May

The victory saw Labour’s James Alexander become, at 29, one of the youngest council leaders in the country. The authority’s former Liberal Democrat leader Andrew Waller and his predecessor Steve Galloway both lost their seats.

North Yorkshire’s top policeman, Chief Constable Graham Maxwell, was severely reprimanded for trying to help a relative get a job.

He held onto his job despite being given a final written warning, but the Independent Police Complaints Commissioner Nicholas Long said his reputation had been ‘seriously undermined’.

A new portrait of the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, was unveiled at Bishopthorpe Palace; a York taxi driver was told by City of York Council to remove a crucifix from his cab following a complaint from a schoolboy; and the Dean of York, the Very Rev Keith Jones, calmly told two burglars he confronted in his bedroom to ‘go at once’. They did.

Plans for a controversial wind farm near Copmanthorpe were put back by a year, to allow for full surveys to study the impact on bats and other wildlife. Opponents of the wind farm welcomed the news – but said it seemed odd that more weight was given to the impact on bats than to the impact on people. “People’s views can be overridden, and yet along comes a bat and all of a sudden everything stops,” said Alan Davidson of the Copmanthorpe Wind Farm Action Group.

In another animal story, children’s favourite Shaun the Sheep was spotted relaxing on a bench in York after coming to the city to promote a show at the Grand Opera House.

In national news, the threat of co-ordinated strikes by hundreds of thousands of public sector workers in protest at cuts in jobs and services came a step closer, after delegates at the Public and Commercial Services union’s annual conference agreed to a national ballot for industrial action.

And in international news, the Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed when US Navy Seals stormed the Abbottabad mansion complex near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where he had been living. In a statement broadcast from the White House, US President Barack Obama said the operation had been carried out with extraordinary courage and capability. “On nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to Al Qaida’s terror: justice has been done.”

In the wake of the killing, western Governments were placed on high alert and security forces around the world were warned to be vigilant amid fears of tit-for-tat revenge attacks.