Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, faced sustained attacks from his Conservative rival at an election debate on Thursday but the Liberal leader sought to focus attention on what he calls Canada’s top threat: Donald Trump, the US president.

Most opinion polls show Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party trailing Carney’s Liberals ahead of the 28 April vote for Canada’s federal government.

But the race remains tight and Poilievre worked hard at the English-language debate to stem Liberal momentum that has picked up since Carney replaced Justin Trudeau as prime minister on 14 March. They also debated on Wednesday night, in French, Canada’s other official language.

Trump’s trade war and annexation threats have caused broad outrage across Canada and the Tory leader has faced criticism for directing his ire entirely at the Liberals instead of attacking Washington.

As the campaign has evolved, Poilievre has increasingly sought to do both: condemning Trump while accusing the Liberals of weakening the economy during Trudeau’s decade in power and leaving Canada vulnerable to hostile US policies.

He continued that strategy at Thursday’s debate, charging the Liberals had given “Donald Trump and the US a near monopoly over our energy” by refusing to build pipelines that could allow Canadian oil to be exported abroad.

Poilievre, a 45-year-old who has served in parliament for two decades, consistently tried to brand Carney as an extension of Trudeau, who became deeply unpopular toward the end of his tenure. “The question you have to ask is, after a decade of Liberal promises, can you afford food? Is your housing more affordable than it used to be?” Poilievre asked.

“How can we possibly believe that you [Carney] are any different than the previous 10 years of Liberal government?” Poilievre further said, repeatedly saying that Carney had served as “Justin Trudeau’s economic adviser”.

Addressing the Conservative leader, Carney said: “I know you want to be running against Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau isn’t here.”

Throughout the night, Carney tried to refocus attention on Trump.

“The biggest risk we have to this economy is Donald Trump,” said the 60-year-old former central banker, who has never served in parliament or held a publicly elected office.

Trump, he added, “is trying to break us so he can own us”.

“We’re all going to stand up against Donald Trump. I’m ready.”

Carney also took fire from the two other party leaders on stage, the head of the leftwing New Democratic party, Jagmeet Singh, and the leader of the Quebec separatist Bloc Quebecois, Yves-Francois Blanchet.

Both hit Carney over his years in the private sector, including with the major Canadian corporation Brookfield, questioning whether the Liberal leader would advocate for workers given his background.

Carney spent the early part of his career as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs.

Carney countered that his private sector experience would help him in government but rejected suggestions that his loyalties were divided.

“I’m on the side of Canadians,” he said.

On 6 January, the day Trudeau said he would resign, the Liberals trailed the Conservatives by 24 points, according to the public broadcaster CBC’s poll aggregator.

On Thursday, the CBC data put Liberal support at 43.3% and gave the Conservatives 38% backing.

The Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with Kilmar Ábrego García, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Ábrego García’s wife “to pass along his message of love”.

The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Ábrego García, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the US.

It was not clear how the meeting was arranged, where they met or what will happen to Abrego Garcia. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying: “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”

Bukele continued mockingly: “Kilmar Ábrego García, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ and ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” The tweet ended with emojis of the US and El Salvador flags, with a handshake emoji between them.

The meeting came in the hours after Van Hollen said he was denied entry into an high-security El Salvador prison while he was trying to check on Ábrego García’s wellbeing and attempting to push for his release.

The Democratic senator said at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 3km from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or Cecot, even as they let other cars go on.

“They stopped us because they are under orders not to allow us to proceed,” Van Hollen said.

Donald Trump and Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send Ábrego García back, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the US supreme court has called on the administration to facilitate his return.

Trump officials have said that Ábrego García, a Salvadorian citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Ábrego García has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the US as Democrats have seized on Ábrego García’s deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending him and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference on Wednesday with the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.

Van Hollen told reporters on Wednesday that he met with Vice-President Félix Ulloa, who said his government could not return Ábrego García to the United States.

