19/12/2017 BBC News at Six

A suspected terror plot

thought to be planned

for Christmas is foiled,

as police arrest four men

in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

Hundreds of people were moved

from their homes, as the bomb

squad was sent to one

address in Chesterfield.

They come banging on the door

saying, "You need to evacuate."

My grandad refused

to leave the house.

He's still in there now.

The only one on the street.

And they said, "It's

for your own safety, bomb

disposal are here."

In the last hour, bomb disposal

experts have moved to another

property in Sheffield.

We've have the latest

on the ongoing operation.

Also on the programme tonight...

Social media companies taken to task

by MPs in Parliament,

as they're accused of not doing

enough to tackle hate crime.

Killed in the hotel

fire at Loch Lomond -

Richard Dyson and Simon Midgley

were staying at the Cameron House

hotel for a weekend break.

The future of Toys R Us and more

than 3000 jobs in the UK hangs

in the balance tonight,

amid fears it's about to collapse.

And the 95 year-old

librarian who is one

New York's oldest employees -

we report on the superagers,

as scientists say they're close

to finding drugs to delay

the ageing process.

Coming up on Sportsday on BBC News:

Suspicion hangs over sprinter

Justin Gatlin amid doping

allegations involving two

of his associates.

Good evening.

Police have arrested four men

in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire,

as they swooped in to disrupt

a suspected Islamist terror plot

planned for Christmas.

Armed officers made the arrests

early this morning at four

separate addresses,

using stun grenades.

The Army Bomb Disposal Unit

was called to a row

of shops in Chesterfield.

More than a hundred people have been

evacuated from their homes.

Tonight, the bomb squad has

just arrived at another

address in Sheffield.

With the latest, here's our

correspondent, Danny Savage.

On a terraced street

in Chesterfield today, Army bomb

disposal experts were

looking for explosives.

They have been here for hours.

Counter-terrorism officers arrested

a 31-year-old man here this morning.

In the predawn darkness,

armed police were pictured guarding

the scene as the raid took place.

At the edge of the cordon, people

evacuated from their homes couldn't

believe what was happening

in their streets.

They come banging on the door

saying, "You need to evacuate."

My grandad refused

to leave the house.

He's still in there now.

The only one on the street.

And they said, "It's

for your own safety, bomb

disposal are here."

They made everyone else

leave apart from him.

How does it feel that this

is happening in your neighbourhood?

In a way it's a bit scary,

bit weird, isn't it?

You don't expect things like this

to happen in Chesterfield,

or in a little area like this.

So it's a bit worrying in a way.

Arrests were made elsewhere too,

as police took action against an

alleged Islamist terror plot

against the UK that could have come

to fruition over Christmas.

Although the most

obvious activity was in

Chesterfield, about 15 miles away

in the Burngreave area of Sheffield,

two other men were arrested.

A business was raided,

and another man

was arrested in Meersbrook, where

local people heard stun

grenades being used.

We were woken up at about 5:30

by a really, really loud bang.

Initially we did think that somebody

had crashed outside our house.

So we were looking outside,

and all we could see were police

officers in riot gear.

They were storming a house

across the road from us.

There was lots of running

about, lots of shouting.

This is the Fatima Community Centre

in Sheffield, where

two of the detained men

were arrested in bedsits

adjoining the centre.

These were co-ordinated

counter-terrorism raids, which may

have stopped a plot timed

to coincide with the

Christmas holidays.

Tonight the four men who were

arrested are being held in a police

station in Yorkshire. They are aged

between 22 and 41. As for the bomb

disposal unit that has been here for

much of the day, they are now gone.

There is a police van. The bomb

disposal unit is at the community

Centre in Sheffield. A cordon is in

place. People have been told they

can't go into it. People inside have

been told they may be moved out of

the area as the evening continues.

It just shows this is an ongoing

enquiry, with search is still being

carried out.

Danny Savage, thank

you.

MPs have heavily criticised social

media companies for not doing enough

to tackle hate crime.

Senior bosses from Facebook,

Twitter and Google

appeared before MPs today.

They were accused of providing

a platform for extremism

and allowing people to use

social media to further

the ills of society.

Here's our Media

Editor, Amol Rajan.

Harmful content online takes

countless forms, but not all of them

are illegal. There is the hate

speech that attacks individuals on

the basis of attributes such as

disability or gender. That is quite

separate from extremist content,

which propagates the worldview of

those ranging from neo-Nazis to

so-called Islamic State. How easy is

it to find this material online?

