Police will stop drivers at the roadside in the run-up to Christmas as figures show thousands of motorists tested positive for drugs.

Last December more than 3,000 drivers in England and Wales were screened for possible drug-driving with 1,871, nearly three in five of those tested, showing positive for drugs.

West Midlands Police confirmed it would be doing roadside checks, including for alcohol.

Sgt Jon Butler said: "While we want people to enjoy the festive season we won't tolerate those who are irresponsible and get behind the wheel over the limit."

Three people who murdered a homeless man by beating him to death then dumped his body in the street have been jailed for life.

Image source, West Midlands Police

The body of Sandris Abimeicevs was found in a sleeping bag on Walford Road Sparkbrook on 6 November 2018 and he had suffered more than 50 injuries, including brain damage and broken ribs.

Olegas Borisovskis, 60, Saulius Lemezonas, 45, and Vytautas Medeckis, 30, were convicted at Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday.

Borisovskis was told today he would serve a minimum of 20 years, with Lemezonas and Medeckis handed a minimum sentence of 18 years each.

The main political parties have started setting out their election promises - Labour, the Lib Dems and the Green Party have already launched their manifestos.

Today it's the turn of Plaid Cymru and the Brexit Party to unveil their policy pledges.

To help you decide who you might want to vote for, we've put together a simple guide comparing where the parties stand on the key issues.

The guide will be updated as the remaining party manifestos are published.

Sian T, from Dudley, got in touch with us to ask: "When are we going to see more funding to make public transport a realistic and reliable alternative to driving to work?"

A census in 2001 looking at modes of travel to work, external found that Dudley had one of the lowest percentages of people travelling to work by public transport in the West Midlands conurbation, at just 10.1% and the second highest rate of car use to commute.

It might seem old, but the census results are helping to guide the West Midlands Local Transport Plan till 2026 and Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) has said it knows public transport in Dudley needs to be improved.

Image source, PA Media / BBC

What's being planned in the area?

Work will start next year on the £449m Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro tram extension.

It will mean a 40-minute journey time between Birmingham and Dudley town centre, with 17 stops including direct access to Merry Hill, Dudley Zoo and the Black Country Living Museum.

It's set to open in 2023, said TfWM, with residents being urged to take part in public engagement sessions. , external

Linked to that scheme is the proposed £18m Dudley Interchange project, external, which will be a hub for buses, Metro trams and eventually Sprint buses, external.

Image source, Transport for West Midlands / BBC

An outline planning application for the scheme has been submitted and set to be completed in time for the scheduled opening of the Metro extension.

A £30m investment programme, external announced recently by the government will be partly used to fund a rapid bus corridor between Dudley and Birmingham, including new bus lanes and junction improvements, said TfWM.

Image source, Transport for West Midlands / BBC

Where do the parties stand on public transport:

The Conservative Party said its transport priorities include:

• £220m to improve bus services across England
• Scrap the rail franchise system

Labour's transport priorities include:

• Restore 3,000 bus routes and give more local control of bus services
• Extend free bus travel to all under-25s where routes are run by councils
• Nationalise rail services as franchises expire

Liberal Democrats:

• Freeze rail fares for commuters and season ticket holders for five years
• Extend rail network and convert to low-emission technology
• 10% of the transport budget to be spent on national walking and cycling schemes

You can find the transport policies of every party on this BBC page.

And if you've got a question you'd like answered, get in touch with us via this webpage.

Members of Extinction Rebellion are planning to be at Malvern's Christmas lights switch-on tomorrow, "to remind people about the environmental impact of Christmas".

The group says it will also be singing carols and handing out mince pies and has no intention of disrupting the event.

Image source, Getty Images

Spokesperson Suzanne Strange said, "it's a very fine line we walk. We don't want to suggest that one can't celebrate Christmas".

But she said "I think that it's time that we started to consider our environmental impact."

Shropshire Star

Here are three stories from the Shropshire Star today:

• Elderly woman flown to hospital after being hit by van, external
• Ex-manager of 'extremely dirty' Chinese restaurant hit with fine, external
• Motorcyclist seriously injured in crash, external

The creator of the BBC's Peaky Blinders urges people to donate money to save a children's hospice.

Jeremy Corbyn has been serving up oatcakes from a narrowboat on a visit to the marginal Stoke-on-Trent South constituency today.

He also addressed a crowd of supporters at Fenton's town hall and visited a local pottery factory.

Image source, Getty Images

While campaigning there, he also responded to criticism from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which described his party's spending plans as "not credible".

He said: "The richest 5% will pay a bit more and the biggest corporations will pay more.

"We have costed it very, very carefully, produced a very full costings through our grey book, and the information is all there and out there - 95% will not pay any more."

