Latest news with #SmallHeath
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Yahoo
Weapons and ammunition discovered after Birmingham police chase
Lethal weapons and ammunition have been recovered by police in Birmingham following a police chase in the early hours. Officers found a gun, ammunition and a machete close to an abandoned car off Heybarnes Road, next to Heybarnes Recreation Ground in Small Heath, on Tuesday (May 6). The gun was said to be 'potentially viable' and was discovered near the car which had earlier been in a pursuit after the driver failed to stop. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Forensic checks are being carried out on the vehicle and the weapons as police look to trace their owners. Read more: Police swoop after 'suspicious vehicle' spotted by residents Get breaking news on BirminghamLive WhatsApp , click the link to join A spokesperson for West Midlands Police said: 'We've recovered a gun, ammunition and machete as we continue our work to take weapons off the streets of Birmingham. 'The weapons were discovered off Heybarnes Road, Small Heath, at just before 4.30am today (6 May). 'Items including a potentially viable firearm were located not far from an abandoned vehicle, which had earlier been pursued after failing to stop for officers." ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Read more: Romanian burglar's message to British citizens after rampage in Birmingham Get the latest BirminghamLive news direct to your inbox The statement continued: 'The car has also been recovered and we're now carrying out further enquiries to establish who these weapons belonged to. 'We're determined to keep you safe by removing such weapons from within our communities. 'It's all part of Operation Target – our 24/7 mission to tackle serious and organised crime in the West Midlands.'
Metro
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
BBC fans have hours to binge 'phenomenal' series before final season drops
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video TV lovers need to catch up on all four seasons of BBC's 'fantastic' comedy Man Like Mobeen ahead of the season five release. The fifth season will also be the swan song for the Bafta-nominated series created by and starring Guz Khan. Man Like Mobeen is set in Birmingham and follows the titular Mobeen (Guz), a former drug dealer attempting to be an upstanding Muslim and member of the community in 'the ends' (aka Small Heath). He gets up to plenty of antics with his friends, Nate (Tolu Ogunmefun) and Eight (Tez Ilyas), and has a sweet and protective relationship with his younger sister Aqsa (Dúaa Karim). As the synopsis reads: 'All Mobeen wants to do is follow his faith, lead a good life and keep his little sister on track. But with his dodgy past chasing him, can he stay on the right side of wrong?' The first season aired in 2017 and quickly became a staple British comedy with the fourth season coming out in June 2023 and ending on a nail-biting cliffhanger. Almost two years later fans will finally get to see the epic conclusion to Mobeen's story with a whopping six-episodes, and there's still time to catch up ahead of the premiere. Although it seems like a big undertaking it's only a total of 17 episodes, with each one coming in at a modest 20 minute runtime making it a bite-sized binge. One anonymous reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes said: 'Highly underrated. It's easy to love and root for the ensemble in Man Like Mobeen. There's comedy, there's drama, and there's great chemistry. A must-see.' Another fan, Thimal D, echoed: 'Man Like Mobeen's fourth season is phenomenal. Guz Khan's and Tboy's chemistry is fantastic and hilarious with brilliantly-written moments of comedy ever-present throughout the 4 episodes, even during the most devastating of scenes.' Over on X, user bob_bajwa shared: 'Just watched season 4 of Man Like Mobeen – hats off brother, that was sik!' 'Man Like Mobeen has me in tears,' Rubzzzz1 said. 'Rewatching Man Like Mobeen before the new series starts this week, so good! Guz Khan, we've spent the weekend in hysterics,' lynsey dickson added. And even co-star Tez (who may or may not appear in later seasons), celebrated it as a 'manic, fun, self-contained story.' More Trending As for the new season, there's plenty to look forward to with the description reading: 'In the final series, Mobeen must save Aqsa but can he even get a passport or a plane ticket to the UAE? And will he convince his friends to join him?' Announcing the return of the show in October, Guz joked he couldn't even 'shop at Aldi without someone popping out from behind the bread aisle' and asking about another season. He added: 'So for you, and only for you, here's one, final, very last, never to be done again season of Man Like Mobeen. P.S Please don't make me make anymore, I got loads of kids to raise and that. Love you.' View More » Man Like Mobeen returns on Thursday May 1 at 9pm on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer. The first four seasons are available to stream now. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Doctor Who is fixing its biggest mistake – but it might be too late MORE: EastEnders confirms special episode for return of show's biggest ever legend MORE: Strictly Come Dancing pro sparks quitting fears after announcing new career move
