York Balloon Fiesta will return with a better traffic plan promised after problems last year.

A main West Yorkshire road has been closed because of a fire.

The A644 Huddersfield Road in Mirfield has been closed in both directions as a result of the garage fire:

A man has been charged with rape after a woman was attacked in Sheffield earlier this week.

Image source, Google

The 27-year-old woman was attacked on a grassed area near Ulverston Road, Woodseats, at about 09:30 on Tuesday.

Matthew Jowitt, 18, of Cartmell Road, Sheffield, has been charged with two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, police say.

He is expected to appear before Sheffield Magistrates’ Court later today.

Police officers want help identifying this man who they believe could them with an investigation into identity theft in Sheffield.

Image source, South Yorkshire Police

CCTV images have been released in a bid to identify him after two mobile phone contracts were taken out using fraudulent identification.

Anyone who recognises him is being asked to contact South Yorkshire Police.

Construction of the planned high-speed rail link connecting Leeds and Sheffield with London should have started in the north of England, a House of Lords committee has said.

Image source, HS2

The first phase of HS2 will run from London to Birmingham through Warwickshire and is scheduled to open in December 2026.

The project is expected to cost £56bn, but there are fears this figure will increase as the rail line is built.

Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, says the government also needs to improve links between Sheffield and Leeds and between Manchester and Sheffield at the same time.

"You should be trying to deliver HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail together. That could deliver significant savings", he told BBC Radio Sheffield.

"If at the same time you're trying to improve the line, or build new bits of infrastructure between, say, Sheffield and Leeds and Sheffield and Manchester, it makes perfect sense to build that at the same time as the new HS2 line."

The government says it disagrees with the committee's findings.

Local Democracy Reporting Service

More than 10,000 children are living in poverty in York, according to a national campaign.

Image source, Getty Images

Research by the End Child Poverty Coalition says the number of children trapped in poverty in York has risen by 3% since 2017, with rates highest in the Hull Road, Guildhall and Westfield wards.

Green councillor for Guildhall, Denise Craghill, said the news was a “huge concern”.

“They reflect low wages, high housing costs and the impact of government cuts to services and benefits. Many children in poverty in York are in working households.”

The use of food banks in York rose by more than 25% last year, a report revealed in February.

Hull Road Labour councillor Michael Pavlovic said: “These children need help now. This is incredibly disappointing to see, though not hugely surprising unfortunately."

He added that he hopes the new Lib Dem/Green council leadership will focus on the issue.

Lib Dem councillor for Westfield, Andrew Waller, said child poverty is an important issue and added community centre hubs have been an “integral part of the response”.

New plans have been published showing a proposed development which could be built on the site of an old hotel in Hull which was demolished after falling into a state of disrepair:

Image source, Hull City Council

The New York Hotel, near Hull's Paragon Station, was demolished in 2016 after suffering from fire damage and vandalism.

Image source, Hull City Council

Hull City Council has now received plans for a 110-room hotel which would be built on vacant land on Anlaby Road.

A West Yorkshire council's decision to confiscate recycling bins if people put the wrong sort of rubbish in them has sparked fierce debate.

Since April, 'advisers' have accompanied collectors in Kirklees to check green bins, with yellow stickers placed on those containing incorrect items. After two warnings, bins may be taken away for six months.

The district's recycling rate is currently 27%, falling well below the national average of 45%.

Kirklees Council said early signs were "very positive", with the council calculating the move meant 45 to 85 additional tonnes of waste being recycled each week - the equivalent of between nine and 17 bin wagons.

But Jo Bersee-Mills, who lives in Almondbury and has received one yellow sticker, called it a "fiasco".

"It seems utterly ridiculous, I understand the reason is to try to improve recycling rates, but by confiscating somebody's bin for six months it will probably make things much worse," she said.

The new system has cost Kirklees Council £80,000, but the authority said it could eventually save £440,000 by educating the public on how to properly recycle.

Leeds United's song about Derby manager Frank Lampard came back to haunt them as they exited the play-offs.

Abbie Dewhurst
Weather Presenter, BBC Look North

A dry day with sunny spells, but there will be areas of cloud and it'll be cooler than yesterday.

Watch my full forecast here:

A woman from Scarborough says appearing on the now-axed Jeremy Kyle Show changed her life.

Image source, PA

ITV announced yesterday it was cancelling the show, following the death of one of the participants in the programme.

But Cara Jane Farrar-Peterson, who appeared on the show in 2017, says it was nothing but a positive experience.

Growing up in a care home, she finally confirmed who her father was during her appearance on the programme.

She said: "In every which way it was unbelievable. They treated you like royalty, they were there for every little thing, really caring."

A nationwide search is taking place to find a 16-year-old girl who's been missing from Wakefield for six days.

