Category: Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile — Ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast secured a thumping victory in Chile’s presidential runoff election Sunday, defeating the candidate of the leftist governing coalition and setting the stage for the country’s most right-wing government in 35 years of democracy.

With over 95% of the vote counted, Kast won more than 58% of the votes as Chilean voters overwhelmingly embraced his pledge to crack down on increased crime, deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal status, and revive the sluggish economy of one of Latin America’s most stable and prosperous nations.

His challenger, communist candidate Jeannette Jara who served as leftist President Gabriel Boric’s popular labor minister, had just over 41% support.

“Democracy spoke loud and clear,” Jara wrote on social media, saying that she called Kast to concede defeat and congratulate him on his successful campaign.

Kast’s supporters erupted into cheers in the street, shouting his name and honking car horns.

His campaign spokesperson, Arturo Squella, declared victory from the party headquarters in Chile’s capital of Santiago.

“We are very proud of the work we’ve done,” he told reporters. “We feel very responsible for this tremendous challenge of taking charge of the crises that Chile is going through.”

Kast’s election represents the latest in a string of votes that have turfed out incumbent governments across Latin America, vaulting mainly right-wing leaders to power from Argentina to Bolivia.

On the surface, the two candidates in this tense presidential runoff could not have been more different, fundamentally disagreeing on weighty matters of the economy, social issues, and the very purpose of government.

A lifelong member of Chile’s Communist Party who pioneered significant social welfare measures in Boric’s government and hails from a working-class family that protested against the 1973-1990 military dictatorship, Jara was a dramatic foil to her rival.

Kast, in contrast, is a devout Catholic and father of nine whose German-born father was a registered member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party and whose brother served in the dictatorship. He had previously struggled to win over moderate voters in two failed presidential bids.

His moral conservatism, including fierce opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion without exception, had been rejected by many in the increasingly socially liberal country. The admiration he has expressed for the bloody military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet also sparked widespread condemnation in his campaign against President Boric four years ago.

But in the past few years, fears about uncontrolled migration and organized crime have roiled the country. Enthusiasm for a hardline approach to crime spread, dominating the election and boosting Kast’s law-and-order platform.

It remains uncertain whether Kast, an admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump, can implement his more grandiose promises.

That includes slashing $6 billion in public spending over just 18 months without eliminating social benefits, deporting over 300,000 immigrants in Chile who don’t have legal status, and expanding the powers of the army to fight organized crime in a country still haunted by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990.

For one, Kast’s far-right Republican Party lacks a majority in Congress, meaning that he’ll need to negotiate with moderate right-wing forces that could bristle at those proposals. Political compromises could temper Kast’s radicalism, but also jeopardize his position with voters who expect him to deliver quickly on his law-and-order promises.

At each rally, Kast had taken to ticking off the number of days remaining until Chile’s March 11 presidential inauguration, warning immigrants without papers that they should get out before they “have to leave with just the clothes on their backs.”

Jorge Rubio, 63, a Chilean banker in Santiago, said he and like-minded Chileans are “also counting down the days,” adding, “That’s why we’re voting for Kast.”

Boric’s left-wing government was under fire

As the pandemic shuttered borders, transnational criminal organizations like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua took over migrant smuggling networks to gain a foothold in Chile, long considered among Latin America’s safest countries. Homicides hit a record high in 2022, the first year of President Gabriel Boric’s tenure.

Boric’s approval rating plunged from 50% to 30% within just months of him taking office, and never fully recovered.

Kast insisted that Boric’s government was too soft on immigration, which the far-right politician argues is the main cause of crime. The data does not necessarily support his narrative. But relentless tabloid and television coverage does, Chileans say.

“Unlike this government, Kast understands that migration means insecurity,” said Manuel Troncoso, 54, after voting at a high school down the street from President Boric’s home. “You see in the news how the people committing the worst crimes come from other countries.”

