|
|
|
The Conservatives were the major winners in the Birmingham City Council elections, wrestling six seats from Labour. |
|
|
|
Low-fare airline Ryanair is considering charging passengers to use the toilets on its planes. |
|
|
|
Gordon Brown has voiced "anger" over the £693,000-a-year pension awarded to the former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin. |
|
|
|
A five-year-old boy has burned out his own bedroom in the hope that his family would move away from a gang that is terrorising them. |
|
|
|
Councils will have to disclose the pay and perks of their chief executives under new measures designed to crack down on town hall "fat cats". |
|
|
|
A lorry driver was last night being questioned on suspicion of murder after a man was stabbed to death and two others injured during an apparent attempted robbery on his truck. |
|
|
|
Birmingham-based National Express whose rail empire includes one of the UK’s busiest routes has warned of possible further job losses this year. |
|
|
|
Iraqi leaders are now "impatient" to run their affairs as conditions in the country improve by the week, David Miliband has said. |
|
|
|
Wendy Richard is believed to have sent a message of encouragement to fellow cancer sufferer Jade Goody shortly before the actress succumbed to the disease aged 65. |
|
|
|
Lloyds Banking Group has said it expects to be loss-making this year following its takeover of ailing rival HBOS. |
|
|
|
Pressure is mounting on the Government to take action over the controversial £693,000-a-year pension of ousted Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin, after he rejected ministers' pleas to give up some of his retirement pay voluntarily. |
|
|
|
A former soldier who saved a policeman from a gang of football hooligans is due to be sentenced for impersonating a police officer. |
|
|
|
Lloyds Banking Group will count the cost of its rescue takeover of ailing rival HBOS when it unveils annual losses of up to £10 billion. |
|
|
|
A 46-year-old man is due to appear in court charged with the murder of a father-of-two and the attempted murder of his 14-year-old son. |
|
|
|
A British charity working in the West Bank and Gaza Strip did not do enough to check that partner organisations were not promoting terrorism, the Charity Commission has ruled. |
|
|
|
Police and forensic officers are expected to give evidence in the trial of two former lovers for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. |
|
|
|
A lesbian couple has won its battle to get help from their local health authority to have a baby. |
|
|
|
Just 3% of fathers read to their children, a survey has found. |
|
|
|
Taxpayers' money is being wasted by Government departments' failure to learn from day-to-day mistakes and listen to staff concerns, a public spending watchdog said. |
|
|
|
Local authority pensions used up one pound in every five paid in council tax, according to figures obtained by the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA). |
|
|
|
Up to five million homeowners could be in negative equity by the end of this year if house prices continue to fall, research has claimed. |
|
|
|
Schools and hospitals face ten lean years as the effects of the recession limit the cash available for essential public services, Birmingham MP Liam Byrne has warned. |
|
|
|
Bingo clubs are threatened with closure because of a “deeply unfair” tax system which threatens thousands of jobs, Birmingham MP John Hemming has warned. Leading a Commons debate on the future of bingo, Mr Hemming (Lib Dem Yardley) said: “If it is allowed to continue, it will lead to the threat of further job losses and the loss of an important social amenity.” |
|
|
|
The owner of an historic Birmingham city centre building has been banned from hanging adverts from its ornate Victorian brickwork after admitting that no improvement work will be carried out for a year. |
|
|
|
The final masterplan for a new city centre in Coventry has been unveiled after a consultation involving more than 3,000 local people. |
|
|
|
Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell renewed calls for immediate government action in saving Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) as he visited the Castle Bromwich plant yesterday. |
|
|
|
A high-speed rail line linking Birmingham with London and the North will provide a massive boost to the West Midlands economy and help to end the wealth divide with the South-east, according to Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers. |
|
|
|
A Birmingham city councillor spoke yesterday of his “terrifying ordeal” after being detained by armed police in North Africa. |
|
|
|
Sexual health bosses have been criticised after latest teenage pregnancy figures show millions of pounds of projects are failing to make an impact on under-age mothers. |
