good afternoon. the home secretary, amber rudd, has said that the government will not shrink from taking action to remove materialfrom the internet that could help terrorists. ms rudd also said the security services needed access to encrypted material on platforms such as the messaging service, whatsapp, which was used by the westminster attackerjust before he killed four people last wednesday. nick beake reports. scotla nd scotland yard believes all this was the work of one man acting alone. but was khalid masood encouraged in some way? he was active on the messaging app whatsapp on his phone just seconds before he struck but the police are unable to see the content the police are unable to see the co nte nt of the police are unable to see the content of these cryptic messages and in an interview this morning the home secretary said social media companies must do more to help the

authorities. it is completely unacceptable, there should be no place for terrorists to hide. we need to make sure that organisations like whatsapp and there are plenty of others like it do not provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate. it used to be people would steam open envelopes or listen in on phones when they wanted to find out what people were doing, legally, through warrants, but in this situation we need to make sure the intelligence services have the ability to get into in situations like encrypted whatsapp. and her message was supported by the man running the eu crime—fighting agency. i agree with the call for changes to be made. what the solution for that is for her and other lawmakers to decide but from my point of view i would agree something has to be done to make sure we can apply a more consistent form of interception of communication in all parts of the way in which terrorists invade our lives. all messages sent on whatsapp

have end encryption which means they are scrambled and even if they are intercepted data cannot be read. but whatsapp, which is owned by facebook, said it had a duty to protect the private negations of its billion users worldwide. here at westminster at the tributes to pc keith palmer and the other victims continue to grow. the metropolitan police have now released more details about what was a brief but deadly assault. at 2:40pm on wednesday afternoon khalid masood mounts the pavement on westminster bridge. he drives on and 30 seconds later crashes into the palace of westminster. the first 999 call is then received and have a minute later khalid masood is shot dead. a rampage lasting 82 seconds from start to finish. but for the police it is an ongoing and complex investigation. they have no wonder they may never understand why khalid masood carried out the attack, which

has carried criticism of the prevent strategy, the current government policy for combating extremism.” think policy for combating extremismlj think in its current form it has huge problems, it is broken, the brand is toxic. there are questions about the training and the trainers and a level of quality of training within schools, how it is being implemented on the front line and therefore what i have asked for is a pause, an independent review. any changes will be too late for the victims of the westminster attack including pc keith palmer. his family have thanked those who tried to save him and say they have been overwhelmed by the love and support they have received. merseyside fire and rescue say a suspected gas explosion in the wirral last night caused extensive damage and it could be several days before local people are allowed back into their homes. dozens of people were hurt by the blast and several buildings have collapsed. about 20 people living nearby have been moved to safety.

linsey smith reports. the scale of the devastation shows just how powerful the explosion was. 0ne building, housing three businesses, totally destroyed. this is what it looked like before last night. the blast was heard up to six miles away. the sound of the building blowing up was captured by a car's dashboard camera. explosion. what was that?! two people were taken to a trauma unit in liverpool with serious injuries. 32 others were treated at hospitals in wirral and chester. there is a multitude of injuries that have happened but the two patients that have gone through to the major trauma unit at aintree, they have significant injuries. the emergency services won't speculate on the cause of the blast but a number of local people had said they smelt gas yesterday and on friday national grid engineers were on the scene. this incident is likely to be protracted, this is likely

to last several days, very significant damage as you can tell. so it will be some time before people will be allowed back into their homes. some people whose homes had to be evacuated spent the night in a local church. nearby roads are likely to be closed for some time. let's go to the scene of the explosion at new ferry on the wirral, our correspondent linsey smith is there and linsey what's the latest? we know some of those people remain in hospital this lunchtime and an investigation is taking place to find out how this happened. the clean—up operation will take some time, there is a car park about 150 metres away and that and all the vehicles in it are completely peppered with bricks, it travelled that far. 0pposite was a chinese restau ra nt that far. 0pposite was a chinese restaurant which was very busy on a saturday evening, the blast blew the windows through and debris went

