welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. our top stories: the westminster attacker is identified. a british muslim—convert with a history of violent crime. a vigilfor the victims in trafalgar square, london's mayor says the attack will not divide the city. those evil and twisted individuals who try to destroy our shared way of life will never succeed. a gesture of solidarity from another european city hit by a vehicle attack, berlin lights up the brandenburg gate. and the head of the fbi is accused of "double standards" by the man who ran hillary clinton's presidential bid. his interventionjust 11 days before the election, yet total silence

towards russian intervention. the number of people killed in wednesday's attack at westminster has risen to five, including the attacker. within the past few hours police have confirmed that a 75—year—old man, injured on westminster bridge, has died. his identity has not yet been released. detectives have confirmed the attacker was a 52—year—old british man, khalid masood. he'd changed his name. he grew up as adrian elms. he was known to the security services. overnight and on thursday, police made eight arrests, five men and three women, in london and in the midlands city of birmingham. tributes have been paid to those who lost their lives. the three identified victims are aysha frade,

us national kurt cochran, and police constable keith palmer. nearly 30 people are still in hospital, six of them critically ill. with the latest on the investigation, here's our special correspondent, lucy manning. with a car and a knife, he brought terror to parliament. he is khalid masood, a british—born attacker known to the police with a 20—year criminal record, although not for terrorism. the 52—year—old responsible for the murder of a policeman, a mother on her way to collect her children, a tourist, and a pensioner. today, on their knees, police slowly, meticulously, searching for evidence. on the same ground where one of their own layjust a day ago. as they searched outside parliament, just metres away inside, the prime minister spoke. what i can confirm is that the man was british born, and that some years ago, he was once investigated by mi5 in relation to concerns about violent extremism. he was a peripheral figure. the case is historic.

he was not part of the current intelligence picture. there was no prior intelligence of his intent or of the plot. intensive investigations continue. so, what more is known about khalid masood? masood was born in kent, and was most recently living in the west midlands. he had a range of previous convictions including gbh, possession of offensive weapons, and public order offences. his last conviction was in 2003 for the possession of a knife. he was also known by a number of aliases, and khalid masood is not believed to be the name he was born with. they are determined to find out more about the man who killed pc keith palmer, and those he ran over on the bridge. notjust routine police work, this time it is personal. it is still a belief that this man acted alone and was inspired by international terrorism.

to be explicit, at this stage we have no further information about the threats to the public. the police‘s attention in birmingham overnight in the ladywood area. they surged a flat. neighbours said it looked like film. it was like a movie. something you see only in movies. and i saw it behind my windows on the street. it was very frightening. it was like, you know, what the hell is happening here? another flat in the winston green area of the city was raided, as they thought he lived there recently. it is now known the car he turned into a weapon was a rental car from birmingham at the spring hill branch of enterprise cars. with the attacker dead, the focus is on his friends and family, whether they knew

about his focus and intentions, whether he had any help with the attack on parliament. police have made arrests in a number of different locations. three properties were surged in birmingham with seven people arrested. one woman was arrested in east london. there have also been arrests in these areas. the eight have been arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts. his neighbours described him as a house proud family man. as far as i am aware, he had two children at the time he was they appeared to be primary schoolchildren. he had a people—carrier and loaded them in to a people—carrier with child seats. but today, so—called islamic state described him very differently. without providing evidence, they said he was one of their soldiers.

the police are now attracting khalid masood's movements, the man who got into a car and drove terror into the heart of westminster. lucy manning, bbc news, birmingham. two other victims of wednesday's attack have been named. aysha frade lived in london with her husband and two young daughters. and kurt cochrane, an american citizen, was in london with his wife to celebrate their 25th anniversary. some a0 people from 11 different countries were injured, some of them very seriously. 0ur correspondent, sarah campbell, reports on the victims. a mother on the school run, mown down in broad daylight. aysha frade was 43 years old and leaves behind a husband and two young daughters. friends and neighbours have been paying tribute to her. she was just a lovely person with two lovely children. two lovely, lovely girls. how are these children? they've lost their mother. you leave your kids, go to school, and then to pick them up, and then this happens to you.

she worked at a college near westminster bridge and was on her way to pick up her children when the attack happened. she was a lovely person. helpful, supportive, smiling, always willing to help out with whatever the challenges and demands that teaching staff might have at any given time. aysha's mother was spanish and today she was remembered by people in the galician town of betanzos. her family are understood to be travelling to britain. in london, celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, melissa and kurt cochran from utah in the united states. they were due to fly home today but kurt was killed and melissa was seriously injured. president trump described kurt cochran as a great american. his family said they are heartbroken. the couple's next—door neighbour said kurt was friends with everyone.

