good afternoon. the nhs in england have denied claims from the british red cross, that there's a "humanitarian crisis" in its hospitals. latest figures show a&e departments have had to shut their doors to patients more than 140 times in december because of a lack of beds. the red cross — which helps patients return home from hospital — is calling for more government money. but nhs england say plans are in place to cope with additional demand, and that talk of a humanitarian crisis is overblown. our health correspondent smitha mundasad reports. winter pressure on accident and emergency — nothing new. but the red cross says the strain on hospitals in england amounts to a humanitarian crisis. the charity claims social care cuts mean patients are being sent home without the right support so 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 have fallen and not been found for days. a&e staff recognise the problems too. 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. 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 to the same month in 2015 and it's up more than 60%. so is the strain costing lives? the humanitarian crisis? no, i think that's an overstatement at this stage. clearly, demand is very high and it's higher than it has ever been, but we have the most comprehensive

plans in place that we ever had, but it is very difficult at the moment. 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 each year to ease the pressure. beds are actually not quite as full as they were this time last year. but everyone in the health service knows things could get worse before they get better. smitha mundasad, bbc news. it's emerged that the man accused of shooting dead five people at an airport in florida yesterday had a history of mental health problems — some of which followed military service in iraq. esteban santiago, who's 26, was arrested after opening fire on people in the baggage reclaim area of fort lauderdale airport. our correspondent, jonny dymond, reports. they ran for their lives. as shots rang out in fort lauderdale‘s terminal 2, the area around

the runway became the nearest thing to a place of safety. inside the terminal, panic. some lay on the ground to protect themselves. others lay dying. the gunman is believed to have brought a weapon out of his checked luggage here at baggage reclaim. he loaded, fired, reloaded, fired again, then gave himself up. five people, tragically, are dead. we have the shooter in custody. he is unharmed. no law enforcement fired any shots. the subject is being interviewed by a team of fbi agents and broward sheriff's office homicide detectives. in custody, a young man, esteban santiago. a 26—year—old military veteran with a history

of mental health problems. he'd served in iraq and come back, a relative said, as if he'd lost his mind. he'd been interviewed by the fbi. he'd said the government was controlling him. the individual did walk into our anchorage office in november. he came in and spoke with fbi agents at that time. he clearly stated that he did not intend to harm anyone. however, his erratic behaviour concerned fbi agents that were interviewing him. they contacted local police. as the police locked down the airport, rumours swirled back and forth about more attacks. but it was just one gunman, a badly disturbed man with training and access to weapons. jonny dymond, bbc news. talks aimed at averting a strike by london underground workers are being held are the conciliation service acas.

members of the rmt and tssa unions are due to walk out for 2a hours on sunday evening, causing travel chaos for an estimated 4 million passengers. they're in dispute with the company over staffing levels and ticket office closures. dozens of people have been killed in a car bomb in the northern syrian town of azaz. the bomb went off in a busy market in the rebel held town, which lies on the border with turkey. it's a key staging post on the supply route for rebel groups, and has been fought over by a number of factions in syria's civil war. a mutiny by the army in ivory coast has spread to the commercial capital, abidjan. gunfire has been heard inside a military camp on the outskirts of the city. there have also been shootings overnight in other towns. the mutiny began early yesterday in the north of the country. the us department of homeland security says it will increase protection of the country's voting mechanisms to guard against cyber attacks.

