TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — A legal squabble about the exhumation of Notre Dame football hero George Gipp’s remains may have ended with an appellate court’s refusal to take the case. A Michigan Court of Appeals panel last month voted 2-1 not to hear an appeal of a local judge’s decision to throw out a lawsuit filed by two men who say they are distant cousins of Gipp.

A Chinese man believed to have been killed by lightning was actually done in by a small weather rocket found when it detonated during cremation, police say. Authorities said people who were in the Inner Mongolia province house with Wang Diange -- who was overseeing a wake at the time of his death -- discovered his body amidst rubble after a large explosion that destroyed half of the home's roof, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Real estate has always been pricey in New York, but living six feet under just got more expensive. Across Brooklyn, funeral homes are losing money because many families cannot afford what they might have once paid to bury their relatives. While the economic downturn does not affect the death rate, many families are choosing to cremate instead of bury, saving between $2,000 and $4,000. And that's not their only concession.

For two years, man thought ashes were wife's. A former Huntsville resident is suing Laughlin Service Funeral Home alleging he was given the remains of a stranger after his deceased wife was cremated in 2006. The lawsuit was filed electronically in Madison County Circuit Court on Saturday on behalf of Richard Henry Parrott. Parrott seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

LONDON (AP) — Richard Van Allan, a British bass-baritone who was a commanding presence on the world's opera stages, has died at age 73. Van Allan died Dec. 4 in London, according to the National Opera Studio, which he directed from 1986 to 2001. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago, The Guardian newspaper reported. His roles included Pooh-Bah in Jonathan Miller's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado" at English National Opera.