this is bbc news. i'm martine croxall. the headlines at 6:00pm. labour accuses the government of slashing spending on the nhs. it comes after the british red cross warned hospitals were in a "humanitarian crisis", a claim nhs england rejects. on the international scale for the red cross of humanitarian crisis, i really don't think the nhs is at that point. for the first time for probably 30 years, school budgets are falling, our nhs is in crisis. we're campaigning on all of those issues. we want real social justice in this country. a 26—year—old us army veteran is in custody on suspicion of shooting dead five people at fort lauderdale airport in florida. more than a0 people are killed in a bomb blast in northern syria. the islamic state group is suspected of carrying out the attack. at least 12 people are dead after a week of flooding in southern thailand leaves thousands of villages and roads under water. also in the next hour,

the £14 billion problem on the nation's roads. calls on the government to increase fuel duty by 2p a litre to pay for repairs to potholes. wayne rooney equals sir bobby charlton as manchester united's biggest ever goal scorer, reaching the landmark with their 4—0 victory over reading. good evening and welcome to bbc news. the nhs in england has rejected claims that there's a "humanitarian crisis" in its hospitals. the comments from the british red cross come as 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.

this afternoon the labour leader jeremy corbyn called upon the government to take urgent action, but nhs england says plans are in place to cope and that talk of any humanitarian crisis is overblown. there are flashing images in smitha mundasad's report. winter pressures in accident and emergency — some patients waiting a long time to be seen, beds closed because of the winter vomiting bug. this picture isn't new. but the british red cross says the strain on hospitals in england is so great it amounts to a humanitarian crisis. the charity claims social care cuts mean patients are being sent home without the right support so they often end up back in a&e. at the very least it is a significant human crisis and if you think about it, someone waiting on a trolley to be seen at an a&e department, not knowing what may happen,

perhaps with no family or friends around them i can assure you when we talk to people, they describe that as a crisis. the red cross says its volunteers are seeing increasingly complex and chaotic situations in people's homes — people discharged without clothing, others with no food at home and no—one to look after them. 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%. nhs england denies the situation is at such an extreme breaking point. a 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. eyebrows may have been raised by the red cross choosing to use words more often used to describe a war—torn country, but last year's

figures show there were some 350,000 more visits to a&es like this one between december and february 2016 and that's a pattern that front line staff are worried is set to get worse. the labour leaderjeremy corbyn is calling on the prime minister to give an urgent statement on monday about what the government is going to do. this is a wake—up call to properly fund our nhs and the social care so that those who are in a desperate situation needing care outside of hospital are able to get that care. local authorities don't have the money to do it. the department of health says it is providing billions more every year to ease the pressure. beds are not quite as full as they were this time last year, but everyone in the health service knows that things could get worse before they get better. smitha mundasad, bbc news. you saneremy corbyn in smitha's report and a little earlier, i asked i asked the leader of the opposition why he thought the situation

was so bad this year. it's got worse this winter compared to last and it's got worse over the last few years and it's a combination of underfunding of the national health service, terrible pressure placed on a&e departments, lack of beds to move people on to and, of course, part of the problem is the backup caused by the lack of social care provided by local authorities, so many cannot leave hospital when they should have been discharged in order to be cared for at home. how much though of a responsibility do we, as the public, bear in that we turn up sometimes at a&e with anything that we feel might needs urgent treatment but it's not actually a proper emergency? i think it's the wrong emphasis to start blaming the public for this. the issue is the lack of funding of the health service and social care. 0bviously, people should only go to the a&e when they need to be there and i think most people behave in a proper and responsible manner.

one of the problems is that the delays on getting a gp appointment or a shortage of gps means people go to a&e because they can't get access to any other form of health care. we need to deal with the social care crisis urgently, the funding crisis urgently for our hospitals, most of whom are in debt and many of whom would have been on emergency alert over the past few weeks because of the crisis and it needs government intervention now. to be criticised by the red cross is unprecedented, in my memory, when the red cross, essentially a voluntary organisation, is helping out the nhs. now, obviously thank you to everyone that helps people out, that's how of course good society work, but we have health care as a human right in this country. that's what the nhs is for. the nhs needs the money now in order to care for everybody. but how much would that cost?

if you look at labour's nhs policy about securing nhs and social care, bringing them into a publicly provided service and reversing marketisation, as your party calls it, how much would that cost and where would the money come from? it would come from a combination of ending the internal market in the nhs which is very expensive and also reversing the corporate tax cuts that the government announced it was going to put through in the autumn statement and which i raised with the prime minister during prime minister's question time. we raised it at over 500 events in december when the labour party organised a national day of action on the nhs. the crisis is now, real and it's here and surely it's the biggest wake—up call ever, that the red cross calls it a humanitarian crisis in our hospitals. millions of commuters in london will face disruption from tomorrow