through the windows. souris emerging, some people thought a bomb had gone off unto calver, others dragging theirfriends had gone off unto calver, others dragging their friends and family out of debris. what remains is that we do not know which building the explosion happened then, the sentiment is that people are surprised and grateful there were not more people seriously injured. in ohio — police say one person was killed and 15 others injured when at least two men opened fire in a nightclub in cincinnati. they say hundreds of people were in the club at the time, and that it was a "horrific situation". the authorities say it's not clear what prompted the shooting and the investigation is ongoing. three people have been taken to hospital after a car mounted a pavement and hit a group of drinkers outside a pub in north london. four teenagers have been arrested. the police say the incident in islington is not terror—related. the labour leaderjeremy corbyn says

labour will oppose plans to give ministers the powers to change some aspects of european laws, without needing the approving of parliament. speaking ahead of this thursday's publication of a white paper on the great repeal bill, he insisted that parliament could not be bypassed. we need total accountability at every stage of this whole brexit negotiation. i understand there is going to be about 12 ancillary related bills. we're not going to sit there and hand over power to this government to override parliament, override democracy and just set down a series of diktats for what is going to happen in the future. we'd be failing in our duty as democratically—elected parliamentarians if we did that. with me now is our political correspondent mark lobel — mark tell us more about this great repeal bill and what the government's plans are? this is the process of repealing the 1972 act which gave eu law effect in this country by translating it into

domestic law so there are no legal black holes. the government want to do that by giving ministers special powers to avoid parliamentary scrutiny on certain elements they think do not make sense in british law any more, for example if you wa nted law any more, for example if you wanted to tender a public sector contract you would have to publish it in an eu publication or mention an eu institution you do not need to mention any more. butjeremy corbyn is opposed to this and wants accountability at every stage of negotiations. in response to that of the commons leader said every element of the special powers will be agreed in parliament beforehand so we will get more details of what he means on thursday but the bill will not be voted on until the spring. thank you. the taxi firm uber has suspended its pilot programme for driverless cars after an early model of its self—driving car crashed on a roadway in arizona. the accident is the latest in a series of crashes involving autonomous vehicles. it's not yet known whether the car was in self driving mode at the time of the crash. uber said it caused

no serious injuries. the first race of the new formula one season, the australian grand prix, has been won by ferrari's sebastian vettel, his team's first victory since 2015. lewis hamilton finished ten seconds behind, with his mercedes team—mate valteri bottas in third. you can see more on all of today's stories on the bbc news channel. the next news on bbc one is at 6:35pm, bye for now. hello, you're watching the bbc news

channel with me, reeta chakrabarti. let's get more now on calls from the home secretary amber rudd for changes to be made to the way communications are intercepted on social media. earlier, i spoke to the director of europol, rob wainright, who echoed ms rudd's warnings about online extremism. well, we are actively supporting that investigation, reeta, the details of which i cannot share today, but to give you some context, it is one of about 80 counterterrorism cases across europe that europol has supported this year, sharing thousands of intelligence messages across the counterterrorist community in europe, using our means to monitor, report on the close of terrorist financing, terrorist use of firearms, and also to monitor the way in which the internet, of course, is being used to spread this ugly propaganda. 80 cases across europe? i mean, that is a lot of cases, isn't it? what are the difficulties facing police forces as they struggle

to deal with this threat? well, i think the scale is a real challenge for us, we have thousands of radicalised individuals working across a very dispersed network, some of which, like we saw in the attack on the berlin christmas market last year, the attack in nice last summer in france, and what appear to be the case in westminster, these people are on the fringes of that radicalised immunity. not much intelligence to indicate that they are about to carry out an attack like this, and that makes the job of the security services and the police exceptionally difficult to get right. having said that, you know, i think we are seeing almost all of the attacks now being stopped, this was the 14th attempt in the last three or four years, and the only one, until now, to get through, but it is indeed a highly challenging scene that is faced by the police. you referred a little bit earlier to social media, and you will be aware that the british home secretary,

amber rudd, has called on technology firms such as whatsapp to help security services, to allow them access to encrypted information in cases like these. what is your reaction to that? well, i think it is a reasonable call by the home secretary, what seeing crossed the hundreds of cases that europol has been supporting is that encryption is becoming more and more of a feature of those cases, more and more of a means by which terrorists are attempting to communicate in a secure way. and a really significant challenge for the police to get beyond that. at the heart of it, reeta, is this stark inconsistency that the police have the means by which to carry out lawful interception of telephone calls, but not a similar means that those communications if they appear through a social—media platform, and that doesn't seem right. there is an inconsistency that has not yet been fixed by the right legislation or the right kind of interaction between government and technology partners.

