24/12/2015 BBC News at Six

A woman in her seventies has died after a car ploughed into a coffee

A number of people are said to have been injured at the Costa Coffee,

and roads in the centre of the town have been closed to traffic.

The car remains embedded in the front of the building.

The operation to remove the car is just getting under way behind me.

One shopkeeper he said the noise of the impact was so loud she thought

it was a bomb. She could not see the car because it was lodged inside the

shop. She went to give first aid and she could see the injured lying

among smashed tables and chairs. An image taken soon after the car

crashed into the Coffey shop. It is on the high street and a popular

meeting place in the town. I heard a big bang outside and it was sounding

like a big bomb. One of the Costa Coffee staff asked me to see a woman

behind the counter. I went there and I spoke to her. She never replied

back. But I can see clearly she is dead. Hours later the car remained

lodged in the Coffey shop. Two people were cut free by the fire

service. A woman in her 70s was declared dead at the scene. The car

first lost control of the street. These fluorescent markers show its

path across the pavement. It careered into Costa Coffee at

10:30am. It was full of people kicking off their Christmas Eve. A

total of five people were taken to hospital. Two men and two women were

seriously injured. One woman had minor injuries. The police

investigation is ongoing. But it appears to be a tragic accident. We

have a coordinated approach to deal with casualties first. That was our

main priorities -- priority, to save lives and make sure there were no

further injuries. When that was done we helped people out. We then slowed

the scene down so we could carry on with the investigation to get to the

root causes of what happened. West Ham is a close-knit community. A few

of its residents who had popped into a copy shop on Christmas Eve will be

spending Christmas day in hospital. -- Coffey shop.

The government's crisis response Cobra Committee will meet

on Christmas Day to discuss the situation in flood-hit Cumbria.

More heavy rain is forecast to hit the county -

and the army has already been put on standby to help.

River levels have been up and down for weeks now in Cumbria. But more

wet weather means they are set to rise sharply again over the next

couple of days and cause more flooding. So they are putting out

the sandbags again. We are better prepared. I would rather be

chastised for getting things in place and did not happening than

somebody saying it is not kind to happen and it does. They have only

just finished stripping out of these flats after the last flood. People

living here say they have never known a month like it. To it has

never stopped raining. We're never stopped raining. We're

watching the river going up and down like a yo-yo. People getting sorted,

back on their feet a little bit, and it could all happen again.

The latest forecast of heavy rain means the Government is preparing

for the worst. I think we need to be seriously worried. Although this

river seems low now, if you had more rain it could come right up over

these banks. It is not just true here. That will be true in Keswick,

Cockermouth, Appleby and Carlisle. For Sony people affected by flooding

so far, the festivities are the least of their concerns. We are

bearing through it and looking forward to Christmas being over.

Their focus is getting long-term accommodation and getting back on

their feet. From tomorrow, once again attention will be focused on

river levels here in Cumbria. It seems for people living here there

is no letup. More rain is the last thing Cumbria needs at the moment.

The misery of flooding is set to continue.

Danny, people must be looking at the next few days with great

apprehension? Just to underline how bad it is, the

Met Office have confirmed today that is -- that this month in Cumbria has

been the wettest on record. Those records have been going for 105

years. There are still six days of the month left. There is more rain

in the forecast. As for the outlook over the next couple of days, my

understanding is there are places in the south of the candidate -- county

that are particularly vulnerable. Appleby may flood yet again. Kendall

may be affected. But the hope is looking at the current models, say

the experts, is that the flood defences in Carlisle should hold.

There should not be any flooding there as things stand. That could

change. But looking at what people are saying here, and those who are

affected living near rivers, the feeling is that if they do get

flooded again, it causes more damage and causes another problem but it

does not make things too much worse because things have already been

destroyed. But it resets the clock. It causes things to go back to

square one and having to start all over again. Plans have been made to

get Cumbria back to some kind of normality in the New Year but that

is some days away. There will be a lot more to get through, more

flooding potentially in the next few days. I think people living here,

people living close to rivers in this of England, to keep watching

those forecasts, watching those warnings because it could come --

could only come up with a potential 12 hours warning time.

At least 13 people have been injured after a bus crashed into a building

The single-decker bus hit the front of a building used as the regional

offices of Guide Dogs for the Blind, after a collision with a car.

Firefighters cut two people from the damaged car and several

passengers on the bus have received treatment for minor injuries.

The UK and US governments have issued a warning about possible

threats to Westerners in the Chinese captial,

British and US officials say they have received information

of possible threats in Sanlitun, a busy bar and shopping district.

It's not clear what the threat is, but armed police are being deployed

and there will be increased security checks in the city.

Afghan officials say Taliban militants have been forced out

of part of the town of Sangin, in Helmand province,

in a military operation backed by US air strikes.

There's been no response from the Taliban.

The group had earlier said it was in control of Sangin.

More than a hundred British soldiers were killed there before Nato

Two Burmese men have been convicted and sentenced to death for murdering

The bodies of backpackers Hannah Witheridge and David Miller

were found on an island beach in September last year.

From Thailand, Jonathan Head reports.

Arriving at court to hear their fate. Two young Burmese men charged

with a horrific crime on a holiday island. David Miller and Hannah

Witheridge had been doing what so many young Britons do at their age,

backpacking through Thailand. Their battered bodies were found last year

on this beach early one morning. From the start of the police

investigation was marred by accusations of incompetence. The

crime scene was never seal. Evidence was poorly handled. Police

statements were confusing. But when they detained the two suspects, they

were put through a bizarre re-enactment. They both also

retracted their earlier confessions, saying they had been threatened and

beaten. There were many doubts expressed about the prosecution

case, not just by the defence lawyers but also by international

forensic and -- experts, in particular about the central piece

of evidence, the police DNA tests which they said were unreliable.

None of that was sufficient to sway the judges, who insisted the tests

were up to international standards and enough to justify a guilty

verdict and the death penalty. The emphatic outcome of this drawn-out

trial gave some satisfaction to the family of David Miller, who

attended. We believe the result attended. We believe the result

today represents justice for David and Hannah. It is our opinion that

the evidence against the two men is absolutely overwhelming. They raped

to satisfy their selfish desires and murdered to cover up that fact. They

have shown no remorse during the trial. It was a very different

experience for the mothers of the two convicted men, who were visiting

from Myanmar. In court, the defence lawyers had failed to convince the

judges of the flaws they said riddled the prosecution case. Now

they plan to appeal against the verdict, a process which could take

years. Jonathan Head, BBC News.

David Cameron has released his annual Christmas message

in which he urges Britons to remember people fleeing

persecution, including Christians, and reaffirms that Britain

In the message, released on social media, the Prime Minister says

that it is because of its Christian values that Britain has been such

a successful home to people of all faiths and none.

England pace bowler James Anderson has been ruled out of the first Test

against South Africa in Durban on Boxing Day,

England's leading Test wicket-taker was rested for the warm-up match

There's more throughout the evening on the BBC News Channel.

We're back with the late news at half past 11.