“So today, I tried again to make contact with Mr Ábrego García by driving to the Cecot prison,” Van Hollen said on Thursday.

Van Hollen said Ábrego García has not had any contact with his family or his lawyers. “There has been no ability to find out anything about his health and wellbeing,” Van Hollen said. He said Ábrego García should be able to have contact with his lawyers under international law.

“We won’t give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected,” Van Hollen said. He said there would be “many more” lawmakers coming to El Salvador.

New Jersey senator Cory Booker is also considering a trip to El Salvador, as are some House Democrats.

While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration’s efforts. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted on Tuesday evening that he’d visited the prison where Ábrego García is being held. He did not mention Ábrego García but said the facility “houses the country’s most brutal criminals.”

“I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” Moore wrote on social media.

Missouri Republican Jason Smith, chair of the House ways and means Committee, also visited the prison. He posted on X that “thanks to President Trump” the facility “now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans”.

The fight over Ábrego García has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.

Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the US more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants – whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes – and placed them inside the country’s maximum-security gang prison just outside San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele’s broader effort to crack down on the country’s powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele popular at home.

Human rights groups have accused Bukele’s government of subjecting those jailed to “systematic use of torture and other mistreatment”. Officials there deny wrongdoing.

• China is supplying weapons to Russia, including gunpowder and artillery, and Chinese representatives are involved in weapons production on Russian territory, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Thursday, citing reporting by Ukrainian security and intelligence agencies. “We are ready to speak in detail about this,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine expects to share documentation to support the claims next week.

• Zelenskyy said: “We have finally received information that China is supplying weapons to the Russian Federation. … We believe that Chinese representatives are engaged in the production of some weapons on Russian territory … We see the cooperation between these two countries in this area, and we must acknowledge it is happening.” The Associated Press could not confirm Zelenskyy’s statement. At the time of writing there was no response from China to the latest claims, but Beijing has consistently denied arming Russia against Ukraine.

• Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said on Thursday that Kyiv had signed a “memorandum of intent” with Washington on a planned “investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine”. Donald Trump, the US president, said they would sign a minerals deal “next Thursday”. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, told AFP that a deal was targeted for 26 April.

• Zelenskyy said Russia had reduced the number of strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities but stepped up attacks on civilian infrastructure instead. Zelenskyy told a press conference in Kyiv that in total, Russia was launching the same number of missiles and drones at Ukraine as before. “They reduced their strikes on energy. That’s a fact. But I wanted us to pay attention to this – Russia did not reduce the number of strikes, that was the strategy … by reducing [strikes on] energy, they are hitting other civilian infrastructure.”

• Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, on Thursday accused Ukraine at the security council of ignoring the energy ceasefire. In a joint statement after the council met, Slovenia, Denmark, France, Greece, and Britain urged Russia to agree to a full and unconditional ceasefire. Slovenia’s UN ambassador, Samuel Zbogar, said: “Ukraine wants peace, and has demonstrated this by agreeing to a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire five weeks ago. At the consultations today, Russia again rejected the comprehensive ceasefire and refused to make its first step towards peace.”

• Russian strikes killed two people and wounded at least 27 others overnight in Kharkiv and Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine, authorities said on Friday. “According to preliminary information, the strikes on Kharkiv were carried out by ballistic missiles with cluster munitions. That is why the affected areas are very large,” said Kharkiv’s mayor, Igor Terekhov, adding that 15 apartment buildings had been damaged. In Sumy, near the Russian border, a Russian Shahed drone attack on civilian infrastructure killed one person and injured one other, the regional military administration said.

• Top negotiators from the “E3” grouping of Britain, France and Germany are scheduled to meet again in London next week with US counterparts after Donald Trump’s envoys finally met with European foreign ministers over ceasefire efforts. “What’s new is that the United States, Ukraine and the Europeans met around the same table,” said the French foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, after Paris on Thursday hosted German, British and US foreign ministers, and Trump’s friend Steve Witkoff, as well as a Ukrainian delegation.