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Some wildlife 'may not return' after recurring fires
Butterflies, birds, insects and lizards are among the many species negatively affected by a spate of recent wildfires on the Mourne Mountains. There have been almost 300 such fires in Northern Ireland since 3 April. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said many were started deliberately. The National Trust manages a special area of conservation in the Mournes, "with the whole site designated specifically because of the habitat that's there", its lead ranger, James Fisher, told BBC News NI. He fears some species may not return after the wildfires. Firefighters are continuing to tackle a gorse fire at Brookeborough, County Fermanagh. On Friday, the fire service confirmed its staff attended 1,112 incidents from Thursday 3 April to Thursday 10 April, 296 of which were wildfires. Grayling and Small Heath butterflies "are really rare elsewhere so their population's going to be really impacted," Mr Fisher added. After a fire in the area in April 2021, the National Trust conducted a survey for invertebrates and found "a 90% reduction in invertebrate life" from burnt land compared to areas that remained unburnt. "They formed the basis for many of these habitats, in terms of food for the birds or for smaller mammals, or even the lizards that we find up there," he added. In the Mournes, Mr Fisher said rove beetles and other insects "support the skylarks and the meadow pipits that come from the lowlands to nest up in the uplands during this time of year". "Those birds, in turn, then provide a food source for some of the more charismatic birds, like peregrine falcons or kestrels." The mountain range has more than 50% of Northern Ireland's upland heath habitat, according to Mr Fisher. Upland heathland is characterised by the presence of low-growing shrubs, such as heather. "It's a real prime area for the only native lizard that we get in Northern Ireland - the viviparous lizard," he added. The April 2021 wildfires caused purple moor grass "to really take off" and prevented other plants, like heather, growing back. "It really changed the whole community from what we would designate an upland heathland community to an upland grassland or acid grassland community," he said. Cattle were placed in those areas to eat the grass, to try to re-establish the heath. Red grouse feed on young heather shoots and nest in the more mature heather stands. But with the fires destroying much of the vegetation in the area, Mr Fisher fears the red grouse will move out of the area, if the heather does not return. "With the time that it takes for the heather to reach maturity and to form the denser, more mature stands, the grouse just won't be able to survive there, so they won't come back," he said. Dr Neil Reid is a conservation biologist at Queen's University. He researched the impact of wildfires on the Mournes in 2011. He said those fires "covered about 10 square kilometres in a not dissimilar area to where they're burning at the moment". His research found that lots of wetland species, such as carnivorous sundews and bog asphodel, disappeared after the fires. Some birds had still not returned a year after the fire either. With wildfires seemingly happening in the Mournes every few years, Dr Reid says "it's kind of a death by a thousand cuts". "You lose a bit each time and the mountain becomes more and more impoverished, more and more grassland like and less and less wet peatland like," he added. "From the growth rate that we observed in the heather, we could extrapolate that would probably take about seven years for the heather to regain its full height again, but that doesn't mean that the ecosystem is restored. "That just means the heather has come back - a lot of those other species might never come back." Conservationist Andy Carden conducts bird breeding surveys in the Mournes twice a year. In spring, insect-eating waders arrive from Africa to nest and breed in the Mournes. "Without the insects and with burnt, blackened bare ground, they will not have the homes that they've flown here for," he said. "The ground nesting birds, like the skylarks and the meadow pipits, the wrens and stonechats, they'll have lost their nests and eggs." The area beside Bloody Bridge Valley, where firefighters tackled a two mile long fire, is a "very important" breeding ground for skylarks. He said it will be "a sad sight" when he does the next bird survey. "The habitat is just going to be destroyed," he said. "It's hard to know if there'll be any breeding going on in there at all this year. "It takes a long, long time for it to come back. "Places that have burnt a decade ago or more than that, you can tell and you can see that the vegetation is different. It hasn't come back." Hikers 'devastated' over Mourne Mountains wildfires Bloody Bridge wildfire contained as firefighters deal with others Wildfires are rural arson, says minister
