BBC Radio Stoke Sport

Ryan Shawcross is likely to miss Stoke City's match at home to Reading on Saturday, after picking up another injury.

The defender was making his comeback to the side in last night's win over Luton, after recovering from a long-term injury, but went off after just 16 minutes.

Image source, Getty Images

The club are waiting to hear the full extent of the injury, but manager Michael O'Neill said it wasn't related to the broken leg bone he suffered in the summer.

O'Neill said afterwards: "It's a shame because I think he started the game well and gave us that presence that we needed."

A legal bid to wind up Birmingham City FC has been dismissed after their tax debt was settled.

Image source, Getty Images

Lawyers representing HM Revenue and Customs had made an application to wind up the Championship club after they said it had not paid a tax debt.

However, at the hearing at an Insolvency and Companies Court in London, HMRC's representatives said the debt had now been paid.

No details have emerged as to the amount the club owed.

The latest temporary closure of Ross-on-Wye's minor injuries unit will be discussed at a meeting between councillors and NHS managers tonight.

It's the third winter in a row staff have been relocated from the minor injury units at Leominster and Ross to help cope with the extra pressure at the County Hospital in Hereford.

Image source, Google

Last month, councillors backed a motion criticising the lack of consultation before the closure.

Shropshire Star

Some of the Shropshire Star's top stories this morning include:

• Blind Telford charity worker warns of 'silent killers' after being hit by electric car, external
• Telford CSE case: One of the defendants is cleared of girl's rape at cafe, external
• Flies discovered at Telford pizza takeaway, external

A 72-year-old man who suffered serious head injuries has died in hospital, police say.

A charge of rape against one of five defendants is dropped although he faces another rape charge.

Local Democracy Reporting Service

Shropshire Council is preparing to make cuts to services across the board, after revealing it needs to save another £14m from its budget.

The Conservative-run local authority's financial director James Walton said funding adult social care and children’s services had become “unaffordable and unsustainable”.

It comes a few weeks after council leader Peter Nutting announced a spending freeze until the end of the year.

The new budget target comes after a report suggested the costs of adult social care and children's social care were growing by up to £15m a year.

Mr Walton said the alternative to cuts would be "a combination of more government funding, higher council tax and new models of delivery in social care”.

But he warned existing government grants were "insufficient" and the proportion of the council's net budget funded by council tax had risen from 55% to 72% in the the past four years.

BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

Sprout pickers in Warwickshire are getting ready to pick thousands of kilograms of the vegetable in the run up to Christmas.

Image source, Getty Images

This year, 75-year-old Richard Bluck is marking 60 years of picking the contentious vegetable.

He said he and his two sons start picking sprouts every morning at 06:45 using head torches to choose them before sunrise.

The family expects to pick enough sprouts to fill 1,000 bags - and each one can contain 20 pounds (about nine kilograms) of the Christmas dinner staple.

Nathan Calder, 28 was found guilty of murdering 48-year-old Paul Lundy by a jury.

Birmingham City clear an unspecified tax debt owed to HM Revenue & Customs and a petition to wind up the club is dismissed.

About 60 flagstones have been stolen from outside a Staffordshire church.

The lay minister of St Lawrence's, in Rushton Spencer, Alan Baldwin, said he thought it had happened on Sunday night and they had "possibly been there centuries".

Image source, Staffordshire Police

The current church was built in the late 17th Century, but there has been a church on the site going back to the 14th Century.

Two people have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 72-year-old man was attacked at his home in Sutton Coldfield.

Emergency services were called to his address in Stonehouse Road, near Sutton Park, in the early hours of this morning where the man was found with serious head injuries.

He died a few hours later. Police have arrested a 21-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man on suspicion of murder.

A post-mortem examination will take place later, West Midlands Police said, and the man's family has been informed.

“We are still exploring the circumstances surrounding this tragic death," Det Insp Nick Barnes said, as he appealed for anyone with information to come forward.

The 49-year-old is detained by counter-terrorism officers at an address in Solihull.

A man who was filmed vandalising Christmas tree lights in Hagley at the start of the month has written a letter of apology and paid to repair the damage.

Footage of the attack on the tree, outside a business in the town, was shared on social media and West Mercia Police said officers had now been able to identify one of those involved.

Insp Mark Chappell, from West Mercia Police, said while it was "a relatively small incident", the force decided to try "a proactive but proportionate approach to identifying the man involved and, we hope, returning some Christmas cheer to the village”.

The BBC Weather Watchers have been sharing photos from a chilly West Midlands this morning.

These photos were taken around Bromyard, Dorridge and Moseley.

Image source, Mrs Baggins

Image source, Dammo

Image source, Di's Walk

Burton Albion's John-Joe O'Toole is banned for two games and fined £2,000 for verbally abusing a referee.

Some of the pink rubble from the four Ironbridge cooling towers is going to be donated to charity.

The site owners, Harworth Group, has been asking people to stay away from the towers since they were demolished last Friday, but pieces of the concrete have been appearing for sale on internet auction sites.

Harworth has agreed to give some of the concrete pieces away to good causes, so they can benefit, including Severn Hospice, which plans to use a large chunk in a mural.

Worcester Warriors players will be singing in a Christmas carol concert tonight to raise money for Acorns Children's Hospice.

It's being produced by prop Ethan Waller, who said some of his teammates were "enthusiastic, but may not be the best", but he thinks that "will add to just how entertaining the night will be".

Image source, Getty Images

The players are calling the event Jingle Bell Ruck and Waller said it was a charity that was "very special" to the club.

The judge in the trial of five men accused of sexually abusing a girl in Telford has directed the jury to find one of defendants not guilty of one of the charges of rape he faces.

The charge against Mohammed Ali Sultan was dropped "due to insufficient evidence for a jury to convict".

He still faces another rape charge and the trial at Birmingham Crown Court continues.

A 49-year-old man from Solihull has been arrested on suspicion of funding and supporting terrorism.

He was arrested by officers from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit as part of a pre-planned and intelligence led operation, police said.

The man is being held at a station in the West Midlands while officers carry out searches at a linked address.

West Midlands Police said there was no threat to the public and the arrest was not linked to the London Bridge attack on 29 November.