• “The E3 are around the table and we’re doing it with a European ambition,” said a senior adviser to France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, after the talks at the Élysée Palace on Thursday. “What’s important is that we have started a process in Paris today that is positive and where the Europeans are associated.” Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, said the US state department.

Senior US, European and Ukrainian diplomats will meet again in London next week, the Élysée Palace has said, after what a French official described as an “excellent” day of talks in Paris aimed at reviving stalled ceasefire efforts.

“We have started a positive process in which Europeans are a part,” the spokesperson said after the meetings attended by top British, French, German and Ukrainian officials as well as the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.

The French official said: “The Americans are ready to discuss security guarantees, but the exact content of those guarantees will depend on negotiations allowing Ukraine to achieve a solid and durable peace starting with a complete ceasefire as soon as possible.”

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, hosted the talks as Washington and Europe seek common ground on how to end the fighting three years after Russia invaded its neighbour, with Trump’s pledge to swiftly end the war so far unfulfilled.

“Everyone wants to get peace. A robust and sustainable peace. The question is about phasing,” Macron said as the talks got under way. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, who also attended, said afterwards the talks were “very productive” but gave no details.

A previously unannounced team of Ukrainian officials including Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and the country’s foreign and defence ministers flew in to meet the US and European delegations.

Yermak said: “We exchanged views on the next steps … including the implementation of a full ceasefire, the involvement of a multinational military contingent and development of an effective security architecture for Ukraine.”

In Kyiv, Zelenskyy was critical of Witkoff’s message, saying he believed the US envoy had “taken on the strategy of the Russian side”. He added: “I think it is very dangerous, because he is – consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know – spreading Russian narratives.”

Rubio wrote on social media that the American delegation in Paris was looking to “secure real, practical solutions to end the Russia-Ukraine war”. He spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Thursday, a spokesperson for the US state department said.

“President Trump and the United States want this war to end, and have now presented to all parties the outlines of a durable and lasting peace,” the spokesperson said. “The encouraging reception in Paris to the US framework shows that peace is possible if all parties commit to reaching an agreement.”

Earlier on Thursday, Zelenskyy said pressure must be put on Moscow to call a halt to the fighting. “Russia uses every day and night to kill,” he said. “We must put pressure on the killers … to end this war and guarantee a lasting peace.”

The Élysée spokesperson said the object of the meetings was “to allow Ukraine to better understand the US proposals”, adding that the fact that Rubio, Witkoff and Kellogg attended “shows they recognise the important role of the Europeans”.

Macron spoke to Zelenskyy by phone before the talks, the French president’s office said. He later greeted Witkoff and Rubio before a joint lunch. Before that, his foreign policy adviser, Emmanuel Bonne, and his British and German counterparts met Yermak.

Trump has indicated frustration with both Moscow and Kyiv, but European leaders’ concern has mounted as the US president heaps pressure and criticism on Zelenskyy while repeatedly making diplomatic overtures to Vladimir Putin.

Moscow said the Paris meeting was a chance for Witkoff to inform European officials of the peace talks’ current status, although the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia so far saw only “a focus on continuing the war” from the Europeans.

Russia’s top economic negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, said “certain countries” were trying to derail Moscow’s talks with the US. Macron’s office said the Paris meetings hoped to “review progress on peace talks aimed at ending the Russian aggression in Ukraine”.

Kyiv and its EU allies say Moscow is to blame for rejecting Trump’s proposal of a ceasefire last month. They hope to persuade the US to take a tougher line, particularly after a Russian attack on the city of Sumy on Sunday that killed at least 35 civilians.

France, Britain and Germany were taken aback when Trump opened discussions on improving ties directly with Russia, but have sought a coordinated European response on protecting Ukraine during the conflict and in any ceasefire.

Britain and France, backed by a “coalition of the willing”, have proposed that a mainly European “reassurance” force should be deployed in Ukraine if a ceasefire starts. However, many European leaders say such a force would need US support.