this is going to be a sad, tough time for everyone in the neighbourhood. i really feel bad. i think of melissa and what she will have to face in the next little while and i'm sure the neighbourhood will gather around her and help her anyway they can. and this evening, another death. a 75—year—old man who had been in hospital following the attack, had his life support withdrawn. he's yet to be named. the people who were injured came from 11 different countries including the united states, china, france and germany. they were taken from westminster to hospitals across london, including here at kings college. undergoing treatment for a fractured leg is 19—year—old travis frain. he was with fellow students on a field trip to parliament when he was hit head—on by the car. he was pictured as emergency crews stretchered him away from the scene. waiting for news inside the locked down parliament building

was his tutor from edge hill university. she told me today that travis is doing well. he's been checking his facebook. lots of other messages from other students wanting to know how he is. clearly, he's not well, but he's dealing with it and he's staying as cheerful as he can. another school trip caught up in the chaos, three french students from this school in brittany were injured, two of them were reported to have suffered serious fractures. romanian officials say this woman, andreea cristea, who fell into the thames, has undergone surgery to treat a blood clot on her brain. her boyfriend sustained a broken foot. they had been celebrating her birthday. several people remain in hospital including two police officers with serious injuries. this was an attack in london, but its effects are being felt across the world. sarah campbell, bbc news. ever since the july seventh bombings in london in 2005, counter—terrorism agencies have worked to improve their ability to uncover major plots

involving groups of people. but the threat posed by lone operators, avoiding sophisticated methods, is far more difficult to uncover. 0ur security correspondent, gordon corera, looks at the difficulties facing the intelligences services. tonight, questions about surveillance. khalid masood, the prime minister said, did come cross mi5‘s radar a few years ago. but he was not being watched at the time he was planning his attack. that's led some to question whether more could've been done to stop him. it's not a new question. after the 7thjuly bombings in 2005, it emerged some of the men had, like masood, cropped up on the periphery of an mi5 investigation. and the same was true of those responsible for the killing of lee rigby in woolwich. the security services and their colleagues in the police do a magnificentjob, and the intelligence services altogether know a great deal about what's going on. but there will always be the possibility to that somebody

can get through. so why does this happen? one problem for the authorities is scale. at the moment, there are around 3,000 people suspected of some kind of terrorist—related activity, and there are more than 500 live police investigations. it takes dozens of people to watch one individual round the clock. that means there have to be choices. it is very difficult to prioritise which ones should be looked at closely, and scrutinised closely, at any one time. you know, it is not an exact science. there are fine judgements that have to be made by senior police and senior intelligence officers. you know, at haste, often, with limited resources, and partial information. many people cross mi5‘s radar. but the challenge, as one person put it, is working out who to put under the microscope, and to try and spot if their behaviour changes over time. for instance, are they moving towards planning an actual attack? all of that is getting harder in a world of low—tech terrorists, who sometimes can act alone. so—called islamic state today claimed masood was their soldier.

but that doesn't necessarily mean he was directed, rather than just inspired by them. investigators will want to know if there was any contact. police and mi5 rely on communities here for help. even if someone acts alone, it's rare for no—one else to have had any knowledge or suspicions. but they need to be willing to pass them on. where they have come across people who they feel are creating divisions within our community, are purporting, you know, extremism and fundamentalism, they are saying to our security services, you know, just be mindful about this individual. but they're also reluctant to do so, because sometimes they're not sure whether the security services will deal with them in a fair manner. surveillance by police and mi5 has foiled many plots in recent years. but, at this early stage, it is impossible to say if this

attack could have been stopped. gordon corera, bbc news. and you can find much more on the westminster terror attack on our website, including details of what we know about the killer khalid masood. just log on to bbc.com/news. stay with us on bbc news. a vote on the new healthcare plan of donald trump postponed as there are not yet enough republicans to support it. let there be no more wars or bloodshed between arabs and israelis. applause so proud of both of you. with great regret, the committee have decided that south africa be excluded from the 1970 competition. streaking across the sky,

the white hot wreckage from mir drew gasps from onlookers on fiji. this is bbc news. the latest headlines. the perpetrator of wednesday's attack outside the houses of parliament in london has been identified as a 52—year—old british man, who converted to islam and changed his name to khalid masood. several thousand people have gathered in trafalgar square for a candlelit vigil to honour the victims. the mayor of london, sadiq khan, was among those who addressed the crowd.

