Kidderminster is a historic minster and market town in Worcestershire, England, 17 miles south-west of Birmingham and 15 miles north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2011 census, it had a population of 55,530; the town is twinned with Germany. The town is the main administration center for the wider Wyre Forest District, which includes the towns of Stourport and Bewdley, along with other outlying settlements; the land around Kidderminster may have been first populated by the Husmerae, an Anglo-Saxon tribe first mentioned in the Ismere Diploma, a document in which Ethelbald of Mercia granted a "parcel of land of ten hides" to Cyneberht. This developed as the settlement of Stour-in-Usmere, the subject of a territorial dispute settled by Offa of Mercia in 781, when he restored certain rights to Bishop Heathored; this allowed for the founding of a minstre in the area. The earliest written form of the name Kidderminster was first documented in the Domesday Book of 1086.

It was a large manor held with 16 outlying settlements. Various spellings were in use – Kedeleministre or Kideministre, Kidereministre – until the name of the town was settled as Kidderminster by the 16th century. Between 1156 and 1162 Henry II granted the manor to Manasser Biset. By six decades the settlement grew and a fair and a market were established there. In a visit to the town sometime around 1540, King's Antiquary John Leland noted that Kidderminster "standeth most by clothing". King Charles I granted the Borough of Kidderminster a Charter in 1636; the original charter can be viewed at Kidderminster Town Hall A parliamentary report of 1777 listed Kidderminster Borough as having a parish workhouse accommodating up to 70 inmates. Under the so-called Gilbert's Act of 1782, Kidderminster Union was established for the purpose of relieving the indigent poor. Kidderminster has two Commissioners' churches; the first was St. George's church, on Radford Avenue; this was designed by Francis Goodwin and built in 1821–1824 being consecrated in April 1824.

Its grant of just over £17,000.00, was the third-largest given by the Commission to any church outside London. The second church was St. John's Church, on the Bewdley Road; this church was built in 1843 and the architect was Matthew Steele. To the south by the River Stour, dating from the 15th century, is a single surviving tower of Caldwall Castle, a fortified manor house; the Shrubbery was converted into a military headquarters towards the end of the 19th century. The River Stour and the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal both flow through Kidderminster town centre; the town is noted for its high record lows. Despite an average July low of 11.7 °C, the temperature has never fallen below 5 °C in that month. The coldest and warmest July nights were both recorded in 2015; the modern carpet industry was founded in the area in 1785 by Brintons. The carpet industry became important to the local economy, so much so that the local newspaper is still named The Shuttle after the shuttles used on the carpet looms.

By 1951 there were over thirty carpet manufacturers in the town, for example, Quayle & Tranter. They commissioned such notable artists as George Bain to create their traditional Celtic designs. Aided by a 2004 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, a museum dedicated to the Kidderminster Carpet Industry was opened by Lord Cobham in 2012; the Wyre was the town's first local commercial radio station. Other radio stations providing local coverage are Free Radio, Sunshine Radio and BBC Hereford & Worcester; the Wyre ceased broadcasting in 2012, Signal 107 was launched on 26 March 2012. Kidderminster Town is a civil parish within Wyre Forest District, with Kidderminister Town Council created in the early 21st century to take on the duties of a parish council, following a referendum in May 2015. Prior to this, Charter Trustees elected a Mayor; as of the last election in 2019 for the Wyre Forest District Council, the Conservatives lost their majority and now no group dominates the council. The area has been represented by Conservative MPs Gerald Nabarro 1950–64, Tatton Brinton 1964–74, Esmond Bulmer 1974–87, Anthony Coombs 1987–97, Labour MP David Lock 1997–2001.