A French diplomatic source had said earlier that Rubio and Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s foreign minister, would discuss “the war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East and the Iranian nuclear file”. The trip is Rubio’s third to Europe since taking office.

Witkoff plans to fly on to Rome after the Paris talks for a second round of discussions on Saturday with the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, about Iran’s nuclear programme. The two met for 45 minutes in Oman on Saturday.

Both sides described those talks as positive while acknowledging that any deal was distant. Trump said on Monday he believed Iran was intentionally delaying a nuclear deal and that he was willing to bomb its nuclear facilities if one was not reached.

On Tuesday he held a meeting with national security advisers at the White House focused on Iran’s nuclear programme, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The US president has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February after ditching a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers during his first term and reimposing crippling sanctions.

Separately, in Washington, the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, discussed efforts toward a “durable peace” in Ukraine with his French counterpart, Sébastien Lecornu, the Pentagon said. Hegseth called it an “excellent” meeting.

“We discussed the imperative need for Europeans to meet a 5% defence spending commitment to restore deterrence with ready, lethal, conventional forces,” Hegseth said. Lecornu called the discussions “productive”.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

US airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed 33 people and wounded 80 others, Houthi-run media said early on Friday, which if confirmed would mark one of the deadliest days of a campaign launched under US President Trump that has involved hundreds of strikes since 15 March.

The strikes hit the Ras Isa oil port and were intended to deprive the rebels of “illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years”, the US military’s Central Command said.

“This strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen, who rightly want to throw off the yoke of Houthi subjugation and live peacefully,” it added. It did not acknowledge any casualties.

The Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel aired graphic footage of the aftermath of the attack, showing corpses strewn across the site. It claimed paramedic and civilians workers at the port had been killed in the attack, which sparked a massive explosion and fires.

On 9 April, the US state department issued a warning about oil shipments to Yemen. “The United States will not tolerate any country or commercial entity providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Houthis, including offloading ships and provisioning oil at Houthi-controlled ports,” it said.

An Associated Press review found the new US operation against the Houthis under Donald Trump appears more extensive than that under former president Joe Biden, as Washington moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel and dropping bombs on cities.

The new campaign of airstrikes started after the rebels threatened to begin targeting “Israeli” ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip. The rebels have loosely defined what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning many vessels could be targeted.

The Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors from November 2023 until January of this year. They also launched attacks targeting American warships without success.

The US campaign shows no signs of stopping, as the Trump administration has also linked its airstrikes on the Houthis to an effort to pressure Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.

With Associated Press and Reuters

US airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed 33 people and wounded 80 others, Houthi-run media said early on Friday, which if confirmed would mark one of the deadliest days of a campaign launched under US President Trump that has involved hundreds of strikes since 15 March.

The strikes hit the Ras Isa oil port and were intended to deprive the rebels of “illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years”, the US military’s Central Command said.

“This strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen, who rightly want to throw off the yoke of Houthi subjugation and live peacefully,” it added. It did not acknowledge any casualties.

The Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel aired graphic footage of the aftermath of the attack, showing corpses strewn across the site. It claimed paramedic and civilians workers at the port had been killed in the attack, which sparked a massive explosion and fires.

On 9 April, the US state department issued a warning about oil shipments to Yemen. “The United States will not tolerate any country or commercial entity providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Houthis, including offloading ships and provisioning oil at Houthi-controlled ports,” it said.

An Associated Press review found the new US operation against the Houthis under Donald Trump appears more extensive than that under former president Joe Biden, as Washington moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel and dropping bombs on cities.

The new campaign of airstrikes started after the rebels threatened to begin targeting “Israeli” ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip. The rebels have loosely defined what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning many vessels could be targeted.

The Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors from November 2023 until January of this year. They also launched attacks targeting American warships without success.

The US campaign shows no signs of stopping, as the Trump administration has also linked its airstrikes on the Houthis to an effort to pressure Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.

