this is bbc news. the headlines at 12:00: swedish police are questioning a man they believe is the driver of a lorry which killed four people when it was driven at pedestrians in stockholm. the united states warns syria that further military action can't be ruled out over its use of chemical weapons. more disruption for passengers as rail workers across england stage another strike. there's a warning of travel delays expected around the grand national. asa as a passenger would you want to pay even more on your ticket price for less safety solely to benefit the profits of the private train operators? we believe is a trade union that is unacceptable and passengers deserve a safe railway. also in the next hour, honouring seven young people who've made extraordinary contributions to their communities. we'll speak to sisters sophia and amber cowburn who founded the mental health charity the invictus trust in 2011, after their brother ben took his own life. place your bets — a0 years after red rum completed an historic hat—trick, could definitely red

in his stride at today's grand national? and coming in half an hour, click looks at whether voice—controlled personal assistants live up to the hype. good afternoon and welcome to bbc news. swedish police say a man they believe was the driver of a lorry which drove into pedestrians killing four people has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism. this morning, swedish media are reporting that explosives have been found in the lorry used in an attack. police say they can't confirm that. this morning theresa may called the

swedish counterpart to offer her condolences. downing street has released a statement which says: our correspondent dan johnson reports. panic and confusion on the streets of another european capital. people are scared. something is happening. people running in terror as a truck races towards shoppers in the centre of stockholm. and this is where it ended up, in flames after crashing into a department store. translation: i saw exactly where the lorry went in, just there. there wasn't much of a reaction, then the police arrived. the police just said, "you have to run." the truck belongs to a brewery company who said a man hijacked it earlier as it was dropping off beer. the bluntest of weapons, used to deliver a sudden and deadly blow that has hit sweden hard. police quickly released images

of a man they wanted to question, and within hours they had made an arrest. translation: earlier, we released a picture of a person of particular interest to the investigation, and a short while ago we apprehended a person which matches that description. and sweden's prime minister said his country wouldn't give in to terror. we are determined never to let the values that we treasure, democracy, human rights and freedom, to be undermined by hatred. after hours under lockdown, at least some normality is returning to the city. the metro has reopened, and people are returning. already, some are saying this is a wake—up call for the security services. sweden has a proud history as an open society that embraces all, but it is now the latest corner of europe forced to confront death, so sudden, so shocking. danjohnson, bbc news, stockholm.

i'm joined from stockholm by our reporter maddy savage. what is happening at the moment? huge crowds have started to gather here in stockholm city centre, just metres away from the department store the truck crashed into on friday. people have started bringing flowers along and paying tributes, lighting candles. a number of senior figures in swedish society have been here including crown princess victoria and her husband prince daniel. they earlier paid tribute to the 15 people who died in this violence. six have been released from hospital, are the end injured, nine remain in hospital. many ordinary members of the public, families with their children, are

showing solidarity in stockholm after this very shocking incident. as we heard earlier, one that mirrors that of many in europe in recent months. that is what is happening here in central stockholm, security very tight all around the city, still seeing a lot of armed police on the streets, and on the orders of the swedish prime minister security has also been stepped up at sweden's borders. regarding investigation, though, not much new information. we know police are holding one man believed to be the driver. they haven't released any details formerly but it is widely speculated in the swedish media that it is a 39—year—old originally from uzbekistan understood to be a father of four who was living on the outskirts of stockholm. are the investigators saying anything about whether this person was on some sort of watchlist or were they aware of him, or anything at all? again very few official details coming through from police. we understand they will give a press conference shortly.