night and most of monday after talks to avert a strike on the london underground broke down. members of the rmt union will walk out for 2a hours from 6pm tomorrow in a dispute overjobs and the closure of some ticket offices. in the last three minutes a spokesman from a case —— from acas says that talks have broken down and that there are no plans to resume. it's emerged that the man being questioned over the shooting dead of five people at a florida airport has a history of mental health problems. esteban santiago, a veteran who served in iraq, had been receiving treatment at his home in alaska. from fort lauderdale, gary 0'donoghue sent this report. this is the man who police say killed five people at fort lauderdale airport, opening fire indiscriminately as travellers collected baggage. he is esteban santiago, a 26—year—old former

member of the military. his family said he had been receiving psychological help after his discharge last august. his aunt said he was never the same after returning from serving in iraq in 2011. police say that santiago used a semiautomatic handgun in the attack in the baggage hall, scattering terrified passengers before throwing away his weapon and laying spread eagle on the ground as police moved in to arrest him. as things started to return to normal at the airport, it has emerged that santiago had been interviewed by the fbi as recently as november last year. 0ne anonymous source has said that he told agents that the government was ordering him to watch videos from the islamic state group. during that contact the agents noted the erratic behaviour that concerned them

and motivated them to call the local authorities to have him taken into custody and evaluated at a medicalfacility for his mental health. questions are being raised about the ease with which santiago was able to transport and use his weapon in a supposedly secure a place like an airport. it is legal to put a gun in checked baggage in the us as long as it's locked in a case and unloaded but you can carry ammunition in the same case. santiago will appear on monday in court on federal charges. while his motivations will be probed, there will be serious questions about how a man who had already appeared on the authorities' radar could seemingly go on to commit such a heinous crime. how concerned should passengers be about airport security in the wake of this attack? i spoke to travel editor of the independent,

simon calder, who has also worked in airport security. he explained the rules around flying with a firearm. a lot of people have been really surprised to learn that it's perfectly normal, if you have a legally—owned gun, you've got to get it around somehow. so therefore, you typically will check it in as baggage. now, in the us, that's a very straightforward thing. you go to the check—in counter and say by the way, in my checked baggage i have a gun. nothing else will happen. in the uk, it's a lot trickier. the airline would generally demand that you show that you have the permits to hold it, to transport it and the place you're going to will also do that. but there's only a few rules added onto that. generally, you can only carry five kilograms of ammunition. if are you going to somewhere like italy or south africa, you have to check the ammunition and the gun into separate bags. but as long as you're not trying to take anything onto the aircraft, it's perfectly legal and it happens

hundreds, probably thousands of times every day. we're all used to having to go through various security checks to get to the airside part of the airport. if you pick up a bag, you've checked your weaponry in, you can take it out supposedly in the baggage claim area. that's not an area where ordinarily we see security. no, all the focus at the moment in aviation security, and it really has been since 9/11, is what can we do to stop people with guns, with explosives getting onto aircraft and taking over those aircraft or destroying them? so it's really very much just looking at passengers, looking at staff, looking at everything that's going airside. the rest of the airport, yes, there will be some security staff around, some police, but you don't need any kind of special documentation to get in there. there is absolutely nothing, i'm afraid, to stop a repeat of this, although it must be said that

i think we're probably dealing here more with somebody with mental health issues who has a firearm, who decides to go on a shooting spree, as sadly we see all too often in the us, where you've got such relaxed gun control laws, that it means that for instance you're allowed to have the kinds of weapons that simply wouldn't be legal here. but of course, it does generate a discussion about where in airports security is put in place. yes. and the more you make it difficult for terrorists actually to take over aircraft, the more they are going to be looking for high profile targets elsewhere. as we've seen very sadly last year, in brussels, in istanbul, before that in moscow, with isolated attacks in places like los angeles, the landside areas, the check—in zone, the baggage reclaim area are simply unprotected and therefore there's a lot of people saying look we've got to look at this whole thing holistically rather

than simply focusing on people getting onto aircraft. in the last few minutes, two of the names of people who died in the shooting at fort lauderdale airport have been released. 0ne shooting at fort lauderdale airport have been released. one was named locally as 0lga voltering from georgia and a second has been named as michael irma. his wife was shot in the shoulder but is expected to make a full recovery. five people we re make a full recovery. five people were killed in the shooting and eight recovered. at least a0 people have been killed by a massive bomb in a fuel tanker in syria. so—called islamic state is suspected of carrying out the attack. the blast ripped through a central market in the town of azaz, which lies on the border with turkey. from neighbouring lebanon, alex forsyth sent this report. fear, panic and chaos —

the aftermath of this morning's explosion. many were killed, others wounded by the attack outside a courthouse in a busy commercial district in the centre of the city. translation: a car bomb went off in the city centre near civilians. there are no fighters here, all of them civilians. all of them are civilians. as rescue workers searched for survivors and bodies, no—one had claimed responsibility for this attack, but the city is no stranger to such scenes. azaz is a stronghold of turkish—backed syrian rebels involved in a major operation to clear so—called islamic state from northern syria, close to the turkish border. in recent days, turkish forces and rebels have continued to target is, which isn't included in a fragile ceasefire covering much of syria. azaz has become home to people who have fled fighting elsewhere. today's attack shows that despite