Image source, Getty Images

The judge said they had "cheated" the public by not declaring the treasure, which has not been found.

A woman has been flown to hospital after being hit by a van in Newport, Shropshire, this morning.

West Midlands Ambulance Service said she suffered what could be a serious injury at the junction of Stafford Street and High Street at 11:07.

Image source, WMAS

When the ambulance arrived she was being cared for by an off-duty nurse, doctor and an ambulance call assessor, who were all nearby at the time.

The van driver was unhurt.

Irish FA chief executive Patrick Nelson says he remains "confident" new Stoke City boss Michael O'Neill will lead Northern Ireland into the Euro 2020 play-offs.

Worcester News

Here are three of the stories from the Worcester News today:

• Thief who stole £300 intended for Oscar Saxelby-Lee admits more thefts, external
• Call to cut post office queues pulled after row, external
• Burglar storms out of dock after getting jail term, external

Armed police are carrying out searches in Hanley after reports of a man with a blade.

Officers were first called to Huntbach Street at 10:40 and said the use of armed teams is a precaution.

Image source, Staffordshire Police

Staffordshire Police said no threats have been made to the public.

The disruption to trains between Birmingham Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill is now expected to continue for the rest of the day, National Rail Enquiries has said, external.

It's been caused by a fault with rail signals and a vehicle hitting a level crossing barrier at Hartlebury.

Image source, Google

National Rail Enquiries said trains may be cancelled, delayed by up to 60 minutes or revised.

Coaches and mini-buses are carrying some passengers instead.

Port Vale striker Tom Pope is handed a one-game suspension by the Football Association for Twitter abuse.

In passing sentence on two metal detectorists and a coin-seller who concealed a collection of Viking and Anglo-Saxon coins, Judge Nicholas Cartwright QC said it was thought about 90% of the hoard was still missing.

Just 31 coins - worth between £10,000 and £50,000 - and some pieces of jewellery have been recovered, but deleted photos on one of the metal detectorist's phones showed at least 300.

Image source, British Museum

Judge Cartwright said the number of coins could have been as many as 600 and added: “The treasure belongs to the nation... so it can be seen and admired.”

Coin seller Simon Wicks has been jailed for five years for helping to conceal and sell the Viking hoard found by metal detectorists Powell and Davies in Herefordshire in 2015.

Worcester Crown Court had heard the antiques trader had tried to sell the coins to the world renowned Mayfair auctioneers Dix Noonan and Webb, and took two batches of coins to them.

Its expert said the coins were "extraordinary and very valuable", but was "suspicious".

Image source, West Mercia Police

Wicks admitted he sold several of the coins to his friend, who bought them in a deal at a service station, paying £28,000 in cash divided into three brown packets.

Fellow coin seller Paul Wells was taken ill while in court yesterday afternoon and is due to be sentenced on 23 December for attempting to conceal the hoard.

Persistent rain could is likely to cause travel disruption to parts of the West Midlands on Saturday, the Met Office is warning.

Image source, Met Office

A yellow warning for rain is in place for the day starting at 04:00.

Two metal detectorists have been jailed for failing to declare a hoard of Viking treasure.

George Powell 38, of Newport received 10 years for theft and concealing the find. Layton Davies of Pontypridd got eight and a half years for the same offences.

The pair dug up about 300 coins in a field in Eye, near Leominster, Herefordshire, in 2015 but did not declare the 1,100-year-old find, said to be one of the biggest to date, and instead sold it to dealers.

Image source, West Mercia Police

In sentencing them, Judge Nicholas Cartwright QC said: "You clumsily took everything you could find and left without speaking to anyone." and "You cheated the farmer, his mother, the landowner and the public.”

He added: “The irony is if you’d done this properly you’d have either had a half share or at the very worst a third share. At the very worst you could have had half a million pounds each but you wanted more."

West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern Railway will only be running a "very basic" service on Saturday as members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union take strike action.

Bus replacement services will run on the following routes, it said:

• Walsall - Rugeley, external
• Wolverhampton - Shrewsbury, external
• Kidderminster - Worcester, external
• Shirley - Stratford-upon-Avon, external
• Bromsgrove - Droitwich Spa - Worcester, external

And this is the timetable for their planned rail services:

• Cross City: Lichfield - Birmingham - Bromsgrove / Redditch, external
• Snow Hill Lines: Kidderminster - Birmingham - Whitlocks End / Dorridge, external
• Wolverhampton - Smethwick - Birmingham - Walsall, external
• Birmingham - Coventry - Northampton, external

Virgin Trains, Cross Country, Chiltern Railways and Transport for Wales are due to run a normal Saturday timetable, but will be busier, it added.