Willenhall

It will be a wet night with showers and longer spells of rain with lows of 7C (45F).

Placing youth workers in A&E departments and introducing violence awareness workshops are some of the projects that will be used to tackle a rise in knife crime, said the region's police chief.

BBC

Knife crimes in areas covered by West Midlands Police have increased by 20%, new figures reveal.

The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, David Jamieson, said he continued to be concerned at an increase in violent crime in the region.

A new £4m Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), being held in the West Midlands police area, will expand current projects and develop new ones, he said.

Additional resources announced by the government for the force recently are, "of course, welcome," he said, but "these additional officers will be a long way off replacing what we have already lost".

Knife crime in the West Midlands has risen by nearly a fifth, according to the latest figures from police forces.

In the 12 months to the end of June 2019, offences in the region rose by 18%.

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The data's from the Office for National Statistics with the whole of England and Wales seeing an increase of 7%.

In the West Midlands, West Mercia Police saw the biggest rise of 30% as the force recorded 578 offences in the year to June.

But the most crimes for the period were recorded by West Midlands Police with 3,560 - an increase of 20%.

The increase for Warwickshire was 25% while both Staffordshire Police and Cheshire Police saw falls in knife crime.

Staying mainly dry tonight, although there's the chance of the odd shower around in the West Midlands:

Keep up-to-date with the latest forecast for your area by heading to the BBC Weather website at any other time.

A member of Extinction Rebellion has warned people in the West Midlands to expect more disruptive protests in the coming months.

Reuters

The campaign group, which is calling on the government to do more to tackle climate change, is currently continuing several days of demonstrations in London.

The West Midlands has already seen protests by Extinction Rebellion this year, including in August when they blocked one of the busiest roads in Birmingham, and more recently blocking rush-hour traffic in Worcester.

We've got a number of groups active now and, once this international fortnight of rebellion is over, we will be regrouping and reorganising ourselves for campaigning and protesting in Birmingham and around the West Midlands."

A police officer who was run over by a car thief in a patrol car has "defied medical predictions" in his recovery, according to his boss.

BBC

PC Gareth Phillips of West Midlands Police had attended reports of a stolen car in Moseley, Birmingham, on 10 August when Mubashar Hussain hijacked a police BMW and and drove over him.

Hussain, 29, of no fixed address, was jailed yesterday for 12 years after previously admitting causing grievous bodily harm along with other charges.

PC Phillips sustained potentially life-changing injuries including a shattered pelvis and was discharged from hospital last month.

He's defied, I think, medical predictions to date. He's been released earlier than we thought but, again, there's a long road indeed."

Six regional heads of Britain's biggest employers' group have urged the government to build the controversial HS2 rail project in full.

Siemens/PA Media

The call by the CBI chiefs comes amid a government-commissioned review which could lead to all or part of the high-speed rail network being scrapped.

The CBI regions were the East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber, London, the North East and North West.

They said HS2 will bring benefits "far beyond its costs".

Phase 1 of HS2 is planned to run between London and Birmingham. Current designs involve a second Y-shaped phase launching in two stages: Phase 2a from the West Midlands to Crewe followed by phase 2b from Crewe to Manchester, and Birmingham to Leeds.

More than a thousand children were caught with weapons in school last year, according to a survey of 29 police forces in England and Wales.

PA Media

Instances included a 15-year-old found in possession of an axe in the West Midlands, the Press Association survey found.

Head teachers' leader Geoff Barton said the findings were "grim but unsurprising".

The survey, which follows concern about rising levels of knife crime, was based on Freedom of Information data from police forces.

The Express and Star's covering these stories today:

• Wolverhampton's £50m Westside project hit by red tape
• M6 Toll a 'driving force' for the economy, say bosses
• West Midlands crime warning amid 'open police force warfare' claims

Any early rain should soon clear this morning to leave it mainly dry if cloudy:

You can keep up-to-date with the weather in your area by heading to the BBC Weather website.

It will be a dry night with some clear skies and lows of 8C (46F).

MEP Ellie Chowns has tweeted she was arrested in Trafalgar Square on Monday while defending the right to peaceful public protest.

Police have banned climate change protests in London by the activist group Extinction Rebellion, after more than a week of disruption.

Extinction Rebellion said the London-wide ban was an outrage and the Green Party MEP has called it a "completely unjustified and disproportionate measure".

It will be a largely dry and cloudy day with some brighter spells and highs of 15C (59F).

After a wet evening it should be a drier night with some clear spells and lows of 12C (54F).

Parts of the West Midlands could face flooding as heavy rain moves across the region.

The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for between 12:00 and midnight.

The Met Office said the wet weather will move northwards across much of England on Monday, with the heaviest rain forecast for the afternoon and evening.

Flood alerts have been issued in Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Shropshire.

It will be increasingly wet with heavy rain and highs of 13C (55F).

Schools in the West Midlands will receive an extra £175m over the next three years, but it is the second-lowest increase in funding per-pupil in the country.

The figures are laid out in the government's provisional spending plans and the West Midlands will see an average increase of 3.6% per pupil by 2020-21.

Only London is expected to see a lower per-pupil increase with 3.2%.

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The spending plans will increase the total budget for the region to £3.97bn by 2020-21.

The prime minister has promised to boost spending in UK schools by £14bn over the coming three financial years.

