Your World Tonight - Mass shooting at Brown University, Belarus frees prisoners, Chile's election, and more.

Episode Date: December 13, 2025

In Providence, Rhode Island, multiple people are dead and injured after a mass shooting on the campus of Brown University. Police are still searching for a suspect. We have the latest details.Also: Belarus has freed dozens of prisoners, including prominent dissidents and activists. The move comes after negotiations with the U.S. - which promised to lift sanctions on Belarus, which is a strong ally of Russia. And: Chile appears to be the latest South American country making a hard right turn. Voters will elect the country's next president in a run-off vote on Sunday. And polls suggest a conservative candidate pushing a hardline stance on crime and immigration is favoured to win. We'll take you to Santiago to hear from the candidates and voters.Plus: Venezuela opposition leader accepts Nobel Peace Prize, Paris opens cable car transit service, Surging prices for toys, and more.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Sadly, today is a city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island parade would never come. A manhunt is underway after a mass shooting in Rhode Island on a university campus. Officials say two are dead several people in critical condition. This is your world tonight. I'm Dave Seglins. Also on the podcast, bracing for more rain in British Columbia,

residents remain on evacuation alert after floodwaters force hundreds out of their homes. And children's toys in 2025 are actually up. Those sales were largely driven by adults. And those consumers, they will pay a premium. Toy prices on the rise amidst tariffs and an industry increasingly targeting an older market. We begin in Providence, Rhode Island, where two people are dead after a mass shooting on the campus of Brown University.

Another eight people were critically injured. The suspect is not in custody. Timothy O'Hara is Deputy Chief of Providence Police. So earlier this afternoon, when we received the call for an active shooter inside a building inside Brown University, our offices responded. and as they're trained to do, entered that building immediately and began searching for a suspect. They did a systematic search of the building, however no suspect was located at that time. They were able to clear that building and provide a safe place for all of students and faculty and workers that were in that building to meet at. Preliminarily, all we have is a suspect that was a male dressed in black.

It is unknown how we entered the building. We're utilizing every resource possible to find this suspect. University officials initially told students and staff that a suspect was in custody before retracting that statement. The campus remains in lockdown and students and staff are being told to shelter in place. Stay with CBC News for updates throughout the evening and on CBCNews.ca. Belarus has freed dozens of prisoners, including prominent dissidents and activists. The move came after negotiations with the U.S., which promised to lift sanctions on Belarus, a strong ally of Russia.

As Philip Lishanak reports, the deal may have consequences for Europe and Canada. The first moments of freedom for Belarus protest leader Maria Kaliznikava. I am now free to witness the sunset, stunningly beautiful, she says. Jailed for more than five years, she and more than 120 dissidents were suddenly part of pardoned and released by President Alexander Lukashenka. Outside the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, exiled Belarusian opposition leader, Svietlana Sikhanuskaya, praised efforts behind the release.

President Trump now uses these carrots. He also can use steve. We lifted the sanctions on potash. U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy, John Cole, said Lukashenko was open to making a deal. The authoritarian leader is a close. ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin. He wants more normalized relationship with the United States and the West.

So we're moving in that direction. Maria Popova teaches political science at McGill University in Montreal. She says this deal is about potash, a critical mineral that's essential for American farmers. Belarus is the world's third largest producer behind Canada. Our basically strong card here is the point. Potash. And if that card is taken away, it's easier for the, for the U.S. to pressure us. And it means the U.S. has moved away from the European Union's efforts to isolate Belarus after a violent crackdown on protesters following a disputed election in 2020 and the country's

support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. What we're witnessing really is a budding Russo-American alliance, something that is really worrisome to Europe, but also should be worrisome to us in Canada. And these developments come as U.S.-led peace talks to end the fighting in Ukraine are gaining momentum. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with advisors from the U.S., Ukraine and Germany in Berlin Sunday. He says he looks forward to meeting his European partners and representatives of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Importantly, meetings regarding the foundation of peace, a political agreement to end the war, he says. Germany plans to host peace talks set to begin on Monday. The U.S. is pressing Ukraine to sign an agreement by Christmas, but Zelensky says it cannot reward Russian aggression with territory. Philip Lyshanok, CBC News, Toronto. In B.C.'s lower mainland, floodwaters are gradually dropping. But hundreds of people in the Fraser Valley remain out of their homes and on alert.

