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KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — Shaun White stood at the top of the halfpipe, the last contestant of the competition, needing a near-perfect run to capture his third consecutive gold medal at the Winter Olympics. He has built an empire on such moments.

 It felt too perfect, too scripted, even by the standards of storytelling that White has inspired. The crowd hushed in anticipation of another command performance.

 White sped down the hill and crested the leading edge of the massive halfpipe and began what was sure to be a monumental run. And that is when it happened — a hard landing here, a gasp-inducing bobble there, the dominance of the world’s greatest halfpipe snowboarder slipping away with each diagonal weave downhill.

 White ended up in fourth, a placing probably higher than he deserved, ceding the Olympic throne to someone else for the first time since 2002.

 “For me to be remembered in the sport, I don’t think tonight makes or breaks my career,” White said. “I’ve been snowboarding for so long, and I love it so much, that I’m happy to take this for what it is and move on and continue to ride.”

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 It was Iouri Podladtchikov of Switzerland — I-Pod to his friends — who won the gold medal by doing a trick and a run that White and the others could not match.

 “It really felt like there was no fighting at all,” Podladtchikov said. “It felt like it was all meant to be. It’s really weird.”

 More than anything, the night felt like the edge of a new era. Ayumu Hirano, a 15-year-old from Japan, won the silver medal, and his countryman Taku Hiraoka won bronze. For the first time since the halfpipe was added to the Olympics in 1998, there were no Americans on the podium.

 Four Americans were in the 40-man field, and three of them advanced to the 12-man final. But Greg Bretz and Danny Davis, two of the snowboarders who had previously beaten White in a halfpipe competition, each fell on both of their runs. Davis finished 10th, Bretz 12th.

 “I hate not landing two runs,” Davis said. “Especially in this event, with such a big crowd and the amount of media here. But, back to normal life, man.”

 Davis called White’s fourth-place score “a gift” from the judges, and said the result was good for the sport.

 “The world knows now that there’s other snowboarders beside Shaun,” Davis said. “It’s great, man. There’s a bunch of good riders in our sport, and they deserve some credit, too.”

 Podladtchikov, who grew up in Davos but competed for Russia at the 2006 Turin Games, can sometimes match White’s acrobatics. His Yolo (“You Only Live Once”) flip, 1,440 degrees of rotation that includes two aerial somersaults, was a rare trick that White did not master first.

 Podladtchikov landed it perfectly, anchoring a run that was awarded 94.75 points out of 100. The cheering crowd waved Swiss and Russian flags. Podladtchikov moved to Switzerland from Russia when he was 8, and the merging of time and place hit hard.

 “I love to be here,” he said. “I love to speak Russian. It’s my mother language, and it reminds me of so many things.”

 Continue reading the main story Rank Competitor points ● 1 SUI Iouri Podladtchikov 94.75 ● 2 JPN Ayumu Hirano 93.50 ● 3 JPN Taku Hiraoka 92.25 4th USA Shaun White 90.25 5th SUI David Habluetzel 88.50 6th CHN Zhang Yiwei 87.25 7th CHN Shi Wancheng 81.00 8th SLO Tim-Kevin Ravnjak 72.25 9th AUS Kent Callister 68.50 10th USA Danny Davis 53.00 11th SUI Christian Haller 51.50 12th USA Gregory Bretz 26.50 All Fewer Results Expand Results

 Six riders had a chance to beat Podladtchikov’s score. Davis was one of them. A near-perfect first run was upended by a stumble in the flat portion of the pipe between the 22-foot walls, a choppy and sugary gutter of uneven snow and ice. (Davis blamed it on a “snow snake.”) His second run was doomed from the start, out of balance until he crashed while landing a trick.

 Suspense built with each rider. Hiraoka elevated into second place. The 5-foot-3, 110-pound Hirano is the rare competitor who can launch himself out of the pipe and reach the heights of White, as if filled with helium. His score, 93.5, put him in second place. There was only one competitor left.

 White came to Sochi hoping to win two gold medals, having spent a year preparing for the debut of slopestyle, an event he dominated on the snowboarding circuit a decade ago. But after a couple of days of training on the slopestyle course last week, amid concerns over the size and shapes of the jumps, he pulled out to focus on the halfpipe.

 The American Sage Kotsenburg won the event.

 “The slopestyle course had some issues, and I just felt like my best bet was to focus on the halfpipe,” White said Tuesday. “Then the halfpipe had some issues.”

 The night before the competition, some athletes suggested that the event be postponed because of poor conditions and a lack of practice time. Crews worked overnight honing the shape of the pipe, which tilted downhill for about 250 yards. In the hour before the competition, workers sprinkled salt on its surface to get it to melt slightly and refreeze, and they sprayed it with water from large hoses. The result was not perfection but adequacy.

 A few, like Davis, took pratfalls in the gutter of the pipe. Others flew above its walls and crashed hard on the deck. Qualifications weeded the unlikely podium crashers out of the contest. A temperature close to freezing during the prime-time finals helped keep the pipe intact.

 Afterward, riders were reluctant to place blame on the pipe.

 “Everybody had the same pipe to deal with,” Davis said.

 White looked down at the pipe through his dark goggles. He had mastered the Yolo flip, and sometimes performed it better than Podladtchikov. With the gold medal on the line, he launched himself into the flip on the opposite side from where Podladtchikov performed his.

 White’s board hit the lip of the pipe, bending but not breaking. He somehow stayed on his feet and sped across the pipe for his next trick. By then, his chance at winning a third gold medal was gone.

 “I went for big tricks that only Iouri and myself are doing,” White said. “I could have played it safe, I guess, and tried to get in a decent score, but I really wanted to win. We came here on a mission, and it just wasn’t my night, which is really tough to say. It’s a big night.” ||||| 1 of 35 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Highlights from Day 3 of competition at the 2014 Winter Games View Photos Julia Mancuso wins bronze. U.S. beats Switzerland in women’s hockey. Also, short-track speedskating and curling Caption Julia Mancuso wins bronze. U.S. beats Switzerland in women’s hockey. Also, short-track speedskating and curling Feb. 10, 2014 Julia Mancuso of the U.S. in action during the downhill portion of the super combined ski event, which also includes a slalom run, during day 3 of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games on February 10. Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

 Snowboarders at the Olympics at times seem to have a language all their own. But there was no need for a translator Monday because nobody was mincing words: The Sochi halfpipe is substandard, the top riders in the world agreed.

 Just one day before the Olympic halfpipe competition is scheduled to begin, snowboarders criticized the condition of the pipe, and one former gold medal winner even suggested the event be pushed back.

 “Everyone is not happy right now,” said three-time Olympian Hannah Teter, the 2006 gold medal winner in the event. “I saw everyone take a hard fall today. That never happens. . . . They should push it back is what they should do, and fix it so we can showcase snowboarding the way it needs to be showcased. Not as a junk show, which is what it was looking like right now.”

 The men’s halfpipe competition is scheduled for Tuesday night at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park with the women scheduled to compete Wednesday. Officials were planning to work through the night to improve the pipe, after a second straight day of uncharacteristic spills and unrestrained critiques.

 Shaun White, the two-time gold medal winner in the event, didn’t try to hide his frustration following practice Monday night, calling the pipe “disappointing.”

 “It’s hard to get in there and have all the tricks and have everything that you need and not be able to get to the wall,” he said. “I just had a frustrating practice and I’m hoping tomorrow will be better.”

 Evolving sports of the Winter Olympics See which sports have come and gone

 Practice Monday was originally scheduled for the morning but was postponed so officials could work on the pipe. Later in the evening, riders said as practice progressed, the transitions grew increasingly bumpy, and the flat surface area between the walls deteriorated. Teter likened it to a mogul field. Many riders had trouble staying upright and gathering momentum between tricks.

 “That’s not what halfpipe is supposed to be like,” Teter said. “People are supposed to be landing their tricks.”

 Snowboarders said the pipe was actually improved from Sunday, the first day of practice. The walls and curves received significant work. One U.S. coach said the warm weather Monday helped the snow stick earlier in the day, but riders said after a single practice run the pipe worsened and snowboarders began to fear what conditions would be like during actual competition.

 American Danny Davis stopped short of calling the course dangerous. “It's just not as fun,” he said.

 With more freestyle events, the Sochi Olympics will look more like the Winter X Games than ever before. (Associated Press)

 Riders say they’ve been told the course will receive further treatment and grooming overnight, but some were openly considering their options after Monday's practice.