In the 2001 United Kingdom general election, the town returned Dr Richard Taylor as an independent MP for the Wyre Forest parliamentary constituency. Taylor had fought the election to protest against the proposed reduction in services at Kidderminster Hospital, he held his seat at the 2005 election, the first independent MP to do so since 1949. Mark Garnier has held the seat of Wyre Forest since the 2010 election increasing his majority each time. In the 1968 Buildings of England volume on Worcestershire, Pevsner described the town as. Crown House was criticised, once described as the ugliest building in the West Midlands and in all of England. After the building was vacant for several years, demolition began in 2019, improving the Kidderminster skyline. In the 2007 revision of this volume, Alan Brooks wrote.

Charles Klein Stobbs was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals. Stobbs is notable for being the pitcher who gave up an estimated 565-foot home run to Mickey Mantle that flew out of Griffith Stadium in 1953. Mantle's 565-foot shot was regarded as the first tape-measure home run of the live-ball era. Stobbs, a native of West Virginia, spent his early years in Springfield and Vero Beach, Florida, his father, Bill Stobbs, played professional football in 1921. As a teenager his family moved to Norfolk, where his father took a coaching job at Granby High School. In high school, Stobbs excelled in three sports: football and baseball, he led the Granby High School football team to three consecutive state championships and was named all-state quarterback three times. Stobbs was an all-American in baseball and a two-time all-state basketball player. In 1947, Stobbs was named by the Washington Post as one of the "greatest athletes to be developed in the Virginia high schools during recent years".

In 1957, Washington Post sports columnist Bob Addie wrote that Stobbs was "one of the greatest athletes to come out of Virginia." For his storied high-school career, Stobbs was named to the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. Stobbs declined several college scholarships to play with the Boston Red Sox under the supervision of scout Specs Toporcer, who offered him a $50,000 signing bonus, one of the first players to qualify for baseball's bonus rule. Stobbs was only 18 years old when he pitched in his first big-league game, against the Chicago White Sox on September 15, 1947, he was the youngest player in Major League Baseball that year, appearing in four games. Stobbs played in six games in 1948 before being a full-time starter for the Red Sox in 1949; that season, Stobbs participated in 26 games, starting 19. He had an 11-6 win-loss record with a 4.03 earned run average while striking out 70 batters in 152 innings pitched. He was turned down for service by the United States Army for the Korean War because of an asthmatic condition.

Stobbs' production diminished in 1957, as he won eight games and led the league in losses with 20. He had a 16-game consecutive losing streak dating back to the previous September. In his last game of the 1957 season, Stobbs pitched 10 innings against the Baltimore Orioles before losing the game 7-3; that season he lost 20 games and joined the St. Louis Cardinals the next year after being purchased by the team, he rejoined the Senators prior to the 1959 season, stayed in the organization through 1961, when the Senators moved to Minnesota.bHe led the American League in walks per nine innings pitched in 1956 and led the American League in losses and earned runs allowed in 1957. After leaving professional baseball, Stobbs spent a brief time as an insurance salesman and a coach at George Washington University. In 1971, Stobbs moved to Florida and worked at a baseball academy operated by the Kansas City Royals, he worked for the Cleveland Indians as a pitching coach in the minor leagues in the early 1980s.

Stobbs died after a seven-year battle with throat cancer on July 11, 2008. Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs Chuck Stobbs at Find a Grave Baseball Library

UFC 199: Rockhold vs. Bisping 2 was a mixed martial arts event held on June 4, 2016, at The Forum in Inglewood, California. While this was the first time the organization has held an event at the venue, it was the fifth time that UFC has hosted an event in Los Angeles County. Previous UFC events in the area took place at the Staples Center; the event was expected to be headlined by a UFC Middleweight Championship rematch between champion Luke Rockhold and former champion Chris Weidman. They met at UFC 194, when Rockhold won Weidman's title via fourth-round TKO. However, Weidman pulled out on May 17 due to a large extrusion herniation on his neck; the first replacement choice was former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Ronaldo Souza, who lost his title to Rockhold in 2011, but he injured his meniscus in a win at UFC 198 against former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Vitor Belfort. Therefore, he was replaced by The Ultimate Fighter 3 winner Michael Bisping; the fight was a rematch as the two met in November 2014 at UFC Fight Night: Rockhold vs. Bisping, with Rockhold winning via submission in the second round.