|
|
|
The Government is legally entitled to take court action to recover social security benefits paid "by mistake" to claimants innocent of any wrongdoing, a judge has ruled. |
|
|
|
Beleaguered HBOS has slumped to annual losses of £10.8 billion and the bank's new owner has warned of a slide into the red this year. |
|
|
|
A fit and healthy teenage rugby player died 12 hours after taking treatment for acne, a coroner has said. |
|
|
|
Italian investigators told the Meredith Kercher murder trial that Amanda Knox did cartwheels in the police station where she was taken for questioning. |
|
|
|
SOUL sensation Mary Wilson opened an exhibition in Birmingham featuring the glamorous garments she used to wear on stage with Motown supergroup The Supremes. |
|
|
|
An armed gang have held a family with a young child hostage in a so-called tiger-kidnapping as they launched a multi-million euro robbery at one of the Bank of Ireland's flagship branches. |
|
|
|
An armed gang has stolen up to £6.2m (7m euro) after kidnapping a Bank of Ireland worker and holding his family hostage. |
|
|
|
A woman lived the high life funded by £20,000 worth of stolen cheques, a court has heard. |
|
|
|
Energy supplier Scottish Power has become the latest firm to cut gas and electricity prices. |
|
|
|
The parents of a baby boy endured a "horrendous" 30-minute wait before a car thief who drove off with their son inside their vehicle returned to the scene and dumped him in the street. |
|
|
|
A warning has been placed on the registration of a surgeon who worked at Staffordshire General Hospital who botched breast operations on three women. |
|
|
|
A 43-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving after a teenage binman was killed in Staffordshire by his own dustbin lorry, police have said. |
|
|
|
More than 1,500 jobs in Staffordshire look to have been saved after administrators secured a sale of the struggling china and crystal firm Waterford Wedgwood. |
|
|
|
Dog-lovers will be able to watch Birmingham's Crufts despite the BBC's decision to drop the show, thanks to a live webstream announced by producers. |
|
|
|
Veteran Irish rockers U2 mimicked the Beatles by performing an impromptu gig live from the top of a London landmark. |
|
|
|
Jade Goody has gone into a hospice for the weekend, her spokesman Max Clifford said. |
|
|
|
Six men and a woman have been arrested by detectives in the hunt for an armed gang who escaped with a 7 million euro (£6.2m) cash haul from the Irish Republic's largest ever bank heist. |
|
|
|
Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal closed his award-winning Michelin-starred restaurant following a food poisoning scare. |
|
|
|
A murder investigation has been launched after the body of man was discovered by walkers at a rural beauty spot. |
|
|
|
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is facing a showdown with critics of the Government's controversial plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail when he attends a meeting of Labour's national policy forum. |
|
|
|
A man has been blinded after a stranger threw acid in his face following an argument in the street, police have said. |
|
|
|
A man is being questioned on suspicion of kidnapping and theft after a relieved mother hailed the "miracle" return of her baby son who was in the back seat of a car driven off by a thief. |
|
|
|
The Premier League has called for tighter laws against IT theft to stop the unauthorised online broadcasting of football matches. |
|
|
|
A sex offender who went on the run is due to be questioned over the murder of a prostitute. |
|
|
|
The Army's most decorated serving war hero has claimed the Government is failing to care for soldiers with mental trauma caused by combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
|
|
|
The body of a British teacher who vanished in the French Alps more than six months ago has been found. |
|
|
|
Shops closed down by the recession should be turned into community facilities such as youth clubs and libraries to prevent high streets becoming "ghost towns", the Local Government Association (LGA) has said. |
|
|
|
Two British tourists have fallen to their deaths in the French Alps, the Foreign Office said. |
|
|
|
Public services have been warned by an independent spending watchdog to brace themselves for "substantial" funding cuts after the recession. |
|
|
|
Jade Goody will spend the weekend in a hospice as she struggles to control the effects of her terminal cancer. |
|
|
|
Gordon Brown has taken on critics of Government plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail - urging them to face facts about the massive problems facing the postal service. |