again, widespread speculation in the swedish media that this man was known to have links to the group known to have links to the group known as iis, but that has not been confirmed by swedish police so we are waiting to hear from confirmed by swedish police so we are waiting to hearfrom more official sources about that. thank you very much. the united states says it's prepared to launch more military action against syria over its use of chemical weapons. it follows a missile strike on an air base where the syrian government is said to have launched a deadly gas attack last week. the us says it's also preparing new economic sanctions against the country. here's our washington correspondent, david willis. this was america's first direct involvement in the syrian crisis. its cruise missile attack a contradiction of the trump doctrine of avoiding conflicts in far away lands and putting america first. and as syria's army chief inspected the impact of the attack on the air base from which us officials insist on tuesday's chemical weapons attack was launched, the trump administration insisted it was a one—off and not the opening of a new front in the war against bashar al—assad.

yet, although the administration's strategy in syria remains focused on defeating the so—called islamic state, there's no doubt it has hardened its stance on president assad quite considerably in the last few days. the united states took a very measured step last night. we are prepared to do more. but we hope that will not be necessary. all this has put donald trump on a collision course with his opposite number in the kremlin, vladimir putin. russia is syria's chief benefactor, and following friday's missile strike, the russians have suspended military coordination in the skies over syria. meanwhile, the pentagon is looking into suggestions that russia may have been complicit in the chemical weapons attack, possibly by seeking to cover up evidence — something which could harden

the battle lines over one of the world's most intractable conflicts. david willis, bbc news, washington. let's speak to benjames in beirut. how is it all been viewed from there? one thing being reported so far today was that towards the end of yesterday, there were a couple of planes taking off from the airbase that was struck by the american cruise missile attack. this is according to the uk—based monitoring group the syrian observatory for human rights. people are looking at the military impacts on the airbase. the americans that 20 planes had been destroyed in their attack on the runways remained intact. whether these couple of jets the runways remained intact. whether these couple ofjets taking off our syrian or russian is not specified

in the report. it shows the —based oil has substantial capability to operate, or it may be a symbolic show of defiance to show they can continue operations regardless. we don't know. we understand jets took pa rt don't know. we understand jets took part in strikes against islamic state in palmyra, an area where the syrian government and is militants have been fighting one another for some time. that city changing hands a number of times over the last couple of years. politically, in the region, what is the fear now? there is one big political statement this morning from the president of iran, which is important, iran being one of syria's key allies in this conflict. hassan rouhani echoed what the russians and syrians have been saying, that the american strike will only help terrorists. rugani says terrorists are applauding tromp, asking why he attacked the

syrian army which is fighting terrorists, and called for an independent commission by impartial countries into that suspected chemical attack. i suppose the question is in this polarised and highly charged political environment internationally, which countries will be considered impartial enough by all sides in this conflict to carry out some kind of investigation. thank you. ben james there in beirut. president trump has said he believes "tremendous progress" has been made during meetings in florida with the chinese leader, xi jinping. they've agreed a 100—day plan for talks designed to reduce the us trade deficit with china. they also talked about north korea's nuclear weapons programme. workers at three rail companies have walked out in a dispute which will disrupt the travel plans of people going to aintree for the grand national. members of the rmt union at merseyrail, northern and southern are striking for 2h hours in a row about staffing and driver—only trains. jon ironmonger reports. picket lines outside liverpool lime street station this morning, the starting point

for thousands of racegoers travelling to grand national day. so if you are off to aintree on the train, you can expect some problems. the rmt union says support for strikes on merseyrail and northern is rock solid, with widespread delays, packed or cancelled trains and replacement buses likely across all services. to limit the disruption, merseyrail has laid on a special timetable to and from the course, but other routes could be hit as a result. northern rail says it has moved the times of its last services from lime street to later in the evening. the strikes, about the role of the guard on trains, began on southern rail a year ago, and has spread to companies in the north of england in recent weeks. southern says it expects to operate a near normal service today because more of its trains can run withjust a driver on board. so far, talks to try to resolve the dispute have broken down.