The co-main event featured a UFC Bantamweight Championship trilogy bout between current two-time champion Dominick Cruz and former WEC Featherweight Champion Urijah Faber. The pairing first met at featherweight on WEC 26 in 2007, where Faber defeated Cruz via guillotine choke to defend his title; the rematch took place on UFC 132 in 2011, when Cruz defended his title for the first time via unanimous decision. A lightweight bout between Evan Dunham and The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 2 winner Leonardo Santos scheduled for UFC 198, was moved to this event after a minor injury to Dunham delayed the matchup a few weeks. Subsequently, Santos pulled out on April 29 due to an undisclosed injury and was replaced by James Vick. In turn, Dunham pulled out of that pairing on May 5 for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Beneil Dariush. In January 2016, former UFC Lightweight and Welterweight Champion B. J. Penn announced his intention to return to active competition in the featherweight division after an 18-month "retirement" and was expected to compete at UFC 197.

However, Penn's return was delayed after an investigation into criminal allegations made against him was launched. After the UFC concluded that no criminal or civil charges would be filed, the organization announced that he would face Dennis Siver at this event. In turn, Siver pulled out on May 10 due to an undisclosed injury, he was replaced by Cole Miller. Subsequently, Penn himself was removed from the card on May 23 after he was flagged for a potential anti-doping violation: the use of an IV in excess of 50 ml in a six-hour period during a March 25 out-of-competition sample collection, he was replaced by Alex Caceres. A lightweight bout between John Makdessi and Mehdi Baghdad was scheduled for this event, but on April 28 it was announced that the bout was moved to UFC Fight Night: dos Anjos vs. Alvarez; the event marked the first time fighters were allowed to weigh in for their bouts in the morning, rather than the traditional time of 4 p.m. used for public proceedings. They weighed in with a California State Athletic Commission official looking on so they would have less time to be dehydrated after their weight cuts and more time to rehydrate after making weight.

They were back on hand to stand on the scale – ceremoniously, for the fans and media – and face off with their opponents. This is part of new measures for fighters' safety, with the CSAC creating new rules that will be adapted to all the other athletic commissions. During the main card broadcast, the UFC announced that UFC 8 and Ultimate Ultimate 96 tournaments winner Don Frye will be inducted to the UFC's Hall of Fame at the "International Fight Week" in July, one day after UFC 200; the following fighters were awarded $50,000 bonuses: Fight of the Night: Marco Polo Reyes vs. Dong Hyun Kim Performance of the Night: Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson The following is the reported payout to the fighters as reported to the California State Athletic Commission, it does not include sponsor money or "locker room" bonuses given by the UFC and do not include the UFC's traditional "fight night" bonuses. Michael Bisping: $250,000 def. Luke Rockhold: $250,000 Dominick Cruz: $350,000 def. Urijah Faber: $160,000 Max Holloway: $150,000 def.

Ricardo Lamas: $53,000 Dan Henderson: $800,000 def. Hector Lombard: $53,000 Dustin Poirier: $110,000 def. Bobby Green: $24,000 Brian Ortega: $46,000 def. Clay Guida: $55,000 Beneil Dariush: $62,000 vs. James Vick: $23,000 Jéssica Andrade: $40,000 def. Jessica Penne: $20,000 Alex Caceres: $48,000 def. Cole Miller: $33,000 Sean Strickland: $46,000 def. Tom Breese: $19,000 Luis Henrique da Silva: $20,000 def. Jonathan Wilson: $12,000 Kevin Casey: $15,000 vs. Elvis Mutapcic: $16,000 ^ Polo Reyes: $24,000 def. Dong Hyun Kim: $10,000^ Both fighters earned show money. List of UFC events 2016 in UFC