this is bbc news, i'm gavin esler, the headlines at ten. the british red cross warns of a humanitarian crisis in nhs hospitals in england and calls on the government to provide more money. an american army veteran has been arrested after five people were shot dead at fort lauderdale airport in florida. the megafires ravaging north american forests, how wildfires are becoming increasingly common and destructive. also in the next hour, the spiralling cost of repairing potholes in england and wales. councils predict the repair bill could reach £14 billion within two years. white and coming in an hour and the travel show, cuba. good morning and welcome to bbc news. the british red cross is warning of a humanitarian crisis

in nhs hospitals in england and is demanding the government allocates more money to improve social care. dozens of a&e departments were forced to divert ambulances to other hospitals last week. the royal college of emergency medicine says the system is on its knees, but the department of health says it's investing more money to improve services. dan johnson reports. winter pressure on accident and emergency — nothing new, but the red cross now says the strain on hospitals in england amounts to a humanitarian crisis. the charity claims social—care cuts mean patients are sent home without the right support, so then they end up back in a&e. red cross volunteers support nhs staff and say they've seen patients sent home without clothes, some who don't receive the care they need to get washed, even some who've fallen and not been found for days. a&e staff recognise the problems too. i think the pressures on the nhs, and especially in emergency care,

are particularly intense at the moment. but what is more concerning is the number of patients who have been managed within four hours, and then the delays to admission into the hospital bed base, which unfortunately are very, very significant, and our staff are working under some pretty intolerable conditions at times trying to manage. and sometimes they just can't manage. figures from nhs england show that overflowing a&e departments had to close their doors to new patients more than 140 times over the last month. compare that with the same month in 2015 — it's up more than 60%. the suspicion is it's a combination of the cuts that we've seen in social care, in community services run by the nhs, and very heavy pressure in general practice. so is the strain on the nhs costing lives? the death of two patients on emergency trolleys at worcestershire royal hospital are being investigated. one of them had waited 35 hours for a bed. the department of health says

it's providing billions more every year to ease pressure. nhs england says plans are in place to deal with the extra demand. beds are actually not quite as full as they work this time last year, but everyone in the health service knows things could get worse before they get better. dan johnson, bbc news. i'm joined now from our salford studio by dr mark holland, from the society for acute medicine. good morning to you, dr holland. look, syria is a humanitarian crisis, whatever the problems in the nhs, to call it a humanitarian crisis might strike the blows over the top. as you know, that is the quote from the red cross, but it does have some ability. —— validity. this is a first world country, and despite the government saying they are putting more money into the

system, the system is failing, and it is being supported by charitable organisations. seeing a charitable organisations. seeing a charitable organisation which is well respected, coming in from the outside, making this kind of statement, in a system where, month, we are seeing statement, in a system where, month, we are seeing more statement, in a system where, month, we are seeing more people in hospital, who are fit to leave but social care is not available, where other people such as the king's fund have published reports showing deficiencies in social care, you have had nigel edwards from the nuffield trust telling you how bad things are. you have got lots of independent people putting together a cohesive argument which is saying to people that the system is under stress. and on the item that you just run from worcester royal hospital, you can see that there are anecdotal cases around the country which are starting to stack up, which are starting to stack up, which show that the system, which is meant to work, isn't working. and i don't think it's unreasonable for the red cross to make this statement that they have made, and to make

people sit up and listen.“ that they have made, and to make people sit up and listen. if the scale of it is getting worse, listening to your talk there, we both know, everybody watching knows, this has been a long time in the making. in other words, this has been a long time in the making. in otherwords, it this has been a long time in the making. in other words, it was absolutely predictable, people have been talking about the social care problem for years, and there have a lwa ys problem for years, and there have always been bottlenecks injanuary for yea rs always been bottlenecks injanuary for years and years. absolutely, and it is not good that lots of people, not just one it is not good that lots of people, notjust one voice, and notjust a bunch of perceived whingeing doctors oi’ bunch of perceived whingeing doctors or nhs staff, but lots of respected people, respected people like the red cross, or actually highlighting this problem to the government, highlighting the problems to the secretary of state. and it does appear that all we get back is the argument that there is more money being invested in the system. so if there is more money going in, and there is more money going in, and the results are failing to improve, that does actually define failure, a failure of governance and

