City news in 250 words: Tuesday 1 June

ALL NEONATAL DEATHS should be investigated consistently, according to a senior coroner. Currently, baby deaths in hospitals are only reported if they are sudden, unnatural or violent. John Pollard told the BBC the deaths of all babies in hospital should be reported to the local coroner or, in Scotland, to the procurator fiscal. In the UK, on average 17 babies die every day - either at birth or in the first four weeks of life.

AN ART EXHIBITION IN AFFLECK'S PALACE will help raise funds for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. Sophie Lancaster, 20, was kicked to death by two youths in 2007 in a Bacup park as she cradled her battered boyfriend, Robert Maltby. Maltby, a talented artist, who has made a partial recovery, will exhibit 15 paintings in the exhibition- Crimson Iris: The Art of Sophie, at Affleck's Palace from June 3.

A PARALYSED MAN was pummelled in the face by thugs as he sat in his wheelchair outside a hospital. The 52-year-old victim, who is paralysed from the chest down, was sitting with his girlfriend outside the accident and emergency department of North Manchester General Hospital. Without warning a man walked up to the victim and punched him repeatedly in the face. He suffered a cut to his nose in the incident. PC Vicky Hadfield, based at Collyhurst, said: "I seriously have to question the mentality of someone who can pick on a man in a wheelchair. Only complete cowards start fights with people who cannot fight back.”

Out of the window weather forecast: Not a sky in the clouds