The skies over Lahore lit up with vibrant kites as the centuries-old spring festival of Basant made a return on Friday, attracting jubilant crowds and enthusiastic participation from celebrities.

The three-day festival is being celebrated across Lahore after the Punjab government lifted a more than two-decade ban and permitted a tightly regulated celebration in Lahore.

The return of Basant had showbiz stars celebrating, with celebrities sharing every moment — from preparations to kite flying — on social media.

On her Instagram story, Muama actress Saba Qamar shared that she has managed to find only two days in her busy schedule to fly kites.

Ayeza Khan posted images clad in the traditional, vibrant outfit.

Imran Ashraf was spotted flying a kite on a rooftop adorned with bright yellow, green, and red colours, traditionally associated with Basant.

Qarz-e-Jaan star Usama Khan also shared a video, showing his kite soaring through the skies.

Veteran Noor Bukhari expressed gratitude towards the authorities for bringing Basant back to Lahore.

Meanwhile, Hania Aamir emphasised the importance of preserving indigenous traditions while ensuring public safety.

Local administrations enforced safety measures, including bans on metallic and chemical kite strings, designated flying zones and increased presence of law enforcement personnel during the celebrations.

Do not turn that frown upside down. A horse plush toy has gone viral in China thanks to a serendipitous mistake by a factory worker. 

The mouths on a batch of the toys were mistakenly sewn on the wrong way around, creating a small army of sad-faced “crying” toys that have captured hearts as a mascot for the Lunar New Year. 

The horses were designed as happy-faced toys to mark the upcoming holiday on February 17, the start of the Year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac.

A customer who received the defective product decided to keep it, posted about it online, and from there, the “crying horse” found fame.

The “crying horse” hashtag had been used on Douyin, China’s domestic version of TikTok, more than 200 million times by Wednesday, and garnered more than 100 million views as a trending topic on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.

The horse’s forlorn expression appears to have resonated with Chinese social media users, who’ve been bringing the plush toy to work and school to express discontent with a relentless work culture.

The toy is red, an auspicious color in Chinese culture, and its body is decorated with a golden embroidery wishing owners to “get rich quickly.” One of the toys costs 25 Chinese yuan, or about $4, according to Chinese media reports. 

The toy is available in both the frowning, and the original smiling version, and many people have taken to buying them as a pair.

“People joked that the crying horse is how you look at work, while the smiling one is how you look after work,” Zhang Huoqing, the store owner who first sold the toy, told the Reuters news agency. Zhang’s store is located in Yiwu, home to China’s largest wholesale market for small commodities. 

Since it took off online, customers from South Africa, Spain, Russia and South America have visited the store to buy the popular, if accidental hit toy, Zhang has told Chinese media. Both domestic and overseas demand has required her to add over 10 production lines and create around 20,000 units a day, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

“The crying horse’s expression shows feelings of injustice, defiance and stubbornness that reflect the true feelings of most working ‘niu ma’ today,” commented a Sichuan-based Weibo user, using a term meaning “ox and horse” that references people who are overworked in their jobs. “And it looks quite cute, which is why it has created such an explosive reaction.”

U.S. President Donald Trump started an immediate and widespread condemnation early Friday, February 6, after he posted a video on his Truth Social Platform.

The video depicts former U.S. President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys.

The one-minute video, which propagates the false conspiracy theory that election company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the election, ends with a two-second clip of the smiling faces of the Obamas morphed onto the faces of monkeys dancing to the music. 

The company, Dominion, has reportedly settled a $787.5 million defamation case against the news organization Fox News.

The post was part of more than 60 posts of a social media spree that Trump posted overnight.

Before facing public backlash, it was liked a thousand times by Trump’s supporters.

Several American politicians and media personalities condemned Trump’s behaviour.

Office of California Governor Gavin Newsom stated: “Disguisting behaviour, Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”

Political strategist Adam Parkhomenko wrote: “This is overt racism. Full stop…. This is who he is.”

The incident brings overtly racist imagery back into the center of U.S. political discourse, prompting outrage over its targeting of the nation’s first black First Family. Trump’s prodigious social media session also featured reposted falsehoods about the 2020 election, as well as his suggestion to add his likeness to Mount Rushmore.