations in Vancouver said this declaration honoured the legacy of Lapulapu as well as symbolising “the cultural harmony and mutual respect that thrive in the province of British Columbia”.

Ahead of the gathering, organisers described Lapulapu as representing “the soul of native resistance, a powerful force that helped shape the Filipino identity in the face of colonisation”, adding that he “teaches us that the strength of a united people, bound by a shared commitment to their heritage, can withstand any challenge”.

The festivities in Vancouver were designed as a celebration of Filipino pride and heritage, featuring music, a parade, film screenings, cultural dances, markets with local handmade goods and food, and basketball – the Philippines’ most loved sport.

In a statement shared after the attack, organisers wrote that they were “devastated” for families and victims: “We are still finding the words to express the deep heartbreak brought on by this senseless tragedy,” they said.

At least 11 people are dead and dozens injured after a driver ploughed into a crowd at a street festival in Vancouver on the eve of Canada’s election, in an attack that the prime minister, Mark Carney, said left the country “shocked, devastated and heartbroken”.

Vancouver’s police chief described the carnage as “the darkest day” in the city’s history and told reporters it was “impossible to overstate how many lives have been impacted for ever” by the lone driver.

“There are many unanswered questions about this horrific crime, the motive of the person who did it, and whether anything could have been done to prevent it,” said the interim chief constable, Steve Rai. “There are many things we still don’t know. We are working hard to get all of the answers.”

Rai said officials felt confident the incident was not an act of terrorism and there were no known prior threats to the Filipino community. A 30-year-old man who had been driving a black Audi SUV was arrested. The suspect had a “significant history of interactions with police and police and healthcare professionals related to mental health”, Rai said.

Rai said the man, who is from Vancouver, was not currently being identified, as charges had not yet been laid against him. The names, ages and genders of the victims are also yet to be released.

The Lapu Lapu festival, held on a balmy spring day, drew nearly 100,000 people, many of whom were families with young children. The celebration is named after Datu Lapu-Lapu, an Indigenous resistance fighter in the Philippines, who orchestrated the defeat of 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 basketball tournament and local food vendors.

Carney, the Liberal party prime minister and former Bank of England governor who is favourite to win Monday’s election, paused 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.

“Last night was extremely difficult and the community will feel this for a long time,” RJ Aquino, the chair of the festival organiser Filipino BC, told reporters, asking the media to respect the privacy of those affected. “We know that there’s a lot of questions floating about and we don’t have all the answers, but we want to tell everybody that we’re grieving.”

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.

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

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”.

The incident occurred shortly after 8pm local time (1300 BST), said Rai. The event was wrapping up, but many festivalgoers were in the area when the driver in the SUV approached. A photo posted to X half an hour before showed a busy street with young people looking at the wares of food truck vendors.

“It is hard to make sense of something so senseless, and I know there are questions about whether this tragedy could have been prevented,” said Rai.

Footage posted online showed a black luxury SUV with a damaged front hood 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 were 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 the 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.

Harjit Sajjan, a former defence minister who previously worked as a police officer in Vancouver, told CTV News the aftermath was the “the largest crime scene that I’ve seen. I’ve been to many crime scenes in that neighbourhood before … This is unfathomable.”

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 cast a pall over the final day of the federal election campaigning. Canadians go to the polls on Monday in a vote heavily influenced by the spectre of Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada and a trade war he has launched against his country’s northern neighbour.

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. Carney’s campaign said a large rally in British Columbia had been cancelled.

“All Canadians are united in solidarity with the Filipino community,” the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, said while visiting a Filipino church in Ontario. “All Canadians are united with you in mourning the loss of these treasured lives and in binding our country together to support the surviving loved ones.”

The Tory leader called the SUV ramming attack a “senseless act of violence”.

“I know that today will be a day of prayer and reflection for the Filipino community and for all Canadians and I want you to know that all our country is with you today as you mourn this terrible loss,” he said.

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

“This is the darkest day in our city’s history,” the interim chief constable Steve Rai told reporters on Sunday morning, adding that more deaths were possible in the coming days. “It’s hard to make sense of something so senseless.”

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.

Rai said officials felt confident the incident was not an act of terrorism and there were no known prior threats to the Filipino community. A 30-year-old man who had been driving a black Audi SUV was arrested.

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 Philippine 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,” Yoseb Vardeh, a food truck operator, told 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 the 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.