the tussle over how donald trump plans to fulfil his election promise to repeal and replace 0bamacare is becoming ever more bitter — and that's just within the president's own party. the vote has been delayed until friday — mr trump now threatening just to walk away from the issue if those republicans who are unhappy don't fall into line. but it's also become clear that his replacement for the affordable care act will save far less money than predicted, and leave many more americans without health insurance. let's get the latest now on this live from washington, and our correspondent laura bicker. the latest figures are disturbing for many people, aren't they? yes, because with the initial reforms

this budget office turned around and said how will exactly is going to live 2a million people uninsured within the next decade. now they have tinkered with the reform and they have gone away and made a few more deals but the offers have come back and, by the way, this is a bipartisan committee, it has returned and said it will still leave 2a million more uninsured in the next decade and, by the way, some of these reforms will cost you even more. and eat into the budget deficit. however, the problem with all of this is that no—one can agree on where they go with it, with the healthcare reform. for some republicans, the current bill as it is, the repeal and replace bill goes far too far. they believe it will leave more people uninsured than it does now. but for other conservatives that they see government overreach, they see the

hand of government in health—insurance and they do not like it. so they want to strip away some reform, for example emergency medicine and any specialists that may be required. they say that would put premiums lower. so you can see within one party you have it in an extremes and donald trump, the dealmaker, cannot get them to agree. mr trumpet famously said that only he could fix 0bamacare which was failing and a disaster. —— mr —— donald trump. failing and a disaster. —— mr -- donald trump. donald trump has never rolled back from any of these promises before and when it comes to his campaign promises it is what he is doing, he is going out there and repealing and replacing, or trying to come 0bamacare. could he walk away? but it is a cunning strategy

because what it says to conservative republicans who, for the last seven yea rs, have republicans who, for the last seven years, have been saying that they wa nt to years, have been saying that they want to repeal 0bamacare, what it says to them is putting on a second, you have been saying this for years, here is your shot and you are prepared to not agree. so it is up to you, this is politics, this is why it is failing. it is not up to the president, it has nothing to do with the white house. it is now up to you to find a way to go forward. it isa to you to find a way to go forward. it is a cunning strategy is he prepared to walk away? we will have to wait and see what we do know is that vote will now take place on friday afternoon and the outcome is farfrom friday afternoon and the outcome is far from assured. the man who ran hillary clinton's failed presidential bid has accused the fbi of ‘double standards‘ over the way it conducted investigations during the election campaign. john podesta told the bbc the fbi directorjames comey kept quiet about its investigation into possible collusion between russia and the trump

campaign, but went public about its inquiry into mrs clinton's hacked e—mails — just days before the vote itself. my colleague philippa thomas asked him if he was suspicious during the campaign: of course we thought that was going on for some time and argued to the press that they had to really look at that and try to dig into that and cover it. but it was a revelation that the fbi was looking at that as early as now evidently they were, it's kind of one more drip in something that i've been highly critical of the bureau about, which is the double standard they applied in this campaign. the intervention, the number of resources they spent, the scores of fbi agents they had poring over hillary clinton's e—mail server, which jim comey, the fbi director, ultimately concluded that it wasn't even a close call, there was nothing worth prosecuting

there, compared to their engagement on the russian side, his interventionjust 11 days before the election to say i'm going to reopen this. the clinton investigation, he had this total silence on with respect to the russian intervention and now the potential collusion between the trump campaign and the russian actors was really a double standard that is still inexplicable to me. you're very calm about this but i imagine that when it was confirmed... i'm very angry about it. i've just learned to appear calm. do you have confidence in the fbi investigation given that you clearly don't have confidence in their impartiality during the election? i think at this point i've never accused mr comey of trying... i think he made very bad errors ofjudgement. i think he was being pressed by forces inside the fbi who may themselves have wanted to influence the election... not to see hillary clinton elected?

yeah, to see hillary clinton lose. i think mr comey was motivated more from the pressure coming from republicans on capitol hill, pressure coming from people, particularly in his new york field office, that were putting pressure on him but against the advice of the department ofjustice, against the long—term practice of democrat and republican justice departments and fbi leadership. he got involved and i think it was a terrible error in judgement. john podesta, thank you. thank you. not far from where wednesday's attack took, several thousand people the diplomatic row between russia and the ukraine about eurovision, is rumbling on. russia has rejected an

invite for its consistent to take pa rt invite for its consistent to take part via video link. she has been hand from ukraine, accused of illegally visiting crimea. she had been offered a chance to perform via video link but the russian officials leave that goes against the essence of what eurovision news. —— eurovision is. not far from where wednesday's attack took, several thousand people gathered in trafalgar square for a candlelit vigil to honour the victims. shoulder to shoulder. police, politicians, faith leaders from all over london. the mayor of london urged people tojoin him in trafalgar square. thousands answered his call. those evil and twisted individuals who tried to destroy our shared way of life will never succeed and we condemn them. some were on their way home from work. others had felt compelled to head

into the capital to be there. i'm a quiet person, i don't protest, i don't wave a banner, but today we wanted to come up just to show that we're with london, part of london, part of britain. just half a mile from westminster bridge, one man contemplating what might have been. i would have been there but i changed my plans for the day, so i kind of wish i did gojust thinking if i could have helped stop it all. among the crowd, men in blue t—shirts written on them the words "i am a muslim, ask me anything." it was extremely important for us to come down, especially as muslims, to come here and stand with fellow londoners, fellow countrymen, shoulder to shoulder, irrespective of religion, faith, creed, colour, and give out a message that these attacks cannot divide us. many of the police officers i spoke to say they'd been amazed by the number of people who'd wanted to thank them.

