A gunman has opened fire on a busy avenue in Toronto, killing a young woman and injuring 13 other people, one of them critically, police say.
The victim critically injured in the Canadian city’s Greektown district is a girl of eight or nine, they add.
The gunman is dead, reportedly killed in an exchange of shots.
The attack happened on Danforth Avenue on Sunday evening, when the area was teeming with people, Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper reports.
The motive for the shooting, which reportedly targeted a restaurant, is still unclear.
The motive for the shooting, which reportedly targeted a restaurant, is still unclear
In a video clip shared by Canadian media, a white man wearing a dark cap and dark clothing and carrying a shoulder bag can be seen stopping on a pavement and pulling out a handgun before firing shots.
Some of the victims were treated at the scene, while others were taken to local hospitals.
Police are appealing for witnesses.
Toronto Mayor John Tory condemned the “despicable” attack on “people innocently enjoying aSunday evening.”
The premier of the province of Ontario, Doug Ford, tweeted a message of support to the victims of the attack.
At least two cafes or restaurants appear to have been fired on, with people injured in one called the Demetres.
Eyewitnesses say they heard volleys of shots, with pauses in between.
“It would shoot, there’d be a pause, we heard more shooting, and then a pause and then more shooting,” John Tulloch, who was walking on the avenue with his brother at the time, told the paper.
“There must’ve been 20, 30 shots, altogether. It was a lot. We just ran. People weren’t yelling but I think everyone was concerned,” he added.
“It just seemed very surreal, almost like it wasn’t really happening. But everyone was sort of moving and going away. It was hard to believe it was real.”
A driver, Jim Melis, told the paper that a white man wearing a black cap and a bandana had fired shots through a cafe window.
The gunman had run out in front of his car, crossing the street, before pulling out his gun, he said.
Jody Steinhauer told CBC News she had been with her family in a restaurant in the area when she heard what sounded like 10 to 15 blasts of firecrackers.
“We started to hear people scream,” she said.
Paramedics could be seen performing CPR on the injured around the piazza afterwards, the Globe and Mail reports.
Toronto police confirmed the gunman had been killed but gave no other details.
Mayor Tory appealed for people not to draw any conclusions before there was further information from the police.
Jessica Young, an employee at the Second Cup cafe, said she had seen the gunman’s face before he fired through the window.
“I look to my side and see the shooter through the window,” she was quoted as saying by the Toronto Star newspaper.
“He sees me, or he sees my co-worker or someone, and points the gun and shoots through the window. He was probably no taller than me, wearing a black baseball cap, dark clothes. He had light skin. I think he had short facial hair. That’s all I could make out.”
Nobody was hurt in her cafe, she added.
Mayor Tory said the attack was “evidence of a gun problem” in the city.
“Guns are too readily available to too many people,” he told reporters.
While gun attacks are much rarer in Canada than over the border in the US, Toronto police data show the number of shootings in the city more than doubled between 2014 and 2017 – from 177 to 395.
Trump and Iran’s Rouhani trade angry threats
US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani have traded hostile warnings, amid rising tensions between the two countries.
Mr. Trump tweeted that Iran “will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before” if it threatened the US.
Mr. Rouhani earlier said that war with Iran would be “the mother of all wars.”
In May, the US left a deal which curbed Iran’s nuclear activities in return for the lifting of international sanctions.
Washington is now re-imposing the sanctions, despite objections from the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, who all signed the 2015 agreement.
President Rouhani’s comments, made to Iranian diplomats, did leave open the possibility of future good relations with the US.
“America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” he said, according to Iran’s state news agency Irna.
Mr. Trump’s angry rhetoric has echoes of his Twitter barrages against North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, whom he branded a “madman” who “will be tested like never before,” before engaging in a testy exchange over whose nuclear button was bigger.
Their verbal hostilities nonetheless evolved into ongoing diplomatic negotiations.
In a separate development on Sunday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Iranian regime “resembles the mafia more than a government.”
Addressing a group of Iranian Americans in California, Mr. Pompeo denounced Mr. Rouhani and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who negotiated the nuclear deal, as “merely polished front men for the ayatollahs’ international con artistry.”
Mr. Pompeo said he wanted to try to stop countries importing Iranian oil by November as part of continued pressure on Tehran.
The gathering was the first time a top US official had directly addressed such a large number of Iranian Americans, says BBC state department correspondent Barbara Plett Usher.