that was rob wainwright from europol speaking to me earlier. more now on the suspected gas explosion in the wirral. adam dingwall was driving in the area when the explosion happened and a little earlier he told me what he saw. we were driving through port sunlight when we heard the explosion. it turns out we were probably about 500 yards away. at first, i had no idea what it was. but i saw someone running from that direction, saying that there has been an explosion and one of the buildings has been destroyed. so we headed over that way because i thought, well, i am a trained first aider, so i may be able to do something to help. as we pulled up, we saw bricks and glass and rubble everywhere. so i went running over to see if i could do anything, and a police officer stopped me. i presume he was off duty, he certainly was not in uniform, and he asked me to run into some of the houses that were nearby

and had been hit, to see if there was anybody inside. what did you find? thankfully, i did not find any people, there was nobody in them. but all the houses, the front doors were completely blown in. and inside each of the houses, it was just an absolute mess, lots of rubble, glass everywhere. i did not really see a lot, because it was dark, and i did not want to turn any lights on, what with there being the really strong smell of gas. but looking round, it was just an absolute mess. as we are talking to you, we are looking at pictures of the scene, and it is a scene of utter devastation, the explosion was clearly extremely powerful.

yeah, definitely. the rubble and the bricks had really travelled a fair distance, and the houses opposite that i was in, all the windows were blown in and the doors had come off. you sound slightly shaken. i am, to be honest. it was quite a nervy experience, the adrenaline got pumping at the time, and ijust ran in to see what i could do. that was adam dingwall, who witnessed the explosion in the wirral, speaking to me a little bit earlier. the former ukip leader nigel farage has said that mp douglas carswell, who resigned from the party yesterday, has a duty to trigger a by—election in his clacton consituency. mr carswell isn't going back to the conservatives — instead, he'll sit

as an independent. he quit amid a long—running feud with mr farage about future ukip strategy. a short while ago, mr farage told me that he'd caused "endless division" in the party. oh, it is, absolutely. this guy has been working against the party consistently for the last two years. he never supported, from day one, many of the key planks the party believes in, he was sincere on brexit but nothing else, he caused endless division, and i am very pleased he is gone, particularly pleased for paul nuttall, who has now got a chance to lead a unified party. with douglas carswell there, that was always going to be impossible. but douglas carswell was elected on a ukip ticket, something which, respectfully, you didn't manage to do, neither did the present leader of the party. just remember this — clacton is demographically the number—one eurosceptic seat in this country, and i would say this, a lot of people who voted him into parliament did not vote just because of him, they voted ukip, he has given up the label on which he was elected,

and this is the man who led the charge in parliament for real recall, to give people a mechanism by which at 20% of the constituency, if they voted to have a by—election, they should legally be able to have one. so what we will do is take him at his word, and we will now write to every house in clacton and ask them, "do you want a by—election or not?" if more than 20% say they do, we will find outjust how honourable mr ca rswell is. but technically he doesn't have to have a by—election, he maintains, because he is not moving party, he doesn't need to have one. of course he does, he was voted in as a ukip candidate, and it is a constituency in which ukip is very, very strong. i could be wrong, but i suspect there will be a lot of very angry ukip voters in clacton this morning. what do you make of his central point

that ukip has achieved what it set out to achieve? brexit is going to happen, it is happening this week, that is why he is going, job done very successfully. we have won the war, we now have to win the peace, and i am very concerned, i see the government backtracking on taking back territorial fishing waters, and there are i hearfrom amber rudd that she wants us to stay part of the european arrest warrant, she wants european court ofjustice in luxembourg still to have supremacy in some areas. this is farfrom over. do you fear that, once again, ukip is in the headlines because of internal infighting, rather than because of what you stand for? virtually every bad story about ukip that has emerged for the last two and a half years has come as a result of splits with douglas carswell, a tiny handful of people that were his key supporters, and i think, actually, in terms of splits, i think today is a very good unifying day for the party, i am hearing that already. so a prediction from nigel farage