Harjit Sajjan, a former defence minister who previously worked as a police officer in Vancouver, told CTV News the aftermath was the “the largest crime scene that I’ve seen. I’ve been to many crime scenes in that neighbourhood before … This is unfathomable.”

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. Carney’s campaign announced a large rally in British Columbia had been cancelled.

“All Canadians are united in solidarity with the Filipino community,” the Conservative party leader, Pierre Poilievre, said while visiting a Filipino church in Ontario. “All Canadians are united with you in mourning the loss of these treasured lives and in binding our country together to support the surviving loved ones.”

Poilievre called the attack a “senseless act of violence”, adding: “I know that today will be a day of prayer and reflection for the Filipino community and for all Canadians and I want you to know that all our country is with you today as you mourn this terrible loss.”

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”.

Liverpool have won a record-equalling 20th league title in a stunning debut season for Arne Slot after beating Tottenham 5-1 at Anfield. The 46-year-old, who took on the seemingly unenviable task of succeeding Jürgen Klopp last summer, becomes the first man in Liverpool’s illustrious history to win the championship in his debut season with the club.

Anfield was ready to celebrate at kick-off, but there was an early setback when Dominic Solanke unexpectedly headed Spurs in front after 12 minutes. Liverpool hit back quickly, Luis Díaz’s equaliser awarded after a VAR review, before Alexis Mac Allister smashed home in the 23rd minute to put the hosts in front. Cody Gakpo struck from a corner before half-time to leave the outcome all but guaranteed.

The second half was a sun-kissed title party, crowned when Mohamed Salah swept in for Liverpool’s fourth – and the Egyptian’s 28th league goal of an extraordinary season. Salah was poised to add another with 20 minutes left, but Destiny Udogie reached the ball first for an unfortunate own goal.

Liverpool’s triumph and the end of Manchester City’s four-season reign as Premier League champions has appeared inevitable for some time with the club building a commanding lead over their nearest challengers, Arsenal, since the turn of the year. Arsenal’s draw with Crystal Palace on Wednesday left Slot’s side needing one point from their final five matches and they sealed the title with four games remaining.

Victory brings Liverpool level with their fallen rivals, Manchester United, on 20 league championships. It is their second Premier League title in five years but unlike in 2019-20, when Klopp’s team ended the club’s 30-year wait for a 19th league crown behind closed doors, their latest triumph was celebrated in front of jubilant supporters. Liverpool were unable to hold a trophy parade five years ago because of the Covid pandemic but one will be staged in the city on Monday 26 May. Klopp may be in attendance, having assembled the supremely talented squad that Slot inherited.

The charismatic German’s shock departure last season signalled the end of an era but Slot, lured from Feyenoord by the club’s new sporting director, Richard Hughes, made a seamless transition. The head coach, as he is officially titled, became the first Liverpool manager to win 11 of his first 12 matches in all competitions. After a home defeat by Nottingham Forest in the fourth game, Liverpool embarked on a 26-match unbeaten run in the Premier League that lasted almost seven months.

Slot’s side have topped the table since the defining date of 2 November. Arsenal lost at Newcastle that day, City were beaten at Bournemouth, part of their astonishing collapse of one win in 13 matches in all competitions, and Liverpool came from behind to beat Brighton 2-1 at Anfield. Mohamed Salah struck the late winner and has been the driving force behind the title success.

Liverpool’s campaign was played against a backdrop of uncertainty over the futures of Salah, the captain, Virgil van Dijk, and Trent Alexander-Arnold. All three were in the final years of their contracts and involved in protracted negotiations over extending their glittering Anfield careers. Salah and Van Dijk have recently signed new two-year contracts but Alexander-Arnold could join Real Madrid on a free transfer this summer.

Slot’s faith in the mentality and ability of the squad bequeathed by Klopp has been vindicated. Liverpool made only one signing last summer, the rarely used Federico Chiesa, as Slot assessed the talent at his disposal. The club also agreed a €35m deal to sign the Georgia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili from Valencia this summer, when Liverpool are also expected to be in the market for a centre-forward and a young left-back.

Slot follows José Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Manuel Pellegrini and Antonio Conte in winning the Premier League in their first season. He is the fourth Liverpool manager to win the championship at the first attempt, after Matt McQueen in 1922-23, Joe Fagan in 1983-84 and Kenny Dalglish in 1985-86, all of whom were established figures at Anfield before stepping into the role. Slot is the only one to win the league in his first season at the club, rather than being promoted from within.