Very easy indeed.

One campaigner

working with MPs on the issue

believes social media platforms

you're vulnerable adults into the

extremist Web. How big an issue is

soft extremism?

It is a significant

issue because actually the material

clearly is not removed, it is not

illegal in the eyes of social media

providers. The other factor is their

algorithms are diverging individuals

who may have an aggressive

worldview, and the algorithms direct

them to join other groups who may

have similar content.

Today MPs

called Tech companies as part of an

enquiry into hate crime. The

committee chair set Twitter still

had not removed a -- an offensive to

eat it was warned about in March.

That Tweed is still on your

platform. Why is it?

I don't know

the answer to that question.

I

really do all think we should kill a

Tory. Think of the benefits were we

to kill just one Tory. That is on

Twitter. Your home say she will not

tolerate violent threats of

individuals or groups. How does that

comply with your code?

We have 500

million tweets a day, 330 million

users. Twitter is used in multiple

languages.

You are actively

recommended what is effectively

raises material into people's

timelines.

Aye Well Asghar reviewers

to look into it and get back with a

solid response. -- I will ask our

viewers. I will look at how we can

look at hate speech.

Isn't the truth

that your algorithms and the way you

want to attract people to look at

other linked things, is that

actually your algorithms are doing

that grooming and that

radicalisation?

But that is not how

Facebook sees it.

While I do

recognise we have a problem, which

is a shared problem, with the

police, with yourselves, with civil

society organisations, how do we

address that personally? We may be

going down a channel which can lead

to them being radicalised.

MPs have

a personal stake in the fight

against harmful content online. But

it's not clear that turning tech

giants into centres is the best way

to safeguard democracy.

Amol is here.

MPs did sound exasperated today.

What more can be done?

Most people

agree what abusive content is.

Everyone agrees there is too much of

it. No one agrees on what to do

about it. There are two reasons. The

first is principal. These companies

do not want to be in the business of

censoring the Internet. They are not

publishers like the BBC Ore

newspaper. They are platforms that

gave everybody a voice and they rely

on the community to police it. The

bigger issue is the question of

scale. There is just so much of this

material uploaded online every

single minute, that ultimately you

will never control of completely.

That is not to be defeatist. It is a

pragmatic point of view. Facebook

and Google say they are going to

double the number of people looking

at this. They say the best skill is

not what human beings but smarter

computers.

Thank you.

Two men who died at a luxury

hotel on Loch Lomond

yesterday, have been named.

Simon Midgley and Richard Dyson -

both thought to be from London -

were on a winter break

at the Cameron House Hotel,

when the fire broke out

in the early hours of the morning.

Firefighters managed

to save a couple on their honeymoon

and their baby, who were on an upper

floor of the hotel.

Our Scotland Correspondent,

Lorna Gordon, is there

for us this evening.

On the secluded shores of Loch

Lomond, the burned-out remains of

one of Scotland's most prestigious

hotels. It was here that early

yesterday morning, while many of the

200 guests were still sleeping, the

fire took hold. It gutted the main

building and led to the loss of two

lives. The BBC understands that

Simon Midgley and Richard Dyson had

been staying at Cameron house on a

winter break. Police have not

confirmed their identities but

tribute at Bin paid social media.

More than 60 firefighters were

involved in fighting the blaze. The

damage she is extensive. The top two

floors of the main building looked

to be completely burnt out. The

priority for fire crews now is to

make this building safe. And their

initial investigation is likely to

focus on trying to find out where

the blaze began.

We will be taking

witness statements from the guests

and staff that were on the property.

They will be looking to see if there

are a CCTV cameras which may assist

them in narrowing the focus of where

the fire first started.

Footage

taken at the time showed fire crews

rescuing a recently married couple

from their second-floor room. Their

baby carried out by a firefighter.

In a statement, the Hotel described

this as a heart stopping moment. It

called the firefighters involved

heroes. The swift actions of the

emergency services may have

prevented further loss of life in

this fatal fire. Lorna Gordon, BBC

News, Loch Lomond.

It's one of the worst scandals

in the history of the NHS.

Almost 2,500 people

died after being given

contaminated bloods in the 1970s

and 80s - blood that had been

infected with HIV and hepatitis C.

This week the government

will announce who will run a public

inquiry into the scandal.

It's welcome news at

last, say campaigners,

as it emerges that government

officials have been using

a discredited report into the blood

controversy for more than a decade -

despite assurances it had been

taken out of circulation.