 “If all of us got together, and we’re like, ‘We’re not doing it, let’s push it back,’ maybe they would,” Teter said. “I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”

 Teter acknowledged such a protest was unlikely, but she said White’s representatives have expressed concerns. White pulled out of the slopestyle competition last week, calling the course “intimidating” and saying he didn’t want to risk injury before his featured event. While he expressed frustration with the halfpipe course Monday night, he wasn’t certain what changes might occur before the competition begins.

 “I don’t know the exact plan,” White said. “I’m sure there will be some sort of coaches’ meeting or something. I don’t really get involved in that. I’m hoping they can do whatever they can to make it a better pipe. It’s hard to get here and see this and feel the pressure. I don’t know.”

 Under the current conditions, most said they’d have to alter their planned runs. White said he’d have trouble throwing his cab double cork 1440. “I’m hoping for the best,” he said.

 Said Davis: “There’s a bunch of kids who can ride well in these conditions. I’m a little bit worried about myself riding so well in these conditions. Like I said, we’re going to ride it anyway.”

 Mountains of the Olympics See why altitude matters

 After two days of practices, riders say the Sochi Olympics pipe will force all riders to make adjustments. Many competed in a test event here last year and said the pipe was subpar at the time. A year later, it's still noticeably different from what they see in regular competitions.

 “In the U.S., we build the best pipes in the world,” said Peter Foley, the U.S. snowboarding head coach. “We’ve had great contest pipes all year long. . . . That’s the standard; that’s what you like to see.”

 Competing in her fourth Olympics, Kelly Clark has ridden the best halfpipes in the world. Despite the conditions this week, she said the Sochi pipe is actually an improvement over the one in Vancouver four years ago because of its steeper walls and a longer run. Even if conditions aren’t perfect this week, she said the best riders in the world should be good enough to deal with the adversity.

 “If you’re making a mistake, it’s going to be amplified,” said Clark, who won gold at the 2002 Games. “The strongest rider is still going to come out on top.”

 Even though tricks will be thrown and medals handed out, the event deserves better, Teter said, particularly on an Olympic stage with the whole world watching.

 “You want everybody to see snowboarding as it should be, looking phenomenal with everybody doing what they know how to do,” she said. “Hopefully, they can pull it together.” |||||

– Snowboarders in Sochi have been raising serious concerns about the state of the Olympic halfpipe, the scene of actual competition today: "Everyone is not happy right now," 2006 US gold medalist Hannah Teter told the Washington Post after yesterday's practice. But that hasn't stopped the event from going forward, the New York Times reports. Qualifying rounds have begun, and officials will decide, based on conditions, whether semifinals and finals should take place tonight as planned. Yesterday, officials were working to improve the halfpipe. Yesterday's practice—postponed from the morning for improvements—didn't inspire confidence among the athletes. "I saw everyone take a hard fall today. That never happens," Teter said. Is it dangerous? "It's just not as fun," says teammate Danny Davis. Athletes said the halfpipe, which Shaun White calls "disappointing," was bumpy, its curvature was off, and the snow was loose; and those who avoided falling yesterday struggled to maintain speed, leading to less aggressive tricks. But the Times notes that halfpipe quality can fluctuate wildly depending on weather conditions and how it's maintained. Still, "this is going to be showcased to billions of people, and we want the best representation of halfpipe snowboarding," Teter says.


Greenland is one of the brightest spots on planet Earth, but ominously enough, its gleaming surface darkens with each passing year, thanks to a strange series of physical processes, one of which cannot be seen with the naked eye.

 According to a fascinating new study led by Columbia’s Earth Institute and published today the journal The Cryosphere, which finds that Greenland’s “albedo,” or reflectivity, has been decreasing since the mid 90s. By the end of the 21st century, Greenland could be ten percent darker than it is today. And that’s bad news for the ice sheet’s long term prospects, because,as anyone who has ever made the mistake of running in a black t-shirt on a hot summer day knows, darker surfaces absorb more heat.

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 One would think that a massive chunk of land changing color would have attracted more attention. But the processes behind The Darkening are subtle, and in some cases, impossible for humans to see without the aid of technology.

 The first culprit is tiny impurities—dust and soot grains—buried just beneath the surface of the ice sheet. As fresh snow melts in the summertime, deeper and dirtier layers of ice are exposed, rendering the surface a bit darker. As the researchers explain in their paper, especially warm summers can cause several years worth of impurities to become concentrated at the ice sheet’s surface.

 The second reason has to do with a change in the reflective properties of the ice itself. As snowpack melts and refreezes, individual ice grains tend to get larger. Larger grains have less surface area and scatter less sunlight, therefore absorbing more solar energy. This effect, the authors say, is strongest in the infrared range, which is invisible to human eyes but can be seen with satellites.

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 But if you thought humans were off the hook on this one, not so fast. The last few months marked one of the most freakishly hot Arctic winters in recent memory—and that’s a direct symptom of human-caused climate change. With more hot days in Greenland’s future, we can expect the ice sheet to darken more quickly.

 “Rising temperatures are promoting more melting, and that melting is reducing albedo, which in turn is increasing melting,” lead study author Marco Tedesco said in a statement. “As warming continues, the feedback from declining albedo will add up.”

 Contact the author at maddie.stone@gizmodo.com.

  ||||| Research article 03 Mar 2016

 Research article | 03 Mar 2016

 Abstract. The surface energy balance and meltwater production of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) are modulated by snow and ice albedo through the amount of absorbed solar radiation. Here we show, using space-borne multispectral data collected during the 3 decades from 1981 to 2012, that summertime surface albedo over the GrIS decreased at a statistically significant (99 %) rate of 0.02decade−1 between 1996 and 2012. Over the same period, albedo modelled by the Modèle Atmosphérique Régionale (MAR) also shows a decrease, though at a lower rate ( ∼ −0.01decade−1) than that obtained from space-borne data. We suggest that the discrepancy between modelled and measured albedo trends can be explained by the absence in the model of processes associated with the presence of light-absorbing impurities. The negative trend in observed albedo is confined to the regions of the GrIS that undergo melting in summer, with the dry-snow zone showing no trend. The period 1981–1996 also showed no statistically significant trend over the whole GrIS. Analysis of MAR outputs indicates that the observed albedo decrease is attributable to the combined effects of increased near-surface air temperatures, which enhanced melt and promoted growth in snow grain size and the expansion of bare ice areas, and to trends in light-absorbing impurities (LAI) on the snow and ice surfaces. Neither aerosol models nor in situ and remote sensing observations indicate increasing trends in LAI in the atmosphere over Greenland. Similarly, an analysis of the number of fires and BC emissions from fires points to the absence of trends for such quantities. This suggests that the apparent increase of LAI in snow and ice might be related to the exposure of a "dark band" of dirty ice and to increased consolidation of LAI at the surface with melt, not to increased aerosol deposition. Albedo projections through to the end of the century under different warming scenarios consistently point to continued darkening, with albedo anomalies averaged over the whole ice sheet lower by 0.08 in 2100 than in 2000, driven solely by a warming climate. Future darkening is likely underestimated because of known underestimates in modelled melting (as seen in hindcasts) and because the model albedo scheme does not currently include the effects of LAI, which have a positive feedback on albedo decline through increased melting, grain growth, and darkening. ||||| Greenland's Ice Is Getting Darker, Increasing Risk of Melting

 Feedback loops from melting itself are driving changes in reflectivity

 Greenland's snowy surface has been getting darker over the past two decades, absorbing more heat from the sun and increasing snow melt, a new study of satellite data shows. That trend is likely to continue, with the surface's reflectivity, or albedo, decreasing by as much as 10 percent by the end of the century, the study says.

 While soot blowing in from wildfires contributes to the problem, it hasn't been driving the change, the study finds. The real culprits are two feedback loops created by the melting itself. One of those processes isn't visible to the human eye, but it is having a profound effect.

 The results, published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere, have global implications. Fresh meltwater pouring into the ocean from Greenland raises sea level and could affect ocean ecology and circulation.

 "You don't necessarily have to have a 'dirtier' snowpack to make it dark," said lead author Marco Tedesco, a research professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and adjunct scientist at NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies. "A snowpack that might look 'clean' to our eyes can be more effective in absorbing solar radiation than a dirty one. Overall, what matters, it is the total amount of solar energy that the surface absorbs. This is the real driver of melting."