It is being seen as part of the administration’s strategy to increase pressure on Iran’s leadership.
In May, Mr. Trump called the nuclear accord – or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as it is formally known – a “horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”
Mr. Trump alleged that the deal did not restrict Iran’s “destabilising activities” in the region enough, and could not detect or prevent any breaking of the terms of the deal.
READ ALSO: Trump attacks Michael Cohen over ‘Playboy model payment tape’
Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, and its compliance with the deal has been verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has said Iran is honouring its commitments.
Macron orders office reorganisation over protester beating row
French President Emmanuel Macron has ordered a staff shake-up after a video emerged showing his now sacked aide beating up a protester, officials say.
Under growing pressure, Mr. Macron gathered several ministers together on Sunday to discuss the row.
Alexandre Benalla, who was Mr. Macron’s top bodyguard, is seen dragging away a woman and then beating a man during May Day protests in Paris.
He has been charged with group violence and illegally wearing a police badge.
Mr. Benalla was fired on Friday.
An official said Mr. Macron had described the incident as “unacceptable” and promised there would be “no impunity.”
Senior presidential official Alexis Kohler is to look into reorganising Mr. Macron’s private office so as to prevent a repeat of the incident, unnamed officials say.
The French presidency has been accused of being aware of the incident for some time, trying to cover it up, and failing to act swiftly against Mr. Benalla.
Three policemen have also been charged in connection with the incident.
They were questioned on Saturday for allegedly leaking security footage to try to prove Mr. Benalla’s innocence.
Vincent Crase, an employee of Mr. Macron’s La République en Marche (Republic on the Move) party, is also being investigated after he appeared in the video.
Public outrage has been stoked by additional footage that appears to show several police officers watching the incident without intervening.
Interior Minister Gérard Collomb is expected to be questioned on the issue in parliament on Monday.
The video was posted on social media in May, but the case became a political scandal after Le Monde newspaper revealed that the attacker was Mr. Benalla, aged 26.
A former bodyguard of Mr. Macron, he was hired as an aide to the president’s chief of staff after last year’s election.
He was then given an apartment in an upmarket Paris district and a chauffeur-driven car, French media say.
He also had the highest security clearance to parliament.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang calls for crackdown on vaccine industry
Authorities in China have ordered an investigation into a vaccination scandal as panic grows over product safety.
Last week vaccine maker Changsheng Biotechnology Co was found to have falsified production data for its rabies vaccine.
The firm has been ordered to halt production and recall rabies vaccines.
There has been no evidence of harm from the vaccine, but the scandal has sparked a huge outcry in China.
On Sunday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged severe punishment for the people involved.
“We will resolutely crack down on illegal and criminal acts that endanger the safety of peoples’ lives, resolutely punish lawbreakers according to the law, and resolutely and severely criticise dereliction of duty in supervision,” he said in a statement posted on a government website.
On July 15, China’s State Drug Administration (SDA) announced that Changchun Changsheng had falsified production data during the production of its freeze-dried human rabies vaccine.
According to a report by Xinhua, an official said the company had “fabricated production records and product inspection records,” as well as “arbitrarily changed process parameters and equipment” during production.
The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) said the rabies vaccine had been recalled and that the company would be put under investigation.
Days later, Jilin province authorities announced a 2017 batch of the firm’s diptheria, tentnus and pertussis vaccine – or DTaP – was also substandard.
According to state media outlet CGTN, more than 250,000 doses of DTaP in the batch had already been sold to disease control and prevention centres in eastern China.
The company has now been ordered to pay a fine of 3.4m yuan ($510,000; £387,957).
According to the CFDA, there is no evidence that anyone has been harmed by the vaccine.
Concern has now shifted to the safety of the DTaP vaccine.
The vaccine is subsidised by the government and is given to infants across the country.
It is not known how many children have received the vaccine, but there have not been any reports of children falling ill after receiving the inoculation.
The Chinese government has not stated what impact the substandard vaccine could have on a person’s health.
People are furious.
“Thousands of mothers around the country are worried. Over 200,000 children could be affected. What kind of society am I living in?” asked one person on Weibo.
“My son will be vaccinated next month. I don’t know whether or not to let him,” said another.
Chinese censors have also identified the issue as highly sensitive. A widely circulated article pointing out murky practices in the vaccine industry in China was deleted.