that it will be harmony from now on within ukip? well, i don't think there will be big ideological divides, everyone in the senior positions agrees with the manifesto, understands how important immigration is as an issue to britain voters, and for two and a half years we had douglas carswell trying to get rid of that policy — has ended. the body of a crew member has been recovered from the wreckage of an irish rescue helicopter. four people we re irish rescue helicopter. four people were on board the coastguard helicopter when it went down on the 14th of march. captain darren fitzpatrick was previously identified as one of the crew members who died after being rescued from the scene. the missing crew we re from the scene. the missing crew were mike duffy, paul 0rmsby and kieran smith. it is not yet known which member has been found. an investigation has been opened after the pentagon confirmed that

american—led coalition fighter jets struck in the area near a site in the iraqi city of mosul where many civilians are reported killed. us central command says iraqi military requested the attack against islamic state fighters. earlier i spoke to our correspondent yalda hakim who's in the nearby city of irbil who gave us this update on the us air strikes in the region. for over a week, we have been hearing reports that us—led air strikes have left at least 150 people dead in west mosul. they did issue a statement yesterday, saying they had launched an investigation, that they respect human life, but that they wouldn't abandon this operation. this is perhaps the most difficult part or phase of this whole operation for iraqi forces. the front line has now reached the old city, it is densely populated, the streets and alleyways are incredibly narrow, so they will not be able to use tanks, and there will be a lot of street—to—street fighting, as well as house—to—house fighting. they will also be relying on air strikes, and so it is difficult, in the fog of war, in the murkiness

of all this, for us as the bbc to be able to verify a lot of these reports. 0ur middle east editor, jeremy bowen, is in west mosul, and he has spoken to civilians who say that there are ongoing air strikes in the area, that they are very angry about it, but that is militants are also using them as human shields, positioning snipers within their homes, as well as on their rooftops. and, yalda, while attempts are being made to establish what happened and who was responsible, there is a potential humanitarian crisis. indeed, reeta, yesterday we were at a camp, seeing thousands of people arriving on buses that had been provided by the iraqi army, bringing them out of the war zone. it is very difficult for the civilians — if they stay in west mosul,

they risk being killed through air strikes, or from hunger. a lot of them have no water, no food, no access to electricity or sanitation. if they try to leave, is snipers may kill them, or they might get caught in the crossfire. when they are brought out, and there are thousands, 5—8000 arriving every day at these various camps, there are about 30 or more camps that have been built around northern iraq to keep these people, and the situation there is incredibly desperate for these people. up to a few days ago, the weather was quite grim, it was cold and wet, we were being told that people within the area were burning furniture and clothing to keep warm, and when they arrive in the camp, it is a desperate attempt to get as much food and water for the civilians who are just arriving. the bbc‘s yalda hakim there.

at least 18 people have been injured, one seriously, in hong kong after an escalator in a shopping centre appeared to malfunction. the escalator was packed with shoppers when it apparently went in to reverse at high speed and dozens of people were thrown to the bottom. one man received a serious head injury. a spokesperson for the langham place centre said the escalator had passed a recent safety inspection. in case you missed it, the clocks went forward, and some working in the tourism sector are calling for british summertime to stay. 0ne industry association says an extra 80,000 jobs would be created due to longer daylight hours. joe lynam has more. half of all tourist visits to britain take in a leisure or amusement park, such as alton towers, thorpe park and the london eye. now the group which represents these parks is calling for britain to be on the same time zone as france or italy. it says doing so would

create a boost worth £2.5—3.5 billion to the economy. it says brighter evenings could cut co2 emissions by 500,000 tons a year and prevent 80 road deaths annually. balppa also says shifting time zones would encourage more outdoor activity and cut obesity levels, especially among children. but it has been tried before — in the early 1970s, when many scottish children had to go to school in the dark. it had, according to one snp politician, an absolutely devastating impact. joe lynam, bbc news. sport, and for a full round—up from the bbc sport centre here isjohn watson. lewis hamilton believes mercedes have a fight on their hands with ferrari after watching sebastian vettel win the opening race of the formula one championship at the australian grand prix. a badly timed pit stop cost the british driver, as vettel won in melbourne, as nick parrot reports. the sebastian vettel victory finger hadn't been seen for 18 months — until today.