Here's our Health Editor, Hugh Pym

He developed HIV and hepatitis and

died.

Carol has campaigned for decades for

April -- full public enquiry into

the scandal which claimed 2500 lives

and ruined thousands more. At last,

that is about to happen. She has

uncovered hundreds of documents

which she says revealed an official

cover-up.

I think there are huge

implications for government. They

don't want the conversation because

there are high numbers of people

both infected and affected because

you've got the infected

haemophiliacs and you've got the

affected family members.

Blood

products were haemophiliacs and

transfusions were imported from the

US. Some were infected by donors,

including prisoners. In 2006, the

government published what was billed

as a definitive report. But some

original documents have been

destroyed, so key information was

missing. The BBC can reveal it was

still in use this year. In August,

the top civil servant at the

Department of Health wrote that the

report had not been used by

officials in recent years and will

not be used in the future. But the

BBC has seen a letter written

earlier this year by a health

minister which did make reference to

the report as an authoritative

account. When Sir Chris was told, he

apologised and said it wouldn't

happen again. The former Lib Dem

Minister, Baroness Featherstone,

received the letters from the civil

servant, said it was shocking that

even this year misleading

information was being put out.

He

apologised because he himself had

been part of what beginning that he

has suffered since day one.

Obfuscation, misuse of facts, lies,

rebuttals, refusing to acknowledge,

almost incapable of listening.

The

Department of Health said the

independent enquiry would ensure

victims and their families got

answers. For Carol, the long battle

with the authorities has come at

great personal cost.

At the end of

the day it's taken my family life

away. That's the reality. You know,

I started this as a young woman. I'm

now going towards retirement and

there is still no justice.

Carol

wants to pass on all her documents

to the official enquiry. She can

only hope it gets to the truth of

what has been described as the

biggest disaster in the history of

the NHS. Hugh Pym, BBC News.

Our top story this evening.

A suspected terror plot thought to

be planned for Christmas is foiled

as police arrest four men in

Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

Still to come:

The 500 year old Turkey bones,

thought to be the oldest ever

discovered in the UK.

Coming up on Sportsday on BBC News:

Many have tried, many have

failed, can Leicester

stop Manchester City,

in the League Cup

quarter-final's tonight.

Imagine starting a whole

new career when you're

in your 80s and feeling young,

fit and healthy, both

in body and mind.

Or taking on some physical

challenge in your 90s,

walking for miles with no

aches or pains.

Well, scientists in America

are predicting that it won't be long

before more and more of us can

do just that.

They're working on drugs

that could help delay

the way our bodies age,

meaning that we'll be able to do

much more for much longer.

In the second of his reports

on 'superagers' our medical

correspondent, Fergus Walsh,

has been to San Francisco

and New York.

New York Public Library,

one of the city's grandest

buildings, which has one

of the city's oldest employees.

Hilda Jaffe is still going strong

at 95, so what's her

secret to a long life?

Pick your parents, it really is.

It's got to be genetic

because both my parents lived long.

Good morning, Fergus,

I'm glad you could meet me here

in this absolutely beautiful room.

Hilda gives tours of this historic

building when she's not

at the theatre, music concerts,

opera or her two book clubs.

I don't exercise,

I walk, I walk a lot.

If I had to give anybody advice

I would say, just keep moving.

Samples of Hilda's DNA are stored

in this freezer in the Bronx,

part of a study into longevity.

They found only one in 10,000 people

has protective superager genes,

but say drugs might be able to help

the rest of us.

Metformin is an old,

cheap diabetes drug,

but a major trial is planned to see

if it can delay ageing.

I can get you 690 of those for $60.

Scientists here believe it may slow

the biological processes that

trigger key diseases.

We have data in humans that

metformin would delay cardiovascular

disease and will delay diabetes

and is associated with less cancer

and seems to delay Alzheimer

or cognitive decline in people.

Ageing is an inevitable process

which begins as we reach adulthood

and continues through the decades

as our muscles, bones

and organs gradually wear out.

This tai chi group in San Francisco

show that we can delay that decline,

it helps with balance,

core strength and provides

a social network.

It makes me feel so young,

I have so much fun.

I feel like I'm in the

kindergarten of the universe.

My mother lived to 103.

I don't desire to live that long,

but I want to be as healthy

as I can, as long as I can.

That's an ambition we can all share.

Imagine a future where it

didn't hurt to get old,

where our joints didn't wear out?