The forecast shows there could be more heavy rain on the way. The CBC's Tanya Fletcher is in Vancouver. I want to start with the forecast. What is Environment Canada warning is ahead for Southern BC? Well, what many are dreading, Dave, that's more rain on tap, and that's for the hardest hit Fraser Valley. Environment Canada is forecasting another onslaught of rain starting tomorrow and then what they're calling a potentially significant push of more.

moisture through Monday. Like last week, the bullseye is expected to hit just across the border in Washington State. Here, local rivers are again expected to swell and cause localized flooding, but flows are expected to be less severe this time around. The current floodwaters are gradually receding. That's the good news. There's some significant improvement in some areas, but a portion of Highway 1 is still closed. And Abbotsford Police put out a video today from the TransCanada with a warning for drivers. Please don't drive around barriers. Last night, we had two individual drivers that decided to drive around road closure points

and essentially sink their vehicles into the water, requiring them to be rescued. So today, rapid damage assessment teams have been deployed. Crews are determining whether an evacuated property is safe to reenter. Officials say they're working to get people back home as quickly as possible, but as it stands, more than 450 properties are under evacuation orders still, and more than a thousand others are on alert. And do we have a clearer picture of the impact on those homes? Slowly, yes, the past 24 hours have really been the first chance to get a glimpse of the

devastation. Roughly 70 farms are blanketed under those evacuation orders. And we do know that some poultry barns were lost due to flooding. Some livestock had to be moved. And the province's animal health center, which tests for things like avian flu, was also flooded. It'll be closed, officials, say, until at least the new year. We did speak with a dairy farmer this morning. Kim Dykeman says they've spent the past several days preparing their cattle and keeping really a constant eye on the situation.

We looked at border cams. We're in communication with people across the border, just to get an idea of when the water would reach. But of course, as soon as the water got here, it just, the water levels increased so rapidly. So it was lots of chaos. Thankfully, we had a lot of farmers able to be here on Thursday and Friday, helping move cows around. Remember, this is a devastating deja vu for many farmers who live through historic flooding here four years ago. And there have been criticism that not enough has been done on either side of the border since then. Abbotsford's mayor, for example, took aim directly at Ottawa during a press conference yesterday.

He said not enough mitigation work was done since 2021 to avoid a repeat disaster like we're seeing now. And shortly after, the federal emergency management minister reached out to the mayor, who later told us they have been advised of potential future grant opportunities that the city may be able to consider. But for now, lots of frustrations and fears of what more devastation could come at the mercy of the weather. Tenia Fletcher in Vancouver, thank you. You bet. Now, that same atmospheric river wreaking havoc in BC is also creating dangerous conditions in the Rocky Mountains.

The storm delivered nearly 50 centimeters of fresh snow and is left behind dangerous avalanche conditions. Sarah Reid has the details. The good news is we're getting a lot of snow, which is what everybody wants to see and everybody enjoys. But avalanche forecaster and ski guide Doug Latimer says there's also another. side to the seemingly ideal ski forecast.

Snow is very grumpy. It does not like to change quickly. However, that's exactly what's happening in the Rockies. A powerful storm just last week dropped a significant amount of snow along with high winds. The forecast shows that the next storm in the coming days is expected to bring much of the same. All this is building on top of a weak layer down in the snowpack caused by warm fall temperatures. It gets buried enough. It starts to become less of a problem. So if we get a lot of new snow, it's going to be bad for the short term, but then things will settle out and they're pretty good again. If we don't get a lot of snow, but we keep getting snow for the while, we've got a short term problem and then that deep problem

is still going to haunt us. Parks Canada says while the snowpack adjusts to the added weight of new snow, it's seeing a lot of avalanche activity. Avalanche Canada is reporting the risk in Banff National Park to be considerable. Jasper National Park is also rated as having considerable risk, but more snow and wind will increase that risk to high for some areas. One area, though, that's not at risk is Jasper's ski resort. We mitigate the avalanche risk, usually using explosives. Brian Road is the vice president at Marmot Basin Ski Resort and says they focus their efforts in the alpine areas above the ski lifts, but don't have much control over conditions outside the

marked resort runs. As soon as you leave the ski area and go under that fence, that's when there can be trouble because you don't have to go very, very far before you are in a high-risk area. While the increased snowfall is calling many outdoor enthusiasts to the backcountry, Avalanche expert Doug Latimer says steer clear, or at least until the snow has had time to settle. Go and plague, but make sure you're staying out of avalanche terrain because things are going to be touchy. Sarah Reid, CBC News, Edmonton. Montreal hockey hero Bobby Rousseau has died.

