A High Court judge says there will be a trial over whether protesters can hold demonstrations directly outside Anderton Park Primary School in Birmingham.

Birmingham City Council was granted a temporary injunction on 31 May banning campaigners from protesting directly outside the school gates, following months of demonstrations.

Parents started to gather outside the school over concerns some children were "too young" to learn about LGBT relationships.

A trial date is expected some time between 22 and 31 July. The court hearing is continuing.

Dan Pallett
BBC Midlands Today Sport

A nurse from Shropshire has set off on a 220-mile swim along the length of the River Severn.

Melissa Compton's journey started last week, but it's only in the last few days that the river has been deep enough to swim.

The journey to the estuary near Bristol is expected to take three weeks.

She's using the swim to raise money for a charity that helped pay for pioneering stem cell treatment.

You can see more of her story on BBC Midlands Today at 13:30 on BBC One.

Local Democracy Reporting Service
George Makin

A former Dudley police station could become nursery if councillors back a new plan.

The building on Moss Grove, Kingswinford, was one of 13 stations closed by West Midlands Police in 2017 in a bid to save £8m.

Image source, Google

It was put on the open market at the time with a price tag of £450,000.

An application to convert the existing, two-storey, listed building into seven classrooms and reuse two existing portable buildings was submitted to planning officers in early May.

A nurse has been rearrested by police investigating the deaths of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital's neo-natal unit.

Image source, SWNS

Lucy Letby, originally from Hereford, was first arrested in July last year on suspicion of the murder of eight babies and the attempted murder of another six.

She has now been rearrested in connection with the attempted murder of three additional babies, police said.

Cheshire Police are probing the deaths of 17 infants between 2015 and 2016.

Warwickshire all-rounder Aaron Thomason parts company with the club by mutual consent.

Coventry Live

Some of the Coventry Live headlines today are:

• Murder trial set to start after Willenhall shooting, external
• Knives recovered after rider of stolen moped hurt in Coventry crash, external
• Man found with 'suspected stab wound' sparks police appeal, external

Blood donations from men has fallen, new figures show, as the NHS says they are "less motivated by altruism" than women.

Nationally, the number of men giving blood in England has fallen by nearly 25% in the last five years.

Image source, PA

The research shows that only 46% of the active blood donors at the Midlands’ donor centres are male, with the number of donors dropping "worryingly quickly" said NHS Blood and Transplant.

It hopes to attract 2,760 new donors in Birmingham and 360 in Stoke-on-Trent.

Men are being targeted in a new campaign as they generally have higher iron levels then women, so are more likely to be able to donate on any given day.

They also do not make new antibodies, making it easier to match their blood to patients, compared with pregnant women.

Mike Stredder, Director of Blood Donation for NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “Men are more likely to be able to donate, and able to help more patients with each donation, so we need a new generation of young male donors, to ensure our donor base is strong enough to keep supplying lifesaving blood to hospitals".

Aston Villa complete the signing of Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi from Lille on a four-year contract.

Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams confirms she will play at the Nature Valley Classic grass-court event in Birmingham.

Royal Shrewsbury Hospital's midwife-led unit has closed for six months for births and post-natal care due to problems with an ageing building.

Image source, PA

Inpatient services have been stopped after issues were found during a refurbishment, but home birth services will not be affected.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust said the age of the Copthorne building was responsible and some concerns were related to fire regulations.

Women who planned to give birth there can go to the Wrekin midwife-led unit or the consultant-led unit at the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford.

Inmates involved in a disturbance at HMP Hewell near Redditch on Friday will face punishment, said the Prison Service.

Specially trained officers were called in after prisoners on one wing at the category B jail refused to go back to their cells.

Image source, Google

The incident lasted less than four hours on one wing that holds more than 1,200 inmates.

The Prison Service said it was not a riot, and no staff or prisoners were injured.

Police are investigating an assault on two men in Telford on Saturday afternoon.

The men, in their 30s, were attacked near the supermarket on Burford in Brookside, said West Mercia Police.

They were treated for suspected stab wounds, which officers say are not thought to be life-threatening.

Three men have been arrested on suspicion of robbery- a 23-year old from Shrewsbury and a 21-year old and a 17-year old from Brookside.

A crowd funding appeal has been launched to help keep Coventry's Pride event free of charge.

Thousands in the city celebrated at the free two-day event enjoying live performances, comedy and cabaret acts, community stalls, music and drag acts over the weekend.

The theme of Super Heroes of Pride, encourages people to celebrate the "superhero" within them, and diversity in all its forms.

Orgnisers said the event costs more than £40,000 to stage annually, and are asking for donations ahead of the event in 2020.

There's been a call for Shropshire Council to do more to tackle the estimated 1,700 empty homes in its area.

Liberal Democrat councillor Roger Evans said one home in his Longden ward had been vacant for more than 25 years.

He said a council group, set up four years ago to address the issue, had done nothing, and it was "getting beyond a joke".

BBC Business News

Troubled travel firm Thomas Cook says it has received a takeover approach for its tour business from China's Fosun.

Image source, Reuters

Fosun is already Thomas Cook's largest shareholder, and also owns Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club.

Last month,Thomas Cook reported a £1.5bn lossand said there was "little doubt" that Brexit had caused customers to delay their summer holiday plans.

The firm has annual sales of £9bn, 19 million customers a year and 22,000 staff operating in 16 countries.

A teenager assaulted in a car park in Rugby was stabbed, police believe.

The 19-year-old was attacked on Barter Place at about 13:35 on Saturday.

He was taken to hospital to be treated for injuries not thought to be life-threatening.

Officers are trying to trace four men after the attack, which is being treated as an isolated incident.

A woman has been sexually assaulted as she walked home from work in Stourbridge yesterday.

Police said she was grabbed from behind and attacked by a man.

It happened near Mary Stevens Park on Norton Road at about 03:15.

Birmingham Live

Some of the Birmingham Mail headlines today are:

• Cowboy builders 'took all my money and left my house a wreck', external
• The eerie village deserted during Black Death which has become a tourist hot spot, external
• Hospital blunder forces patient into surgery after stray wire left in body, external

About 50,000 enjoyed the RAF Cosford Air Show yesterday, despite the weather.

The annual event is the RAF's only air show and this year's themes included recognising the role of women in aviation and the military.

Among the highlights were the Red Arrows, The Typhoon Display Team and a number of aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial flight, including Spitfires, Hurricanes and a Lancaster bomber.

There were also ground displays and static planes on show.

A lawyer acting as a mediator in a row over teaching primary school children about LGBT relationships said the government had been "cowardly" in dealing with protesters at the school.

Protesters will today challenge an injunction which bans them from gathering outside Anderton Primary School in Birmingham after a row over equality teaching.

Nazir Afzal, the former chief Crown prosecutor for the north-west of England,said: "Parliament has decided under the Equalities Act that these relationships should be discussed, parliament recently decided Relationship Education would be mandatory up to 11. That is all this is about, ensuring that the law is enforced in the schools that the law applies to.

"The government have been really cowardly here, they keep saying there is nothing they can do, they can’t mandate anything.

"Well, until 16 years ago, they mandated under section 28 we couldn’t teach LGBT so, the principle of mandating can be used to feed homophobia but not to challenge it.”