it follows a report by intelligence officials accusing russia's president putin of trying to boost donald trump's election bid. the president—elect has described the claims as a "political witch—hunt", and said no voting machines had been tampered with. but president obama said that america's political process had been disrupted. the russians intended to meddle, and they've meddled. i'll be honest with you george, one of the things i am concerned about is the degree to which we've seen a lot of commentary lately where there are republicans, or pundits, or cable commentators, who seem to have more confidence in vladimir putin than fellow americans, because those fellow americans are democrats. with all the sport, here's mike bushell at the bbc sport centre. good afternoon. it may have come off his knee, but wayne rooney has equalled bobby charlton's all time scoring record for manchester united. goal number 249 came early

in the fa cup third round tie at home to reading. anthony martial made the goal after 7 minutes, with a stunning burst of speed into the box and a decent cross which came off rooney's leg and looped in. so a big moment, 13 years after rooneyjoined united and among those giving him a standing ovation, sir bobby charlton himself. it's now 2—0 with martial drilling in a second. they are just approaching half—time. sir andy murray will play world number two, novak djokovic, in the final of the qatar open today. murray is on a run of 28th wins 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. the ultimate goal was to find a way to win the match. maybe at the beginning of the year you are focusing a little bit more on yourself, and how you are playing, and how you want to play, moving into the aussie open,

rather than just solely focusing on the outcome. the chairman of uk anti—doping, david kenworthy, says he is very disappointed by the information given to a parliamentary select committee by cycling chiefs last month. sir dave brailsford was one of the british cycling and team sky figures who answered questions on anti—doping, including a medical package delivered to sir bradley wiggins. kenworthy described information given to the culture, media and sport select committee as extraordinary. britain's badminton players were left stunned last month when uk sport cut their funding completely ahead of tokyo 2020. it followed a first olympic medal for the sport in 12 years. in the coming weeks they will attempt to overturn that decision through an appeal. nick hope reports. they were superb. winning olympic

bronze in rio was supposed to be the ca ta lyst bronze in rio was supposed to be the catalyst for future badminton success. catalyst for future badminton success. no one predicted uk sport would cut all their funding. to receive that information was getting. it almost felt like our medals were snatched away from us. without any support at all from uk sport, our programme will take a severe hit. lots of players will have to leave and stop playing. badminton is the most played racket sport in the uk, but uk sport base theirfunding model on sport in the uk, but uk sport base their funding model on who they think will win olympic medals they are not sure about badminton. this board believes they can overturn the decision in the next month. we have a really strong case. we have players who in the last 12 months have won olympic medals, world tour titles, super series titles, the biggest events in our sport where we are competing regularly and beating the best in the world. commonwealth champions missed out on a medal in rio, which could have been crucial

to the uk sport decision. the pair have consistently mixed it with the world's elite. something these rising stars aim to follow. without the uk sport funding, it will be virtually impossible for those that milton keynes at the norm to make thejump to milton keynes at the norm to make the jump to the olympics. individually we have the potential to win medals in tokyo. everybody should have the opportunity to reach their goals and dreams. i've had my time. i got to go and achieve what i did. ifeel like it's been a waste. don't just did. ifeel like it's been a waste. don'tjust go from support to nothing. give these guys a chance. now it's almost like mount everest. but we are willing to climb it. we are going to fight this until the very end. the battle begins later this month with uk sport insisting they will give badminton a fair hearing and the opportunity to earn a reprieve. an update from old trafford, a0 minutes gone in the fa cup third—round tie and it still

manchester united 2—0 reading. you can see more on all of today's stories on the bbc news channel. the next news on bbc one is at 5:20pm. bye for now. hello. you're watching the bbc news channel. let's get more now on our main story, the claim by the british red cross that nhs hospitals in england and ambulance services are experiencing a "humanitarian crisis". the chief executive of the british red cross, mike adamson, joins us via webcam from near stroud. good to talk to you. the red cross is hugely respected within the medical profession and outside it but i wonder if you feel on reflection that humanitarian crisis was overblown? the definition of a humanitarian crisis is a crisis affecting a lot of people for a prolonged period of time and what we see in the health and social care