|
|
|
Cancer-stricken Jade Goody remains positive after spending a "far more comfortable night" at a hospice, her publicist Max Clifford said. |
|
|
|
Parents will "go through hell" next week as they wait to find out if their child has secured a place at the secondary school of their choice, campaigners have warned. |
|
|
|
Gordon Brown has renewed the pressure on former bank chiefs to give up huge pensions as he demanded a clean-up of the banking system to eradicate "indefensible" practises. |
|
|
|
At least half of the cash stolen in Ireland's largest ever bank robbery - a 7 million euro (£6.2m) 'tiger' kidnap raid - has been recovered. |
|
|
|
Terminally-ill reality television star Jade Goody is feeling a "lot brighter" after being admitted to a hospice, her publicist Max Clifford said. |
|
|
|
The Prime Minister has set out a blueprint for the future of the banking system as he renewed pressure on ex-banking chiefs to give up generous pensions or be stripped of them. |
|
|
|
Noisy protests failed to persuade Gordon Brown to drop plans to sell off part of Royal Mail as he warned critics there was no other way to secure postal services. |
|
|
|
At least 100 fire-fighters have been involved in a national training exercise to test their response to a large-scale emergency. |
|
|
|
David Cameron has opened his heart publicly for the first time over the sudden death of his son - telling well-wishers the loss of Ivan had left a hole in family life "so big that words can't describe it". |
|
|
|
TV chef Heston Blumenthal said he was baffled by what may have caused a health scare that forced him to close his award-winning restaurant. |
|
|
|
The Treasury has been challenged to explain an alleged secret dossier at the heart of the Lloyds takeover of Halifax Bank of Scotland. |
|
|
|
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is due to join fellow EU leaders in Brussels for another emergency summit on the economy amid fears national protectionism will scupper hopes of recovery. |
|
|
|
A Scottish man is in a coma in hospital after being attacked while on a stag night in New Zealand. |
|
|
|
The Government will look into whether the use of lotteries to award school places is having a harmful effect on children, it has been reported. |
|
|
|
February was "a month of two halves" as Britain was battered by wintry weather followed by a two-week mild spell, meteorologists have said. |
|
|
|
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has issued a stark warning to unions and MPs opposing his Royal Mail sell off plans: back me or put postal services at risk and let the Tories return to power. |
|
|
|
Parents will be told that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines do not work on children under 12 and can even cause side effects like hallucinations under new advice. |
|
|
|
Terminally-ill reality television star Jade Goody is feeling a "lot brighter" after being admitted to a hospice, her publicist Max Clifford has said. |
|
|
|
Animal rights activists will stage a protest against the use of elephants at the Great British Circus. |
|
|
|
Minority groups will get extra help in a bid to protect them from the economic downturn, it was reported. |
|
|
|
A MAN stabbed to death during an attempted lorry-jacking was a career criminal known to police forces around Britain, it was revealed today. |
|
|
|
THE Government was called upon to flood cash into Birmingham last night – after latest figures revealed it will take 65 YEARS to clear the city’s council house backlog. |
|
|
|
THEY are the celebrity credit crunch victims whose property empire has been rocked by the recession. |
|
|
|
Mideast envoy Tony Blair was in the Gaza Strip to discuss reconstruction efforts. |
|
|
|
The Government is prepared to change the law to strip former banking chief Sir Fred Goodwin of his £650,000-a-year pension, Commons leader Harriet Harman hinted. |
|
|
|
Ministers faced calls to allow a full judicial inquiry into the role of British intelligence agents over the rendition of terror suspects. |
|
|
|
Detectives investigating an attempted lorry robbery which resulted in one man being stabbed to death have been granted more time to question two men, police said today. |
|
|
|
Animal rights activists have demonstrated outside a circus that has controversially introduced three elephants into its show. |
|
|
|
Gordon Brown has insisted the European Union was united in its response to the global economic crisis after joining fellow leaders for an emergency summit in Brussels. |
|
|
|
Cancer-stricken Jade Goody is facing the prospect of an operation to relieve her "awful pain", her publicist Max Clifford said. |
|
|
|