that's because mercedes have dominated formula one for the last three years. starting from pole in melbourne, lewis hamilton was the favourite to win the race, and when he emerged from the first corner in the lead, many might have thought all bets were off. new rules have been brought in to make the cars faster, and the sport more exciting, but this race was won thanks to a tactical error. with sebastian vettel pressuring hamilton, mercedes blinked first, bringing him in for fresh tyres. he came out in fifth and got stuck in traffic. team radio: we need to get past verstappen. hamilton: i don't know how you expect me to do that right now! vettel timed his stop to perfection. he came back out in front of hamilton, and mercedes knew their challenge was over. the german cruised to the chequered flag, winning by more than nine seconds. the last time he won the opening race was in 2011 — when he went on to become champion. hamilton has been warned. england, scotland and northern ireland are all in action this evening, in their latest qualifiers for next year's world cup.

gareth southgate is looking for his first win since taking on the england manager's job permanently. goalkeeperjoe hart will captain the side, with defender gary cahill suspended for the match with lithuania at wembley. the manager, though, keen to focus on performance rather than personnel. we are a hungry, young team, with a lot of potential. and we want to go out and play an exciting brand of football. we work hard for each other, and the scoreline takes care of itself if you do all those things correctly. so we are always focusing on performance, and the result will follow. there's arguably most at stake for scotland tonight — they're in the same group as england, but are fifth and if they don't beat slovenia, their hopes of qualifying would look very slim indeed. sometimes it is easy for a manager to say, this is what we have got to do, sometimes we are in a position where a draw is enough, but we have to win. you don't have to win in the first five or ten minutes, you have to be, you never know, in big games, when your

opportunity comes along. northern ireland are well placed. they're second in their group, five points behind germany, and on course to clinch a playoff place, heading into their match with norway later. we have the opportunity put seven points between ourselves in norway, the opportunity to get to ten points, and once you get to that stage, you start to believe it is possible to put yourselves in a position to qualify, and that is certainly the experience of qualifying for france, we have been through that, and those experiences, we know what is required to get there now. england's ross fisher is out of the world golf championship match play in texas. he lost to japan's hideto tanihara in the quarterfinals, but he did leave with a decent consolation prize — his win over bubba watson in the previous round took fisher into the world's top 50 and earned him a place in the masters next month. scotland beat sweden to take bronze at the world women's

curling championship in beijing. skip eve muirhead and her team had lost to the swedes in a play—off yesterday, but they turned the tables, winning 6—4 in the bronze—medal match. canada beat russia to take the gold. muirhead was delighted with what she called "a really strong team performance", especially with the winter olympics in pyeonchang coming up next year. i am looking forward to the olympic games. for great britain, we still have the selection to happen, but we know that great britain has a spot, we have secured a spot in the olympic games, so it is exciting to know that the games is around the corner, but we will keep practising hard, keep training hard so we are even better at the games. and that is all the sport for now, back to you, reeta. it isa back to you, reeta. it is a beautiful day outside, let's look at the weather with john hammond. it stays beautiful for the rest of the day, reeta, but it turns more showery through the weekend. get out

and enjoy the sunshine if you can, temperatures into the low to mid teens, as warm a 17—19 in some highland areas, but it will cool off quickly through this evening, if you are heading out, you will need a few layers. no great dramas, low cloud creeping into southern and eastern areas, chilly again for some northwesterner rural spots, below freezing in one or two places. tomorrow, and other nice day for the most part, more cloud in the sky for some, particularly across eastern counties of england, and that will knock the temperatures on the head here, but for most of us in the sunshine, feeling quite delightful, made teens is typical, 17 in the london area. enjoy, because rain is on the horizon — that will be pushing in from the west, but even then there will still be some spills of warm sunshine. that is it, back in halfan of warm sunshine. that is it, back in half an hour. hello, this is bbc news.

the headlines: the home secretary has called on social media providers to end the encryption of messaging services. her comments come after it was revealed khalid masood used whatsapp messaging just before launching his attack in westminster last week. scotland yard has confirmed the attack carried out by masood took just 82 seconds. detectives have revealed his motive may never be known. they believe he acted alone, despite one of the 11 people arrested in connection with the attack remaining in custody. the family of pc keith palmer who was killed in the attack have