 The feedback loops work like this: During a warm summer with clear skies and lots of solar radiation pouring in, the surface starts to melt. As the top layers of fresh snow disappear, old impurities, like dust from erosion or soot that blew in years before, begin to appear, darkening the surface. A warm summer can remove enough snow to allow several years of impurities to concentrate at the surface as surrounding snow layers disappear. At the same time, as the snow melts and refreezes, the grains of snow get larger. This is because the meltwater acts like glue, sticking grains together when the surface refreezes. The larger grains create a less reflective surface that allows more solar radiation to be absorbed. The impact of grain size on albedo – the ratio between reflected and incoming solar radiation – is strong in the infrared range, where humans can't see, but satellite instruments can detect the change.

 Aerial images of Greenland show rivers of meltwater and areas of dark ice. Greenland's surface is absorbing more solar radiation as melting increases grain size and brings old impurities to the surface. (Marco Tedesco/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory)

 "It's a complex system of interaction between the atmosphere and the ice sheet surface. Rising temperatures are promoting more melting, and that melting is reducing albedo, which in turn is increasing melting," Tedesco said. "How this accumulates over decades is going to be important, because it can accelerate the amount of water Greenland loses. Even if we don't have a lot of melting because of atmospheric conditions one year, the surface is more sensitive to any kind of input the sun can give it, because of the previous cycle."

 The study used satellite data to compare summertime changes in Greenland's albedo from 1981 to 2012. The first decade showed little change, but starting around 1996, the data show that due to darkening, the ice began absorbing about 2 percent more solar radiation per decade. At the same time, summer near-surface temperatures in Greenland increased at a rate of about 0.74°C per decade, allowing more snow to melt and fuel the feedback loops.

 A likely cause for the large shift around 1996 was a change in atmospheric circulation, Tedesco said. The North Atlantic Oscillation, a large-scale natural weather cycle, went into a phase in which summer atmospheric conditions favored more incoming solar radiation and warmer, moist air from the south. Later records show those conditions shifted in 2013-2014 to favor less melting, but the damage was already done – the ice sheet had become more sensitive. In 2015, melting spiked again to reach more than half of the Greenland ice sheet.

 While new snowfall can make the ice sheet brighter again, the dark material built up during the melt years is waiting just below the surface, preconditioning the surface to future melting, Tedesco said.

 The scientists also ran a computer model to simulate the future of Greenland's surface temperature, grain size, exposed ice area and albedo. Over the current century, the model projects that the average albedo for the entire ice sheet will fall by as much as 8 percent, and by as much 10 percent on the western edge, where the ice is darkest today. Those are conservative estimates – the change could be twice that, Tedesco said.

 The scientists looked into the hypothesis that soot from forest fires in China, Siberia and North America could be driving the increased darkening of the ice sheet. Using the Global Fire Emissions Database, they analyzed trends in black-carbon emissions from wildfires in those regions and Europe. While the amount of black carbon released by fires varied year to year, the scientists found no statistically significant increase during 1997-2012 to match the darkening of Greenland.

 The study also raises questions about whether Greenland's high plateau is darkening as previous reports have suggested. The scientists found no long-term trend of darkening at the top, and they suspect that the Terra MODIS satellite sensor that has detected darkening in the past may actually be degrading, as previous studies have suggested. At lower elevations, the signal is much stronger.

 "It is a very good paper which provides valuable new insights about the physical processes controlling the change in reflectivity of the Greenland ice sheet and specifically its darkening over time," said Eric Rignot, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who studies ice sheets but was not involved with the new study. "I also find it particularly interesting that the darkening indicated earlier by satellite sensors is now confirmed to be less, which is good news for the ice sheet. Yet the darkening of Greenland around its periphery remains a source of concern because it contributes to making the ice sheet melt away faster."

 The feedback loops could be stopped with lots of snowfall and less melting, but that doesn't seem likely given the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Tedesco said. And while warming is expected to increase precipitation, that precipitation includes increasing rainfall, which speeds up melting. Melting is also moving to higher elevations as global temperatures warm.

 "As warming continues, the feedback from declining albedo will add up," Tedesco said. "It's a train running downhill, and the hill is getting steeper."

 Co-authors of the paper are Sarah Doherty of the University of Washington; Xavier Fettweis of University of Liege; Patrick Alexander of NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and City University of New York; Jeyavinoth Jeyaratnam of the City College of New York; and Julienne Stroeve of University of Boulder. ||||| In a study that used satellite images stretching back decades, scientists have delved into the processes causing 'darkening' of the Greenland ice sheet – its diminishing ability to reflect the sun's radiation.

 An aerial image of Greenland shows rivers of meltwater and areas of dark ice. Greenland's surface is absorbing more solar radiation as melting increases grain size and brings old impurities to the surface.

 Greenland’s ice sheet has been darkening for the past two decades, and new research delves into the processes behind this phenomenon.

 The study, published Thursday in The Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union, considers the processes by which an ice sheet loses its ability to reflect sunlight – its albedo – terming this diminishing capability as “darkening.”

 Researchers found positive feedback loops, whereby the more an ice sheet melts, the quicker that melting process becomes, which could have significant implications for projections of the ice sheet’s future contributions to sea level rise.

 “We knew that these processes had been happening,” says lead author Marco Tedesco, a professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and adjunct scientist at NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, in a telephone interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “What’s new is the acceleration of the darkening, which started in 1996.”

 The research looked at two factors that affect the rate of melting: impurities in the ice, and the size of grains in the snowpack.

 The first of these is often visible to the human eye, with higher concentrations of impurities literally darkening the appearance of the snow.

 And, as darker substances tend to absorb more energy from the sun, more impurities will mean the ice melts more quickly.

 “Then there are things that happen that are invisible to our eyes, which make the snow ‘darker’ – not dirtier, but more absorbent of energy from the sun,” Dr. Tedesco tells the Monitor. “The grains get bigger, for example, which decreases the albedo, but we don’t see this effect because it takes place on the infra-red.”

 This second process, whereby the grains in the snowpack increase in size, happens as a consequence of melting and refreezing, the meltwater acting as a glue, binding grains together.

 The more it happens, the bigger the grains become, and the less reflective is the surface of the ice sheet, which in turn leads to faster melting – one aspect of the positive feedback loop.

 “In a snowpack with larger grains, it might look much cleaner to our eyes, but that clean snow pack is much 'darker' than a dirty snow pack,” Tedesco explains.

 With regard to the impurities, more melting also results in faster melting: as the ice sheet melts, water runs off, but impurities will often stay. And, as the top layers melt, impurities lower down become exposed, gradually increasing their concentration at the surface.

 “So, you have a combined effect of increased dirt due to melting and increased grain size, also due to melting,” says Tedesco. “It is a positive feedback process that amplifies the melting effect.”

 And although the effects of increasing grain size are invisible to the human eye, the same is not true for satellite instruments.

 So it was that Tedesco and his team were able to analyze satellite data stretching back decades, beginning in 1981, to draw conclusions about the changes in the albedo of the Greenland ice sheet.

 They found little change in the first decade, but starting in 1996, the data indicated that, due to “darkening,” the ice sheet became about 2 percent more absorbent of solar radiation each decade.

 Taking this fresh insight, the scientists ran some computer simulations, which produced a predicted drop in albedo of the Greenland ice sheet of up to eight percent over the course of the current century.

 “It’s the first time we’ve really tried to explain the processes behind darkening, and it’s important because a darker ice sheet can melt in a much faster way,” says Tedesco. “In turn, this understanding is significant because if you miss it, it may have big implications on the accuracy of future projections.” |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– The white, reflective surface of Greenland's snowpack is getting darker and less reflective, all thanks to what the Christian Science Monitor calls "positive feedback loops"—the idea that a little bit of melting leads to more and faster melting. "We knew that these processes had been happening," says Columbia professor Marco Tedesco, lead author of a new study in the journal Cryosphere. "What’s new is the acceleration of the darkening, which started in 1996." In fact, parts of Greenland may actually be 10% darker—technically it is losing its "albedo," or reflectivity—by the end of the century, researchers predict. "It's a train running downhill, and the hill is getting steeper," Tedesco says. So what happened in 1996? One likely culprit is the natural change in atmospheric circulation called the North Atlantic Oscillation, in which summer atmospheric conditions "favored more incoming solar radiation and warmer, moist air from the south," Tedesco writes in Columbia's Earth Institute. This melting brought impurities such as soot from previous melts to the surface, making it darker and, in turn, prone to melting even faster. And because individual ice grains tend to get larger when snow melts and refreezes, less light scatters across those larger surfaces and more is absorbed, reports Gizmodo. This effect appears strongest in the infrared range the human eye cannot see but was found in satellite images. When the atmospheric conditions naturally shifted back in 2013, the damage had already been done, with the ice sheet more vulnerable to melting. (Check out how old the soil is under some parts of Greenland's ice pack.)