With Associated Press and Reuters

A two-year-old boy who spent a night alone in the Arizona wilderness was led to safety by a rancher’s dog and was recovering safely at home with his family on Thursday.

The toddler, identified as Boden Allen, disappeared from his home in Seligman, Arizona, at around 5pm local time on Monday, about 100 miles south of the Grand Canyon national park, prompting a large search operation. He was wearing just a blue tank top and pajama pants at the time, the Yavapai county sheriff’s office said in a missing person notice.

Allen had wandered off from his home, ending up several miles away and in territory where mountain lions live and roam, according to a Facebook post from police officials. Search parties continued their efforts throughout the night and spotted two mountain lions along the way. After 16 hours of searching, the boy was rescued.

Scotty Dunton, a rancher whose property is seven miles away from Allen’s home, said that his dog, Buford, had discovered the wandering boy. The canine had been patrolling the ranch, his regular function, and appeared to have protected and shepherded the missing boy to safety after discovering him. The boy reportedly told the rancher he had slept under a tree.

“When I was driving out the driveway, I noticed my dog was sitting down by the entrance,” Dunton, who owns Dunton Ranch in Kingman, said in a video posted by the sheriff’s office. “I look up and the little kid’s standing there with my dog.”

“I can’t believe that kid made it that far,” he added.

Dunton told NBC’s News12 of Phoenix that he “had heard about the missing child this morning, so I knew it was him”. He also described Buford, a five-year-old Great Pyrenees-Anatolian mix, as a natural guardian.

“He goes out at night and just kind of patrols. He goes half a mile, a mile from the house and just makes big loops, keeps coyotes out,” Dunton said.

The protective pooch was thanked by police for staying with the boy and bringing him to safety. Boden was reunited with his parents and though he was reportedly shaken up and sustained a few scratches, he had no major injuries.

Four people have died and one is seriously injured after a cable car crashed to the ground near Naples in southern Italy on Thursday.

A cable broke on the link taking tourists from the town of Castellammare di Stabia, on the Gulf of Naples, to Monte Faito, about three kilometres(1.8 miles) away.

“Four lifeless bodies were found, while a fifth injured person was rescued and taken to hospital,” the fire department said in a Telegram post, adding that this was a final toll.

Vincenzo De Luca, the head of the Campania region around Naples, told Rai that rescue operations were hampered by fog and high winds.

More than 50 firefighters took part in rescue efforts.

One cabin carrying 16 passengers was close to Castellammare and they were put down on firm ground. A second cabin was above a precipice on Mount Faito and fog delayed the rescue effort, reports said.

The cable car had just reopened for the summer season and prosecutors said they had launched an investigation into the accident.

“The cable car reopened 10 days ago with all the required safety conditions,” said Umberto de Gregorio, the head of the cable car company. “What happened today is an unimaginable, unforeseeable tragedy.”

The prime minister, Giorgia Meloni expressed “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims, her office said.

The cable car has been operating since 1952 and a similar accident in 1960 also left four dead.

In 2021 14 people died when a cable car linking Lake Maggiore with a nearby mountain plunged to the ground in northern Italy. In 1998, a US fighter jet flying at a low level on a training flight cut a steel cable, killing 20 people in a cable car in the Dolomites.

The United States has unveiled new port fees on Chinese-built and operated ships in a bid to boost the domestic shipbuilding industry and curb China’s dominance in the sector.

The move – which stems from a probe launched under the prior administration – comes as the US and China are locked in a major trade war over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and could further escalate tensions.

“Ships and shipping are vital to American economic security and the free flow of commerce,” US trade representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement on Thursday announcing the new fees, most of which will begin in mid-October.

“The Trump administration’s actions will begin to reverse Chinese dominance, address threats to the US supply chain, and send a demand signal for US-built ships,” Greer said.

Under the new rule, per tonnage or per container fees will apply to each Chinese-linked ship’s US voyage, and not at each port as some in the industry had worried.

