BBC News Travel

The M6 in Cheshire has reopened after being closed for more than five hours following a serious crash.

The road was closed just after 02:00 after a van crashed with a lorry between J19 and J18 near Tabley.

Three Birmingham authors are among 20 shortlisted for the prestigious 2018 Costa Book Awards.

Orphan Monster by Matt Killeen has been nominated for the Children's Book Award.

Us by Zaffar Kunial has made it on to the poetry award shortlist.

And performance poetry pioneer Benjamin Zephaniah has been shortlisted for the biography award for his work about his life, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah.

The awards are split into five categories with each winner taking home £5,000 before an overall winner is named Costa Book of the Year on Tuesday 29 January.

Rare fragments of a helmet, that's been reconstructed nine years after being found within the Staffordshire hoard, are thought to be more than 1,300 years old.

Image source, PA

Two reconstructed helmets are go on show at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, in Stoke-on-Trent, today joining other items from the 7th Century collection on permanent display.

Image source, PA

Significant parts of the original helmet have not been found and surviving pieces are too damaged and incomplete for experts to reassemble it.

The team, including members of the School of Jewellery at Birmingham City University, scanned them by laser to ensure any replica pieces were as close to the surviving parts as possible.

Image source, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

BBC Midlands Today

The GMB Union is expected to stage a protest outside the Amazon Warehouse in Rugeley, Staffordshire later this afternoon.

The demonstration is in response to concerns over working conditions, it said.

In the last three years, 115 ambulances have been called out to the site.

Amazon has said that the warehouse is a "safe place to work" and that most injuries were "not work-related".

Rich Davis
BBC Weather presenter

Early mist should clear leaving a dry day with some bright spells and highs of 8C (46F).

Vanessa Pearce
BBC News

Welcome to our live service for Friday.

We'll be bringing you all the news, sport, travel and weather for the West Midlands.

We love to hear from you so share your news, thoughts and photos of the area with us via email, Twitter, external and Facebook., external

Two replicas, based on gold and silver fragments found in the Staffordshire hoard, go on show.

The housing charity Shelter has revealed one in 67 people are homeless in Birmingham.

Andy Giddings
BBC News

We'll be back with the news, sport, travel and weather from 07:00 tomorrow.

Andrew Hewkin
Newsreader, BBC Shropshire

The government has apologised this afternoon to ex-paratrooper Gus Hales who's been staging a hunger-strike in Newport outside the Shropshire offices of a military mental health charity.

Combat Stress had admitted failings in the way it dealt with the Falklands veteran and has promised a review of its discharge processes.

In parliament the defence minister Tobias Ellwood said lessons must be learned and called for other veterans to come forward if they thought the support they'd received wasn't what they expected.

In one case Heather Lort did not provide "effective resuscitation" to newborn Kate Stanton-Davies.

Thieves have stolen a trailer containing toys on their way to be destroyed because they are unsafe.

Image source, Warwickshire Police

Warwickshire Police say they raided a lorry parked at the Wellesbourne Distribution Park in the early hours of this morning.

They're worried the faulty toys might be sold at markets, car boot sales or online sales sites.

Image source, Warwickshire Police

Two women died after James Davies stopped to ask a road worker for directions on the way to an airport.

The mother of a baby who died after delays in transferring her from Ludlow Community Hospital says the decision to strike off a midwife who cared for her "is no victory".

Rhiannon Davies has spent years asking questions of health bosses, along with her partner Richard Stanton, and added that while it was "the right answer" for her baby, "there is nothing to celebrate".

The Nursing and Midwifery Council said Heather Lort's actions fell seriously below the standards expected and led to a "loss of chance of survival" for baby Kate Stanton-Davies.

Worcester News

Here are three headlines from the Worcester News today:

• New call for pedestrian crossing, external
• Child sexual exploitation fears over shops' booze licence bid, external
• Worcestershire Greenpeace protests against Oreo cookies, external

A law firm that has worked on the Stafford Hospital, Harold Shipman and Trojan House inquiries has been chosen to oversee the investigation into child sexual exploitation in Telford.

Eversheds Sutherland will draw up the framework for the review and appoint an independent chair.

Image source, Google

Telford and Wrekin Council launched the inquiry after claims in a national paper that hundreds of young people had been abused.

The company will start work on 3 December and the authority said at that point it would step away, to allow the investigation to be independent.

The organisation brought in to drive improvements at the under-fire Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust has praised its work in turning around immediate recruitment problems.

Dr Kathy McLean, Chief Operating Officer of NHS Improvement, welcomed news Telford's accident and emergency department would remain open overnight.

"This development has been possible due to a lot of hard work from the trust and collaboration across the system," she said.

Image source, SATH

Dr McLean went on to say: "I hope this will send a reassuring message to the local community that the trust has a grip on its challenges and heading in the right direction.

"We will continue to work closely with them to ensure this continues.”

Shefali Oza
BBC Midlands Today

It should be a dry cloudy night tonight with a few clear spells and lows of 1C (34F).

BBC Radio Shropshire Sport

The New Saints manager Scott Ruscoe has been named the Welsh Premier League manager of the month for October.

They went through the month unbeaten, picking up three wins and a draw, but trail league-leaders Connah's Quay Nomads by a point.

The manager of the month curse appears to have struck early though - they've lost two of their three games in November.

Nuneaton Borough manager Nicky Eaden has left the club.

Yesterday he said it had been a struggle to motivate players during their financial troubles and that performances had suffered at times, because of the uncertainty.

A statement from the club says Eaden has stepped down by mutual consent.