world where our volunteers are very active supporting people coming out of hospital and drank to prevent admissions to hospital, is many people affected. over half a million people affected. over half a million people who used to receive social ca re people who used to receive social care no longer do as a result of austerity and there are consequences. as oui’ austerity and there are consequences. as our volunteers support people at home, what they see is situations that are more chaotic and complex, with people not having food in the fridge or the place being a mess, bills unpaid for many months, and so the situation we are dealing with is more complex. we are dealing with is more complex. we are being asked to do more. we are a partner to the nhs and social care andi partner to the nhs and social care and i would congratulate them on how they are working but we do see human crises, lots of them. if you are sitting on a trolley bed waiting for

support and not knowing what will happen next with nobody around you to support you, it feels like a crisis. so it is a human crisis and it is at scale. in terms of where the problem might be fixable, is broadly right to say the nhs has funding problems but that is not really the issue here? it is about the social care issue, the people you take from hospital and the homes that are in conditions you are talking about, or people who cannot cope? it is a combination of things. there is no doubt that the challenges and social care means there is less of it around to support smooth hospital discharge and support people at home to prevent the need for the use of health services, gp or a&e appointments. but we could all work better together and actually the nhs

can be quite siloed. and you can have the same with social care. it is disappointing that the autumn statement did not pick her up more. actually there are simple things we could do better together to help people because in this story about the system, delayed transfers of care, bed blocking, these are dehumanising words and there re europe —— there are real people whose lives are affected. for them and their families it feels like a human crisis. i wonder if you felt it was a bit depressing that we have been talking about social care for at least ten years without any significant move to address the issues you are talking about. everyone has worked hard to improve

the quality of services and you can see that with services better designed around people, but it is depressing that this situation continues and, of course, it is a bit of a double whammy at the moment because you have an ageing population with one in three people alive today likely to lead to 100, s0 alive today likely to lead to 100, so people will be living with more combinations of things like strokes, diabetes, blood pressure, and at the very time there are less resources to support so we see the consequences in real—time and what we are doing is trying to highlight that story and foster a national debate about how we could work better to address those issues. you may well have fostered the debate. thank you. nhs england's director for acute care, professor keith willett,

said there was unprecedented pressure but plans were in place to cope. i have great respect for the red cross as a caring organisation and we have worked with them over recent winters both funding and supporting them with their excellent service at home and ambulance services but on the international scale for the red cross of a humanitarian crisis i do not think the nhs is at that point. we have had strong criticism from other people, like the nuffield trust and others, and it appears we go through this every winter and it is particularly bad this winter. clearly demand is at the highest level ever but also our planning is probably more comprehensive now than it has ever been. in many ways this is a level of pressure we have not seen before and the workload that the nhs is being asked to shoulder in terms of medical treatment and personal care is very high. there are several reasons. it is winter, many more people have breathing and heart problems, but we know it is also very

difficult at the moment and social care and community services cannot react fast enough to free up beds to maintain the flow through hospitals. that is the fundamental problem, moving patients through hospital. patients only need to be in hospital receiving specialist care and after that they are much better placed in the community and we need to focus on that and that's why i think the red cross as a caring organisation really have identified this. the public can help as well. in winter there are many things the public can do to try to avoid coming to a&e unless it is essential for emergency or urgent conditions. there are opportunities to phone 111, everyone has access to a 2a—hour out—of—hours general practice service. and medical advice can be offered in community pharmacies on the high street. 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 mega fires 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, property 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 theirjob 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. the repair bill to fix the country's potholes could soon reach £1a 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 2 million potholes every year. that is about 12,000 for every local authority in england and wales. but it never seems to be enough. now, the councils claim the repair bill could soon reach £1a 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 are just 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. but it is notjust the cost of repairing all these potholes 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 1a years today. last year, the government announced a £250 million pothole repairfund to help 100 councils fixed a million potholes. but today's report by local councils suggest that is not enough, and that the pothole problem is actually getting worse. now, if you are tea drinker, have you ever wondered how tea—bags are made? well, there's a cafe in portsmouth, in the south of england, that can satisfy both your curiosity, and your tastebuds. dougal shaw reports. meet tea entrepreneur andrew gadsden, standing to attention outside his teashop in portsmouth. a decade ago, he left the navy to set sail on a new career. he decided to follow his twin passions, tea drinking and surfing the internet. back on dry land, he bought himself