management. let me pick you up on that, because nhs england says pets are not actually as full as last year, and plans are in place for more investment into the health service. so what is the problem? money is part of it, but what is the real problem? well, the problem that we currently face right now is the type of beds that are available for people. beds as an actual measurement, in their totality, you could argue that the actual use of beds isn't as bad as it has been in the past. but what we are seeing at the past. but what we are seeing at the moment, in the absence of a flu outbreak, in the absence of winter vomiting, is an increased number of older people coming to hospital, usually older people, who needs general medical care. they haven't got a surgical problem — they are falling over, presenting with confusion, presenting with nonspecific illness. they act coming

into our hospitals, and we have not got the volume of beds to cope for that specific cohort of people, and therefore over the winter and the christmas period, those patients have gone into beds in the hospital which normally specialise in looking after other people. i have also been informed by other people that there are examples around the country of opening up beds in areas which are normally used for other clinical activities to accommodate those patients, and therefore the teams that are looking after those patients spread more widely across the hospital. you have the wrong skill set looking after people, and thatis skill set looking after people, and that is what we will find in a week oi’ that is what we will find in a week or two lots of older people who we have made better, who are well enough to go home, but we can't get them home because we know they will be vulnerable, and we have a responsibility to put the social ca re responsibility to put the social care in place, and that social care would be available. so we have a problem at the moment, and in the next two or three weeks, the next month or so, we will be storing up

another problem of trying to get those people out of hospital again. and while all this is going on, the other activities of the hospital, for example providing surgical care, bringing in elective cases, as we call them, people who need routine ca re call them, people who need routine care — those beds won't be available. it is notjust about old numbers, and you cannot spread it across the nhs, and one of the things we have been arguing about for along time is that nhs england must not argue that it is about what is going on in totality across england — it is the pockets of the nhs which are falling down, of which worcester may be one example. well, we will leave there, we hope to talk to nhs england later this morning, thank you very much for your insight. thank you, bye-bye. police in the us state of florida are holding a suspected gunman in custody after five people were killed and eight injured in a shooting at fort lauderdale airport. the suspect has been named as esteban santiago, a former soldier. his motive isn't yet known.

santiago is said to have taken a gun out of a bag in the baggage area after flying in from alaska. gary o'donoghue reports from fort lauderdale. it's a familiar scene at airports the world over, but the baggage—claim hall at the fort lauderdale airport turned into a place of death and mayhem, as a lone gunman opened fire on those waiting to collect their luggage. passengers scattered for cover, hitting the ground, and reports say the assailant had time to reload before opening fire once again, as attempts were made to attend to the wounded. once he was done with ammunition, he threw the gun down, and i was about ten feet away from him. he basically threw the gun on the ground and laid on the ground face down, spreadeagled. some initial reports quickly discounted talked of a second

gunman, causing further panic among travellers. the gunman has been named as 26—year—old esteban santiago. reports say he was carrying a military id and had a weapon in his checked baggage, which is legal in the united states. one family member said he had been receiving psychological treatment after leaving the national guard last year. this cowardly, heinous act resulted in the deaths of five people. there were eight more people injured by way of gunshot that were transported to local hospitals. in his first reaction to the shooting, president obama said he was heartbroken for the families. these kinds of tragedies have happened too often during the eight years that i've been president. the pain, the grief, the shock. the disruption at fort lauderdale went on long into the night, with some travellers stuck on the tarmac for more than eight hours. the fbi says it's ruling nothing

out, including terrorism. but the agency has confirmed it had prior contact with santiago in november, when he was referred for a mental—health assessment. the ease with which he was able to transport and use a weapon in an airport will raise serious concerns about public safety. gary o'donoghue, bbc news, fort lauderdale, florida. and gary gave us this update a short while ago. well, it is legal to transport a firearm in your checked baggage here in the united states. there are restrictions, you have to declare it to the airline when you arrive, it has to be locked inside a hard case, it has to be unloaded — you can carry ammunition with it. and of course that means, when you get to baggage claim of the other end, you can get it, and it seems that what happened here is esteban santiago did go and get his semiautomatic out of his case, out of his bag, go back into the baggage hall

