Six-year-old Freya Popplewell, from York, who has two holes in her heart, joined those campaigning to keep children’s heart surgery in Leeds.

Nigel Worthington was unveiled as York City’s new manager, tasked with saving the cub from relegation to the Conference after only one season back in the Football League. And York student James White admitted frying his flatmate’s hamster in a drunken prank. He was banned from keeping animals for eight years.

The army medics of 34 Field Hospital marched through York after being given the freedom to enter the city. A giant gingerbread man was spotted racing through Shambles as York geared up for Red Nose day.

And, writing exclusively in The Press ahead of Chancellor George Osborne’s budget, the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu said high earners should pay more tax to ensure the most vulnerable could be protected. York pub The Lowther, which had been swamped by floodwaters six months earlier, reopened.

In York, the city council scaled back plans to charge for the collection of green garden waste, saying only those with more than one bin would be charged. And Clementhorpe was named one of the hippest places to live in the UK – coming in at ninth in the list of The Times’ top 30 coolest places to live.

Two dozen schools in north Yorkshire were closed as the UK endured what was said to be the coldest March since 1962. And former Haxby Road Primary School head Mike Schofield was banned from classrooms for two years after being found guilty of maladministration and ‘unacceptable professional conduct’ in relation to alter Key Stage 2 SATS tests.

Campaigners announced they would go to court if necessary to have King Richard III’s remains buried in York. And York mother Gemma O’Donnell, 27, was acquitted of killing her 20-weekold baby Leighton by shaking him.


In national and international news..

…It was the second coldest March since records began more than 100 years ago. The mean temperature for the month was three degrees below the longterm monthly average. The cold snap created havoc as extreme weather brought travel chaos and a woman died in Cornwall following a landslide triggered by torrential rain.

Vicky Pryce, ex-wife of former energy secretary Chris Huhne, was convicted of perverting the course of justice by taking his speeding points a decade earlier; both she and her ex-husband, who had already admitted making his wife take the points, were jailed for eight months; and Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected the new pope, becoming Pope Francis. He pledged to speak up for “the poorest, the weakest, the least important.”

David Cameron and French president Francois Hollande stepped up the campaign for the right to arm Syrian rebels as the civil war in the country continued; and Justin Welby was enthroned as the Archbishop of Canterbury; and 14-year-old Jade Anderson died after being mauled by ‘aggressive and out-of-control’ dogs in Wigan.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito had their 2007 acquittals for killing Meredith Kercher overturned by Italy’s highest court.


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