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 Elbe River 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 Elbe River 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.

Facebook posts appearing to contain plans for a “massacre” are being examined by counter-terrorism police investigating an attack in which two women were seriously injured in Leeds.

A man, 38, who suffered a “self-inflicted injury” was arrested and two weapons – a crossbow and a firearm – were recovered from the scene, on the popular Otley Run pub crawl route in the north of the city.

He was described on Sunday as a “key suspect” by police who said he remained in hospital in a critical condition.

One of the two women – who are aged 19 and 31 – has been discharged from hospital, but the other underwent surgery after suffering life-threatening injuries and is in a stable condition.

Police also said they were aware of video being circulated on social media, a reference to footage which appeared to have been taken from a passing car and shows a black-clad man carrying an implement and with a carry case slung over his shoulder.

The head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, Det Ch Supt James Dunkerley, said officers were working at pace to establish the full facts and circumstances of Saturday’s incident, but added: “We are not currently seeking anyone else in connection with this matter, which has caused understandable concern. We believe it was an isolated incident.”

Alex Sobel, the Labour MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, said he had spoken to the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, on Sunday afternoon and would remain in touch with her as well as the security minister, Dan Jarvis, regarding aspects of the incident.

“I want to thank local people and the blue light services in how they responded to this and the fact that the area has now been cleared and is no longer a live crime scene,” he said.

“The broader implications of an attack in which lethal weapons were found in a very busy area where the country’s most populous pub crawl takes place is a real concern,” he added.

Sobel said he would be raising the issue of the availability of weapons linked to the incident, and how to keep people safe when they are standing in large groups and queueing.

Counter-terror police are examining a number of Facebook posts – including one which appeared to include plans for a “mass-murder” attack – to determine if they are linked to the attacker or the incident.

The post appeared before the attack on a Facebook account that indicated far-right sympathies as well as reflecting the “mixed ideology” that has increasingly been on the radar of counter-terrorism police.

The posts listed as “targets” students, nightclub goers and “neurotypicals”. Reference was made to a “manifesto” written by a man who killed 51 people during shootings at a mosque and Islamic centre in New Zealand in 2019.

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, told the Guardian that it had taken action to remove an account apparently associated with the incident.

The home secretary received further updates on Sunday from counter-terrorism police after she was first briefed in the wake of the attack.

The incident caused shock across the community in the Headingley area of Leeds over the weekend, where large numbers of students and others routinely take part in the pub crawl route, days before the summer term starts for many university courses.

One venue, Taylor’s Sports Bar and Grill, remained closed all weekend due to the police investigation but posted on Facebook that it intended to reopen on Monday,

“While appalling to witness some of the scenes first-hand, lowlife scum like this will never win in our society,” the statement added.

A member of staff at another bar said they had seen dozens of emergency service vehicles descend on the area on Saturday afternoon after the attack, although it took hours for people to become fully aware of what had happened.

“We were told and were on high alert, but otherwise you wouldn’t have known. It wasn’t until the evening that people started asking about it,” they said. “I think people have been really shaken by it.”

A fortnight ago, the Guardian revealed that counter-terrorism police and the National Crime Agency had set up a new joint taskforce to tackle young males fixated with violence online which is often also fuelled by “strongly misogynistic” online material.

The drag queen Jiggly Caliente has died aged 44 after a “severe infection”, her family confirmed. The performer, whose real name was Bianca Castro-Arabejo, rose to fame after taking part in the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Caliente’s family announced on Thursday that the Filipino-American drag performer had part of her leg amputated due to the infection.

Her family wrote on Instagram that she was “cherished by many” for her career, and died on Sunday at 4.42am “surrounded by her loving family and close friends”.

On Instagram, the BBC Radio 2 DJ and RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage wrote: “My jiggles …. The laughter was endless, our talks were special, your energy was contagious.

“You were and remain so very loved. This world has lost an angel and we want you to soar high ….. I love you so much honey.”

A statement from Caliente’s family said the star was a “luminous presence” in the worlds of entertainment and advocacy, adding that she would be deeply missed and eternally remembered.

Her family said: “She touched countless lives through her artistry, activism, and the genuine connection she fostered with fans around the world.