the ceasefire largely holding, people in syria are continuing to die. the headlines on bbc news: labour accuses the government of slashing spending on the nhs. it comes after the british red cross warned hospitals were in a "humanitarian crisis", a claim nhs england rejects. a 26—year—old former us soldier is in custody on suspicion of shooting dead five people at fort lauderdale airport in florida. more than a0 people are killed in a bomb blast in northern syria. the islamic state group is suspected of carrying out the attack. donald trump has said that when he's president russia will have far more respect for his country than it does now. the us president—elect tweeted that having a good relationship with russia was a good thing, and only "stupid people orfools

would think otherwise." an intelligence report yesterday accused russia of interfering in the us election. catrina renton reports. the report from american intelligence claims russia's president, vladimir putin, personally ordered what it called an influence campaign to help donald trump's chances of winning the american presidency. it said that its goals were to help denigrate hillary clinton. and to harm her electability. the conclusion is that the kremlin had a clear preference for mr trump. the president—elect had earlier described the russian hacking claims as a political witch—hunt by his opponents. at trump tower, he met america's top intelligence officials for a classified briefing. they say russia's actions included hacking into the e—mail accounts of the democratic national committee and top democrats, and using intermediaries such as wikileaks to release the information. russia has previously denied this, and wikilea ks' founder julian assange has said before that

moscow was not the source. a former cia director gave his opinion. it depends on phrasing. russian involvement seems plausible in no small measure i think because they were able to come up with the identities of the intermediaries between the russian government and the people who did some of the hacking. they didn't have that before. and that, i think, was one thing that got a lot of people's attention, including mine. after the briefing, mr trump did not single out russia. in a statement he said. and the incoming vice president says the us

will strengthen cyber defences. the president—elect has made it very clear that we're going to take aggressive action in the early days of our new administration to combat cyber attacks and protect the security of the american people from this type of intrusion in the future. donald trump said he had tremendous respect for the work and service done by those in the us intelligence community. but, with two weeks to go until he moves into the white house, questions remain over how they will all work together to keep america safe. catriona renton, bbc news. sir ivan rogers has confirmed his resignation from the foreign office and the civil service. formerly britain's most senior diplomat at the european union, sir ivan rogers, resigned last wednesday, just months before he was due to play an important role in the complex negotiations on the uk's exit from the eu. the former president

and prime minister of portugal, mario soares, who is regarded as a father of the country's democracy, has died at the age of 92. mr soares played a key role after the 1974 carnation revolution, a military coup that put an end to decades of right—wing dictatorship. two years later he became the country's first democratically elected prime minister, when the socialist party swept to power. he went on to serve a second term and 10 years as president. at least 18 people have died in flooding in southern thailand. thousands of villages have been cut off and submerged after a week of heavy rain and floods. flights, trains and bus services have been disrupted in the south of the country. the country's meteorological department has warned that the unseasonal downpour will continue for at least another two days. 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 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 £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 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 14 years today. last year, the government announced a £250 million pothole repairfund to help 100 councils fix four million potholes. but today's report by local councils suggests that is not enough, and that the pothole problem is actually getting worse. 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 morne 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 that 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 £1,000, 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 him 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 2,500 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've 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. now, if you are tea drinker, have you ever wondered how tea bags are made? well, there's a cafe in portsmouth 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, that 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. never say that we are not educational! 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. never hear the end of it from the aussies. artists from around the world are gathering in northern china to compete at the annual harbin ice and snow festival. ice and snow carvers have been putting the finishing touches to their work on big chunks of ice dragged out of the nearby river. the sculptures range from animals and cartoon characters to replicas of famous world monuments and landscapes. the contest has attracted over 30 teams from countries around the world. but looks like a tv aerial! the weather forecast now. another mild and misty and murky night on the way, some fog forming especially over the hills but at lower levels sites also. into the morning, there could be a few issues. a lot of

cloud keeping the temperature is up, with some clear skies in northern scotla nd with some clear skies in northern scotland and england, temperatures may drop, perhaps a touch of frost and some fog may form. temperatures on sunday, 6—9. sunday, a grey day, especially in the morning, some light rain, mainly over the hills but possible anywhere. some breaks in the cloud in scotland and north east england, so the best chance of sunshine but later the cloud in the west may thicken and mean more rain, especially western scotland. temperatures are above where they should be. windy and colder and wetter into monday, much windier next week. some milder weather midweek but colder and more win to read later on. —— wintry later on. this is the bbc news. the headlines: labour has accused the government of plunging the nhs

into crisis through lack of funding. it comes after the british red cross warned some hospitals were suffering a "humanitarian crisis" — a claim rejected by nhs england. police in florida are continuing to question a 26—year—old us army veteran after five people were shot dead at fort lauderdale airport. more than 40 people have been killed in a bomb blast in northern syria. it's thought the islamic state group could be to blame. they're not part of the recent ceasefire. severe flooding in southern thailand has left at least 12 people dead. thousands of villages and roads are under water, power cables are down and more heavy rain is forecast. time to cross to the bbc sport centre now for sportsday. hello and welcome to sportsday, with karthi gna nasegaram