Lord Mandelson remains on collision course with unions and Labour MPs after launching a furious attack on opponents of his plans to part-privatise Royal Mail. |
|
|
|
Sir Fred Goodwin will not get his £650,000-plus pension even if he is legally entitled to it, Commons Leader Harriet Harman vowed in the strongest Government attack yet on the former banking chief. |
|
|
|
Establishing a municipal bank could turn out to be one of Birmingham City Council’s costliest commitments in recent years, with initial estimates for the project already running at £200 million. |
|
|
|
An emergency repair fund of £1million is urgently needed to save one of Birmingham’s oldest churches from closure. |
|
|
|
Detectives investigating an attempted lorry robbery which resulted in one man being stabbed to death have been granted more time to question two men, police said. |
|
|
|
Black Country secondary schools have won Government approval for a £370million revamp. |
|
|
|
Birmingham City Council leaders have been accused of running a “Stalinist command economy”, where orders are passed down from on high with little chance that they can ever be put into practice. |
|
|
|
Hundreds of mourners turned out for a memorial service and anti-knife crime conference organised by the family of a dad-to-be stabbed to death after an argument with a friend. |
|
|
|
A breakthrough blood cancer therapy which was successfully trialled at a Birmingham hospital is to be made available to patients from today. |
|
|
|
Police today condemned a former Midland council leader jailed after stealing more than £80,000 while boss of a charity which was set up to help homeless youngsters. |
|
|
|
A “get tough” scheme that docked the welfare benefits of West Midlands criminals who failed to comply with court rulings is to be scrapped after it forced offenders to commit more crimes. |
|
|
|
The popular flagship BBC programme Gardeners’ World is putting down new roots in the heart of Birmingham. |
|
|
|
Conservatives have been urged to gag a Midland MP after he revealed the taxpayer was underwriting a £12 billion defence project in Wales which will cost hundreds of Midland jobs. |
|
|
|
Welsh children are populating English classrooms, Welsh badgers are infecting English cattle and Welsh water is flooding English towns, according to a Midlands MP. |
|
|
|
The Government department responsible for animal welfare is looking at the possibility of regulating the use of wild animals in circuses. |
|
|
|
Safe and ethically uncontroversial stem cell treatments for a host of diseases were closer to becoming a reality thanks to a major breakthrough by British and Canadian scientists. |
|
|
|
Banking giant HSBC is expected to announce a £12 billion rights issue when it reports its annual results. |
|
|
|
A further 320,000 jobs look set to be culled during the coming three months as companies respond to the recession, it has been warned. |
|
|
|
Treatment of wounded British troops on the frontline is so good that NHS accident and emergency departments in the UK should learn from it, a report has said. |
|
|
|
Jurors trying a man accused of murdering Harry Potter actor Rob Knox are expected to be sent out to consider their verdicts. |
|
|
|
The number of people planning to buy a car has dipped to a four-year low, it has been revealed. |
|
|
|
Jessica Rabbit, Betty Boop and the Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel Bunny were named as the sexiest cartoon characters. |
|
|
|
The husband of terminally-ill Jade Goody is due to appear in court accused of assaulting a taxi driver. |
|
|
|
Holyrood ministers are due to unveil the Scottish Government's plans for tackling the country's £2.25 billion alcohol misuse problems. |
|
|
|
Gordon Brown will fly to the United States on a mission to deliver a "clear message" to Barack Obama from Europe about the need for urgent worldwide action to counter the economic crisis. |
|
|
|
A pensioner will finally receive her Second World War Medal - 66 years after she first risked her life for Britain. |
|
|
|
Banking giant HSBC has called on shareholders for a record £12.5 billion after profits slid 62% last year. |
|
|
|
Britain risks becoming a "second division" player in global affairs because the Armed Forces are severely under-funded and over-stretched, according to a new report. |
|
|
|
Jessica Rabbit, Betty Boop and the Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel Bunny have been named as the sexiest cartoon characters. |
|
|
|
Cancer specialists have brought Jade Goody's pain under control and she has been able to have her first "good night's sleep" for several days. |
|
|
|
New community sentences introduced four years ago are failing to have the intended effect of reducing the prison population, according to a new report. |
