The brief video shows the suspect walking down a street and turning a corner while dressed in dark clothing.

Authorities said he appears to be in his 30s, but his exact age is unclear at this time.

The suspect remains at large, and people in the area have been urged to stay indoors.

The shooting occurred inside a classroom on the first floor of the Barus & Holley engineering building, according to Providence Police Deputy Chief Tim O'Hara, who spoke at a news conference.

Providence mayor Brett Smiley said the number of injured had risen to nine after another person realised they had been struck by "fragments" from the shooting. He added that they are expected to make a full recovery.

Brown University provost Frank Doyle confirmed that final exams were taking place in the engineering building Saturday afternoon when the shooter opened fire.

Officers searched the buildings of the Ivy League campus and sifted through trash cans for several hours following the shooting.

"We have all available resources" to find the suspect, Mr O'Hara said at the news conference.

Mr Smiley said a person who was initially thought to be involved in the shooting was detained but was later determined to have no involvement.

He said the eight wounded people were in critical but stable condition. He declined to say whether the victims were students.

Mr Smiley asked for prayers for the families of the victims, noting the coming Christmas holiday.

"It's going to be a difficult rest of the day, difficult days and months ahead as this community heals," he said.

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he had been briefed on the situation, which he called "terrible".

"All we can do right now is pray for the victims and for those that were very badly hurt," he added.

The shooting was reported near the Barus & Holley building, a seven-storey structure that houses the School of Engineering and Physics Department, according to the university's website.

It includes 117 laboratories, 150 offices and 15 classrooms.

Brown is a private university with roughly 7,300 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate students.

Providence Council member John Goncalves, whose ward includes the Brown campus, said: "We're still getting information about what's going on, but we're just telling people to lock their doors and to stay vigilant.

"As a Brown alum, someone who loves the Brown community and represents this area, I'm heartbroken. My heart goes out to all the family members and the folks who've been impacted."

'I was hoping that no one's getting hurt'

Student Chiang-Heng Chien said he was working in one of the labs with three other students when they received a notification about a shooting nearby.

"We decided to turn the light off and close all the doors and hide under our desks, and wait for the next notification after the shooting," he told reporters.

The students hid under the desks for about two hours.

"I was hoping that no one's getting hurt and no one's dead," he said.

The students left the building when they received another notification, and security personnel moved in to search the facility.

Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the Barus & Holley lobby working on a final project when she heard loud popping sounds coming from the eastern side of the building.

For a moment, everyone paused and looked around, she recalled.

Once Ferraro realised the sounds were gunshots, she rushed to the door and ran to a nearby building, where she had been sheltering for the past few hours.

Local media reports indicated that the manhunt was made more challenging by the large crowds in downtown Providence, where holiday shoppers and thousands of concertgoers were gathered.

According to officials, federal law enforcement and police from nearby cities and towns were helping with the search.

"We are a week and a half away from Christmas. And two people died today and another eight are in the hospital," Mr Smiley said.

"So please pray for those families."

On most days, the neighbourhood around Brown University feels like a place of quiet optimism, swimming against the negative tide.

The shock of a shooting, that has claimed two lives and left eight others critically wounded, will cut deeply here.

Violence feels not just intrusive but incompatible with the spirit of a place that is governed by thought, not threat.

When the university president said "this is a day we hoped would never come", she spoke for the whole town.

Providence, Rhode Island, is a place I know well. My daughter, her husband and their two little girls live there.

It is a college town with a college vibe, the compact campus priding itself on openness - architecturally, intellectually and emotionally.

They rehearse "shelter-in-place" scenarios, as every university does, but they are not experienced at living behind locked doors.

Rhode Island, the smallest state, has one of the lowest gun-death rates in America, zero mass shooting events in 2024.

Earlier this year, the state banned the sale and manufacture of assault weapons, but it didn't include those already owned.

Even in a Democratic, liberal state like Rhode Island, they are struggling to find a solution to America's gun problem.

The age-old constitutional right to bear arms continues to trump the most human of all rights - the right to life.

This is a community that assumes safety, not because it is naïve, but because it has grown accustomed to trust.

College Hill rises in gentle brick and ivy, its narrow streets winding past houses with verandas designed for long conversations.

They take place in hushed tones right now, but if anywhere can find its way out of despair, Providence can.

On the historic street along its east side and in the college on the corner, most people live off hope.

In a televised message on Friday, Charles said his treatment can be reduced in the new year thanks to an "early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to doctors' orders".

The monarch, who announced he had been diagnosed with cancer in February 2024, also urged people to take up available screenings for the disease.