He was a four-time Stanley Cup champion helping the Montreal Canadiens take home the trophy in 1965, 66, 68, and again in 69. Rousseau played with the habs for most of his pro career, with stints with the Minnesota North Stars and the New York Rangers. While Rousseau has not been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was recognized by the Quebec Sports Hall of Fame in 2007. The Montreal Canadiens announced his death on Saturday. Bobby Rousseau was 85. Still ahead, beating traffic gridlock by taking to the air. Paris has just opened its first commuter cable car, helping cut travel times by 20 minutes. We'll climb aboard for a ride on the new Paris C-1.

Coming up on your world tonight. Chile appears to be the latest South American country, making a hard turn to the political right. Voters will elect the country's next president in a runoff vote on Sunday, and polls suggest a conservative candidate pushing a hard-line stance on crime and immigration is favored to win. Freeland's reporter Marie Armel LaFourie has more from Santiago. At a subway station in a wealthy Santiago neighborhood, voters support far-right candidate Jose Antonio Cast and his campaign to crack down on violent crime and illegal immigration. You can get attacked anywhere, this voter says.

There are no safe neighborhoods left, so security is a top issue. While violent crime is up in Chile, statistics show overall crime rates are down, and it remains one of the safest countries in Latin America. But the feeling of insecurity is deeply ingrained, a recent poll finding that Chileans are the most fearful of crime in the world, and many voters have linked crime to illegal immigration. This supporter says that without spending a cent, Kast has already started scaring away illegal immigrants.

At his closing rally, Kass told people who were in the country illegally that they have 90 days to leave. After that, they will be deported. An estimated 300,000 people have crossed into Chile illegally, most of them from Venezuela. And to keep them out, he has promised to build walls and trenches along the borders with Peru and Bolivia. Cass' hardline stance on immigration comes despite, the fact that he's a son of an immigrant. His father was a member of Germany's Nazi party and demigrated to Chile after the Second World War. Cass comes from a background, which was on the far

right. Robert Fung teaches political science at the University of Chile. He left a party, which is already a kind of a pinocitista party that had inherited the political policies and ideas of the military dictatorship, and he left them for being too moderate. He says Cass has portrayed the country being in a state of crisis that needs drastic solutions. But he's downplayed his support for the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in order to attract more moderate voters. But at the last campaign stopped for Jeanette Hara, the communist candidate representing a coalition on the left,

voters have not forgotten the past. My grandparents were tortured and exiled by the dictatorship, this woman says. If the country votes for caste, this voter says, it will be a return to Pinochet's policies. Hara has also tried to soften her image during the campaign. The fact that she's a member of the Communist Party has scared many moderate voters. Attacking Kass German background,

Hara says she's 100% Chilean and shares the concerns of those who work hard to make a living. Hara has also campaigned on crime and illegal immigration. But she says she would only deport migrants convicted of crimes and would put more police officers on the streets to combat crime. But Hara seems to be fighting a losing battle. Poll suggests Cass is expected to win by a large majority. Marie Armele Lafory, for CBC News, Santiago.

Venezuela's opposition leader claims Nicholas Maduro's days as dictator are numbered. Maria Corina Machado is in Oslo, where she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize this week. That award comes amid an escalating campaign against Venezuela by the U.S. And Machado is positioning herself as the right person to replace Maduro if he is toppled. Freelance journalist Cody Weddo reports from Oslo. When Venezuela's opposition leader Maria Corina Machado stepped back into public view Thursday for the first time in nearly a year, it signaled a potential turning point in her country's politics. The hundreds of supporters on the street below cheered, thrilled to see the person who has led the fight for democracy for several years.

This supporter calls her the icon of freedom of Venezuela. But the question lingering for many was Machado essentially entering exile and what would happen to her campaign to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro? Machado insists her efforts continue. and that the Nobel Peace Prize puts more international pressure on Maduro. It's a turning point in our history. Venezuelan people are feeling right now that the world is behind us and that we are not alone. And it's a decisive moment.