It will be a windy day with showery rain and highs of 13C (55F).

It will be a breezy night with some showers and lows of 12C (54F).

The managing director of Transport for West Midlands has said the region could be set back by more than a decade if HS2 is scrapped.

The multibillion-pound project, which would create a high-speed line between Birmingham and London is being reviewed due to rising costs and delays of up to five years if it goes ahead.

Siemens/PA

Laura Shoaf said HS2 was important because it would add to the capacity of the existing rail lines and if it doesn't go ahead "we would need to look then at what infrastructure we could put in place to get that capacity".

She said that could involve "radical solutions" such as tunneling under New Street station. Ms Shoaf said even planning it would "put us back by at least 15 years, because those plans aren't drawn up".

After a bright start it will be a cloudy day with some showers and highs of 15C (59F).

We're in for a dry night in the West Midlands and it'll be quite breezy:

Get a latest forecast for your area at any other time by heading to the BBC Weather website.

The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) says he's concerned targets for new officers aren't high enough and are seeing the area lose out to "leafy, lower crime areas".

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The government's pledged to hire an extra 20,000 by 2022 and today allocated 366 out of the first year of 6,000 to the West Midlands force.

But PCC David Jamieson, while welcoming the extra officers, says they don't cover the more than 2,000 the force has lost since 2010.

"It would have been more sensible to allocate officers based on the crime threat and need of forces," he added.

The Home Secretary Pritti Patel says "the public are clear they want to see more police officers on their streets, whether they live in the city or the countryside".

Police forces across the West Midlands will be able to recruit 590 new officers in the first year of a government pledge to hire an extra 20,000 by 2022.

BBC

The Home Office has set out recruitment targets for the first year with West Midlands Police given the biggest of 366.

Warwickshire will be able to hire an extra 41, Staffordshire 90 and West Mercia 93.

Home Office figures show that forces in England and Wales lost 20,564 officers between March 2010 and March 2019.

Boris Johnson pledged the extra 20,000 officers earlier this year although the College of Policing at the time warned of "logistical challenges", partly because of concerns of a lack of instructors for training.

After a damp start in places, today should stay mainly dry but breezy.

You can keep up-to-date with the latest weather forecast for your area at any other time by going to the BBC Weather website.

It should be a mainly dry night with the odd shower and lows of 11C (52F).

After a fine start blustery showers will move in with highs of 10C (50F).

Rain will gradually clear leaving a dry night with lows of 12C (54F).

The number of knife crime offences recorded in the West Midlands has more than doubled in four years, figures show.

BBC

The number of offences that end with someone being charged has, however, stayed roughly the same during that period of time, the BBC has found.

In 2014 there were just over 1,500 reported cases, but in 2018 police responded to more than 3,200 incidents.

During that time there was on average just under 500 offences that resulted in a court charge per year.

Some of the Express and Star headlines include:

• Mother's heartbreak over death of young sons in crash
• Wolverhampton one of most deprived areas in West Midlands
• Plasterer who led police on four-mile high speed chase spared jail

After a cloudy start rain will spread from the west leading to a wet and windy afternoon with highs of 15C (59F).

It should be a dry night with some clear intervals and lows of 9C (48F).

Parts of the West Midlands could experience heavy rain causing travel disruption on Sunday.

A yellow warning for rain has been issued and lasts until 18:00.

Met Office

It will be a cloudy day with some rain and highs of 15C (59F).

It will be a cloudy night with blustery wind and rain at times and lows of 10C (50F).

After a dry, bright start it will be a cloudy day with some rain later and highs of 13C (55F).

More than 140 vehicles were stopped by police on roads around the region during last week, for a range of offences, including one person trying to do paperwork while at the wheel.

Officers from Warwickshire Police and the Central Motorway Police Group said they patrolled the area in a lorry cab and handed out 71 fines for seatbelt offences, and caught 31 drivers using their mobile phones at the wheel.

One person was arrested for failing a roadside drugs test and for possession of drugs.

Central Motorway Police Group

Warwickshire Police said one lorry driver was found to have faulty brakes, defective tyres and no number plate.

Other offences included no insurance, insecure loads, careless driving, and reversing on the hard shoulder.

A £4m violence reduction unit is being launched in a bid to tackle knife and gun crime.

West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) David Jamieson is launching the project today, along with partners from across the region.

BBC

What we are going to look at is, early on, is how do you stop people getting this? How do you inoculate them away from violence is what we need to be looking at. So it is a health related approach. But actually working with people who have already had problems, either with drugs or they have had problems with violence and actually steering those people away from violence."

Projects will be run in A&E departments, GP surgeries, schools and prisons.

Domestic violence and other crimes will also be tackled.

Predictions of heavy rain throughout the day have triggered flood warnings and alerts across the West Midlands.

The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for rain until 20:00 today.

Heavy rain will continue through the evening and into the night with lows of 11C (52F).

West Mercia Police has refuted claims that communities will be at risk when its strategic alliance with the Warwickshire force comes to an end in October.

PA Media

The Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands force, David Jamieson, said he had "real concerns" over the change.

In a joint statement, the Police and Crime Commissioner and chief constable for West Mercia say: "There is absolutely no risk to public safety for the communities served by our force.

"West Mercia is fully prepared to operate as a standalone force if necessary."