and start shooting pretty indiscriminately. and i think it will raise questions, even here. i mean, these shootings are not infrequent here, as we know, in the united states, and yes, there will be calls for gun control, and there will be pushback from the gun lobby on that — that is a pretty familiar dance. but i think what people will wonder is, look, we put all this security in place when people are going into the airport — should it be quite so easy for somebody to get it out of their bag at the other end and still be in the airport and be able to cause this much death and mayhem? wildfires in north america are getting bigger, more frequent and more destructive, according to official us government statistics. scientists say a warming climate combined with a century of fire suppression by the people who settled the west has produced the perfect conditions for so—called megafires. our north america correspondent james cook reports from the colorado rockies. welcome to the furnace.

across large swathes of north america, this is the new terrifying normal. in the united states last year, there were more than 60,000 wildfires, and the trend is towards bigger and more destructive blazes. huge fires are transforming the landscape of the united states. here in the foothills of the rockies, a blaze burned through here 20 years ago, and still it looks like this. no longer dense forest, but essentially prairie. the buffalo creek blaze was one of several so—called megafires here in colorado which destroyed homes, polluted water supplies, and left locals lucky enough to escape fearful for the future. it is terrifying. it's devastating, the destruction, it's traumatic. it brings into focus very quickly that there's something wrong here. so what is wrong? scientists say rising temperatures and years of drought

are partly to blame, and so too is a century of firefighting by the settlers of the west, who interrupted the natural rhythm of regular fires so they could preserve life and precious timber. the results — thicker forest, more fuel to burn, and often devastation. we are caught in this vicious circle. forests need fire — fire is as natural to a forest as sunshine and rain. no—one ever lost a job for fighting a fire. as a fire manager or a policy maker, the far more difficult decision is to allow a fire to burn, to manage a fire for its resource benefit. but sometimes you think that needs to happen? oh, absolutely. the lead agency for wildfires, the us forest service, is caught in a trap — it can't find enough money for its programmes to thin out woodland and prevent fire, because more than half its budget is being spent on firefighting. its boss says that has got to change. it's essential that we find

a different way to be able to fund fire suppression in this country, and simply to be able to recognise that 1—2% of these fires that start every year need to be considered a natural disaster, not unlike floods are, like hurricanes are, like windstorms are. for a time, some people thought they had tamed the wild west — nature is proving them wrong. james cook, bbc news, in the colorado rockies. at least 12 able have died in flooding in southern thailand. thousands of villagers have been cut off and submerged after a week of heavy rains and floods. lights, trains and buses as have been disrupted in the south of the country. the meteorological department has warned the unseasonable downpour will continue for at least another two days. last—ditch drugs aimed at averting a strike by london underground workers have got under way at acas. members

of the two unions are duty walk—out for 2h hours from 6pm on sunday, causing travel chaos for millions of passengers on monday. the dispute is about staffing levels and ticket office closures. let's have a look at the headlines just after quarter past ten and: the british red cross hasjoined past ten and: the british red cross has joined the past ten and: the british red cross hasjoined the senior past ten and: the british red cross has joined the senior doctors in warning of a crisis in nhs a&e departments in england. a former american army soldier has been arrested after five people were shot dead at fort lauderdale airport in florida. surveys suggest the cost of repairing potholes in england and wales could reach £14 billion. now, a busy saturday of sport, as usual, from the bbc sport centre, here is mike bushell. yes, fa cup third round weekend. it will be a special reunion today

for one of the members of the treble—winning manchester united team of 1999. former netherlands centre—half jaap stam is now the manager of championship side reading, who go to old trafford hunting for a giant—killing this lunchtime. asa as a player, there is nothing better than to play over there, in the stadium like that in front of so many fans. and you know as well, we have got our own fans there as well, hopefully they will be joining in, yelling and supporting us. there are some potentially trickery our waitress for premier league clu bs our waitress for premier league clubs as well. arsenal go to preston. we have got one of the best teams in europe coming, a manager who has graced the premier league