Others say that while Boric failed to fulfill his flagship promise to transform Chile’s market-led economy, the firebrand former student protest leader elected in 2021 succeed in refocusing his agenda to address the country’s security crisis. He sent the military to reinforce Chile’s northern border, stiffened penalties for organized crime, and created the first public security ministry.

“I actually thought this government would be worse. I have to admit it has improved security,” said Mariano Jara, 55, emerging from a polling station.

He said he voted for Kast because “there’s always more that can be done. There’s room to get tougher.”

Chile’s homicide rate has actually fallen in the last two years, and is now on par with the rate in the United States. But that hasn’t changed citizens’ widespread feeling of insecurity.

According to a recent Gallup survey, just 39% of people feel safe walking alone at night. That’s about the same as in Ecuador, which is now in the midst of a violent, drug-driven crime wave.

Crime and migration overshadow concerns

As Boric’s former minister of labor, Jara became popular as the architect of the administration’s most important welfare measures.

As she voted in her family’s working-class neighborhood of Conchali, supporters shouted out her accomplishments, including shortening the workweek to 40 hours, increasing the minimum wage, and overhauling the pension system. “Forty hours!” they chanted.

But those accomplishments didn’t win Jara new supporters. Many centrists were put off by her lifelong membership in Chile’s Communist Party.

To woo security-minded voters, Jara vowed to reinforce borders, register undocumented migrants, and tackle money laundering.

“To me, she represents continuity, and Kast represents Trump,” said María Rojo, 71, waving at Jara as she drove off from the polling station. “Of course, that’s why I support her. I know others feel the opposite.”

Kast’s supporters now include many Chileans who previously spurned him over deeply conservative values. They say they’re willing to trade abstract human rights concerns for increased safety on the streets.

“It’s not very nice to hear that he’s going to separate immigrant children from their parents, it’s sad,” said Natacha Feliz, a 27-year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic, referring to a recent interview in which Kast warned that immigrant parents without legal status who didn’t self-deport would be obliged to hand their kids over to the state.

“But this is happening everywhere, not just in Chile,” she said. “Let’s just hope that our security situation improves.”

JERUSALEM — Hamas on Sunday confirmed the death of a top commander in Gaza, a day after Israel said it had killed Raed Saad in a strike outside Gaza City.

The Hamas statement described Saad as the commander of its military manufacturing unit. Israel had described him as an architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war in Gaza, and asserted that he had been “engaged in rebuilding the terrorist organization” in a violation of the ceasefire that took effect two months ago.

Israel said it killed Saad after an explosive device detonated and wounded two soldiers in the territory’s south.

Hamas also said it had named a new commander but did not give details, adding that it had the right to “respond to the occupation’s aggression.”

The strike on Saturday west of Gaza City killed four people, according to an Associated Press journalist who saw their bodies arrive at Shifa Hospital. Another three were wounded, according to Al-Awda hospital. Hamas in its initial statement described the vehicle struck as a civilian one.

Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of truce violations.

Israeli airstrikes and shootings in Gaza have killed at least 391 Palestinians since the ceasefire took hold, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel has said recent strikes are in retaliation for militant attacks against its soldiers, and that troops have fired on Palestinians who approached the Yellow Line between the Israeli-controlled majority of Gaza and the rest of the territory.

On Sunday, Israel’s military said it had killed a “terrorist” who crossed the line and approached troops in northern Gaza.

Israel has demanded that Palestinian militants return the remains of the final hostage, Ran Gvili, from Gaza and called it a condition of moving to the second and more complicated phase of the ceasefire. That lays out a vision for ending Hamas’ rule and seeing the rebuilding of a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision.

The initial Hamas-led 2023 attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Almost all hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel’s two-year campaign in Gaza has killed more than 70,660 Palestinians, roughly half of them women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

SYDNEY — Two gunmen opened fire during a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi beach, killing 15 people, including a child, officials said Monday, in what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called an act of antisemitic terrorism that struck at the heart of the nation. The shooters were father and son, authorities said.