Supporters of Machado, like U.S. Congressman Carlos Jimenez, framed the event as an inflection point. This is not a lost cause by any means. Matter of fact, it may be the exclamation point. It may be the beginning of the end for the mass. Maduro regime. Machado says she'll be back in Venezuela soon, but she hasn't specified exactly when or under what conditions. I plan to pick up the award to take it back to Venezuelan, she says. Machado has praised the U.S. administration for what she calls decisive actions against Maduro's

regime, including the seizing of a Venezuelan oil tanker this week. That stance has led to criticism from some. There were even small protests in Oslo. Some say her support for U.S. military intervention should disqualify her from receiving a peace prize. Mashado responded. Venezuela has been already been occupied by forces from a totalitarian regime such as Russia, Iran, Cuba, and criminal groups such as Hezbollah, the drug cartels, and the Colombian guerrilla. The success of her freedom campaign may ultimately come down to one thing, whether Donald Trump decides to take direct action against Nicolas Maduro. I am very hopeful, Venezuela will be free, and we will turn a country into a beacon of hope, an opportunity of democracy. Machado projecting confidence that change still remains possible, but whether it turns into a transfer of power in Caracas remains an open question.

Cody Weddell for CBC News, Oslo. After just three years of construction, a new cable car has opened in Paris to help move the growing population in the city suburbs. Thousands of people will benefit from the reduced travel time on the last. longest urban cable car in Europe. Reporter Ross Cullen tried it out and has this report. Cable cars in France usually whisk people up mountain sides and across alpine snowfields, but a new line has opened in Paris. The C-1 was built on the city's outskirts, cutting commuters travel time to the center by

20 minutes each way. This woman was impressed by the height and the very very much. views of the whole area. Another first-time rider said while her friend was a little scared, she enjoyed the trip. Construction started in 2022 and took three years to complete. Engineering teams were sent to the mountains to see how the operation works in the French Alps. Traveling by air exposes the system to the elements. It will fully close in storm conditions and go at a reduced speed on windy days. The system cost 162 million US dollars to build and the EU helped to support it financially.

The president of the Paris capital region, Valerie Pocress, said that many residents were concerned about safety and the fire brigade needed extra reassurance. And on the day of opening, there were teething problems. Attention. The installation was stopped for operational. reasons. The cable car came to a sudden halt at one point as engineers rushed to fix the issue. The new cable car is part of ambitions by France and the wider European Union to prioritize environmentally friendly public transport infrastructure to work towards the goal to be carbon neutral by 2050. Paris already has a fleet of electric and some hydrogen-powered buses to go with extended bike routes and a subway expansion program. The Paris capital region analyzed

12 possible follow-up projects to expand the cable car network in the city, but the technicalities of design and operational costs mean a second Parisian cable car is not coming down the line in the near future. Ross Cullen, for CBC News, Paris. It may be cold here in Canada, but Italy's winemaking heartland is feeling the heat, literally. Summers have become hotter and drier, and extreme weather is battering vineyards. Megan Williams tells us all this is forcing winemakers to rethink centuries-old traditions. Under a blazing sun in the countryside north of Rome,

wine grower Massimo Tosone surveys the rows of vines, behind his farmhouse in Tarquina, once part of the ancient Etruscan civilization, now one of many Italian vineyards struggling to save a tradition. The soil beneath his grapes, Trebiano, Malvá, Asia in Vermintino is cracked and chalk dry, cooked by longer, hotter summers. The grapes that once ripened in October, now ripen late August. Last year, waiting too long to pick the grapes, cost Tosoni a third of his harvest, he says. By his side is daughter Martina, part of a new generation of wine makers adapting fast.

The biggest challenge, not heat, she says, but water. But they're not facing it alone. Instead, with nearby producers, they've begun rotating irrigation, building wine tourism to survive, and sharing tech. Like the app she uses to check the watering, that's replaced Massimo's nighttime rounds. It's not only about new methods. There's also a return to old methods, like grafting grapes onto wild roots, which are

proving the hardiest, and preparing to plant different varieties, because the grapes that defined Italian wine for centuries may not survive in their traditional areas. There is huge, untapped biological diversity in the grapevine. Climate scientist at Lund University in Sweden, Kimberly Nicholas, says Italy is not alone. Italy actually has a pretty high diversity of grapes, but the majority, something like 80% of global wine production, comes from 12 varieties of grapes. And those varieties are starting to struggle.

