More time for runners to enter half marathon
Blue badge verification trial launches
West Midlands mayor's salary to be agreed
Wasps centre out for rest of Premiership season
Updates from Friday 3 March 2017
It's the last day of meteorological winter after all, and you can tell!
This lovely picture was sent in by Daisynics from Oxhill.
Image source, DaisynicsThis great close-up daisy shot was taken by Old Salt in Southam.
Image source, Old SaltIf you have a picture you'd like to share, you can sign up and become a BBC Weather Watcher here .
Birmingham Airport has announced it will start running a new route to the Eastern Europe's Republic of Moldova from June.
Image source, Birmingham AirportThe new airline, Fly One, will operate three times a week from Birmingham, with 144 seats each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The flight will arrive into Birmingham from Chișinău at 12:25 and will depart at 13:20.
From Chișinău, Fly One also fly to Moscow, St Petersburg and Voronezh (Russia), Rome, Milan, Parma, Verona and Venice (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal), Barcelona, Valencia (Spain) Dublin and Paris.
Tonight's National League North game between Nuneaton Town and Gloucester City has been postponed as the Liberty Way pitch is waterlogged.
The club say no new date has been fixed as yet.
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BBC Coventry & Warwickshire
A meeting is being held tonight in Coventry to express concerns about the impact on local health services that a new national NHS savings drive could have.
It`s being staged at the city`s methodist hall at 18:30 and it is part of the build up to a national rally which is being held in London at the weekend.
Locally there are fears that the Sustainability and Transport Plan could mean £270m having to be found.
Former Coventry MP Dave Nellist is organising tonight's meeting and says he's worried about services at Nuneaton's George Eliot Hospital and Warwick Hospital.
Chaos, excitement and thousands of people are currently flowing through Atherstone as the 818th instalment of the town's Shrovetide ball game gets underway , external .
More than 100 of the world's top female cyclists will be heading for Warwickshire when the Women's Tour returns to Britain in June.
The third stage of the race, between Atherstone and Royal Leamington Spa, will involve 17 teams from 22 countries.
The event was officially launched at the University of Warwick earlier today.
Kenilworth-born World and European Champion, Ciara Horne (pictured), says it's "fantastic" that the tour is returning to the county for a second year.
Whitley Academy School Reporter Sam puts questions to Coventry City FC captain Sam Ricketts
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BBC Business News
Sir Philip Green has agreed a £363m cash settlement with the Pensions Regulator to plug the gap in the BHS pension scheme.
Workers will get the same starting pension that they were originally promised under the agreement.
It brings to a close a long-running negotiation over benefits for former workers of the collapsed retailer, which had outlets in Birmingham city centre, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Redditch, Sutton Coldfield, Coventry, Warwickshire, Hanley, Telford and the Merry Hill centre in Brierley Hill.
The regulator had launched enforcement action against Sir Philip and other former owners of BHS.
Simon Glover
BBC Coventry & Warwickshire
Police are appealing, external for witnesses after a suspect car they chased hit a tree and a wall.
Officers tried to stop the red Volkswagen Golf, suspected of an offence, in Emscote Road, Warwick, at 11:50 on Saturday.
The vehicle subsequently collided with a tree and wall in Spinney Hill. The two passengers, men aged 25 and 26, had to be cut out by fire officers and are in hospital.
Police are searching, external for a man who failed to appear in court to face charges relating to £20,000 he had gained through false representation.
David Garner, 38, also goes by the name David Bray, David Harris and David Martin and has links to Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Sussex.
Warwickshire Police say Garner failed to appear at Warwick Crown Court in August 2015.
Garner had previously been charged with nine counts of fraud by false representation and one count of theft.
Image source, Warwickshire Police
BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Sport
The owner of the Coventry Bees says he's effectively putting the club up for sale after being told it won't be racing this speedway season .
Mick Horton said: "I have to step aside and invite offers to take the club to the next level."
The statement, external says he bought the club for £200,000 from Avtar Sandhu and he's now lost all of that investment.
Image source, Rex Features
BBC Midlands Today
More than 100 of the world's top female cyclists will be heading for Warwickshire when the Women's Tour returns to Britain in June.
Seventeen teams from 22 countries are taking part.
Our reporter Ian Winter has been at the University of Warwick for today's official launch.
Monica Rimmer
Journalist, BBC Online
Worcester Warriors have signed Wasps Academy winger Tom Howe ahead of the 2017/18 season.
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Speaking to the Worcester Warriors website, external , Tom Howe said: "I'd like to thank Wasps for the opportunities they have given me during my time in the Academy but I'm now looking forward to a new chapter.
"I'm looking forward to joining in the summer and hopefully I can make the same progress as some of those young guys and compete for a place in the first-team."
BBC Travel
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BBC Sport
An unbeaten 47 runs from Warwickshire's Chris Woakes led England to a narrow two-wicket win over a President's XI in their final warm up game on tour in the West Indies yesterday.
The first of three one-day internationals will take place in Antigua on 3 March.
Image source, Getty Images
Vanessa Pearce
BBC Local Live
Children in the poorest areas of the UK are at least 10 times more likely than those in the most affluent areas to become involved in the child protection system, according to a new study.
Researchers from seven universities, including Coventry, studied data on over 35,000 children who are either in local authority control or on a child protection plan.
Image source, Coventry UniversityThey also found around one in 60 children is in care in England’s most deprived neighbourhoods, compared with one in 660 in the least deprived area.
Lead investigator Paul Bywaters, professor of social work at Coventry University, said the study is "not about pointing the finger at local authorities" but the situation is in "critical need of attention".
Quote Message“We’ve known for years that child abuse and neglect is linked to poverty, but there’s been a fundamental gap in our understanding of how a child’s family circumstances, and neighbourhood deprivation or locality impacts their chances of the state intervening to improve their life chances.
Professor Paul Bywaters, Coventry University
BBC Coventry & Warwickshire
Residents in Stratford are being asked to consider proposals for two bypasses to try to relieve traffic congestion in the town.
The Western Bypass - between Evesham and Shipston roads - has already been adopted as part of a council strategy but now an Eastern one linking Banbury Road with Tiddington Road is also on the cards.
BBC Coventry & Warwickshire
A driver was seriously injured when his car collided with a lorry in Bedworth this morning.
The accident happened on Astley Lane shortly after 7.30am.
Image source, WMASThe car driver, a man in his 30s, was trapped in his vehicle and had to be cut free by firefighters while ambulance staff treated his "multiple" injuries.
He has been taken to University Hospital Coventry.
A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: “The lorry driver, a man in his 50s, had managed to climb out of his overturned vehicle prior to our arrival. He had suffered back pain and was taken to George Eliot hospital as a precaution."
A van was also involved in the crash. The woman driver, aged in her 20s, was treated for shock at the scene.
Image source, WMASWith the 2017 county season here, keep up to date with the latest signings, departures and rumours ahead of next season.
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