The massacre at one of Australia’s most popular beaches followed a wave of antisemitic attacks that have roiled the country over the past year, although the authorities didn’t suggest those and the shooting Sunday were connected. It was the deadliest shooting in almost three decades in a country with strict gun control laws.

One gunman, a 50-year-old man, was fatally shot by police. The other shooter, his 24-year-old son, was wounded and was being treated at a hospital, said Mal Lanyon, New South Wales police commissioner.

Police said one gunman was known to security services, but Lanyon said authorities had no indication of a planned attack.

Those killed were aged between 10 and 87 years old, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told reporters. At least 42 others were being treated at hospitals on Monday morning, several of them in a critical condition.

“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families gathering, associated with celebrations,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Monday.

“It is forever tarnished by what has occurred.”

Shooting targeted a Jewish celebration

“This attack was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said.

The violence erupted at the end of a summer day when thousands had flocked to Bondi Beach, including hundreds gathered for the Chanukah by the Sea event celebrating the start of the eight-day Hanukkah festival.

Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish movement that runs outreach around the world and sponsors public events during major Jewish holidays, identified one of the dead as Rabbi Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi and an organizer of the event.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of an Israeli citizen, but gave no further details.

Police said emergency services were called to Campbell Parade in Bondi about 6:45 p.m. responding to reports of shots being fired. Video filmed by onlookers showed people in bathing suits running from the water as shots rang out. Separate footage showed two men in black shirts firing with long guns from a footbridge leading to the beach, as sirens wailed and people cried out in the background.

One dramatic clip broadcast on Australian television showed a man appearing to tackle and disarm one of the gunmen, before pointing the man’s weapon at him, then setting the gun on the ground.

Minns called the man, named by relatives to Australian media as fruit shop owner Ahmed al Ahmed, a “genuine hero.”

Witnesses fled and hid as shots rang out

Arsen Ostrovsky, a lawyer attending the Hanukkah ceremony with his wife and daughters, was grazed in the head by a bullet. Ostrovsky said he moved from Israel to Australia two weeks ago to work for a Jewish advocacy group.

“What I saw today was pure evil, just an absolute bloodbath. Bodies strewn everywhere,” he told the Associated Press in an email from the hospital. “It was like reliving Oct. 7 all over.”

“I never thought would be possible here in Australia.”

Lachlan Moran, 32, from Melbourne, told the AP he was waiting for his family when he heard shots. He dropped the beer he was carrying and ran.

“I sprinted as quickly as I could,” Moran said. He said he heard shooting off and on for about five minutes. “Everyone just dropped all their possessions and everything and were running and people were crying and it was just horrible.”

Australian leader expresses shock and grief

Albanese told reporters in the capital, Canberra, that he was “devastated” by the massacre.

“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith. An act of evil, antisemitism, terrorism that has struck the heart of our nation,” Albanese said.

He vowed the violence would be met with “a moment of national unity where Australians across the board will embrace their fellow Australians of Jewish faith.”

King Charles III said he and Queen Camilla were “appalled and saddened by the most dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack.” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on X he was horrified, and his “heart is with the Jewish community worldwide.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X: “The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Australia targeting a Jewish celebration. Antisemitism has no place in this world.”

Police in cities around the world, including London, said they would step up security at Jewish sites.

Antisemitic attacks have roiled Australia

Australia, a country of 28 million people, is home to about 117,000 Jews, according to official figures. Antisemitic incidents, including assaults, vandalism, threats, and intimidation, surged more than threefold in the country during the year after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel launched a war on Hamas in Gaza in response, the government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal reported in July.

Last year, the country was rocked by antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. Synagogues and cars were torched, businesses and homes graffitied, and Jews attacked in those cities, where 85% of the nation’s Jewish population lives.

Albanese in August blamed Iran for two of the attacks and cut diplomatic ties to Tehran.

Pastor Matt Graham was conducting a service at Bondi Anglican Church when panicked people began entering for shelter. He said antisemitism has been brewing in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi, where the Jewish community is centered.