Across Italy, grapes ripen earlier, sugar spikes, acidity drops, and flavors flatten. Producers are planting higher and on north-facing slopes, stringing shade cloths and installing solar panels above vines, and experimenting with ancient grapes once abandoned. But even with adaptation, tradition is shifting. The tastes of Italian wine, the identity of the region, is already changing. In the shade of the Tozoni farmhouse, Martina hosts a wine tasting for tourists.

As Massimant gazes out at the vines, he's tended for decades. Italian wine has survived invasions, floods, and plagues. Now, in a warming world, producers are searching not just for body, flavor, and depth, but above all, for resilience. Megan Williams, CBC News, Tarquina, Italy. 2025 has been a wobbly year for the toy industry. With steep U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and rising economic uncertainty, it's never been more complicated to be a toy maker.

But as freelance reporter John Last tells us, if Santa can learn one thing from the industry, it's to expect his customers to be a little older this year. I like to play a lot of the old classic music, and usually on our TV set, we've got like... Stepping into Toy Heaven, an independent toy store in Smith Falls, Ontario is like stepping back in time. The walls are covered with Hot Wheels from the 1990s, transformer toys from the 1980s, and original-run Star Wars collectibles now more than 40 years old. Lenny Storms, the store's founder, started out.

selling preschool toys. But quickly, he learned that the real money was in helping source rare collectibles for adult buyers. Those customers, known as Kidults in the industry, have helped boost toy sales to their best year yet, even amid unprecedented economic uncertainty. Things have actually been a lot better than people think. Andrew Waggart is on the board of the Canadian Toy Association and is CEO of a toy consultancy called Swerve Strategic Marketing. Children's toys in 2025 are actually up, 17%. Those sales were largely driven by adults, and those consumers, they will pay a premium. It's good they will, because toy prices for the

first time in decades are back on the rise. Roughly three quarters of all toys have their origins in China, a country which U.S. President Donald Trump has targeted with steep tariffs this Christmas. The trickle-down effect has been a gradual increase in the average price of toys, masking an overall decrease in total units sold. A lot of the increase in revenue that we're seeing on the sales is due to some higher prices. There's no question that inflation is playing apart. For his part, Trump has been clear that he doesn't mind that might mean families buying less. Here he is at a recent press conference. Well, maybe the children will have two dollars instead of $30, you know, and maybe the two dollars will cost a couple of bucks more than they would

normally. But the toy industry disagrees. Weigar says they've been searching for new strategies to help weather the storm, and pitching familiar brands to adult collectors is only part of the play. This year, the top-selling items are likely to be collectible cards, like Pokemon and NFL trading card sets. After all, they're cheap to produce, keeping unit costs low enough for a child and giving adult collectors something worth hunting for. But Weigar cautions, the jury is still out on 2025 in the toy industry. The next three weeks are going to be pretty crucial. More than 60% of toy sales happened between September 1st and the end of the year.

It won't be until January that we see the real impacts of rising prices. Even still, as he braces for the Christmas rush, Storm says January can't come soon enough. December is over the top. And when January, February comes, it's a nice time to relax and see what you need to do for the next year. For CBC News, I'm John Last in Smith Falls, Ontario. Well, today marks a milestone, the 100th birthday of Dick Van Dyke. This, of course, is the theme for the theme for the time.

the Dick Van Dyke show, which won him a best actor Emmy four years running in the mid-60s. Not to mention, he won Tony, Golden Globe, and Grammy Awards over more than six decades in comedy, Broadway, TV, and the big screen. I feel really good. But for a hundred, you know. Taking it all in stride, Van Dyke credits a positive outlook for such a long life. People say, what did you do right? And I say, don't ask. I don't know. I've always learned that anger is one thing that eats up a person's insides and hate. And I never really was able to work up a feeling of hate.

I think that is one of the chief things that kept me going. Well, happy birthday, Dick Van Dyke. Like you sang next to Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, you really are super-calfragilistic exeologous. and loud enough, you'll always have reconsious. Supercalabragilistic, espialogosia. And this is being your world tonight. I'm Dave Seglins.

Have a super night. He traveled all around the world and everywhere he went. He'd use his word and all would say there goes a clever gent. When Duke's and Mont-Rodges pass a time a day with me, I say me special word and then they all feel to tea. Oh, super-cala-ragulistic, it's be alexia. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.