The fee will be assessed up to five times per year, and can be waived if the owner places an order for a US-built vessel.

Dominant after the second world war, the US shipbuilding industry has gradually declined and now accounts for just 0.1% of global output.

The sector is dominated by Asia, with China building nearly half of all ships launched, ahead of South Korea and Japan. The three countries account for more than 95% of civil shipbuilding, according to UN figures.

There will be separate fees for Chinese-operated ships and Chinese-built ships, and both will gradually increase over subsequent years.

For Chinese-built ships, the fee starts at $18 per net ton (NT) or $120 per container – meaning a ship with 15,000 containers could incur a fee of $1.8m.

US groups representing 30 industries had voiced their concerns in March about the risks such fees could have on the prices of imported products.

One business surveyed by the groups expressed worry that proposed fees, alongside tariffs on China and other countries, as well as duties on steel and aluminium imports, would put “extraordinary pressure on US retailers”.

All non-US built car carrier vessels will also be hit with a fee beginning in 180 days.

Washington is also introducing new fees for liquified natural gas (LNG) carriers, though those do not take effect for three years.

A fact sheet accompanying the announcement said fees will not cover “Great Lakes or Caribbean shipping, shipping to and from US territories, or bulk commodity exports on ships that arrive in the United States empty”.

In addition to the fees, Greer also announced proposed tariffs on some ship-to-shore cranes and on Chinese cargo handling equipment.

Two people were killed in a mass shooting at the Florida State University (FSU) campus in Tallahassee on Thursday, and six others were injured, police said.

The 20-year-old suspect is believed to be a student and the son of a sheriff’s deputy who had access to one of her weapons, a handgun, which was found at the scene, Sheriff Walt McNeil said at a news conference.

Law enforcement officials confirmed that none of the victims were students or police officers.

Officials named the suspect as Phoenix Ikner, a student at FSU and the son of a Leon county sheriff’s deputy. The police said he had been involved with training programs at the police force.

Authorities have not yet revealed a motive for the shooting, which began around lunchtime just outside the student union, sending students and frightened parents hiding for cover in a bowling alley and a freight elevator inside the building.

The suspect “had been in the Leon county sheriff’s office family, engaged in a number of training programs that we have”, McNeil said. “So, it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons. This event is tragic in more ways than you people in the audience could ever imagine, from a law enforcement perspective.”

The suspect’s mother has been with the sheriff’s office for more than 18 years, McNeil said.

The officials confirmed that the suspect was currently being treated at a hospital.

Ambulances, fire trucks and patrol vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies had raced toward the campus that sits just west of Florida’s state capital after the university issued a shooter alert at midday, saying police were responding near the student union.

“Our prayers are with our FSU family and state law enforcement is actively responding,” the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, wrote on X.

The gunfire was reported at the student union building on the FSU campus and students and faculty were advised to shelter in place as police responded. More than 42,000 students attend classes at the main campus.

Videos posted on social media show students being evacuated from the scene.

By midafternoon the Florida State University campus had been secured, according to the Tallahassee police department. Multiple law enforcement agencies remained on site for the ongoing investigation. The student union and the surrounding area were still considered an active crime scene.

Earlier, hundreds of students streamed away from the direction of the student union. Students were glued to their phones, some visibly emotional, while others hugged each other. Dozens gathered near the music school waiting for news.

The Tallahassee Memorial hospital confirmed it was treating six patients wounded in the shooting, one in critical condition.

Ryan Cedergren, a 21-year-old communications student, said he and about 30 others hid in the bowling alley in the lower level of the student union after seeing students running from a nearby bar.

“In that moment, it was survival,” he said.

Donald Trump opened his Oval Office meeting at the White House with the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, with comments on the shooting, saying he had been fully briefed.

“It’s a horrible thing. It’s horrible that things like this take place,” the US president said.

Fred Guttenberg, the father of 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg, who was murdered in the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, said in a post on X: “America is broken.”