“I’m surrounded by antisemitic graffiti constantly. I think for our community in the east (of Sydney), and as a Christian, I just want to declare I stand with the people of Israel,” Graham told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Israel urged Australia’s government to address crimes targeting Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he warned Australia’s leaders months ago about the dangers of failing to take action against antisemitism. He claimed Australia’s decision — in line with scores of other countries — to recognize a Palestinian state “pours fuel on the antisemitic fire.”

“Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia … and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today,” Netanyahu said.

His office on Monday released safety recommendations for Israelis traveling abroad. It recommends they avoid large gatherings that don’t have security, especially events at synagogues and Hanukkah gatherings. It also calls for heightened awareness at Jewish and Israeli sites.

Shooting deaths in Australia are rare

Mass shootings in Australia are extremely rare. A 1996 massacre in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, where a lone gunman killed 35 people, prompted the government to drastically tighten gun laws, making it much more difficult to acquire firearms.

Significant mass shootings this century included two murder-suicides with death tolls of five people in 2014 and seven in 2018, in which gunmen killed their own families and themselves.

In 2022, six people were killed in a shootout between police and Christian extremists at a rural property in Queensland state.

BEIRUT — A man who carried out an attack in Syria that killed three U.S. citizens had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months earlier and was recently reassigned amid suspicions that he might be affiliated with the Islamic State group, a Syrian official told the Associated Press Sunday.

The attack Saturday in the Syrian desert near the historic city of Palmyra killed two U.S. service members and one American civilian and wounded three others. It also wounded three members of the Syrian security forces who clashed with the gunman, interior ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba said.

Al-Baba said that Syria’s new authorities had faced shortages in security personnel and had to recruit rapidly after the unexpected success of a rebel offensive last year that intended to capture the northern city of Aleppo but ended up overthrowing the government of former President Bashar Assad.

“We were shocked that in 11 days we took all of Syria and that put a huge responsibility in front of us from the security and administration sides,” he said.

The attacker was among 5,000 members who recently joined a new division in the internal security forces formed in the desert region known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the Islamic State extremist group have remained active.

Attacker had raised suspicions

Al-Baba said the internal security forces’ leadership had recently become suspicious that there was an infiltrator leaking information to IS and began evaluating all members in the Badiya area.

The probe raised suspicions last week about the man who later carried out the attack, but officials decided to continue monitoring him for a few days to try to determine if he was an active member of IS and to identify the network he was communicating with if so, al-Baba said. He did not name the attacker.

At the same time, as a “precautionary measure,” he said, the man was reassigned to guard equipment at the base at a location where he would be farther from the leadership and from any patrols by U.S.-led coalition forces.

On Saturday, the man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards, al-Baba said. The attacker was shot and killed at the scene.

Al-Baba acknowledged that the incident was “a major security breach” but said that in the year since Assad’s fall “there have been many more successes than failures” by security forces.

In the wake of the shooting, he said, the Syrian army and internal security forces “launched wide-ranging sweeps of the Badiya region” and broke up a number of alleged IS cells.

A delicate partnership

The incident comes at a delicate time as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

The U.S. has had forces on the ground in Syria for over a decade, with a stated mission of fighting IS, with about 900 troops present there today.

Before Assad’s ouster, Washington had no diplomatic relations with Damascus and the U.S. military did not work directly with the Syrian army. Its main partner at the time was the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast.

That has changed over the past year. Ties have warmed between the administrations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that used to be listed by Washington as a terrorist organization.

In November, al-Sharaa became the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s independence in 1946. During his visit, Syria announced its entry into the global coalition against the Islamic State, joining 89 other countries that have committed to combating the group.

U.S. officials have vowed retaliation against IS for the attack but have not publicly commented on the fact that the shooter was a member of the Syrian security forces.

Critics of the new Syrian authorities have pointed to Saturday’s attack as evidence that the security forces are deeply infiltrated by IS and are an unreliable partner.

Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an advocacy group that seeks to build closer relations between Washington and Damascus, said that is unfair.