We’re welcoming one more face to kiss in 2018! Wishing you #MásBesos in the New Year! #babybesos #HappyNewYear 😘

 A post shared by America Ferrera (@americaferrera) on Dec 31, 2017 at 4:54pm PST ||||| Story highlights Stamos shared the news with People

 He joins other A-listers who became dads later in life

 (CNN) It's about to be a "Fuller House" for John Stamos.

 The actor shared with People magazine that he is set to become a first-time father at the age of 54.

 The actor, who became everyone's favorite uncle with his role on the hit 1990s sitcom "Full House," joins other celebs, including George Clooney, to welcome fatherhood in their 50s.

 Photos: A-list dads over 50 Photos: A-list dads over 50 John Stamos announced in December that at the age of 54 he will become a dad as his fiancée actress Caitlin McHugh is pregnant. Other male celebs have become fathers in their later years, too. Hide Caption 1 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 At 56, George Clooney became a father to twins. He and Amal Clooney welcomed Ella and Alexander Clooney in June. Hide Caption 2 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 Alec Baldwin had his second child at 55. He has gained recent notoriety for his "Saturday Night Live" impersonations of Donald Trump, who had his youngest son, Barron, at 59. Hide Caption 3 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 "Parenthood" actor Steve Martin became a first-time dad at 67 with wife Anne Stringfield. Hide Caption 4 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 Clint Eastwood was 66 when he had his seventh child, Morgan, with his second wife, Dina Ruiz. Hide Caption 5 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 Television and radio personality Larry King had two children in his mid-60s with wife Shawn Southwick. Hide Caption 6 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 Double Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro was 68 years old when he and Grace Hightower had daughter Helen Grace. Hide Caption 7 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 Rod Stewart was 66 when he welcomed his seventh child, Aidan Patrick Stewart. Hide Caption 8 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was 65 when son Cooper was born to his then-wife Kimberley Conrad. Hide Caption 9 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 Director Woody Allen is about 65 years older than his youngest daughter, Manzie, whom he adopted with wife Soon-Yi Previn, who is the adopted daughter of Allen's former partner, Mia Farrow. Hide Caption 10 of 11 Photos: A-list dads over 50 At 56, former "Late Show" host David Letterman announced that he would be having a child with longtime partner Regina Lasko. Hide Caption 11 of 11

 Stamos told People he and his fiancée, actress Caitlin McHugh, had discussed starting a family.

 "We have the same morals and the same values, that all clicked nicely," Stamos said. "So we said, 'Oh, well, maybe we should have a family.'"

 Read More ||||| Have mercy — John Stamos is going to be a dad! The beloved Fuller House star opens up about expecting a baby with fiancée Caitlin McHugh. Subscribe now for the exclusive baby news — only in PEOPLE.

 John Stamos‘ house is about to get a little fuller!

 The actor, 54, and his fiancée Caitlin McHugh are expecting their first child, Stamos reveals to PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s cover story.

 In the latest episode of The Jess Cagle Interview (streaming now on People TV), Stamos tells PEOPLE’s Editor-in-Chief Jess Cagle that he and McHugh “talked about” having a baby in the past — and everything just fell into place.

 John Stamos Brian Bowen Smith

 “We have the same morals and the same values, that all clicked nicely. So we said, ‘Oh, well, maybe we should have a family,’ ” says the Fuller House star.

 McHugh suggested, “‘Maybe we should have a kid [before we get married]’ and I said, ‘Why?’” Stamos recalls, revealing his fiancée jokingly responded, “Because you’re old.”

 John Stamos

 Watch the full episode of The Jess Cagle Interview: John Stamos, streaming now on PeopleTV. Go to People.com/peopletv, or download the app on your favorite streaming device.

 After almost two years of dating, Stamos and the model and actress, 31, were engaged Oct. 22 at Disneyland — one of Disney Parks super fan McHugh‘s favorite places.

 The actor made a short film of romantic moments from animated Pixar and Disney films, ending the display with The Little Mermaid — which encouraged Stamos to “just ask the girl.”

 Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Babies newsletter.

 RELATED VIDEO: John Stamos and Caitlin McHugh Are Engaged!

 RELATED: 11 Completely Swoon-Worthy Stories Behind Stars’ Proposals

 “The [pregnancy] happened. Then I said, I better have a ring on her finger because it’s the right thing to do, and I wanted to marry her anyway,” Stamos tells PEOPLE. “So I called her parents to ask, and it was like, ‘You better!’ “

 “The look on John’s face when I told him we were pregnant was priceless,” adds McHugh. “It was the look of a man who has wanted a family of his own but wasn’t sure it was going to happen for him. Now it is!”

 Caitlin McHugh and John Stamos Michael Buckner/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

 RELATED: John Stamos on Cloud 9 Now That He’s Engaged to Caitlin McHugh: “I’ve Been Waiting for the Perfect Girl for a Decade”

 The couple are overjoyed to be adding to their family — though they’re keeping mum on the baby’s sex for now — with Stamos admitting that he “always wanted to be a dad” but wasn’t sure it was in the cards. “People would say, ‘You should have a child,’ ” he tells PEOPLE. “I was like, ‘That ship has sailed.’ “

 Luckily for Stamos, that ship is anchored quite steadily — and the star can’t wait for its next voyage, during which his feet will be planted firmly on board.

 “I’ll be a fun dad. I’ve been practicing for a long time,” he says, joking, “I’ve done every schtick you can do with a baby on TV … all the bits and jokes and diaper gags. I’ll probably just do all that stuff.”

 For more coverage, follow our babies magazine on Flipboard.

 FROM PEN: TV Revivals We Want to See

 The mom-to-be couldn’t agree more about Stamos being ready for fatherhood, praising her fiancé for having “the biggest, most loving and generous heart of anyone I know.”

 “I greatly admire his originality, creativity, ambition, work ethic and humor — all qualities I’m sure he’ll pass down to his child,” McHugh tells PEOPLE. “He’s always been wonderful with kids, and I’m sure he will be an amazing father.”

 For a closer peek into John Stamos and Caitlin McHugh’s happily ever after, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

 John Stamos on the cover of PEOPLE

 RELATED: John Stamos and Fiancée Caitlin McHugh’s Love Story Is Straight Out of a Disney Movie

 Will Stamos’ natural gift translate to continuing to expand his family after baby No. 1 is born next year? “I think so,” says the Grandfathered alum. “Caitlin wants to have other kids too.” |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– John Stamos asked girlfriend Caitlin McHugh to marry him less than two months ago, but it looks like they'll soon be calling each other mom and dad in addition to husband and wife. The 54-year-old Fuller House actor tells People he and the 31-year-old McHugh are expecting their first child, and his age may have played a role in expediting their household's expansion. It appears it was McHugh's suggestion that they have a kid before they tied the knot, and when Stamos asked her why, he says she teased: "Because you're old." "We have the same morals and the same values, that all clicked nicely," Stamos explains. "So we said, 'Oh, well, maybe we should have a family.'" Stamos says he's "always wanted to be a dad," but he figured "that ship has sailed." He's now eager to apply all the parenting "practicing" he did on TV. "I've done every schtick thing that you can do ... saying every song, bits and jokes and diaper gags. I'll probably just do all that." He also predicts the baby, whose gender will remain a secret until birth, "is gonna look like Don Rickles," per the Los Angeles Times. Stamos was previously married to actress Rebecca Romijn from 1998 to 2005. More on why he's now ready to be a dad in a People follow-up.


Article:

Do you think that the county\'s Unit System form of government has proven to be better for the county than the former district system?

 I do not believe the Unit System has proven to be better for our county than the former District System. (52%, 12 Votes)

 I believe the Unit System has proven to be better for our county. (30%, 7 Votes)

 I do not believe there is any difference at all. (13%, 3 Votes)

 I am unsure. (4%, 1 Votes) Total Voters: 23 ||||| BUTLER, Alabama -- Law enforcement officials are searching for three men who escaped from a Choctaw County jail early Saturday, according to a report by the Choctaw Sun-Advocate.

 After searching the immediate area around Butler, a city of about 2,000 residents in southwest Alabama, authorities have expanded the search for the three men -- Demarcus Woodard, 23; Germayel Culbert, 32; and Justin Terrell Gordon, 23, -- to other areas.

