Shefali Oza
BBC Midlands Today

A band of showery rain will move across the region later but then it will be mostly a cloudy night with lows of 5C (41F).

You can find a detailed forecast for your area on the BBC Weather site.

Local Democracy Reporting Service
Carl Jackson

Campaigners are calling on Birmingham City Council to overturn fines issued to ambulances and paramedics using bus lanes.

A petition is also calling on the local authority to prevent paramedics and ambulances from incurring fines in the first place.

It comes after it emerged West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) had been hit by up to 15 fines a day – totalling £900 – for drivers using the bus lane on the B4128 Bordesley Green East near Heartlands Hospital.

One fine was levied on an ambulance on a call to treat an unconscious 16-year-old girl with breathing difficulties.

The campaign has been launched by the opposition Conservatives on the council, who have pledged to cut the penalties if the party wrestles control of the authority from Labour in the May local election.

Birmingham City boss Garry Monk says that being in the Championship bottom three is like starting every game 1-0 down.

Ten people are charged over conspiracy to drop drugs and phones over prison walls.

BBC Sport

Stoke City goalkeeper Jack Butland is "up for the battle" to be England's number one at this summer's World Cup.

Image source, Getty Images

Butland, 25, started England's most recent qualifier - against Lithuania - but Joe Hart has been the regular first choice for the past six years.

Hart, 30, has made just one Premier League appearance for West Ham since November, while Butland has impressed as Stoke's starting goalkeeper.

"The only thing going through my mind is making sure it's me," he said.

Speaking to BBC One's Football Focus, he added: "It's about me being as good as I can to ensure Stoke stay up and I'm England number one."

Telford and Wrekin Council says it wants a meeting with the Home Office, to discuss calls for an inquiry into child sex exploitation in the town.

The Home Office said earlier today that it saw no need for the government to hold a separate inquiry, but the local authority is insisting that any inquiry has to be government-led.

Image source, Google

The council said a council-led inquiry would face questions about its impartiality and would have no legal power to gather evidence from other agencies.

The authority also pointed out that it only came into existence 20 years ago and argued crimes pre-1998 could not be covered by a council inquiry.

And it said it had already commissioned one review into CSE, five years ago.

BBC News Travel

Virgin says some lines through Stafford railway station have re-opened after a signal failure earlier.

But it warned some delays were still expected and advised passengers to keep an eye out for updates.

The Sentinel

These are among the headlines in Stoke's Sentinel newspaper today:

• Police close major road after crash, external
• Major plans revealed for hotel, luxury flats and student accommodation or offices, external
• 'Cash-strapped' hospital trust's new chairman will earn £60,000, external

Plans for two new student tower blocks in Coventry have been approved by city councillors this afternoon.

The 18-floor buildings will be constructed next to the city's ring road and house almost 800 students.

Image source, Watkin Jones and Son

The developers, Watkin Jones and Son, has also agreed to build a new £1.5m headquarters for Coventry Boys and Girls Club.

Mitchell Nicholls used a series of secret rooms inside a barn to hide the "sophisticated" operation.

Local Democracy Reporting Service
Carl Jackson

Uber has been granted a temporary extension to its Birmingham operating licence in a decision made behind closed doors by the city council.

The move has angered one councillor who argued he and other licensing chiefs should not have been kept in the dark.

Image source, Reuters

The taxi app firm has been under close scrutiny ever since its licence was revoked in London last September over concerns about how the company reported criminal offences and carried out driver background checks.

The firm is currently appealing Transport for London's decision and a hearing is set to be held in June.

BBC School Report

Students at BBC Birmingham have been learning about how to differentiate between real and fake news as part of School Report news day.

Brandon, a year nine pupil at Ormiston New Academy, in Wolverhampton, said he was surprised to learn how common fake news had become.

"You have ask yourself whether a story is real, look at the evidence around the story, see who has posted it and where the images are from," Brandon told BBC School Reporters from Jewellery Quarter Academy, in Birmingham.

"With some stories you really have to go in depth to find out if it's real or fake."

Allen Cook
BBC News

Work's continuing at Worcester Cathedral, by the look of this photo, to finish repairs to one of their main features.

Image source, Worcester Cathedral

They were given £390,000 by the First World War Centernary Fund, external to repair and restore the Great West Window and its stained glass.

Today, the cathedral put a photo on Facebook , externalof "one of our stonemasons Luke with some newly finished pieces" to be put in the window.

A campaign is being launched in Stoke-on-Trent to cut the rising number of verbal and physical attacks on city council workers.

The authority said abuse reported by staff had risen by 128% between January 2017 and January 2018, including threats to kill.

The reported attacks also include threatening phone calls, threats to the lives of staff members' children, racial abuse and one council worker being threatened with a makeshift axe.

The authority said it would be giving advice to its staff and spreading the message "we're here to help, don't abuse us".

It also promised a zero-tolerance attitude to offenders and said it would take legal action where appropriate.

Plans to build homes on the site of a former swimming pool in Worcester will go before city councillors next month.

The Sansome Walk site has been closed since 2016 and there is an application from Sanctuary Homes and the YMCA to turn it into a mixture of affordable homes, with many to be set aside for young people trying to get on the housing ladder.

Image source, Google

BBC School Report

Want to be a commentator? BBC WM's football reporter Mike Taylor showed School Reporters from City of Birmingham School how a journalist's tone of voice can differ depending on the events they are covering.

They learned how the use of different words is important in holding people's attention whatever job they do and were told "language is your best friend".

Mariam, a year 10 pupil at Jewellery Quarter Academy in Birmingham, also tried to produce her own live report about the recent snowy weather from watching footage on a screen.

BBC News Travel

A fault with the signals at Stafford is causing problems for rail users this evening.

Network Rail warned of delays of up to an hour for trains running through that station and said the disruption was likely to continue until 17:30.

BBC Sport

Coventry's Ricoh Arena plays host to the Women's Six Nations final between England and Ireland tomorrow.

Image source, Getty Images

England were defeated 18-17 by France in Stade des Alpes on Saturday night.

England have to beat Ireland and hope leaders France lose against Wales if they are to retain the title.

The Red Roses last faced Ireland in the 2017 Six Nations at Donnybrook Stadium, where they secured a 34-7 win.

Lyndon Smith has been told he must serve a minimum of 22 years for killing John Joyce.

Talks are going to be held to find ways of preventing delays to ambulances outside Worcestershire hospitals.

In the three-month period to December, patients were stuck in ambulances outside the Royal for almost 2,000 hours because of a lack of available beds and West Midlands Ambulance Service said action had to be taken.

As well as holding up patients, handover delays mean ambulances cannot respond to other 999 calls.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has responded by saying it will hold discussions on handover issues with WMAS.

The hospital trust also said it was experiencing "very high levels of demand", in common with health services all over the country and that it apologised and accepted "during what are periods of extremely high demand, we have not been able to accept patient handovers from ambulance colleagues as promptly as we would have wanted".