|
|
|
A special three-day exhibition will sell the root and branch overhaul of Birmingham City Council services and structures to its 55,000 staff, businesses, other public organisations, community groups and cynical politicians. |
|
|
|
Scottish government ministers have announced plans to set a minimum price for alcohol in a bid to stop drink being sold for "pocket money prices". |
|
|
|
Mortgage lending dived by more than 60% during January to just one 10th of its level 12 months ago, figures show. |
|
|
|
Gordon Brown has hailed the benefits of working with the US to boost the global economy. |
|
|
|
A motorcyclist caught speeding at 122mph with his 14-year-old son on the back has been jailed for six months. |
|
|
|
The husband of reality television star Jade Goody attacked a taxi driver and threatened to stab him, it has been alleged in court. |
|
|
|
Two males are due to appear in court charged in connection with an attempted robbery in Warwickshire in which a 36-year-old man suffered fatal stab wounds. |
|
|
|
Gordon Brown has appeared to confirm that the Government is considering whether it would be "justified" to change the law in order to claw back Sir Fred Goodwin's £693,000 pension. |
|
|
|
Cancer-stricken Jade Goody has left hospital after being admitted for an operation to relieve her pain. |
|
|
|
The husband of reality television star Jade Goody threatened to stab a taxi driver who asked for the fare in advance, a court has heard. |
|
|
|
A spiritualist minister has been jailed for life for murdering his Emmy award-winning TV make-up artist wife and dumping her body in woodland. |
|
|
|
A top motocross rider from Northern Ireland has been badly injured while racing near Wolverhampton. |
|
|
|
An elderly motorist has been seriously injured after ploughing into a beer garden in Worcester, the ambulance service has revealed. |
|
|
|
A man and a 15-year-old boy appeared in court charged in connection with an attempted robbery in Warwickshire which resulted in a man being stabbed to death. |
|
|
|
A motorist has been seriously injured after ploughing into a beer garden in Worcester. |
|
|
|
A recruitment day for seasonal staff at Twycross Zoo has brought a surge of more than 3,000 job-hunters. |
|
|
|
RSCPA inspectors have spoken of their shock at the cruelty meted out to a dog which was dumped beside a link road in Cannock. |
|
|
|
A man is helping police with their inquiries after being arrested following the unexplained death of a woman at an address in Kidderminster. |
|
|
|
Exactly one month ago leading figures from industry, politics and academia joined together at a unique Auto Industry Summit in Birmingham to draw up a strategy that would save the region’s car making industry during these unprecedented times. This communique, in the form of a 10-point plan, was subsequently delivered to Business Secretary Lord Mandelson at the CBI Manufacturing Dinner two days later. Twenty six days and thousands of lost jobs later, here is Lord Mandelson’s reply: |
|
|
|
Detectives investigating an attempted robbery on a lorry in the West Midlands which resulted in a fatal stabbing have made a fourth arrest. |
|
|
|
The Oxford University team which won this year's series of University Challenge has been disqualified after fielding an ineligible contestant, the BBC said tonight. |
|
|
|
A council admitted a "serious error of judgment" after a disturbed teenager it placed with a couple sexually abused their children. |
|
|
|
A masked gang have escaped with a substantial amount of cash and jewellery after tying up a couple in their Worcestershire home. |
|
|
|
A team of experts from the Research Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences at Keele University in Staffordshire has been awarded more than £2 million to carry out a study into clinical osteoarthritis and joint pain in older people. |
|
|
|
A horticultural college in Worcestershire is helping to overcome the ravages of Dutch elm disease after discovering a local tree that had survived intact. |
|
|
|
A proposed Birmingham academy which aims to develop future generations of stage, screen and music stars has been accused of a “middle-class, elitist” approach by teaching unions. |
|
|
|
Schools in Birmingham holding millions of pounds in unspent balances are to be challenged by the city council to demonstrate what they intend to do with it. |
|
|
|
The Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, said young people need “clear moral principles” and not just sex education to help guide them when forming relationships. |
|
|
|
Joseph Chamberlain’s family is fighting to have a say in the running of Birmingham’s Highbury estate for the first time in more than 70 years. |