 Both Woodard and Culbert were jailed for murder charges, and Gordon is charged for an armed robbery.

 In a brief phone interview, Choctaw County Sheriff Tom Abate said the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service are assisting in the search.

 "I've got three bad inmates, two capital murders and one armed robber, who are on foot. They took off from the jail," Abate said, adding he didn't have time to discuss the matter further.

 According to a report from CNN this morning, authorities are looking for capital murder defendants Demarcus Woodward, 23, who is accused of killing a work release inmate, and Culbert, who allegedly participated in the killing of two people in a separate incident.

 And Gordon was involved with the alleged armed robbery of a convenience store, according to the report

 The inmates in the cell attacked the guard by choking him and stole his keys and cell phone before running away, Abate told CNN.

 Tracking dogs led law enforcement about a quarter-mile along State Highway 17 in Butler, according to the report. Abate said he believes they got into a vehicle at that point.

 The jail guard was treated and released at a local hospital, the sheriff told CNN.

 Police urge anyone with information to call the Choctaw County Sheriff's Department at (205) 459-2166.

 Reporter Martin Reed contributed to this report.

 This report will be updated as more information becomes available. ||||| Story highlights State Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marshals involved in the manhunt

 3 inmates are held in one cell; 1 screams, says another is sick, sheriff says

 The inmates jump a jailer, then fled on foot, the Choctaw County Sheriff adds

 The jailer, who was allegedly choked, was treated at a nearby hospital, he says

 Two men charged with murder and another being held on armed robbery charges escaped early Saturday from a rural Alabama county jail, a local sheriff said.

 The three were locked down together in a single cell around 2 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) when one started screaming, saying another of them was very sick, Choctaw County Sheriff Tom Abate said. The jailer looked through a porthole, saw someone vomiting, then opened the cell door.

 When he did, the inmates jumped the jailer, stole his keys and cell phone, then fled on foot, according to Abate.

 Local authorities using tracking dogs tracked the escaped inmates about one-quarter mile away down State Highway 17 in Butler, Alabama, where Abate said they were either picked up or had a vehicle waiting for them.

 The two escapees who were being held on capital murder charges, for separate incidents, are 23-year-old Demarcus Woodward for allegedly fatally shooting a work release inmate and 32-year-old Gemayel Culbert for his involvement in the killing of two people at a private club in northern Choctaw County. The other escapee is Terrell Gordon, 23, who is charged with armed robbery in connection with a convenience store theft.

 Alabama's state Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marshals from Mobile and local authorities all have roles in the manhunt.

 The jailer who these inmates allegedly choked was treated and released at an area hospital, Abate said Saturday morning.

 Choctaw County, with population of fewer than 14,000, is in southwestern Alabama, bordering Mississippi. |||||
What is a summary?

– The search is on in Alabama after two men charged with murder and another charged with armed robbery escaped their shared prison cell. Prior to the escape, one of the three began shouting in the cell, saying a cellmate was ill, the Choctaw County sheriff says. A guard checked up on them to find that one was throwing up, CNN reports. He opened the cell door, and the men attacked him, grabbing his keys and cell phone, the sheriff says. The guard was hospitalized and released after allegedly being choked. Now, authorities are looking for Demarcus Woodard, 23, Gemayel Culbert, 32, and Justin Terrell Gordon, 23, the Choctaw Sun-Advocate reports. "I've got three bad inmates, two capital murders and one armed robber, who are on foot," the sheriff tells AL.com. Dogs followed a trail to a highway near the prison, where officials think the men may have been picked up.


Shia LaBeouf won't be making his Broadway debut this season after all. The 26-year-old actor has quit the upcoming revival production of the play "Orphans" in New York over "creative differences," according to a news release sent Wednesday.

 LaBeouf has left the show a month before preview performances are set to begin. "Orphans" is still scheduled to open at the Schoenfeld Theater on April 7, with previews commencing on March 19. The production, directed by Daniel Sullivan, also features Alec Baldwin, in the role of a powerful man kidnapped by two brothers.

 Wednesday's announcement did not elaborate on the nature of the creative differences that led to LaBeouf's departure, and no replacement for the actor has been announced.

 "Orphans," by Lyle Kessler, debuted in 1983 at the Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles and is often revived at regional theaters across the country. Director Alan Pakula turned it into a movie in 1987, with a cast that included Albert Finney, Matthew Modine and Kevin Anderson.

 In 2005, Al Pacino appeared in a workshop production of the play, alongside Jesse Eisenberg, at the Greenway Court Theatre in L.A.

 LaBeouf rose to fame starring in the "Transformers" action movies and the most recent "Indiana Jones" installment. But the actor made waves earlier this year by saying that he is swearing off Hollywood blockbusters in favor of riskier, indie-flavor projects.

 He had virtually no theater experience going into "Orphans." He began his career doing stand-up comedy, eventually landing a role on the Disney Channel program "Even Stevens."

 His next movies include Robert Redford's "The Company You Keep" and Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac."

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 Where's LaBeouf? Shia heading to Broadway, with Alec Baldwin ||||| Tom Hanks swears. Not a blue streak, no, but it’s bracing to hear profanity from the man who has defined decency for three decades in Hollywood, playing white knights in “Splash,” “Forrest Gump,” “Apollo 13” and the “Toy Story” series. If he is grandma-friendly on screen, he is looser and less predictable in person — as his old friend Nora Ephron was reminded several years ago when she sent him the screenplay for a biopic, “Lucky Guy.” Mr. Hanks took an instant dislike to his character, Mike McAlary, the muckraking columnist of New York City tabloids in the 1980s and ’90s.

 “I told Nora that McAlary sounded like a real” jerk, Mr. Hanks said, using a more piquant word — and a perceptive one, since McAlary’s power came from his determination to be the biggest, baddest, bona fide ... jerk who ever dug into corrupt cops.

 Mr. Hanks reconsidered only years later, after running into Ephron while promoting his 2011 movie “Larry Crowne.” He was a co-writer, a star and the director of that picture, and it was a critical and commercial disappointment. Ephron, by contrast, represented happier days, during their collaborations on “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail.”

 They got around to talking about “Lucky Guy” — she had turned it into a play, and Hugh Jackman had done a table reading — and Mr. Hanks asked to see the latest version. This time he felt drawn not only to McAlary’s swagger, but also his drive to become the next Jimmy Breslin and to be worthy of his own celebrity.

 “Look, the title is ‘Lucky Guy.’ It’s about somebody who is almost good enough to deserve what he achieves. And I understand that,” Mr. Hanks said during an interview on the stage of the Broadhurst Theater, where the play, his Broadway debut, is set to begin its 15-week run on Friday.

 “I still feel sometimes that I’d like to be as good as so-and-so actor,” he continued. “I see some other actors’ work, and I think I’ll never get there. I wish I could.”

 Hollywood stars often come to Broadway to prove something to themselves or to audiences, though they rarely admit it. With Academy Awards for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump,” Mr. Hanks is less hesitant. While he denied that, at 56, he is here because his film career has cooled — “I have two movies in the can. I have plenty to keep me busy” — he also appeared delighted that McAlary is pretty far from a predictable Tom Hanks part.

 Will audiences buy him as unlikable? Mr. Hanks is still a genial guy, who tends to cope with pressure by yukking it up. But he has also thrown himself into a role that calls for no vanity, his director and fellow actors say. He has a gray-flecked mustache, as did McAlary, and is trying to preserve the columnist’s rough edges.

 “Anytime you go off to do something new, you’ve involved in a reinvention, and any actor who says otherwise is just trying to lower expectations,” said Mr. Hanks, who trained to be a theater actor in the 1970s but quickly moved on to television and then movies.

 It has been a twisting path to Broadway for Mr. Hanks and “Lucky Guy,” and a heartbreaking one. The sharp-elbowed McAlary, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for his columns about the brutalization of Abner Louima by police officers, died later that year from colon cancer, at the age of 41. Soon after, Ephron, a former reporter for The New York Post who cherished the tabloids of yesteryear, began to research McAlary’s life and spent years rewriting the script, at one point calling it “Stories About McAlary.”

 Once Mr. Hanks signed on, Ephron began meeting weekly with the play’s director, the Tony Award winner George C. Wolfe (“Angels in America”), to sharpen the central device — other journalists sharing and arguing over anecdotes about McAlary — so that the lead character came into sharper focus. All the while, however, Ephron was quietly battling leukemia; to the shock of her “Lucky Guy” collaborators and many friends, she died last June, at 71.

