SharePoint Online news web part - Displaying custom field and sorting

[SK_RAK_IC]

We have a SharePoint online Intranet site with news web part and have below questions related to display and sorting. Can someone please have a look and provide the idea on how to achieve this.

1) Is it possible to add a custom date called 'PublishDate' and display this on the web part instead of default created date as published date?

2) Is it possible to sort the news item using the custom date field 'PublishDate' instead of the default modified/created date?

[#2]

I might be wrong, but AFAIK that's not possible with the current implementation of the news Web Part

[#3]

Thanks a lot for the information and update