Despite both having Islamist roots, HTS and IS were enemies and often clashed over the past decade.

Among former members of HTS and allied groups, Moustafa, said, “It’s a fact that even those who carry the most fundamentalist of beliefs, the most conservative within the fighters, have a vehement hatred of ISIS.”

“The coalition between the United States and Syria is the most important partnership in the global fight against ISIS because only Syria has the expertise and experience to deal with this,” he said.

Later Sunday, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported that four members of the internal security forces were killed and a fifth was wounded after gunmen opened fire on them in the city of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province.

It was not immediately clear who the gunmen were or whether the attack was linked to the Saturday’s shooting.

BERLIN — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees, but rejected the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia as he held talks with U.S. envoys on ending the war.

Zelensky sat down with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Ukrainian leader posted pictures of the negotiating table with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sitting next to him facing the U.S. delegation.

Responding to journalists’ questions in audio clips on a WhatsApp group chat before the talks, Zelensky said that since the U.S. and some European nations had rejected Ukraine’s push to join NATO, Kyiv expects the West to offer a set of guarantees similar to those offered to the alliance members.

“These security guarantees are an opportunity to prevent another wave of Russian aggression,” he said. “And this is already a compromise on our part.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for the alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.

Zelensky emphasized that any security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress, adding that he expected an update from his team following a meeting between Ukrainian and U.S. military officials in Stuttgart, Germany.

Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.

Tough obstacles remain

Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace, a demand rejected by Kyiv.

Zelensky said that the U.S. had floated an idea for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donetsk and create a demilitarized free economic zone there, a proposal he rejected as unworkable.

“I do not consider this fair, because who will manage this economic zone?” he said. “If we are talking about some buffer zone along the line of contact, if we are talking about some economic zone and we believe that only a police mission should be there and troops should withdraw, then the question is very simple. If Ukrainian troops withdraw 5–10 kilometers, for example, then why do Russian troops not withdraw deeper into the occupied territories by the same distance?”

Zelensky described the issue as “very sensitive” and insisted on a freeze along the line of contact, saying that “today a fair possible option is we stand where we stand.”

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of the Donetsk region even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.

Ushakov warned that a search for compromise could take a long time, noting that the U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.

Speaking to Russian state TV in remarks broadcast Sunday, Ushakov said that “the contribution of Ukrainians and Europeans to these documents is unlikely to be constructive,” warning that Moscow will “have very strong objections.”

Ushakov added that the territorial issue was actively discussed in Moscow when Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin earlier this month. “The Americans know and understand our position,” he said.

Zelensky said he spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday just before the talks with Trump’s envoys, thanking him on X for his support and adding that “we are coordinating closely and working together for the sake of our shared security.”

Macron vowed on X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”

Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”

He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”

“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned on Saturday during a party conference in Munich.

Putin has denied plans to restore the Soviet Union or attack any European allies.

Russia, Ukraine exchange aerial attacks

Ukraine’s air force said that Russia overnight launched ballistic missiles and 138 attack drones at Ukraine. The air force said 110 had been intercepted or downed, but missile and drone hits were recorded at six locations.

Zelensky said Sunday that hundreds of thousands of families were still without power in the south, east, and northeast regions and work was continuing to restore electricity, heat, and water to multiple regions following a large-scale attack the previous night.

The Ukrainian president said that in the past week, Russia had launched over 1,500 strike drones, nearly 900 guided aerial bombs, and 46 missiles of various types at Ukraine.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 235 Ukrainian drones late Saturday and early Sunday.

In the Belgorod region, a drone injured a man and set his house ablaze in the village of Yasnye Zori, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot in Uryupinsk in the Volgograd region, triggering a fire, according to regional Gov. Andrei Bocharov.

In the Krasnodar region, the Ukrainian drones attacked the town of Afipsky, where an oil refinery is located. Authorities said that explosions shattered windows in residential buildings, but didn’t report any damage to the refinery.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A person of interest was in custody Sunday after a shooting during final exams at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, though key questions remained unanswered more than 24 hours after the attack.

