About a month ahead of Basant, an annual festival that marks the spring season and is celebrated by flying colorful kites, authorities on Thursday lifted a ban on kite-flying in Pakistan for a short time after almost a year. The sport was forbidden last year following a series of deaths caused by reinforced kite strings, but the government now lifted the ban about in the eastern province of Punjab and its capital, Lahore.

A Chinese Airline was fined after it sold airline tickets for prices as low as 1 yuan or 13 cents. The discounted flights usually sell for 910 yuan or $116 including taxes. An official from the Jinan Price Buearu said airlines are restricted from offering dicounts for more than 45 percent on the government-set price.

Parents blasted a New York Public School policy banning cell phones citing safety issues. One parent said with terrorism a risk, she wants to have easy access to her child. She wrote, "She and I both feel a little less crazy knowing that if something major happens -- an accident, a crisis -- that she can be in touch with me. If your child went to school blocks from ground zero, you'd know what I'm talking about. "

Devoted baseball fans will have the ability to have their cremated ashes placed in urns that sport the logo of their favorite franchise as soon as next season, sources report. Major League Baseball and a leading maker of funeral products are to begin working together to promote a new line of MLB urns, promising to take the seventh-inning stretch into eternity for those interested in the product. Next season, fans of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, and Los Angeles Dodgers, will be able to purchase urns bearing their teams colors and insignia.

Allen Snyder's 14-inch tall red-and-white garden gnome went missing in the spring and has now been apparently traveling the country. Since its disappearance, Snyder has received three letters to have been written by "Gnomey. " The latest letter, showed the gnome attending Pittsburgh's football home opener surrounded by Steelers fans.