a tea bag making machine... and ran an online shop from his flat. as his business grew, he had to move his operation to a warehouse. people started peering through the window and wanted to come in and asked us if they could have some tea and it was getting very awkward having to say no all the time. they would say, "well, what do you do?" we would say, "well, we sell tea." "well, can we have some?" "no." but eventually he bowed to customer pressure and built a tea room inside the factory. entirely by accident, we were running a little cafe. i don't know if you can hear it right now but we've usually got the machines running. customers can peek through the shelves to see the tea being made. and by special arrangement, they can also inspect the tea making process. the two worlds of the cafe and the factory live side—by—side, connected by sound. clacking. teas imported from around the world

are blended and packed on—site. 123,000 tea bags are made in the factory each month. around 700 pots of tea are served in the cafe. having a physical shop suddenly changes the whole business. to actually meet someone, even see someone drinking your tea, you've blended and flavoured, and enjoying it, is uniquely rewarding. and, of course, sometimes something isn't 100% right and they can tell you face—to—face. the way the internet has gone, that physical face—to—face connection in a place is, i would say, far more important than ever. nasa have released a rare detailed photo of the earth and the moon, as seen from mars which is some 127 million miles away. the image was taken from nasa's

most powerful telescope orbiting the red planet. the reddish feature near the middle of the face of earth is australia. a young fan of the coldstream guards now has a memento from his birthday visit to windsor castle. marshall scott was celebrating his fourth birthday at the castle, dressed as a miniature guardsman, when one of the guards surprised him by posing for a photo alongside the youngster. the video was shared online by charanpreet singh, one of the guards involved. now, the weather. it will be chilly but up and down over the next week or so. chilly then i'll defend it really chilly. a roller—coaster. it is murky out there. for some of us we are

sticking out into the blue sky, particularly the high ground, in the peak district for example. for most of us it is a gloomy end to the day. some drizzle in the south—west of england. pretty mild, more than it has been. some frost across eastern scotla nd has been. some frost across eastern scotland tonight. but the rest of us, pretty murky. the fog becomes more widespread. watch out if you are on the move. —— fog. these of scotla nd are on the move. —— fog. these of scotland will see the best of the sunshine early tomorrow morning. hopefully other places will brighten up hopefully other places will brighten up more at do not hold your breath. most of us will be cloudy, some dampness in the west of scotland. temperatures still mild. hello, this is bbc news. the headlines: the british red cross is claiming there's a "humanitarian crisis" in nhs hospitals in england. the charity has been called in to help the health service.

nhs england say plans are in place to deal with winter pressure. police in florida are continuing to question a former american army soldier after five people were shot dead at fort lauderdale airport in florida. it's emerged that the suspect was known to the authorities. talks aimed at averting a strike by london underground workers are being held at the conciliation service acas. a 2a—hour strike is set to start on sunday evening. wildfires in north america are increasing in size and becoming more destructive, according to us government statistics. scientists say firefighting itself may be to blame. now on bbc news, is a special programme by weather presenter derek brockway on his personal journey to understand the life threatening medical condition sepsis. i'm derek brockway. if you've seen me on the tv before, it's probably because i've told you about the weather,

or about the best walks in wales. but tonight i'm going on a very different kind ofjourney, a personal one, to find out about a condition which killed my dad. well, to see him suffering like that, it was dreadful. i still miss him now. it's not the same, is it? no. sepsis is taking and changing thousands of lives. people of all ages, across wales. i meet some remarkable people, a mother who lost her teenage daughter. anyone is at risk of sepsis. anybody could fall to this silent killer. doctors on the wards, who tell me how we could save more lives. if i was brought in with sepsis, what sort of treatment would i get? a survivor determined not to let sepsis win. i want my life back. you know, it was nearly taken away from me so suddenly.