Just heard a radio report that people are being sent home from a (jazz?) festival there. See nothing on Reuters so perhaps it's simply that the police wanted to go home early themselves. Anyone know?

There was a report related to Birmingham on the Yahoo home page about 6 pm today, July 9. Roads closed off; people evacuated, and some mysterious boxes/packages were blown up.
Not much detail yet, but more facts may be there now.

Here is the link. Not on the home page but on one associated with the London tube blasts.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050709...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl

From CNN.com

"....late Saturday, police in Birmingham evacuated part of the city center due to intelligence it had received, according to a spokesman.

He declined to elaborate on the nature of the intelligence received by the force but told the Press Association: "Clearly it is being taken seriously. We have always said public safety is our absolute priority."

British media said 30,000 people were being evacuated from the entertainment district.

Police in Britain's second-largest city did not give any information on the type of threat."

This had to have been a very credible threat to warrant the evacuation the center core of such a large city.

This is the latest:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4668313.stm