jon ironmonger, bbc news. let's get more in our top story, the aftermath of the attack on stockholm. i'm joined via webcam from stockholm by the swedish investigative journalist per hermanrud. thank you forjoining us. why this particular area of stockroom —— stockholm, do you think? there was a man arrested last night, and he was arrested in a suburb of stockholm, a place known to be where there are lots of islamic terrorists living there, basically. but for now we don't know anything about the motive of the attack, we just know that four people are dead and it was a terror attack. what about the police and intelligence services? are they on high alert? would they have been

aware of this individual? that information, we don't have so far. the police and prosecutors are working and don't give very much information unfortunately. there has been an issue, hasn't there, with sweden accepting back into the country those who went to fight for isis. is this something that plays high on the public agenda there? absolutely, it has been a discussion for several years now. it is a problem. many people think they can come back to sweden, and legislation in sweden doesn't allow us to put them into law enforcement. so the prosecutors need to have evidence that these people have committed war crimes or any other crimes in syria, for instance, and that can be really

tricky, as the prosecutor and the police need to go there and they cannot, so it is a dilemma. in other words, there are no—go areas for the authorities? yes, it has also been a long discussion here for some years that there are so—called no—go zones here in sweden, 55 of them. police have stated that these areas are especially problematic. there is high unemployment and drug problems, and basically crimes. what has happened is that firefighters and ambulances and police when they arrive to these places, people have been throwing stones and there have been throwing stones and there have been clashes in these areas, and although, i have to say, police are saying there are no no—go zones in sweden, the swedish police go anywhere on swedish soil, that is what they are saying, but however people are saying there are problems

in these areas. in the aftermath, as people are taking in what happened, what would you say is the public mood in sweden today? of course, everybody is shocked. we had a terrorist attack in 2010 at christmas time. it was also on this main street in stockholm, but the only one who died them was a suicide bomber. this time four people are dead on 15 are injured. of course, it isa dead on 15 are injured. of course, it is a tragedy to the country. per hermanrud, thank you very much for joining us. in the past few minutes the swedish prime minister has visited the scene, and he spoke to reporters. in the midst of this investigation. it is way too early to draw some political conclusions from all this. this is a moment for sorrow, for grief. this is what we

are doing today, and we grieve with the families who have lost their loved ones, near ones, but we are also determined to be an open society, a democratic society, and thatis society, a democratic society, and that is something i am totally confident the swedish people also feel. the headlines on bbc news: swedish police are questioning a man they believe is the driver of a lorry which killed four people when it was driven at pedestrians in stockholm. the united states has warned it could take further military action and sanctions against the syrian government hours after it fired a barrage of cruise missiles at an airbase. the strike by rail workers that the rmt union is expected to disrupt services to the grand national as members of three companies walk out in a dispute over staffing. the basque separatist group, eta, has handed over a file containing

details of its remaining arms and explosives. its violent campaign for basque independence lasted a0 years. earlier, i spoke to our chief international correspondent lyse doucet, who explained what happened this morning. decades of a very dark and bloody campaign for independence came down to a very simple ceremony in a city hall here in the french city of bayonne. five men around a plain square table, and it was opened by the mayor of this region, who said, "this is a moment we have all been waiting for." and then a prominent french environmentalist brought this bulky folder and handed it over to an italian archbishop and the reverend harold goode, who played a key role in the northern ireland peace process, and from there it was handed over to the verification commission, and from there to the french judicial authorities. and so as we speak, they are now going in search of the last of the weapons and explosives and we are told a very significant

quantity of explosives and a very small number of guns. remind the viewers how we got to this point. viewers might be thinking of remembering what happened when the ira, when they put weapons beyond use. the governments were involved, the british government was involved. this is a very different process which emerged out of basque civil society, because the french and the spanish governments refused to negotiate with what is a listed terrorist organisation. they are still making demands. so it emerged through civil society. they brought in international mediators. some of them have been working with eta for 1h years and so the process began. it ended in a unilateral ceasefire in 2011, and since then, the mediators and civil society representatives have been cajoling and putting pressure on eta members. some of them were reluctant to give