Cancer Research UK said tens of thousands of people visited its Screening Checker website, which was launched on 5 December, after the King's message.

NHS England also said its cancer-related pages saw a substantial spike in activity, with almost 4,000 views in a 24-hour period, compared to almost 8,000 over the full week.

A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said on Saturday it has been "delighted by the scale and sensitivity of the worldwide media reaction", and is "most grateful for the many kind comments we have received for the King, both from those working in cancer care and from the general public".

"I know His Majesty will be greatly encouraged and deeply touched by the very positive reaction his message has generated," the spokesperson said.

"He will be particularly pleased at the way it has helped to shine a light on the benefits of cancer screening programmes.

"It has long been the King's view that if some public good can come from sharing elements of his personal diagnosis and treatment journey, then it would be his pleasure and duty to do so.

"His thoughts and warmest wishes will remain with all those affected by cancer and those who care for them."

Delivering his message in support of the Stand Up To Cancer campaign, the King said that early diagnosis had enabled him to "continue leading a full and active life, even while undergoing treatment".

Cancer Research UK said about 100,000 people had visited its new Screening Checker since it was launched, with the majority taking place after the King's update.

The tool allows visitors to quickly check the different types of cancer screenings available with the NHS, and Public Health Agency (PHA) in Northern Ireland, and helps them find out which ones apply to them.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive at the charity, said on Saturday: "This response shows just how important open conversations about cancer can be.

"Knowing which screening you're eligible for, and what happens next, isn't always straightforward, which is why we've launched this simple new Screening Checker.

"Taking just a few minutes to check what screening you're eligible for could be an important step towards protecting your health and could ultimately save lives."

Shabana Mahmood said the dedicated units will be in place across every force by 2029 as part of Labour's violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy due to be launched later this week.

The use of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs), which had been trialled in several areas, will also be rolled out across England and Wales. They are designed to target abusers by imposing curfews, electronic tags and exclusion zones.

The orders cover all forms of domestic abuse, including economic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking and 'honour'-based abuse. Breaching the terms can carry a prison term of up to 5 years.

Nearly £2m will also be spent funding a network of officers to target offenders operating within the online space.

Teams will use covert and intelligence techniques to tackle violence against women and girls via apps and websites.

A similar undercover network funded by the Home Office to examine child sexual abuse has arrested over 1,700 perpetrators.

Abuse is 'national emergency'

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in a statement: "This government has declared violence against women and girls a national emergency.

"For too long, these crimes have been considered a fact of life. That's not good enough. We will halve it in a decade.

"Today we announce a range of measures to bear down on abusers, stopping them in their tracks. Rapists, sex offenders and abusers will have nowhere to hide."

The target to halve violence against women and girls in a decade is a Labour manifesto pledge.

The government said the measures build on existing policy, including facial recognition technology to identify offenders, improving protections for stalking victims, making strangulation a criminal offence and establishing domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms.

Read more from Sky News:
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Labour has 'failed women'

But the Conservatives said Labour had "failed women" and "broken its promises" by delaying the publication of the violence against women and girls strategy.

Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, said that Labour "shrinks from uncomfortable truths, voting against tougher sentences and presiding over falling sex-offender convictions. At every turn, Labour has failed women."

Two US service members and one civilian died and three other people were injured in an ambush on Saturday by a lone IS - also often called ISIS in Syria and Iraq - gunman, according to the he US military's Central Command.

The attack on US troops in Syria is the first to inflict fatalities since the fall of President Bashar Assad a year ago.

"This is an ISIS attack," the US president told reporters at the White House before leaving for the Army-Navy football game in Baltimore.

He paid condolences to the three people killed and said the three others who were wounded "seem to be doing pretty well".

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said "there will be very serious retaliation".

The shooting took place near historic Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, and the casualties were taken by helicopter to the al Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.

Syria's Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al Din al Baba said authorities are looking into whether the gunman was an IS member or only carried its extreme ideology, and denied reports suggesting he was a security member.

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Central Command earlier said in a post on X that the gunman was killed, while the identities of the service members killed wouldn't be released until 24 hours after their next of kin have been notified.

Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said the civilian killed in the attack was a US interpreter.

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: "Let it be known, if you target Americans - anywhere in the world - you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you."

The US has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

The group was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the UN says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq, and its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks.

Syria's interim president, Ahmad al Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington DC last month as Syria signed a political cooperation agreement with the US-led coalition against IS.

"This was an ISIS attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them," Mr Trump said in his social media post, adding that Mr al Sharaa was "extremely angry and disturbed".