 “Nora was turning around new drafts of the play in a week, and it was confusing to me why she was working so quickly,” Mr. Wolfe said. “I had no awareness of the invisible timetable she was on. After she died, we were even more determined to do the play.”

 Writers are a pretty hands-on lot, especially with new works going to Broadway. Without Ephron, Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Hanks have become keepers of the “Lucky Guy” flame. Aside from Ephron’s script, there are pages of discarded dialogue that Mr. Wolfe has cherry-picked for an extra dash of nuance or sprinkle of clarity. “My motto is, ‘When in doubt, reference Nora,’ ” Mr. Wolfe said, and he has done so with the blessing of her widower, the writer Nicholas Pileggi.

 Mr. Hanks, meanwhile, read many of McAlary’s columns and interviewed some of his old friends, coming away agreeing with a point Ephron once made about him. “Nora said Mac was good when he was covering the stuff he knew, cops and cop scandals, while other times he was clearly struggling,” he recalled.

 Seeing those imperfections has helped him avoid turning McAlary into a classically uplifting Hanks role. Or, as he put it bluntly: “not to” screw “this up.” |||||

Write a summary.

– Shia LaBeouf was set to make his Broadway debut in Orphans, but the actor has walked away from the production less than a month before previews were set to begin. The initial news release cited only "creative differences" for LaBeouf's departure, the Los Angeles Times reported. But LaBeouf quickly took to Twitter last night, posting details involving a disagreement with Alec Baldwin, who also stars in the play. In an email to Baldwin that LaBeouf posted, LaBeouf mentions "bickering" and "a disagreeable situation," but a source tells the New York Post that the actor is just using his incompatibility with Baldwin as an excuse. The truth is LaBeouf "was fired because he wasn’t good in the role," the source says. As of now, the play is still set to open April 7. In happier theater news, Tom Hanks makes his Broadway debut in Lucky Guy, a play written by Nora Ephron, next week, the New York Times reports.


News article:

SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE

 Ted Haggard’s life was already a sort of reality show.

 Well, now it’s official.

 Producers of “Celebrity Wife Swap” confirmed Wednesday that the former New Life Church pastor and his wife, Gayle, will appear in the new ABC reality series, on which they will swap partners (without sex) with actor Gary Busey and his partner and baby mama, Steffanie Sampson.

 The show is scheduled to shoot Thursday at the GLBT Pride Center in Colorado Springs.

 Haggard, of course, has become used to the media spotlight. He garnered national attention as the president of the National Association of Evangelicals and much more in 2006, after it came to light he’d had sex with and taken drugs with a male prostitute. Since then, he’s appeared in countless news reports and documentaries that were shown on TLC and HBO. He’s been featured on “Divorce Court” “Oprah Winfrey” and “Larry King Live.”

 But an actual reality show? This would be new.

 “Celebrity Wife Swap” is based on the British show of the same name and is similar to “Wife Swap,” an American TV series that provided hours of jaw-dropping culture clashes between ordinary families.

 The premise is simple: Haggard and Busey will swap partners for a short time. The first couple of days, the men make the rules for their new “spouses.” After that, the women take charge. The fun could come from the conflict between Haggard and Sampson, who's reportedly a spiritual woman but not a fan of organized religion.

 On the surface, it might seem like an unlikely pairing, but there are several surprising parallels between Busey and Haggard. Busey is a born-again Christian and active minister with Promise Keepers, and Haggard has returned to the ministry as pastor of St. James, a new nondenominational Christian church in Colorado Springs.

 Haggard refused to comment about the show. ||||| Ted Haggard to Play Celebrity Wife Swap

 He weathered a sex and drug scandal but can he handle Celebrity Wife Swap?Evangelical pastor Ted Haggard will appear on the upcoming celebrity version of ABC's Wife Swap, the show's producers confirmed to PEOPLE Wednesday.He's reportedly swapping spouses with actor Gary Busey.Haggard, 55, and his wife, Gayle, remain married even after Haggard admitted in late 2006 to paying a male masseuse for sex and using crystal meth . The scandal forced him to resign as a senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.Though he subsequently entered counseling and has condemned homosexuality publicly, Haggard told GQ in 2011 of his sexuality, "I think that probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual."Haggard, who founded the New Life Church, is currently the pastor of St. James, a nondenominational church also in Colorado Springs.Busey, 67, is no stranger to reality TV. He has appeared on Celebrity Rehab and Celebrity Apprentice . Producers have not confirmed whether his "wife" participating in the show is Steffanie Sampson, his girlfriend and mother of his 19-month old son. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– In possibly the weirdest news you’ll hear all day, sex-and-drug-scandal-plagued Ted Haggard is going on the celebrity edition of ABC’s Wife Swap reality show … and will swap partners with Gary Busey. Yes, in case you’d forgotten, Haggard still has a wife—despite the fact that he admitted paying for meth-fueled sex with a male masseuse in 2006. The probably-bisexual pastor now runs a nondenominational church in Colorado, and Busey is apparently a good match for him: The born-again actor is involved with Christian men’s organization Promise Keepers. However, Busey bizarrely has no wife, just a girlfriend with whom he has a child. Producers haven’t said whether she’s the swapee or not, People notes, but the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that she is. Busey, of course, has slightly more experience than Haggard with reality TV, having already appeared on Celebrity Rehab and Celebrity Apprentice. But Haggard, who is apparently trying for a second career in entertainment, has appeared in a Christian “sex comedy.”


Write an article based on this summary:

– Fresh off winning a rotating seat on the 15-member UN Security Council, Saudi Arabia has made the unexpected move of refusing it, citing the body's poor response to unrest in the Middle East, specifically in Syria. In a statement reported by the New York Times, the Saudi Foreign Ministry argues "the method and work mechanism and the double standards in the Security Council prevent it from properly shouldering its responsibilities toward world peace," noting the country will only take its place once reforms have been made to boost the body's role in fostering that peace. It didn't give specifics. Though the Times suggests that Saudi Arabia is frustrated that permanent members Russia and China have stymied some of the West's efforts regarding Syria (efforts the country supports), Reuters reports that much of the country's anger is directed at the US. It specifies that Saudi Arabia views American policies regarding the Arab Spring as damaging relations between the two countries; Washington's softening toward Iran's new president, Hasan Rouhani, hasn't sat well with the country, either. The Times calls it a "surprising" move, noting that it was the first time Saudi Arabia has gone after a Security Council seat, which many saw as an indication that it wanted to have a bigger hand in what's happening in Syria.

RIYADH Saudi Arabia, in an unprecedented show of anger at the failure of the international community to end the war in Syria and act on other Middle East issues, said on Friday it would not take up its seat on the United Nations Security Council.

 The kingdom condemned what it called international double standards on the Middle East and demanded reforms in the Security Council.

 Riyadh's frustration is mostly directed at Washington, its oldest international ally, which has pursued policies since the Arab Spring that Saudi rulers have bitterly opposed and which have severely damaged relations with the United States, Saudi analysts have said.

 Saudi Arabia has also been angered by a rapprochement between Iran, its old regional foe, and the United States, which has taken root since President Barack Obama spoke by telephone last month to the new Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, in the highest-level contact between the two countries in more than three decades.

 Citing the Security Council's failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, take steps to end Syria's civil war and to stop nuclear proliferation in the region, Riyadh said the body had instead perpetuated conflicts and grievances.

 "Saudi Arabia ... is refraining from taking membership of the U.N. Security Council until it has reformed so it can effectively and practically perform its duties and discharge its responsibilities in maintaining international security and peace," said a Foreign Ministry statement issued on state media.

 The conservative Islamic kingdom has traditionally avoided big political statements, preferring to wield its influence as world's top oil exporter, birthplace of Islam and chief Arab ally of the United States behind closed doors.

 POISIN GAS

 However, its anger at the international response to Arab issues, particularly the Syrian conflict, boiled over after Syria's President, Bashar al-Assad, escaped U.S.-led military strikes in response to a poison gas attack in Damascus by agreeing to give up his chemical arsenal.

 It is the second time this month that Saudi Arabia has made a public gesture over what it sees as the Security Council's failure to take action to stop the civil war in Syria that has killed more than 100,000 people.

 Earlier this month, the Saudi foreign minister cancelled a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in frustration over the international inaction on Syria and the Palestinian issue, a diplomatic source said.

 "The kingdom sees that the method and work mechanism and the double standards in the Security Council prevent it from properly shouldering its responsibilities towards world peace," the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state news agency, SPA.