up the guns for nothing. it took six years to convince enough members to trace the location of the weapons. again, there is a northern ireland echo here. it's a highly structured organisation. each cell with about three people. they don't know the existence of the other, so it was hard to track down all the weapons. until they arrived here today at the ceremony, it lasted less than half an hour. all the guns have been handed over. they still have to disband as an organisation, and across the border in spain today, the spanish governing party is organising a counter event to call on eta notjust to dissolve itself but to pay compensation and to apologise to its many victims. iraqi forces attempting to take the city of mosul are meeting fierce resistance from so—called islamic state. over the past five weeks the iraqi security forces have lost nearly 300 soldiers, while another 1,600 have been

wounded in the battle for the western half of the city. our defence correspondent jonathan beale has this report. it's been called the toughest urban fighting since the second world war. the battle for mosul is still far from over, but it has already brutally scarred the city. snipers are pinning down the iraqi forces and slowing the advance. mortar fire, too, as we witnessed on the front line. a dangerous place, as the armoured vehicle in front of us is about to find out. that is the blast from an is rocket. we had to move fast to avoid being the next target. we are not sure as to what is going to come round the corner here,

where is are. we've just come under sniper fire. there were mortars coming off nearby us. and then a vehicle in front of us got hit by an rpg. they're still within firing range, but these are the streets recently freed from is control. these are the ones who managed to escape the extremists' clutches. many hid as the battle reached their doors. like bashar and his family, who feared the extremists would take them to use them as human shields. he says, "is told everyone to move within the hour. "they said anyone who stayed behind will be burnt alive in their home. "we were rescued just in time". many civilians, though, are trapped as the fighting becomes harder. both sides breaking down walls to move undercover. a deadly labyrinth with the enemy sometimes hiding

in the same building. downstairs was, until recently, an is position. they‘ re making sure they don't come back. gunfire. this is unforgiving urban warfare against an enemy that has had three years to prepare, and is proving harder to spot. gunfire. with the iraqi security forces never sure what might be round the corner. jonathan beale, bbc news, mosul. the chief executive of ford has said he cannot guarantee the company will keep manufacturing in the uk after brexit. mark fields told bbc news it was "really important" for the uk to secure a free trade deal with the european union. he said ford was "going to be in the uk for quite some time," but that "nothing could be guaranteed over many years." he's been speaking to our

correspondent robin brant. we need to make sure that all of our facilities around the world are globally competitive. listen, we are very proud to be in the uk and we're going to be in the uk for quite some time but it's going to be really important, particularly as article 50 is now triggered, that, from our standpoint, there needs to be free trade between the uk and the continent, and that's really important to us. i think it is important to our business, important to our customers. are ford going to stay irrespective or is there always a chance that, you know, you are a big global company, that maybe one day ford is not there? in the uk? in the uk, after brexit. well, i think overall, it depends... that's a very sweeping statement. i can't guarantee anything. nobody can guarantee anything over many, many years but i think our intent is making sure that our uk business remains very strong and that's why we're engaging with the governments to be able to say, "here's what we think we need to make sure that that remains a possibility and we stay

across the continent and in the uk and we have a healthy business in europe." today, some extraordinary acts by young people are being celebrated at the rotary young citizen awards in manchester. there are seven winners, chosen from hundreds of people nominated across great britain and the republic of ireland. the awards are now in their tenth year, and winners from the past decade have also travelled to manchester for this year's celebrations. our correspondent noel phillips is live in manchester for us now. that's right, maxine. today has been all about celebrating the great achievements of young people, and a lot of the young people here have one thing in common, they have picked up one of these awards, and most of them share a sense of responsibility and desire to make a difference to their communities. two sisters who have done just that had