It would have a huge impact

on our quality of life as we age.

This biotech company in California

has developed a drug to counter

one of the key diseases

of ageing, osteoarthritis.

Human trials of this experimental

compound should begin next year.

This is an area of the cartilage

that is now diseased.

You can see the

cartilage is damaged.

It works by clearing cells

which build up in the knee joint,

which maybe a trigger

for the painful condition.

A single injection that we believe

and hope will alleviate their pain

and begin the restorative process

in their knee to perhaps at least

halt, regress and even completely

repair the knee in the end

is what our wildest

hopes would imagine.

That would mean more people

could age like Hilda,

free of aches and pains

and independent well into their 90s.

Fergus Walsh, BBC News, New York.

The future of the retailer Toys R Us

and the jobs of more than 3,000

people who work for it in the UK

are hanging in the balance tonight

amid fears that the company

is about to collapse.

Toys R Us has been told it

has to put £9 million

into its struggling pension fund

by the end of this week,

money it may not have.

Our business correspondent,

Simon Gompertz, is at a Toys R Us

store in south London.

Can it survive?

Well,ing this outlet

in fact is one that wasn't going to

survive. What Toys R Us plan to do

was to make a rescue deal, with its

creditors, that they would vote on

under which it would be a slimmed

down Operation Operation. Losing a

quarter of its outlets it would pay

back less to its creditors and

struggle on. What happened today is

that the Pension Protection Fund,

which is the lifeboat organisation

which stands behind the pension

schemes of troubled companies like

this one, has voted against that

rescue deal, putting all the outlets

in jeopardy. The reason is, they

say, they want Toys R Us to come up

with three years worth of pension

contributions upfront in order to

win its vote. Toys R Us says it

doesn't have the money. So it's not

all over yet. The company says it

can carry on trading as things are

through Christmas and into th new

year. The vote isn't finalised until

Thursday. Expect intense negotiation

until Thursday to try to bring the

Pension Protection Fund round.

Simon, thank you.

In Northern Ireland,

a recent survey of gay and lesbian

pupils found that two thirds of them

did not feel valued

in their schools.

However, gay rights groups claim

that official report was initially

shelved because the then DUP

Education Minister wouldn't give

clearance for it to be published.

Our Ireland correspondent,

Chris Buckler, reports.

Every pupil has bad days

in class, but some feel

like they simply don't belong.

Alex goes to a single sex school,

but identifies as non-binary.

That means Alex sees themselves

as neither male nor female.

It's a pretty huge problem

because you've basically got

a target on your back if you're

different to everybody

else in the school.

It's name-calling in the corridors,

it's chanting on the bus.

It's just constant negativity every

single day in school.

What kind of an effect

does that have on you?

It has impacted my mental

health, obviously.

It just makes you not

want to go to school.

It just makes you like

tired, constantly tired

and constantly tired.

At Hazelwood Integrated College

they're making a point of trying

to offer more support.

They've set up a group called Gay,

Straight, Whatever and the school's

made changes to recognise

the needs of LGBT pupils.

We changed our uniform

policy from female to male

to adjust our uniform.

The group includes both

pupils and staff members

who are openly gay and lesbian.

I actually went to this

school and I work here now

on the support staff.

When I went here, I had no

confidence because I had

no one to talk to.

So now coming back and

seeing things like -

"Some people are gay,

get over it" and posters

on the walls, it's great.

Yeah, it's definitely

a tough place to come out

because there are so many

politicians in the Government,

and all of that itself,

that is putting a lock

on equal marriage.

At this year's Belfast Pride event,

many campaigned for the introduction

of same-sex marriage

in Northern Ireland,

which was blocked by

the Democratic Unionist Party.

Some of the DUP's other statements

and actions have angered members

of the LGBT community.

A report by Northern Ireland's

Department of Education found

that two thirds of gay,

lesbian, bisexual and trans pupils

did not feel welcome

or valued in their schools.

However, this report wasn't

released for many months,

apparently because the then DUP

Education Minister, Peter Weir,

wouldn't give clearance

for it to be published.

The DUP refused a series

of interview requests.

However, this report wasn't

released for many months,

apparently because the then DUP

Education Minister, Peter Weir,

wouldn't give clearance

for it to be published.

The DUP refused a series

of interview requests.

REPORTER:

I just

wanted to ask you...

But when we caught up

with the party's former minister

at a constituency event,

he denied shelving the report.