“Though her physical presence is gone, the joy she shared and the space she helped create for so many will remain for ever.”

After publicly coming out as transgender, Caliente was a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars season six and was set to judge the latest season of the spin-off programme Drag Race Philippines, after being appointed as a judge when the show began airing in 2022.

A statement shared by the show and producers World of Wonder on social media said they were “devastated” and asked for Caliente’s family to be given the privacy and space to grieve their “tremendous loss”.

They added: “Jiggly’s humour, love, and light touched so many in the Drag Race family and beyond. Her legacy will continue to uplift the communities she advocated for.”

Born on 29 November 1980, Caliente moved from the Philippines to New York when she was a child. She was praised in her first Drag Race series by the judges for her sense of humour, and impressive lip-syncs when she battled not to leave the competition early, while also struggling with sewing garments during some challenges.

She was eliminated before the final, with Sharon Needles going on to be crowned champion in 2012.

Since the franchise began in 2009, the reality show has been hit by the deaths of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK stars Cherry Valentine, 28, and The Vivienne, 32, as well as US competitors Sahara Davenport, 27, and Chi Chi DeVayne, 34.

Soaring prices of basic foodstuffs, diminishing stocks of medical supplies and sharp cuts to aid distribution threaten newly catastrophic conditions across Gaza, Palestinians and international aid officials in the battered territory are warning.

Humanitarian organisations including the World Food Programme and Unwra, which supplies food and services to more than 2 million Palestinians across Gaza, have now distributed the last of their stocks of flour and other foodstuffs to the dozens of community kitchens in the territory that serve basic meals to those with no other option.

Aid groups’ warehouses were filled during the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in mid-January and ended in early March. They are now empty.

“There isn’t anything left to give them now, so once the last supplies have been used up, the kitchens will have to close,” said one senior UN official. “At the moment people are holding up OK but we know from other crises that when things deteriorate, they deteriorate very fast, and we are not far from that point.”

Within hours of the ceasefire’s collapse almost two months ago, Israel blocked food, fuel, medicine or other items from entering Gaza. Dozens of bakeries that provided bread for hundreds of thousands have already shut down.

The 47 community kitchens, which provide only lentils, plain pasta or rice, have already reduced portions.

“These people who depend on us are threatened with starvation if this kitchen closes,” said Hani Abu Qasim, of the Rafah Charity Kitchen in Gaza.

Markets across Gaza are nearly bare and anything on sale is now too expensive for the vast majority.

Since the end of the ceasefire, the price of a kilogram of tomatoes has quadrupled to $8, sugar has gone up seven times and flour 10 to 15 times. Meat or dairy products are unobtainable.

Um Aboud, 45, an academic and journalist in Gaza City, said: “We eat two meals a day, sometimes just one. We have only a small amount of food left.

“The living conditions are extremely difficult. Hospitals are destroyed, with no treatment or medicine available. There is no clean water or electricity. Garbage surrounds us from every direction. Gaza has become a disease-ridden place. People are dying slowly, as if we have been sentenced to death.”

Almost 70% of Gaza is now covered by evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military or is part of an expanded buffer zone controlled by Israeli troops. More than 400,000 people have been displaced since the collapse of the ceasefire.

Israeli officials justify the blockade with claims that Hamas routinely steals aid, distributing it to its fighters or selling it to raise vital funds. Aid officials in Gaza deny any widespread theft of aid in recent months.

In a sprawling tent camp outside the southern city of Khan Younis, Mariam al-Najjar and her mother-in-law prepared a meal for their family of 11 with four cans of peas and carrots, some rice, stock cubes and spices.

Before the war, her family would eat a large meal of meat, stuffed vegetables or other traditional dishes on Fridays, Najjar said. “Now we eat peas and rice. We never ate canned peas before the war. Only in this war that has destroyed our lives.”

The UN said it identified 3,700 children suffering from acute malnutrition in March, up 80% from February.

Specialists from the UN’s hunger monitoring system, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), are preparing a new assessment in Gaza, to be released next month, UN officials in Gaza said.

There is also a growing shortage of medical supplies. “Everything from sterile gloves to body bags needs replenishment,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said. “This is an ongoing and particularly acute challenge as we unfortunately continue to see shockingly high numbers of sick people, including severely wounded patients, which increases pressure on the system.”