made a big difference, sophia and amber cowburn who picked up awards today for simply doing amazing things when it comes to charity. tell us about your story, because it all tell us about your story, because it a ll started tell us about your story, because it all started when you lost your brother, didn't it? in 2010 hour brother, didn't it? in 2010 hour brother, who was 18, suffered from a small period of mental health issues and it went downhill really quickly. he ended up being in a mental health unit and sadly we lost him in december 2000 ten. in january unit and sadly we lost him in december 2000 ten. injanuary 20 11th hour family were grieving and devastated and we decided to do something to change things and raise awareness and improve services, so we set up a charity called the invictus trust, and we run it as a family. it was named after his tattoos. he had the invictus poem tattooed on his arm. we have been running it ever since. what is quite incredible is the fact that you were grieving at the time and you decided

to be proactive and turn grief into success. tell us about what then was like. he was a party animal, life and soul of the party, love music, fashion. part of the reason we took the branding of invictus so seriously was to make it approachable for young people so it wasn't stigmatised by mental health. as ambersaid, we wasn't stigmatised by mental health. as amber said, we use the poem he had tattooed on him and the anchor logo, and a lot of the fundraising we didn't was around things ben loved like music, gigs and parties, to get people in before we spoke to them and challenged the stigma and change what they said about mental health. why do we have such a battle in this country when it comes to mental health, especially among young people? for young people today there are a lot of pressures. with social media and the internet, everything is magnified, things you used to be able to turn off when you we nt used to be able to turn off when you went home from school carry on round—the—clock. young people face

pressures with school, exams, body image and celebrity culture, there is so much going on that it is natural that they will be more mental health issues, but also we talk about the more so we will see higher levels. what is great for us is the younger generations are changing it now. they are destroying the stigma and talking about mental health and getting help earlier which can only get better. fast forward to today, you guys have made quite a bit of a difference because it has been announced in the last week that up to three years of relentless campaigning, the nhs will build its first—ever mental health unit in cornwall, because cornwall did not have a mental health unit, and that is down to you. how do you feel? it didn't have mental health facilities for young people and of the charity we fund up to 15 families the year to leave cornwall and travel to see their children, who are as far as 400 miles away to be cared for, so this is amazing and we now want to make sure the unit is built and changes the lives of the children living in cornwall. congratulations. i am going to hand

you back your award. two very worthy winners, amber and sophie. there is a special highlights programme on the bbc news channel tonight at 8:30pm, the rotary young citizen awards 2017. thank you. let's see what the weather is doing. ben has all the details. if you like warm weather and sunshine you will find plenty to enjoy this weekend. plenty of sunshine for many, the sunshine fairly strong with high uv levels for the time of year, turning warm as well. as you can see, the rest of today brings sunny skies for almost all of us, just the far north of scotla nd all of us, just the far north of scotland with more cloud, drizzle and breezy weather, but further south, — 21, maybe 22 degrees. cooler close to the coasts. this evening it stays dry, under clear skies temperatures dropping considerably with the odd fog patch, and although towns and cities will hold up at 607 degrees, rural spots

will get cold enough for grass frost. tomorrow, some fog patches but for england and wales another sunny day, some cloud on the coasts later. clouding of a generally in scotla nd later. clouding of a generally in scotland and northern ireland with rain arriving here. daily cool in the north—west but parts of the south—east could get 25 degrees. let's see what's happening in the world of sport. mike bushell is that the bbc sport centre. what a busy day of sport, the grand national, masters golf, davis cup and the premier league football begins ina and the premier league football begins in a couple of minutes, spurs playing watford in the lunchtime kick—off. harry kane has been injured in the last month and is backin injured in the last month and is back in the squad and will start on the bench today for spurs. third placed liverpool are at stoke this afternoon with man city hosting hull at the other end of the table west

ham hope to hold their recent slide when they take on third from bottom swa nsea. if you are looking to raise a bet on the grand national, the bbc website will have information. there are many favourites for the race. the pressure is always there, but it is great. we have one of the favourites so all we want to do is get in there and on the race itself, have a bit of luck. come back safe, that's the main thing. lewis hamilton has perished in pole position in qualifying for the chinese grand prix. he was