 Saudi anger coincides with a rift between another Washington and another of its key Middle East allies, Egypt. Egypt's Foreign Minister said relations were in "turmoil" after Washington moved to curtail military aid to Cairo in a row over the way the army overthrew President Mohamed Morsi of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

 Saudi Arabia was one of five countries elected by the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday to serve a two-year term on the 15-member U.N. Security Council.

 The body, which has powers to authorize military action, impose sanctions and set up peacekeeping operations, has 10 rotating members. The U.S., China, Russia, France and Britain are permanent members which wield a veto.

 The Saudi Foreign Ministry said it was unable to take its seat until reforms were introduced that would allow the body to resolve Middle East issues.

 U.S.-allied Saudi Arabia has been angry over what it says is the failure of the international community to help either Syrian rebels fighting to topple Assad or Palestinians seeking an end to more than four decades of Israeli occupation.

 The Security Council has been split on how to handle the civil war in Syria, with Western powers pushing for stronger sanctions against Assad and Russia vetoing resolutions to that end. Saudi Arabia has backed the rebels in that conflict.

 The Saudis, along with other Arab states, have also often criticized the United States for blocking international action to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

 (Reporting by Reem Shamseddine; Editing by Gareth Jones and Giles Elgood) ||||| The Saudi decision may also reflect a broader debate within the Saudi ruling elite about how to wield influence: the Saudis have long resisted taking a seat on the Security Council, believing it would hamper their discreet diplomatic style.

 Still, the sudden about-face came across as a slap to the United Nations and the United States, one of Saudi Arabia’s strongest Western allies. On Thursday evening, the American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, had issued a statement congratulating the five new nonpermanent members — Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. Officials at the United States Mission to the United Nations had no immediate comment.

 Russia was sharply critical of the Saudi gesture. “We are surprised by Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented decision,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement from Moscow carried by news agencies. “The kingdom’s arguments arouse bewilderment and the criticism of the U.N. Security Council in the context of the Syria conflict is particularly strange.”

 There was shock and dismay in Riyadh, too, where the Saudi political elite had seemed thrilled at the prospect of a shift to a more public and assertive diplomatic stance.

 Late on Thursday, the spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Osama Nugali, forwarded a message on his Twitter account celebrating the kingdom’s election to the Security Council. The message was written by Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist with links to the ruling elite. Many other prominent Saudis also forwarded the message, which congratulated the kingdom for winning a seat it had “sought for more than two years with the help of a team of the best Saudi diplomats to represent the kingdom.”

 Many experts had assumed that Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of a Security Council seat signaled a new desire to be more public and assertive in its stances toward the Syrian civil war and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, Abdallah Y. al-Mouallimi, was clearly elated after the General Assembly vote on Thursday.

 Photo

 “We take this election very seriously as a responsibility to be able to contribute to this very important forum to peace and security of the world,” he told reporters. “Our election today is a reflection of a longstanding policy in support of moderation and in support of resolving disputes by peaceful means.”

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 The statement on Friday struck a far different tone, calling for changes to enhance the Security Council’s contribution to peace. It did not say what those should entail.

 “Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill and burn its people by the chemical weapons, while the world stands idly, without applying deterrent sanctions against the Damascus regime, is also irrefutable evidence and proof of the inability of the Security Council to carry out its duties and responsibilities,” the statement said.

 Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.

 The statement accused the Security Council of failing to find a “just and lasting solution” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and of failing to free the Middle East of “all weapons of mass destruction,” an apparent reference to Israel’s presumed nuclear arsenal.

 “This is very bad for the image of the country,” said one Saudi political insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision was assumed to be by the king, whose judgment is rarely questioned in public. “It’s as if someone woke up in the night and made this decision.”

 But some others in Riyadh said they were not entirely surprised, given the kingdom’s long ambivalence about assuming a position that would strain friendships and alliances, particularly against the backdrop of the high profile and volatility of the Security Council’s recent decisions.

 The kingdom has seen its reputation suffer in some quarters in recent years, in part because of the perception that it was combating the democratic aspirations of the 2011 Arab uprisings. On Thursday, the Pew Research Center released a poll indicating that Saudi Arabia’s popularity had declined in several Middle Eastern countries since 2007.

 “The Saudis no doubt quickly realized that being on the U.N.S.C. would mean they could no longer pursue their traditional back seat and low-key policies and therefore decided to give it up,” said Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle East studies at Princeton University and an authority on Saudi Arabia.

 “Regardless of the short-term costs, a seat on the U.N.S.C. may have also meant that Saudi Arabia would be more constrained in backing the Syrian opposition,” Mr. Haykel said.

 Diplomats at the United Nations said they did not believe the Saudi decision would be reversed, given its unequivocal and accusatory language. It also was unclear when the 193-member General Assembly would take a vote on a replacement.

 As of late Friday, the Saudis had not officially notified the United Nations of their decision. Afaf Konja, a spokeswoman for John W. Ashe, the ambassador for Antigua and Barbuda, who is the current president of the General Assembly, said he had not received formal notification nor had held any meetings with Saudi representatives. Given the nature of the Saudi announcement, the spokeswoman said in an e-mail, “the next steps are yet to be determined and will be based on formal language from Saudi Arabia.”

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 The council has met before without a full membership. Diplomats recalled that in 1950, the Soviet Union refused to sit at the council table, though it did not repudiate its seat. |||||


Brussels officials have reportedly blamed " mice " for their inability to tackle chronic traffic jams, saying hungry rodents probably ate the original plans to improve underground tunnels in the Belgian capital.

 As EU leaders convened for a summit to deal with British threats to quit the bloc and to discuss the refugee crisis, they found a city often in gridlock due to repeated closures of key road tunnels caused by crumbling concrete and years of decay.

 Now the Belgian capital's regional parliament has been told that repairs are being held up because original construction plans have apparently eaten by rodents.

 The unlikely claim was made during an investigation into the parlous state of a series of tunnels under Brussels, which are under threat of falling apart.

 A special parliamentary commission has been set up to look into how the 7.1 miles of underground traffic tunnels in Brussels have become so dilapidated and whether it is too late to save them.

 During a hearing this week, Christian De Buysshcher, the former head of roads for the body in charge of the tunnels, was asked: "What happened to the plans of the tunnels when the responsibility was transferred from the federal to the Brussels government?"

 He replied that the original plans were archived in 1989 inside a pier under a viaduct linking the Liège motorway to the boulevard Reyers, as at the time his service did not have any proper offices.

 There they remained for the following 20 years.

 Workers finally got around to moving them to a proper storage room in 2010, after the viaduct was demolished. Unfortunately, however, by then “they were apparently eaten by mice," Mr De Buysscher is cited as saying in Het Nieuwsblad.

 The claim prompted much mirth in Belgium and neighbouring France, with the Sputnik website noting: "Obviously, rodents sneakily devoured the documents so that the streets of the city will never be free of traffic jams."

 It added that, "deprived of plans", the capital will probably be forced to put off resolving the problem for a long time".

 The state of the roads in the city of 1.2 million, home to the European Union and Nato headquarters, has become a hot political issue in Belgium, with an estimated bill of some €1 billion (£777 million) to repair all the tunnels.

 Asked to explain why they were in such a bad way, Mr De Buysscher insisted that "we clearly sounded the alarm" in 2013, pointing out that the repair costs for a 300m stretch was €360 million.

 "I issued several warnings to ministers about the lack of engineers and specialised technicians," he said.

 Jean-Claude Moureau, former head of Brussels Mobility, the body in charge of the tunnels, said that Brussels authorities had always been prompt at agreeing to emergency work in the tunnels but had always "hesitated" when it came to "deeper renovation" due to budgetary constraints and the inevitable traffic chaos such works would create. ||||| Could this be the world’s worst excuse for poor infrastructure?

 The city of Brussels has a novel excuse for recent holdups to vital public works. Faced with Europe’s worst traffic, the Belgian capital has been desperately trying to patch up tunnels whose poor state has caused road closures. Now Brussels has finally explained why the repairs are taking so long: the tunnel’s plans have all been eaten by mice.

 Claiming rodents ate your master plan sounds like the municipal equivalent of saying the dog ate your homework, but apparently it’s true. According to city transit officials, plans for the tunnels were stored inside bridge supports on one of Brussels’ main highways—a bizarre enough fact in itself. They seem to have ended up there because, when the Brussels Capital Region was founded in 1989, the relevant transport department was in temporary digs in a hotel and was short on space.

 It turns out a concrete pillar is not the ideal place to store valuable documents, which have all disappeared, apparently eaten. By now, the tunnel plans have probably long since been chewed to pieces by hungry teeth and passed through a host of murine digestive systems.