“As a father, all I ever wanted after the Parkland shooting was to help our children be safe,” he said. “Sadly, because of the many people who refuse to do the right things about reducing gun violence, I am not surprised by what happened today.”

Guttenberg also said that many of his daughter’s friends who survived the Parkland shooting are current students at FSU.

University police escorted the students out of the union after about 15 minutes of hiding.

A junior student, Joshua Sirmans, 20, was in the university’s main library when he said alarms began going off warning of a shooter. Law enforcement officers escorted him and other students out of the library with their hands over their heads, he said.

The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said in a social media post that the justice department was in touch with FBI agents on the scene. Students and faculty were instructed to seek shelter and await further instructions.

“Lock and stay away from all doors and windows and be prepared to take additional protective measures,” the alert said.

The Leon county school district, where Tallahassee is located, posted on X: “All LCS schools are back to normal operating procedures. Lockout has been lifted district wide.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting

The mundane tasks of everyday life, such as homework after school and household chores at the weekend, may not have changed in the past 80 years, but societal attitudes towards them could not be more different.

A study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London (KCL), comparing public attitudes now and in the 1930s and 40s, reveals how significantly views on everyday life in Britain have shifted over the decades.

Homework is probably as unpopular as ever with children, but today seven in 10 people think pupils should have to do homework in their own time after school. In 1937 it was just two in 10, while 79% opposed it.

Opinion on single-sex education has also shifted markedly. In 1946, 43% thought boys and girls should be taught separately; now, three-quarters (76%) are in favour of them being taught together.

Much has changed in the home. Eighty years ago a quarter of men (24%) said they never helped with the household chores. Now, just 4% admit to this, though evidence suggests women still do far more housework than men.

According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2024 women spent an average of 3 hours and 32 minutes a day doing unpaid work activities including housework, caring for others and volunteering – 57 minutes more than the average among men.

Women today are happier being women. In 1947, almost four in 10 women said they would prefer to be a man – today that has declined one in 11. Men’s attitudes remain unchanged over the decades, with about only one in 20 saying they would rather be a woman.

Attitudes to fitness and work have also transformed. Today the majority of people (66%) say they exercise to keep fit, whereas in 1937 most (56%) did not. More people can swim, up from about half (54%) in 1946 to 79% today.

In the world of work, 80 years ago people prioritised job security over high wages (73% v 23%). In 2024, opinion was more divided – 46% thought high wages were more important (41%).

But getting up to go to work remains difficult. According to the KCL study, 40% of people struggle to get up in the morning, which is virtually unchanged from 1947, with women finding it harder than men.

The research, part of a series exploring societal and political changes in Britain, is based on data from historical polls compared with a survey of 1,000 UK adults carried out in December 2024.

Prof Bobby Duffy, the director of the Policy Institute, explained some of the changes.

“The much greater expectation on children to do homework makes perfect sense, as education levels and their importance to future success have increased hugely in the past 80 years.

“The education experience is entirely different for young people today than in the 1930s and early 1940s, when the school leaving age was still just 14 years old.

“We are also much more in favour of co-education, with boys and girls taught together – although it’s notable that younger adults are most likely to favour keeping the sexes separate, which may reflect other trends we’re seeing in terms of greater division between some gen Z men and women.

“And it’s a real insight into the lives of women back in the 1940s that nearly four in 10 said they would rather be men, compared with just 9% today – although that is still twice the proportion of men who say they would rather be women.

“We’re also now much more likely to be focused on pay than job security, which is an interesting pattern, given that unemployment was actually very low in the postwar years. This is likely to reflect the very real pressures felt on getting by today, even for those in work, given recent increases in the cost of living.

“Many other small but important behaviours have also increased hugely – from keeping fit and the ability to swim, to men’s contribution to work in the home. But some have remained remarkably constant, not least that four in 10 of us struggle to get out of bed in the morning – a very human feeling that seems may always be with us.”