The attack Saturday afternoon set off hours of chaos across the Ivy League campus and surrounding Providence neighborhoods as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter and urged students and staff to shelter in place. The lockdown, which stretched into the night, was lifted early Sunday, but authorities had not yet released information about a potential motive.

The person of interest is a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin, according to two people familiar with the matter. The people were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, said Sunday afternoon that no one has been charged yet. Perez, who also said no one else was being sought, declined to say whether the detained person had any connection to Brown.

The person was taken into custody at a Hampton Inn hotel in Coventry, R.I., about 20 miles from Providence, where police officers and FBI agents remained Sunday, blocking off a hallway with crime scene tape as they searched the area.

The shooting occurred during one of the busiest moments of the academic calendar, as final exams were underway. Brown canceled all remaining classes, exams, papers, and projects for the semester and told students they were free to leave campus, underscoring the scale of the disruption and the gravity of the attack.

College President Christina Paxson teared up while describing her conversations with students both on campus and in the hospital.

“They are amazing and they’re supporting each other,” she said at an afternoon news conference. “There’s just a lot of gratitude.”

The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, firing more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press. Two handguns were recovered when the person of interest was taken into custody and authorities also found two loaded 30-round magazines, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.

One student of the nine wounded students had been released from the hospital, said Paxson. Seven others were in critical but stable condition, and one was in critical condition.

Some businesses remain closed in shocked city

Providence leaders said residents would notice a heavier police presence, and many area businesses announced Sunday that they would remain closed. A scheduled 5K run was postponed until next weekend.

Mayor Brett Smiley invited residents to gather Sunday evening in a city park where an event had been scheduled to light a Christmas tree and Hanukkah menorah.

“For those who know at least a bit of the Hanukkah story, it is quite clear that if we can come together as a community to shine a little bit of light tonight, there’s nothing better that we can be doing,” he told reporters.

Smiley said he visited some of the wounded students and was inspired by their courage, hope, and gratitude. One told him that active shooting drills done in high school proved helpful.

“The resilience that these survivors showed and shared with me, is frankly pretty overwhelming,” he said. “We’re all saddened, scared, tired, but what they’ve been through is something different entirely.”

Exams were underway during shooting

Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom at the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. The building includes more than 100 laboratories and dozens of classrooms and offices, according to the university’s website.

Engineering design exams were underway. Outer doors of the building were unlocked but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Smiley said.

Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops coming from the east side. Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and ran to a nearby building where she waited for hours.

Surveillance video released by police showed a suspect, dressed in black, walking from the scene.

Former “Survivor” contestant just left the building

Eva Erickson, a doctoral candidate who was the runner-up earlier this year on the CBS reality competition show Survivor, said she left her lab in the engineering building 15 minutes before shots rang out.

The engineering and thermal science student shared candid moments on Survivor as the show’s first openly autistic contestant. She was locked down in the campus gym following the shooting and shared on social media that the only other member of her lab who was present was safely evacuated.

Brown senior biochemistry student Alex Bruce was working on a final research project in his dorm across the street from the building when he heard sirens outside.

“I’m just in here shaking,” he said, watching through the window as armed officers surrounded his dorm.

Students hid under desks

Students in a nearby lab turned off the lights and hid under desks after receiving an alert, said Chiangheng Chien, a doctoral student in engineering who was about a block from where the shooting occurred.

Mari Camara, 20, a junior from New York City, was coming out of the library and rushed inside a taqueria to seek shelter. She spent more than three hours there, texting friends while police searched the campus.

“Everyone is the same as me, shocked and terrified that something like this happened,” she said.

Brown, the seventh-oldest higher education institution in the U.S., is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students.

Crystal McCollaum, of Chicopee, Mass., was staying at the hotel where the person of interest was taken into custody. She was with her daughter to attend a cheerleading competition in Providence, but after hearing about the shooting, she thought they would be safer staying outside the city.

“It was just weird and scary,” she said.