Covid-19 support grants are being brought in for taxi drivers.

Birmingham City Council said it will be providing a one-off payment of £1,000 for city taxi drivers, who continue to be significantly impacted by the pandemic.

Image source, Getty Images

Council leader Ian Ward urged drivers to access the support.

"We know that the last 12 months have been incredibly difficult for Birmingham taxi drivers, who have seen their trade seriously affected by the coronavirus restrictions," he said.

"Many drivers and their families are struggling to make ends meet because footfall in the city has been low since last March."

BBC Radio WM

Wolves will leapfrog Leeds and move up to 11th place in the Premier League, if Nuno's team beat them at Molineux later.

Kick-off is at 20:00 GMT and there will be full commentary on BBC Radio WM and BBC Radio Wolverhampton.

Following their 2-1 win at Southampton last weekend, Nuno wants Wolves to leave the second-half performance on Sunday as the template for another positive result.

The 17-year-olds are set to stand trial at Birmingham Crown Court in July.

...in 1869 Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister at the outbreak of the Second World War, was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham.

He was known for trying to find a peaceful solution with Germany but his policy failed.

Image source, PA Media

A group of children were reportedly chased by two men armed with a machete and a knife.

Four children, aged between 8 and 14, were chased at around 15:30 GMT on Monday on Layamon Walk in Stourport, West Mercia Police said.

No-one was injured, police added.

The suspects were both said to be wearing black clothing and hats, one had a green jacket on.

It has apologised to a history group after saying a Black Country delicacy violated its standards.

More than £4,000 has been raised after the son of a hospital porter who died with Covid asked for donations for a memorial bench.

Image source, Luke Allsopp

Martin Allsopp, who worked at Royal Leamington Spa Rehabilitation Hospital, died at the age of 66 on 9 February.

His son Luke said he was "a funny and witty man with a talent for connecting with people" - even as he was in hospital he was joking with his family, asking Luke to "delete his internet history".

Image source, Luke Allsopp

"He'd do anything for you," Luke Allsop said. "He didn't care who you were or where you came from as long as he put a smile on your face."

The family set a target of raising £500 for a memorial bench at the hospital where he worked with his wife and have been "blown away" by the donations.

"He would have loved somewhere to sit and eat his cheese and onion crisps," his son said.

Nine youths will be issued with anti-social behaviour warning letters after being found partying at an abandoned house, police said.

Image source, Google

Warwickshire Police said officers received information that a group of young people were planning to meet at an empty property on Stoneleigh Road, in Blackdown, Leamington Spa, on Thursday night.

When they attended at about 19:00 GMT, police said they found nine people under the age of 18.

The force said the group was disbanded after "their parents were contacted to collect them".

A head teacher is calling for "a clear time line" and information about plans for children to be tested at schools.

"Next week it would be really nice to have a clear timeline and some information about... the testing programme and whether we're expected to test all children all at once and that's quite a big logistical issue," Nicola Mason, head teacher at Chase Terrace Academy in Staffordshire, said.

"It takes away our largest space, our sports hall, so some of our curriculum wouldn't be able to go ahead as normal if we were testing more children."

Image source, Nicola Mason

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to set out plans for the return on Monday, with the Department for Education saying pupils won't return to classrooms before 8 March "at the earliest".

"The other part really is the exams and how we are generating grades for the children in year 11 and 13 and of course years 10 and 12 who are also on exam courses," Ms Mason told BBC Breakfast.

"They are the two really big things for me that are on my mind and causing quite a bit of stress for the coming weeks."

Local Democracy Reporting Service
Kerry Ashdown

A former magistrates' court in Stafford has been purchased by the county council as part of its plans to regenerate the town centre.

Image source, Google

The South Walls court building shut in 2017 as part of a series of magistrates’ court closures across the country.

“This is a really important scheme – anybody who knows Stafford well will know that former magistrates’ building," said Philip White, cabinet member for economy and skills.

"It is in dire need of something else being done with that site and we are getting on with that as part of regenerating that area of town."

The local authority said its goal is to "breathe new life into the town centre" with support from the government's Future High Streets Fund and the development is hoped to be "the biggest transformation in Stafford in a generation".

A man has died in a fire in Birmingham.

Emergency Services were called to Church Hill Road in Handsworth at 05:17 GMT.

A spokeswoman for West Midlands Ambulance Service said it became clear nothing could be done to save the man and he was confirmed dead at the scene.

Image source, Google

Warwickshire batsman Sam Hain signs a new two-year contract extension, keeping him at Edgbaston until 2023.

A city centre canal towpath has been closed after a wall next to a railway line collapsed.

Image source, Canal and River Trust

The boundary wall collapsed on to the towpath in Birmingham between Five Ways Bridge 86, Islington Row and Footbridge 84A Birmingham University Footbridge on Thursday.

The wall separates the canal towpath from the busy cross-city railway line.

The path will be closed until 26 February for repairs, the Canal and River Trust said.

Image source, Canal and River Trust

A 92-year-old woman has completed a charity challenge where she pedalled the equivalent distance of the English Channel on her "pedalo".

Image source, Betty Christmas

Betty Christmas, from Hall Green in Birmingham, has pedalled for 20 minutes every day for a month on her bike pedal exerciser to raise money for Guide Dogs UK.

"I am there, I can't believe it," she said. "My legs were going like mad."

Clad in red, white and blue, Ms Christmas completed the 21 miles at about 08:00 GMT, and will be celebrating with "a great big glass of red wine".

She raised just under £2,000 for the charity and to celebrate her success Birmingham's Cannon Hill Park has said it will name one of its swan pedalos in her honour.

The Black Country Living Museum, which has doubled as a set for TV series Peaky Blinders, will receive £3.74m from the government's Culture Recovery Fund.

It is one of 22 heritage sites in the country that will benefit from the fund, with each receiving a share of £13.5m.

Image source, Black Country Living Museum

The money will be used for regeneration and maintenance projects that were planned before the coronavirus pandemic, and now face delays or increased costs.

The museum in Dudley is currently being used as a Covid-19 vaccination centre.

Before the pandemic, it had been planning "the single biggest development in its history" - a plan to translocate the town's 1894 Woodside Library, brick by brick, to its museum site.

...in 1893 First World War poet Wilfred Owen was born in Oswestry, Shropshire.

Image source, Getty Images

The poet, known for work recording the horrors of trench warfare, was killed in the final week of the war, shot by German machine guns as British forces unsuccessfully tried to bridge a canal in northern France.

An employee at a Tamworth business has tested positive for the South African coronavirus variant.

Image source, Getty Images

Staffordshire County Council said it has identified everyone known to be in contact with the worker - about 50 people in Tamworth and Lichfield - and they are to be offered testing.

The positive case lives in a part of Walsall or Birmingham where mass testing is already underway following the discovery of the variant in those areas.

The council said there is "no need for anyone else to take further action" and there is not evidence the variant will have spread in the wider community.

All of the people being offered home testing today are staff or clients of the Tamworth business.

We're on the brink of some milder weather but it's still looking fairly unsettled.

This afternoon we'll see a lot of cloud across the region so it will be fairly dull but the rain should be staying to the west of us.

Temperatures will be rising to up to 11C but with gusts of wind reaching up to 45mph it won't feel as mild as that.

An inspection finds staffing levels were lower than planned and morale was low among staff.

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