this doesn't happen to you every day, does it, that members of the public come up to you, hug you, say thank you. no, not at all. when the first person did it i was shocked actually, i had to doubletake, but it makes you feel really warm to be honest. what was it like for you being here? it was very touching. i've never had so many people come up to me and thank you for what we've done but this isjust ourjob. candles for those who died and for the dozens more who's been injured. but the message is one of defiance and quiet dignity in a city that refuses to be cowed. that report from sophie raworth. back to our main news: tributes have been paid around the world to the victims of the westminster terror attack. particularly striking was this image of the british flag, projected onto the brandenburg gate in the german capital.

just before christmas 12 people died when a truck was driven into crowds at a market in berlin. more details have emerged about the attacker in westminster. police have identified him as—year—old khalid masood. it is believed that he was first named adrian elms, suggesting that he converted to islam. investigations have been going on in london, birmingham and other parts of the country. you can get more on oui’ of the country. you can get more on our website at any time. you can also contact us on twitter. that is it for us for now, thank you for watching. hello there. good morning. things looking pretty good over the next few days.

the satellite sequence shows that we saw a fair bit of cloud across the south and that tended to melt away, but it's coming back in overnight and there's more cloud across the north as well. but in between, large areas with clear skies, which means temperatures will drop. a chilly start to the day for most places but with the clear skies overnight there should be a good deal of sunshine through the day today. temperature—wise this morning, starting off at around six or seven degrees underneath cloudy skies in cardiff and in london. northern england northwards, bottom end of single figures, particularly in more rural spots. i think we'll see a frost developing in parts of scotland and northern ireland. not so in the south—west. more cloud, some outbreaks of rain, six or seven degrees through the morning. a little bit brighter in the western side of wales. the eastern side of wales, through the midlands, east anglia and the south—east, fair bit of cloud in the morning but staying dry, breezy and 6—8. heading further north and west into the sunshine for much of northern england, northern ireland and much of scotland as well. lovely start to the day here. yes it's cold in scotland with some sunshine, but a bit more cloud, bit more of a breeze and some rain

brushing into the far north of scotland. that area of rain will move away towards the east so it will be drying up here. probably stays a bit on the cloudy side and that cloud further south tends to melt away from the east, so some good spells of sunshine coming through for the afternoon and we'll see ii—i3. maybe a bit cooler along the immediate north sea coast. a bit cloudy in the far south and west but even that tends to melt away as you get into the evening. then it's fine and dry through the small hours of saturday morning. temperatures again dropping away, just a hint of blue on the map indicating a touch of frost developing. again it's north wales northwards where we'll see the lowest temperatures, particularly in more rural spots, we'll see a bit of frost developing. a chilly start to saturday. all in all, a decent start to the weekend. high pressure in charge not moving away too far, too quickly, keeping things fine and settled. a bit of a breeze to the north and south of the uk on saturday. but many places having a very pleasant day with some good spells of sunshine. quite warm in aberdeenshire, 14—15. we might even see 16 down

towards the south and west. however, around the south—eastern coastline along the immediate coast, temperatures probably in single figures, 8—9 in that breeze. move a little bit further inland and we'll get up to 14, 15 or maybe 16. it looks like a pretty decent second part to the weekend. on balance probably a bit more in the way of cloud coming in butjust about everywhere staying fine and dry and those temperatures still quite respectable. maybe a bit more in the way of cloud by monday. all in all the weekend is looking pretty good, fine and settled. sunshine by day will be quite warm, but overnight, quite cold and maybe a touch of frost. the latest headlines from bbc news. the man who killed four people outside the houses of parliament in london on wednesday has been identified. he was khalid masood, a british—born muslim—convert with a history of violent crime. police say they are questioning eight people arrested in connection with the killings on suspicion of terrorism. the number of people killed during an attack outside the houses of parliament in london on wednesday has risen to four following the death of a 75—year—old man.

two other people who died have now been named. one was a local school employee and the other was an american tourist. police say eight people arrested in connection with the killings are being held on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. searches involving hundreds of detectives have been carried out in london, birmingham and western wales. no information has been released about connections with the attacker. now it's time for thursday in parliament.