SAN BRUNO, CALIFORNIA — A woman opened fire with a handgun at YouTube’s headquarters near San Francisco on Tuesday, wounding three people before shooting herself dead as employees of the Silicon Valley tech company fled into the surrounding streets, authorities said.
Police did not identify the suspect or say what might have motivated the shooting at YouTube, a video-sharing service owned by Alphabet, Inc.’s Google which employs nearly 2,000 people at the San Bruno, California offices.
The woman approached an outdoor patio and dining courtyard on the campus around lunchtime and began firing before entering the building, police said.
The San Jose Mercury News, citing a law enforcement source, said that she was targeting her boyfriend due to a domestic dispute.
A US government security official told Reuters there was no known connection to terrorism.
ABC News, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, said the suspect was 35-40 years old, and lived in Southern California, with no apparent connection to YouTube.
A YouTube product manager, Todd Sherman, described on Twitter hearing people running, first thinking it was an earthquake before he was told that a person had a gun.
“At that point every new person I saw was a potential shooter. Someone else said that the person shot out the back doors and then shot themselves,” Mr. Sherman said in a tweet.
“I looked down and saw blood drips on the floor and stairs. Peaked around for threats and then we headed downstairs and out the front.”
The shooting was the latest in a string of mass killings carried out in the United States in recent years. Most recently, the massacre of 17 people at a Florida high school has led to calls for tighter restrictions on gun ownership.
In a recording of a 911 call posted online by the Los Angeles Times, a dispatcher can be heard saying: “Shooter. Another party said they spotted someone with a gun. Suspect came from the back patio… Again we have a report of a subject with a gun. They heard seven or eight shots being fired.”
Dozens of emergency vehicles quickly converged on the YouTube campus, and police could be seen on televised aerial video systematically frisking several employees leaving the area with their hands raised.
One of the victims, a 36-year-old man, was listed in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital. A 32-year-old woman was listed in serious condition and a 27-year-old woman in fair condition. Authorities did not release names of the victims.
The three patients taken to San Francisco General Hospital were all awake, Dr. Andre Campbell, a trauma surgeon at the hospital, said at a news conference. All three people were victims of gunshot wounds, Campbell said, but none of them had undergone surgery. A fourth person was taken to a local hospital with an ankle injury from fleeing the scene.
YouTube Chief Executive Officer Susan Wojcicki declined to comment to reporters as she left the building.
“It’s with great sadness that I tell you — based on the latest information — four people were injured in this horrific act of violence,” Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said in letter to employees that was posted on Twitter.
“I know a lot of you are in shock right now. Over the coming days, we will continue to provide support to help everyone in our Google family heal from this unimaginable tragedy.”
In a separate tweet, Pichai said he and Wojcicki were “focused on supporting our employees & the @YouTube community through this difficult time together.” President Donald Trump said on Twitter that he had been briefed on the shooting.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “Thank you to our phenomenal Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders that are currently on the scene.”
In response, Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey tweeted: “We can’t keep being reactive to this, thinking and praying it won’t happen again at our schools, jobs, or our community spots. It’s beyond time to evolve our policies.”
Last month, YouTube announced it would ban content promoting the sale of guns and gun accessories as well as videos that teach how to make guns.
Female mass shooters are rare. A recent Washington Post analysis shows only three out of 150 US shootings with more than four victims since 1966 were done by women. In 2015, a husband and wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. — Reuters

NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday ordered the withdrawal of rules punishing journalists held responsible for distributing “fake news” — giving no reason for the change — less than 24 hours after the original announcement.
The move followed an outcry by journalists and opposition politicians that the rules represented an attack on the freedom of the press and an effort by Mr. Modi’s government to rein in free speech ahead of a general election due by next year.
Late on Monday, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had said the government would cancel its accreditation of journalists who peddled “fake news.”
After Mr. Modi’s intervention, the ministry announced the withdrawal in a one-line statement.
Journalists said they welcomed the withdrawal but could not rule out the possibility that it was a “trial balloon” to test the waters for putting more restrictions on the press.
“A government fiat restraining the fourth pillar of our democracy is not the solution,” a statement issued by the Press Club said.
Co-opted by US President Donald Trump, the term “fake news” has quickly become part of the standard repertoire of leaders in authoritarian countries to describe media reports and organizations critical of them.
Welcoming the change of heart, media groups in India nevertheless cautioned the government against changing its mind.
“The government has no mandate to control the press,” Gautam Lahiri, president of the Press Club of India, told journalists.
The events in India followed Malaysia’s approval this week of a law carrying jail terms of up to six years for spreading “fake news.”
Other countries in Southeast Asia — including Singapore and the Philippines — are considering how to tackle “fake news” but human rights activists fear laws against it could be used to stifle free speech.
India slipped three places last year to rank 136 among 180 countries rated in the world press freedom index of the watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
The non-profit body said Hindu nationalists, on the rise since Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power in 2014, were “trying to purge all manifestations of anti-national thought.” — Reuters

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he wanted to “get out” of Syria but offered no timetable, as his advisers warned of the hard work left to defeat Islamic State and stabilize areas recaptured from the hardline militant group.
Mr. Trump told a news conference the United States would “not rest until ISIS is gone,” using an acronym for the militant group.
But he also suggested that victory was imminent.
The Pentagon and State Department have held that a longer term US effort would be needed to ensure that Islamic State’s defeat is a lasting one.
“It’s time,” Mr. Trump told reporters, when asked if he was inclined to withdraw US forces.
“We were very successful against (Islamic State). We’ll be successful against anybody militarily. But sometimes it’s time to come back home and we’re thinking about that very seriously.”
The United States is waging near-daily air strikes in Syria and has deployed about 2,000 troops on the ground, including US special operations forces whose advising has helped Kurdish militia and other US-backed fighters capture territory from Islamic State.
US Army General Joseph Votel, who oversees US troops in the Middle East as the head of Central Command, estimated on Tuesday that more than 90% of the group’s territory in Syria had been taken back from the militants since 2014.
Mr. Trump estimated the percentage of territory recaptured in Iraq and Syria at “almost 100%,” a figure that US officials say is correct — it is about 98% — but does not highlight the work left in Syria.
The big hurdle, in the US military’s view, is seizing Islamic State-held territory around the Syrian town of Abu Kamal.
That effort that has been slowed as US-backed Kurdish fighters shift their focus away from Islamic State toward a Turkish offensive against Kurdish allies elsewhere in Syria’s complex, multi-pronged civil war, now in its eighth year.
Brett McGurk, the special US envoy for the global coalition against Islamic State, speaking alongside Votel at an event in Washington on Tuesday, said the US fight against Islamic State was not over.
“We are in Syria to fight ISIS. That is our mission and our mission isn’t over and we are going to complete that mission,” Mr. McGurk said. — Reuters