Image source, West Yorkshire Police

Nicole Harris, described by police as a "vulnerable teenager," was last seen in the Quebec Street area.

She is 5ft 3ins tall with long brown hair and a burn scar on the side of her nose.

Det Ch Insp Vanessa Rolfe, said: “We are doing everything we can to find Nicole and as more time passes we are becoming increasingly worried about her welfare.

“Nicole has links to a very large geographical area of the country and that is why a lot of our work is being done outside West Yorkshire.

“We do know that Nicole asked a female driver in Wakefield for a lift to Hull and I am appealing directly to anyone else who may have been asked for a lift to come forward urgently."

Leeds United's defeat in the second leg Championship play-off clash against Derby was a "painful situation", according to head coach Marcelo Bielsa.

Image source, Nick Potts/PA Wire

Substitute Jack Marriott was the hero for Derby as they stunned Leeds to set up a Championship play-off final against Aston Villa after a wild night at Elland Road.

With Leeds now facing another season in the Championship after having been in the driving seat to win automatic promotion, Bielsa said he was "disappointed".

"We should have had one or two more in the first half and then the second half broke immediately," said Bielsa.

"We lost control. We had 20 minutes without control and I couldn't find a solution."

Bielsa now faces a huge decision of his own whether to carry on as boss and try to mount another promotion challenge next season.

The rise of the illegal rave scene and the decline of heavy industry in the 1990s have been brought together by a South Yorkshire choreographer as part of a new dance show.

Gary Clarke, from Grimethorpe, was too young to go to raves during the acid house explosion. So he borrowed his older brother's tapes and held his own mini-raves in his bedroom instead.

Encouraged by a teacher who caught him raving solo in a school dance studio, he channelled the energy of acid house as he pursued a career in contemporary dance.

He now runs his own dance company and has been looking back to the early 1990s during the research for his new show, Wasteland, which premiered in Doncaster on Wednesday.

The show will tour the UK into 2020. At each venue, Clarke will recruit four local men - preferably with no previous stage experience - to appear in the show.

They will sing mining hymns, representing ex-miners who lost their jobs. In Doncaster, two of the four will actually be former pit workers.

The fiancee of Hull lottery winner and transgender LGBT rights campaigner Melissa Ede says she has been "completely devastated" by her death.

Image source, Anthony Devlin/Camelot

The 58-year-old, who won £4m on a lottery scratch card in 2017, died on Saturday night, police said.

Her partner, Rachel Nason, said she found her slumped in a car at their home near Hull after a heart attack.

Ms Nason described her fiancee as "clever", "funny" and an inspiration to others.

Posting on Facebook, Ms Nason said a post-mortem examination showed her partner had ischemic heart disease which led to "a sudden heart attack".

The former taxi driver went out to get cigarettes but shortly afterwards Ms Nason noticed her car engine revving.

Describing her rescue attempt, Ms Nason said: "I ran to it and started shouting, 'Mel, wake up' but she didn't even flinch.

She said she dialled 999 and started performing CPR, before paramedics arrived.

Ms Ede's funeral is due to take place on 30 May in Hull.

Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa will consider his future at the club after a play-off semi-final defeat by Derby.

BBC Weather

A fine sunny start this morning.

This afternoon it will remain dry and sunny, but some cloud will build.

The cloud is expected to become more extensive through tonight and will thicken enough to give some light showers:

The planned HS2 high-speed rail link running from Leeds to London will not offer value for money and risks "short-changing" the north of England, a group of peers has warned.

Image source, HS2

A report from the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee also said it was "far from convinced" the new high-speed railway will be built within the £55.7bn budget.

It said the route, which will run through South Yorkshire to Leeds and which will also reach into North Yorkshire, should not go ahead without a new assessment of its costs and benefits.

The government said it "fundamentally disagreed" with the report.

The committee's report said the scheme had put too much emphasis on cutting journey times and not enough on the economic impact on regions.

And it said the second phase, which it's claimed would improve journey times between Leeds and Sheffield, risked never going ahead because of spending overruns.

BBC News Travel

If you're making a journey on the rails in Yorkshire this Thursday morning, most services appear to be running to time so far.

For all the latest live updates from the county's main railway stations, click on the links below:

• York Station, external
• Leeds Station, external
• Sheffield Station, external
• Hull Station, external
• Doncaster Station, external
• Wakefield Westgate, external
• Bradford Interchange, external
• Bradford Forster Square, external

There's heartbreak for Leeds United fans this morning...

Image source, Reuters

The Whites lost their chance of promotion to the Premier League after losing 4-2 at home to Derby County in the play-off semi-final second leg:

United went out 4-3 on aggregate.

For Leeds, who finished third in the table, defeat means their spell outside the top flight will stretch to a 16th year.