The Guardian
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Dope Girls review – the dodgy accents could give Peaky Blinders a run for its money
The Peaky Blinders comparisons have been flying around ever since filming on Dope Girls began, so it sounds as if the BBC was hoping that it might have a successor on its hands. Certainly, there are some superficial similarities between the two. Dope Girls is set in 1918 and deals with the aftermath of the first world war, as the surviving men return. But here, it's the women who are in the spotlight, as the female workforce of the past four years suddenly find their newfound social status has been relegated once again. In mood and tone, however, it is less a return to Small Heath, and more of a predecessor to Cabaret. Kate Galloway (Julianne Nicholson) is a businessman's wife and wartime butcher, who falls on hard times after a family tragedy. Destitute and homeless, she heads to London, where Armistice Day is looming and the party of the century is about to kick off. With the help of a bright dancer named Billie (Umi Myers), who is as talented as she is troubled, Kate finds her way into the clubland underworld of Soho, where she spies the potential to apply her previous workplace-based knowledge, and sets the ball rolling on building a new empire of nightlife. Joining Kate and Billie is Kate's daughter Evie (Eilidh Fisher), who begins the series at a fancy boarding school where she is bullied for being from 'the slums' – ie she is not landed gentry. Little Women's Eliza Scanlen is Violet, a young woman from the north of England taking part in 'the Female Experiment', in which 10 women are recruited as the country's first ever female police officers. Geraldine James, who has been the cherry on the top of a strong female ensemble cake ever since Band of Gold in the 1990s, plays Isabella Salucci, the matriarch of an organised crime family who soon finds herself entangled with Kate's new venture, and not necessarily in a female-solidarity sort of way. Created and written by the playwright Polly Stenham, with Alex Warren, it is a theatrical affair from the off. It opens with a flash-forward to Kate, soaked in blood and wearing angel wings, frolicking in a fountain in Trafalgar Square; there are plenty of moments when it all goes a bit like a Florence + the Machine video. The first episode establishes how she got there in the first place, but as it must cover a lot of ground, the early mood is skittish and unsettled. It also includes the copious use of Heartstopper-style text graphics, to annotate and explain some of the scenes. One particularly egregious example read 'Paaaaaaarty!' over the start of, well, a party. I didn't love it, but perhaps it is an attempt to win over a younger audience. The show finds more confidence when everyone has been moved into position and the fireworks are finally allowed to begin. As Kate looks to make the most of what life has thrown at her, Violet must prove herself as a police officer by going undercover with Soho's dancers, criminals and thieves. Both harbour huge secrets that will inevitably be exposed. It's impossible to root for one over the other, even though they are technically opposing forces, because both are outsiders, and desperate in their own ways. The timing does feel a little unfortunate. The problem with suggesting it as an heir to Peaky Blinders is that Steven Knight, that series' creator, has just released another period crime drama, A Thousand Blows, which is also (partly) about female gangs in London. It is set about 40 years earlier, but it, too, deals with outsiders creating their own criminal economy, and women who seek or possess power beyond the levels expected of them. Its energy, however, is bigger and bolder; it spends more time on the story and less time searching for a beautiful angle. A wag might argue that what Dope Girls shares most with Peaky Blinders is a tendency for all accents involved to go wandering around the globe, before settling somewhere, anywhere, in the UK. But that would be impolite. Dope Girls takes place in a busy period, historically, and crams in clandestine same-sex affairs, the 1918 flu pandemic outbreak, spiritualism and empire, among many other ideas. All of this creates a hectic, sometimes fussy scramble. But Dope Girls is in no way a bad series. Its ambition is entertaining, and it is hard to get bored, especially when the crime really gets going. If it is skewed towards a younger audience, then it certainly doesn't skimp on the brutality or the gore: limbs are severed, tongues are removed and eaten, and you wouldn't want to guess where a hairpin ends up. It is fun, gory and lively, then, if a little too in love with its own reflection. Dope Girls aired on BBC One and is available on iPlayer