The war in Gaza was triggered by a surprise attack launched by Hamas into Israel in October 2023, in which militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostages. Israeli officials say 59 hostages remain in Gaza, more than half of whom are thought to be dead.

Israel says its blockade also aims to force Hamas into releasing hostages. Rights groups accuse Israel of using a “starvation tactic”, endangering the entire population and so making it a potential war crime.

Hospitals in Gaza received the remains of 51 Palestinians over the past 24 hours who were killed in Israeli strikes, the local health ministry said on Sunday, bringing the Palestinian death toll from the war to 52,243.

The overall toll includes nearly 700 bodies for which the documentation process was recently completed, the ministry said in its latest update.

On Monday, the international court of justice (ICJ), the United Nation’s principal court, will begin hearings to establish if Israel’s ban on all cooperation with Unrwa’s activities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank is unlawful. Israel claims Unrwa has been infiltrated by Hamas, an allegation that has been fiercely contested.

South Africa filed a complaint with the ICJ in December 2023 alleging Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, which Israel denies.

Soaring prices of basic foodstuffs, diminishing stocks of medical supplies and sharp cuts to aid distribution threaten newly catastrophic conditions across Gaza, Palestinians and international aid officials in the battered territory are warning.

Humanitarian organisations including the World Food Programme and Unwra, which supplies food and services to more than 2 million Palestinians across Gaza, have now distributed the last of their stocks of flour and other foodstuffs to the dozens of community kitchens in the territory that serve basic meals to those with no other option.

Aid groups’ warehouses were filled during the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in mid-January and ended in early March. They are now empty.

“There isn’t anything left to give them now, so once the last supplies have been used up, the kitchens will have to close,” said one senior UN official. “At the moment people are holding up OK but we know from other crises that when things deteriorate, they deteriorate very fast, and we are not far from that point.”

Within hours of the ceasefire’s collapse almost two months ago, Israel blocked food, fuel, medicine or other items from entering Gaza. Dozens of bakeries that provided bread for hundreds of thousands have already shut down.

The 47 community kitchens, which provide only lentils, plain pasta or rice, have already reduced portions.

“These people who depend on us are threatened with starvation if this kitchen closes,” said Hani Abu Qasim, of the Rafah Charity Kitchen in Gaza.

Markets across Gaza are nearly bare and anything on sale is now too expensive for the vast majority.

Since the end of the ceasefire, the price of a kilogram of tomatoes has quadrupled to $8, sugar has gone up seven times and flour 10 to 15 times. Meat or dairy products are unobtainable.

Um Aboud, 45, an academic and journalist in Gaza City, said: “We eat two meals a day, sometimes just one. We have only a small amount of food left.

“The living conditions are extremely difficult. Hospitals are destroyed, with no treatment or medicine available. There is no clean water or electricity. Garbage surrounds us from every direction. Gaza has become a disease-ridden place. People are dying slowly, as if we have been sentenced to death.”

Almost 70% of Gaza is now covered by evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military or is part of an expanded buffer zone controlled by Israeli troops. More than 400,000 people have been displaced since the collapse of the ceasefire.

Israeli officials justify the blockade with claims that Hamas routinely steals aid, distributing it to its fighters or selling it to raise vital funds. Aid officials in Gaza deny any widespread theft of aid in recent months.

In a sprawling tent camp outside the southern city of Khan Younis, Mariam al-Najjar and her mother-in-law prepared a meal for their family of 11 with four cans of peas and carrots, some rice, stock cubes and spices.

Before the war, her family would eat a large meal of meat, stuffed vegetables or other traditional dishes on Fridays, Najjar said. “Now we eat peas and rice. We never ate canned peas before the war. Only in this war that has destroyed our lives.”

The UN said it identified 3,700 children suffering from acute malnutrition in March, up 80% from February.

Specialists from the UN’s hunger monitoring system, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), are preparing a new assessment in Gaza, to be released next month, UN officials in Gaza said.

There is also a growing shortage of medical supplies. “Everything from sterile gloves to body bags needs replenishment,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said. “This is an ongoing and particularly acute challenge as we unfortunately continue to see shockingly high numbers of sick people, including severely wounded patients, which increases pressure on the system.”

The war in Gaza was triggered by a surprise attack launched by Hamas into Israel in October 2023, in which militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostages. Israeli officials say 59 hostages remain in Gaza, more than half of whom are thought to be dead.

