Residents living in part of Tyseley in Birmingham are asked to keep their windows closed.

Mary Ball was executed in 1849 after being convicted of poisoning her abusive husband with arsenic.

Natalie Mottram is charged with unauthorised access to computers and perverting the course of justice.

Oliver Bel was arrested after posting on Facebook that he wanted to "go on a spree", a court hears.

We will be back on Monday from 08:00 with the latest for the West Midlands.

Peter Siddle completes his best Essex haul, 6-38, as Warwickshire are bowled out for 166, before rain ruins the hosts' reply.

BBC Radio Shropshire

Discussions are being promised to find more car parking spaces in Bridgnorth after the sale of a parking site to a developer.

Image source, Google

Shropshire Council said, external since Thursday evening Smithfield car park had been sold by owners Sainsbury's to a development firm to build a nursing home.

The council said the developers have promised to have 136 spaces on the site for public use for the next 25 years, 81 fewer than before.

"We are working closely with the Shropshire councillors for Bridgnorth to see how additional car parking can be achieved for the town," the council's head of transport, Steve Brown, said.

The easing of lockdown this week has seen visitors return to attractions like the Black Country Living Museum, but its chief executive said numbers were a lot lower than usual.

A couple of hundred visited this week and Andrew Lovett said the bad weather had played a part in that, but the big difference was the lack of school groups, because they normally account for about 500 extra visitors during the week.

Overseas visitors is also a factor, he said, with the number of foreign tourists to the UK down to a third of its usual level at the moment.

He said the reopening of the attraction was an "emotional as well as business milestone", because it meant the return of so many staff who had been stuck at home without work for months.

But Mr Lovett believes the outlook for the future is good, as long as the easing of restrictions continues to go to plan.

He said future bookings were looking healthy and was buoyed by opinion polls which suggest people are comfortable about returning to indoor attractions.

A driver has died after his car was involved in a multi-vehicle crash in Shropshire earlier.

Two vehicles travelling towards Shrewsbury on the A458 in Bicton crashed, and in turn hit a vehicle travelling in the other direction, police said.

As a result of the impact one of the cars then hit a parked vehicle with a trailer and the driver died at the scene, officers added.

The road remains closed between the Preston Montford junction and the A5 Churncote roundabout after the crash at about midday.

A climate emergency has been declared by the National Memorial Arboretum which has made pledges to safeguard the site for the future.

Image source, National Memorial Arboretum

Managers at the Staffordshire-based arboretum said they were no strangers to extreme weather, having seen flooding and droughts over recent years.

Their pledges include no mowing this month, to allow more grass and wildflowers to grow and making sure disposable items and packaging in their restaurant are plastic-free, biodegradable or recycled.

BBC Midlands Today

The Midlands Air Ambulance charity is marking its 30th anniversary today by releasing a collection of old photographs.

Image source, Midlands Air Ambulance

The organisation is also asking people, external to "go red" on Friday to show support, by wearing red or something similar.

The charity says the last 12 months have been exceptionally challenging due to a significant reduction in fundraising during the pandemic.

Andy Giddings
BBC News

Public Health England (PHE) said it was now dealing with a "small number of cases" of the new Indian variant of Covid-19 in each local authority area in the West Midlands.

PHE regional director Dr Sue Ibbotson said she was aware of 157 cases around the region yesterday and most had a link to foreign travel.

But she said a few appeared to have spread within local communities and teams were working hard to contain the new variant.

Image source, WMCA

Dr Ibbotson also said, with lockdown set to be further eased next month "we have to carefully think about the freedoms we're given" and continue with social distancing and other safety measures.

BBC Weather Watchers

Some local wildlife for you now, spotted and snapped by a few of our local BBC Weather Watchers today.

These are from users Steve C, in Warwick; Flower UN, in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire; and Videoman, in Leek, Staffordshire:

Image source, SteveC

Image source, Flower UN

Image source, Videoman

Coventry Live

The Coventry Live website has these headlines:

• Azaylia Cain funeral: Applause and cries of 'Let's Go Champ' as hundreds watch, external
• Three women arrested in connection to Exhall incident which saw pensioner die, external
• Government will not step in to stop 3,000 new homes 'invading Coventry's greenbelt', external

BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester

Three thousand fans of Hereford FC are preparing for a trip to Wembley this weekend.

The Bulls are in the final of the FA Trophy against AFC Hornchurch and will play in front of their supporters in London.

Chris Ammonds will be among them, with his son: "I'm going to love being able to go with my son and for the two of us to be able to go together."

The final will be the Bulls' first trip to Wembley since the final of the FA Vase in 2016 and their second since the club was formed after the demise of Hereford United in December 2014.

Hereford have not played competitively since their semi-final eight weeks ago as the National League North was abandoned due to the pandemic.

Manager Josh Gowling (pictured) said having their fans able to cheer them on would make a difference.

"Our fans are the best fans in the world, they come out in their droves. We get to play in front of 3,000 of them and they are going to push us on," he said.

Vaccinations for Covid-19 are being stepped up in Nuneaton as officials try to stop the spread of cases of the Indian variant.

Image source, PA Media

Surge testing has been carried out in the town since nine cases of the strain were found last week in the Abbey Ward area.

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council said , externala vaccination bus would be on Queen's Road, Market Place on Friday and Saturday and people over 40 can turn up without an appointment.

More surge vaccination clinics will be set up over the coming days, the local authority added.

Rain abandons day two in the Derbyshire-Durham, Northants-Lancashire, Gloucestershire-Somerset and Notts-Worcestershire games.

An electrical current from a Taser may have fused together fibres on a former footballer's clothes, a court heard today.

Aston Villa star Dalian Atkinson died after he was Tasered by PC Benjamin Monk, 42, during an altercation in Telford, Shropshire, in August 2016.

Image source, Family handout

Prosecutors claim PC Monk's force was excessive and he is on trial for murder at Birmingham Crown Court.

He and his colleague PC Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith, 31, who is charged with assault, deny wrongdoing.

In the third week of the trial, jurors heard evidence from forensic scientist Penelope Griffiths who examined the clothing Mr Atkinson was wearing on the night of his death.

The West Mercia Police officers responded to a callout to his father's home in Meadow Close, Telford, at about 01:30 on 15 August.

Image source, Reuters

Ms Griffiths told the court holes in his T-shirt appeared to correspond with marks found on the 48-year-old's chest.

Holes in his tracksuit bottoms had cuts indicating a sharp implement had penetrated the inside before being pulled back out again, Ms Griffiths said, adding that her opinion was that they could have been caused by a Taser.

"The fibre ends at the edges of the cuts were fused, which indicated they had been subjected to heat, which you can get with electrical current," she added. "This was potentially caused by a Taser probe."

Shropshire Star

From the Shropshire Star:

• Police urge caution as extra officers hit the streets for lockdown relaxation, external
• More than 200 homes to be built on former Telford coal mining site, external
• Fraud team saves Telford council nearly £300,000 in a year, external

Some of the children were due to go on their first holiday before the pandemic struck.