for 20 odd years, the original invincible is against the modern day invincible is against the modern day invincible is, so it is a fantastic occasion, a sell—out here at deepdale, the third round of the fa cup, always a shock, always a surprise, hopefully that will be the case on saturday night. sir andy murray will play world number two novak djokovic in the final of the qatar open today. murray beat czech tomas berdych in straight sets in their semifinal to reach his fourth final in doha. the win was murray's 28th in a row on the atp tour, and another title and victory over his main rival would be the ideal preparation for the australian open that starts a week on monday. we played at the end of last year, you know, the ultimate goal is to find a way to win the match. maybe at the beginning of the year, you're sometimes focusing a little bit more on yourself, how you are playing, how you want to play. moving into the aussie open, rather than just

solely focusing on the outcome. this afternoon, sir mo farah is in action at the edinburgh cross country. the four—time olympic champion, who insists he's happy just to be called mo, was surprisingly beaten into second place last year. he's using the event as part of his preparation for the track world championships in london later this year and admits he'll have his work cut out against some cross—country specialists this afternoon. it is going to be tough, those guys will hunt you down, try and beat you as quick as possible! but that is what makes cross—country exciting, you know, iam what makes cross—country exciting, you know, i am going to come out and go hard, you have got to fight for it. it suits athletes better, it is going to be a tough one. i think it might be! the next time australia play a home test, it will be against england in the ashes in november, and they signed off their current series in style with a 220—run win against pakistani to complete a 3—0 series whitewash.

the tourists started the day on 55—1 in sydney and needed to bat out day five to save the third test. but they lasted just 64 overs before being bowled out for 244. josh hazlewood and stephen o'keefe took three wickets each. it was a 12th successive test defeat in australia for misbah—ul—haq's side. that's all the sport for now. you can keep up to date with all those stories on the bbc sport website, and i'll have more in the next hour. mike, thanks very much, see you then. the government has said british taxpayers' money will no longer be used to fund an ethiopian girl band. international development secretary priti patel announced a review last month after reports the group, called yegna, had received millions of pounds from the uk. with me is our political correspondent mark lobel. what is this about? well, yegna is more than a band, it is a brand, not

just music, it is a soap opera, a drama, and what has happened is that from britain's very generous aid budget, £27 million went to this group until 2015, and what the group say is that, for all the opportunities that women have like immunisation, school places that they do not know about, they are trying to find innovative ways to tell them about it. they say 8.5 million women in ethiopian have found about these programmes through it. but priti patel, under pressure because of spending that people want on flood defences here or social care, has come under scrutiny, how we are spending taxpayers money. she has said she does not think this is the most effective use of the money, so she is not withdrawing it from the overall budget, but she is putting it on other projects. is this a big victory for the daily mail, which has been campaigning relentlessly on what they see as a waste of taxpayers money? well, the

government says it was not influenced, viewers can decide for themselves. i spoke to one mp who has been scrutinising this, nigel eva ns, has been scrutinising this, nigel evans, and he said this was about stopping the vanity project in order to protect the amount of money that britain is spending on international aid projects, so it is not cut overall. he said he had seen in the middle east that there is terrible poverty there, dirty water in africa, and those of the projects he would rather money was spent on. labour has said it is a pity this particular organisation has been rubbish, they say they have been wilfully misrepresented. mark, thanks very much. for the first time, the nhs is providing disabled children with prosthetic limbs that are specially designed for sport. nhs england says it hopes to equip several hundred children a year with the limbs to allow them to participate in more sport. here's our health correspondent robert pigott. right, how have you been doing, then, since you had your blade? when ben made the decision at the age of ten to have his stunted right leg amputated, his dream of a future in sport seemed remote.

would you like to put it on for me and show me what you can do with it? three years on, ben is one of the first children to receive a running blade on the nhs. as if he were changing a shoe, he can swap his false leg for the blade and feel a new freedom and energy. the spring of it is the bit makes me go faster. i used to not be able to, like, be able to run as fast or able to kick a ball as well, but now i've got a good amount of power in my leg, and i've got the right size, so i can do loads of skills and hit a ball really well. the blade and the treatment cost around £1000, but clairejohnson, a health service expert in prosthetic limbs, says the nhs will more than recoup the cost by keeping children active. we're hoping that it will give them a level playing field, so that he can compete with his peers and be able to participate in a lot more sports. it does help in the wider scheme

of things, and hopefully give a longer longevity to their lives by giving them the opportunity to do sport. ben is among 2500 children in england with limbs that are either absent or which don't work properly. the nhs hopes to fit several hundred of them with a sports prosthetic every year. the scheme not only opens the way to sport for a group of disabled youngsters, but it comes with an added message. at a time when so many teenagers are couch potatoes, it makes an example of an extraordinary few who overcome all the odds to carve out a life in sport. the new blade, for me, can do a lot more than my prosthetic can do, cos now i can run with more freedom. ben's mother kathleen says running blades can change a disabled child's whole outlook on life. he seems more confident, and more eager to get out and about now. he's wanting to put it on and go out more, and do more sports, more activities.