Israel says its blockade also aims to force Hamas into releasing hostages. Rights groups accuse Israel of using a “starvation tactic”, endangering the entire population and so making it a potential war crime.

Hospitals in Gaza received the remains of 51 Palestinians over the past 24 hours who were killed in Israeli strikes, the local health ministry said on Sunday, bringing the Palestinian death toll from the war to 52,243.

The overall toll includes nearly 700 bodies for which the documentation process was recently completed, the ministry said in its latest update.

On Monday, the international court of justice (ICJ), the United Nation’s principal court, will begin hearings to establish if Israel’s ban on all cooperation with Unrwa’s activities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank is unlawful. Israel claims Unrwa has been infiltrated by Hamas, an allegation that has been fiercely contested.

South Africa filed a complaint with the ICJ in December 2023 alleging Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, which Israel denies.

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said “there is a path” to an agreement with China over tariffs after he had interactions with his Chinese counterparts last week in Washington.

“I had interaction with my Chinese counterparts, but it was more on the traditional things like financial stability, global economic early warnings,” Bessent told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday, explaining that he had spoken to the Chinese during International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington. “I don’t know if President Trump has spoken with President Xi,” he added.

On Friday, Donald Trump asserted in an interview that tariff negotiations were under way with China, comments he repeated on his way to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis, but were later denied by China’s foreign ministry, which said the US “should stop creating confusion”.

A day later, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said Beijing abides by international rules on US-imposed tariffs and would seek solidarity with other countries.

“Certain countries adhere to their own priorities, engage in bullying pressure and coercive transactions, and provoke trade wars for no reason, exposing their extreme egoism,” Wang said on the sidelines of a regional meeting in Kazakhstan.

On Sunday, Bessent attempted to weave through the conflicting signals over what progress was being made to de-escalate a trade war threatening to sap global growth.

“The Chinese will see this high tariff level is unsustainable for their business,” he said. He added that Beijing’s denial that negotiations are ongoing was for a Chinese audience.

“I think they’re playing to a different audience,” Bessent said. “We have a process in place and, again, I just believe these Chinese tariffs are unsustainable.

“The first path will be, again, a de-escalation, which I think the Chinese are going to have to have. Then I think there can be an agreement in principle, these 17 or 18 important trade deals that we’re negotiating.”

But Bessent warned that “a trade deal can take months” and said negotiations with other significant US trading partners were progressing. “Some of those are moving along very well, especially the – with the Asian countries,” he said, praising Trump’s negotiating strategy.

“In game theory it’s called strategic uncertainty,” he said. “So, you’re not going to tell the person on the other side of the negotiation where you’re going to end up. And nobody’s better at creating this leverage than President Trump.”

The treasury secretary’s comments come as top US retailers have reportedly warned the White House that tariffs will cause empty store shelves and price hikes within weeks.

Bloomberg reported that Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein raised US prices of its products from dresses to kitchenware on Friday ahead of imminent tariffs on small parcels. The average price for the top 100 products in the beauty and health category increased by 51%, and more than 30% for home and kitchen products and toys, including a 377% increase in the price of a 10-piece set of kitchen towels.

Trump predicted on Sunday that tariffs would ultimately benefit US taxpayers and boost employment. “When Tariffs cut in, many people’s Income Taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

“Focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year. Also, massive numbers of jobs are already being created, with new plants and factories currently being built or planned.” He called it a “bonanza” for Americans and said “the external service is happening”.

Separately on Sunday, US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said the US was holding daily conversations with China over tariffs. “Every day we are in conversation with China, along with those other 99, 100 countries that have come to the table,” Rollins said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Rollins said the president was prepared to bail out American farmers if the trade war continues squeezing commodity exports, particularly soybean and pork sales to China.

“First of all, the prayer is that that doesn’t need to happen – but secondly, if it does, for the short term, just as in Trump 1, we are preparing for that,” Rollins said.

Rollins said it could take months before it is known whether a bail-out is needed.

“I don’t think we’re going to need it, but if we do, it will be there,” Rollins said.

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.

However one athlete, Sabastian Sawe, decided water could wait and in only his second marathon the 29‑year‑old Kenyan 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 that 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, was 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 who 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 out in front: Sifan Hassan, the Olympic champion and 2023 winner; Tigst 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.”

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.