You will find different communities

will find themselves under levels

of pressure at school,

and I think that's something which

need to combated across the board.

Do you think unionists could be

doing more to make sure that LGBT

pupils feel welcome?

I'm not quite sure why

you're particularly saying

unionists in that regard.

We have spoken to some and they're

upset because of same-sex marriage,

they're upset because of comments

that have been made

by Unionist politicians,

DUP politicians in the past.

Well, I think that people

should always try and be

sensitive in their comments.

Obviously from my own party

point of view, in terms

of same-sex marriage,

we've a particular definition

that we believe in the traditional

definition of marriage.

Across the UK, schools are studying

how they can change with society

and Tthat means learning

with their pupils.

Chris Buckler, BBC News, Belfast.

A man has been sentenced to 25 years

in prison for throwing acid

into the crowd at a packed

East London nightclub.

16 people were seriously injured.

In CCTV footage from

the Mangle Club in Hackney,

taken in April last year,

Arthur Collins, the former boyfriend

of a reality TV star,

can be seen squirting the liquid

into a group on the dance-floor.

Prosecutors say it related to a gang

feud Collins was involved in.

Christmas, it's that time of year

again when rather a lot

of turkeys will be served up

for the traditional Christmas roast.

But archaeologists in Devon

believe they have unearthed

a rather special turkey,

it may well be the oldest turkey

ever discovered in the UK,

dating back almost 500 years.

Jon Kay has the story.

A traditional turkey dinner

with all the trimmings,

but it seems they've been gobbling

it up here in Devon for much longer

than anybody realised.

At Exeter University,

a surprise discovery.

At first I wasn't sure because it

looks like a giant chicken.

In a pile of ancient animal remains,

found here in the '80s,

two mysterious thigh bones

and a wing.

Archeologists have now established

they're from an American species

of turkey nearly 500 years ago,

believed to be the oldest

ever found in Britain.

I started knocking on doors

and showing off just how excited

I was by actually telling other

people, "look what I found."

But, yes, so it is very nice

and it's really great for a zoo

archeologist to actually have this

connection with history.

We've got a plate and a bowl.

The bones could be dated

because they were found

with a pile of washing up -

crockery from a grand

feast in the early 1500s,

which is when the first

turkeys arrived here.

These were an exotic bird,

brand new into the country.

You know, people wouldn't

have heard of it.

What did it taste like?

You know, what is this giant bird?

The first turkeys are said to have

been imported by the explorer

William Strickland in the 1520s

after he bought six

from some native Americans.

Well, Strickland is said to have

sold his birds for tuppence each.

Five centuries later,

turkeys are rather bigger business,

10 million of them due to be sold

in Britain just over Christmas.

Off we go then, turkeys.

This Devon farmer wonders

if the bones found down the road

might be from those original birds.

Potentially these, in some way,

are direct descendants

of the ones that arrived,

and here they are back in Devon.

So this's quite nice.

In what else but a sandwich box,

the turkey bones have now been taken

to the city museum to go

on the display after

Christmas dinner.

Jon Kay, BBC News, Exeter.

Time for a look at

the weather, here's

Tomasz. It was bone chilling cold in

Bournemouth this morning, compared

to other parts of the country. We

will look at that in

to other parts of the country. We

will look at that in a second. Look

at this stunning picture from

Uckfield, East Sussex. Beautiful. A

nice foggy one from Staffordshire.

We didn't quite have as much fog as

we thought. It was more frosty than

anything. My yus four on the coast

there. 15 degrees at the same time

in Scotland. That is how incredible

and weird our climate is sometimes.

Or weather! This evening, lots of

cloud across the country. There will

be no freezing fog or frost or

anything tonight. Temperatures will

be too high for that, six, seven

degrees. Early on Wednesday morning

in the north of the country it will

be into double figures. Overall a

mild night in the way. We are

forecasting this mild weather to

stay with us through most of this

week and into the run-up to

Christmas. Look at that, the mild

air has reached areas as far north

as Scandinavia, Finland and even the

far west of Russia. Through the

course of tomorrow it's cloudy and

quite drizzly across western parts

of England and Wales. There is a

weather front moving across the UK.

This is where we sometimes find a

little bit of rain to the north of

the weather front it will be cooler.

Not desperately cold, nine in

Aberdeen. There will be more

sunshine around. A mild morning and

a mild day overall across the UK

tomorrow. Here is Thursday, stays

mild, cloudy unfortunately, not very

festive. No frost around either. The

north of the country a little bit

fresher