now he has got the blade, the sky is the limit. ben says he is now training for the paralympics, and he's talking dates — 2024, at the very least. 2020? who knows? robert pigott, bbc news, brighton. the repair bill to fix the country's potholes could soon reach £14 billion. that's according to councils in england and wales who say the government should pay for the repairs from fuel duty. the government says it's already putting £250 million into fixing the problem, but the local government association says that's not enough, as duncan kennedy reports. councils fix two million potholes every year. we have all been overcome around and through portals. —— potholes.

councils fix two million potholes every year. that is about 12,000 for every local authority in england and wales. now, the councils claim the repair bill could soon reach £14 billion. hard—pressed councils, who are mending, you know, a pothole every five seconds in this country, just cannot get to the core of the problem, which is actually many of our roads arejust being patched now. they need to be fully repaired. the councils say the government must do more to help and suggest increasing fuel duty by a couple of pence a litre, a figure they say the public would support. the government says it has already created a fund to fix four million bottles by 2021. —— potholes. this is just bottles by 2021. —— potholes. this isjust one road in bottles by 2021. —— potholes. this is just one road in southampton that is just one road in southampton that is heaving with holes, but it is not just the cost of repairing them that seems to be on the increase. today's report also found that the time it is taking appears to be on the rise as well,

going up from ten years in 2006 to 14 years today. devon thinks it may have one solution. it has become the first cou nty to solution. it has become the first county to recruit members of the public to fill holes, creating what they are calling a community of road wardens. they are telling us that they don't have the funds to do it. there are two ways of doing stomach looking at that, that is a shame, let the potholes reign! will let's go and do something about it. national and local governments agree potholes are a problem, but no—one, it seems, has the bottomless pit of money required to really fix them. here's a photograph to put everything into perspective. a view of planet earth and the moon taken from nasa's most powerful telescope orbiting mars. to be precise, the high—resolution

imaging science experiment camera on nasa's mars reconnaissance orbiter. the photograph was taken towards the end of last year and actually combines two separate exposures, but the size and positions of earth and the moon haven't been altered from how they could be seen from the telescope, which was about 127 million miles away. i young fan of the coldstream guards has a birthday memento from his visit to buckingham palace, and one of the guard surprised by posing for a photograph alongside the youngster. now the weather with helen willetts. for many, this morning has been a rather grey affair, with some thick fog still around, mainly hill fog, but because the winds are so light,

we have seen fog at low levels as well. particularly the vale of york, lancashire, merseyside, quite nasty through the likes of the severn valley down towards bristol. we have got rizal down towards the south—west, you can see these wonderful pictures that were sent in first thing this morning. —— drizzle. that is because of a weather front sitting across western pa rt weather front sitting across western part of england, which will gradually peter out. it could stay grey, leaden skies for much of the day. in contrast to yesterday, temperatures are a lot higher. it doesn't feel much warmer and the cloud, but we are doing better in the temperatures. northern ireland and scotland have probably the best chance of brightness and sunshine, and remind down, east of the grampians up towards moray, east of the pennines later, but a few spots drizzle for western scotland later. with the cloud, it does mean that

temperatures will not fall very low, it will be a mild night for many of us, except perhaps in the glens of scotland, but nothing so be a here. sunday, and other great start, fog patches will be an issue if you are travelling, slow to clear. —— another grey start. if you are heading to the fa cup third round, it does look predominantly cloudy. the north—east of scotland, north—eastern england will see the best of the breaks in the cloud. temperatures up to between 8—10 degrees, the odd 11, but the sunshine does not help much, winds coming from the atlantic. freezing rain through the no countries today, snow in greece, minus 20 in moscow. monday, it all