 The local response to the news is pretty much what you’d expect: people seem to be pausing occasionally from belly laughs to bang their heads against the wall in frustration. Brussels, you see, is increasingly at risk of looking a bit hopeless. The city’s political structure is insane; it’s covered by 19 completely independent municipalities whose cooperation is made yet more complex by the division of their populations between French and Dutch speakers. Brussels infrastructure is also shoddy, its roads routinely clogged. It’s a tribute to something—citizen resilience? distinctive architecture?—that the city still manages to be as charming and likeable as it is.

 A pleasant, self-deprecating humor is a default response to this dysfunction, as testified to by this spoof plan to give Belgium’s traffic jams UNESCO World Heritage status. Brussels residents are nonetheless all too aware of the damage it does to their reputation. French newspaper Libération caused uproar when it roasted the city’s poor conditions in a major article of 2013, leading to a Brussels pushback that still acknowledged much of the attack was fair. Just two days ago—the day before Mousegate—another local commentator complained that Brussels had become a place defined by “cracked concrete tunnels,” “inextricable traffic jams,” and “the impossibility of moving serenely, without stress.”

 Now on top of all this, it turns out that the city can’t even keep a piece of paper safe. We can all laugh, but when the great minds of a European capital are defeated by a little furry thing with a brain the size of a sugar cube, something has gone seriously awry. |||||

Write a summary.

– Decaying road tunnels have left Brussels in a perpetual state of traffic chaos, but repairs are apparently on hold due to what CityLab deems possibly "the world's worst excuse for poor infrastructure": hungry rodents. Because the transportation department was housed 25 years ago in a hotel (apparently when the responsibility for the roads passed from federal hands into local ones) and didn't have a lot of space, the original construction blueprints for some of the city's major tunnels were instead filed away in the pillars under a highway bridge, Reuters reports. Apparently the four-legged creatures got to them before their two-legged counterparts. The Telegraph reports the plans were stored in that less-than-ideal location for two decades, and were moved to a typical storage facility in 2010. But by then "they were apparently eaten by mice," the ex-chief of Brussels' infrastructure department informed city officials on Wednesday. (Well, they do say city mice are smarter than country mice.)


Article:
(CNN) -- Four years ago Liu Wen entered a modeling contest in China to win a computer to use for school. Little did she know it would lead her to the Victoria's Secret runway in New York.

 Wen, who will appear in the Victoria's Secret fashion show airing Tuesday on CBS, will be the first Victoria's Secret model of Asian descent to walk the catwalk, the company said.

 "I was surprised when my agent told me," Wen said hours before she was set to walk the runway. She seemed only slightly overwhelmed: clad in a pink robe, one technician assigned to her fingernails, another to her toenails and another adding extensions to her already long black hair. "I asked my agent if she was joking. I didn't think an Asian girl would get this job."

 Victoria's Secret plucked Wen, 21, out of a regular model casting call.

 "Liu Wen is a beautiful woman. She has a strong and energetic presence on the runway. She looked absolutely stunning in our fashion show," said the show's executive producer, Monica Mitro.

 At 5-foot-10, Wen said she towered over her classmates in China.

 The newest addition to the Victoria's Secret family was born in Yongzhou in China's Hunan province in 1988, the daughter of an interior designer dad and a stay-at-home mom.

 She was in high school when, on a whim, she submitted photos for a modeling contest, hoping to win the top prize of a laptop computer.

 "I was studying to be a teacher in China and my friend was entering a modeling contest," she said. "The prize was a computer, and I needed a computer for school. So I entered the contest, too, and then I won."

 Her family and friends, including the one who originally had the idea to enter the contest, were shocked.

 "My friends were all surprised," she said. "They were all like, 'sure, you're pretty.' "

 Soon Wen had moved from Yongzhou to the Chinese capital of Beijing, where she appeared on the covers of Chinese editions of FHM and Marie Claire, as well as in editorials for Chinese Vogue. In 2008 she landed on the cover of Chinese Elle alongside fellow rising star Emma Pei.

 Wen made her runway debut in Milan, Italy, in 2008, followed quickly by Paris, France, and New York fashion weeks where she walked in such shows as Anna Sui, Dolce & Gabbana, Alexander McQueen, Chloé and Lanvin.

 Although her walk down the runway will be a first for Victoria's Secret, Wen is part of a growing trend for Asian models worldwide that began several years ago with Devon Aoki. The past few seasons of fashion shows have featured Asian models on almost every high-end runway.

 "I talk to my mom in China every day when I am traveling. My family is always excited to hear about the top designers I am meeting and the clothes I get to wear," Wen said.

 She said was familiar with the Victoria's Secret show, though being on the inside was something new.

 "Of course I had seen the show on television. I watched it every year," Wen said. "But it was so different when I got here and got to meet the other girls. I got to meet Heidi Klum for the first time after I had known about her for so long. And she was so nice."

 Wen thinks she may try her hand at acting when she has gotten over the modeling bug, but she said she would be just as happy returning to China to be a teacher like she originally planned.

 "In the classroom everyone respects the teacher. The teacher has all the control and has the ability to shape all of her students' lives," Wen said. "But for now modeling is such great fun. I'm still trying out new sexy faces." |||||

 Scroll down to se backstage video from the show.

 Victoria's Secret Angels strut runway in $3 million bras, 100 pounds of glitter

 Clary/Getty Supermodel Selita Ebanks gets hair and makeup work backstage at Victoria’s Secret show.

 When the Victoria's Secret Angels strut the runway Tuesday in $3 million bras, larger-than-life wings and barely there lingerie, what viewers won't see are the countless hours of work that goes into making the most beautiful women in the world look so ethereally sexy.

 The show, airing on CBS at 10, was shot at the Lexington Armory.

 "It's all about creating the illusion of this amazing body on the runway," says Selita Ebanks, who walked her first Armory show five years ago. "People don't realize that there are about 20 layers of makeup on my butt alone."

 In addition to body makeup, which Ebanks estimates takes well over an hour to apply, the Angels prep in hair and makeup for three to five hours before hitting the runway, with an average of five people - hair stylists, makeup artists and manicurists, working on each of the 38 models.

 And if the hours of makeup, laboriously applied hair extensions and 100 pounds of body glitter (worn collectively) weren't enough, the models are then squeezed into some of the most intricate garments imaginable.

 Ebanks' first look on the 140-foot-long runway is a gold lightning bolt strapped lengthwise across her middle. Think supersized Christmas tinsel weighing 30 pounds, and with dangerously sharp points.

 "They added a 15-pound sandbag to my hip so the points wouldn't scrape my thighs when I walked, and there was a metal rod in it," says Ebanks. "When I first came out and cut that corner, my whole body tilted to the side and I thought, 'Oh my God, if I fall in this thing, forget my ego, my body is going to be jacked up.'"

 But Ebanks made it work, repeating the mantra "I'm fierce" over and over in her head.

 "I called it my stark-kichu" after the Japanese cartoon, says Ebanks. "It was part of the Star Trooper segment of the show, and I felt like I was the cosmic star leading the girls to a sexy galaxy."

 Other out-of-this-world items featured Tuesday include Marisa Miller's $3 million bra dripping in diamonds and Candice Swanepoel's wings made out of oversized pocket watches.

 Ebanks, daughter of a New York City corrections officer and alum of Curtis High School on Staten Island, was glad to have the show back in her hometown.

 "New Yorkers really appreciate a good production, and amazing people came out to support the show," says Ebanks.

 Supermodel Heidi Klum, who makes a surprise trip down the runway, and gave birth to her daughter Lou just weeks before the taping of the show, agrees.

 "New Yorkers scream loud when you come out," says Klum, who also hosts the show. "In other places, people tend to be a little more quiet, so it's fun to have the New York crowd." |||||Summary:

– The Victoria's Secret fashion show airs tonight, and the New York Daily News is here to tell you that—believe it or not—getting into those $3 million bras and humongous angel wings isn't as easy as it looks. "People don't realize that there are about 20 layers of makeup on my butt alone," says one model, adding that one of her "looks," a 30-pound lightning bolt with sharp edges, required adding a 15-pound sandbag on her hips. The 38 models spend three to five hours getting hair and makeup done—at the hands of five stylists each. One of the models using her share of the 100 pounds of body glitter on hand is Liu Wen, Victoria's Secret's first Asian model. The 21-year-old entered a modeling contest in her native China four years ago, trying to win a computer, and was plucked from a casting call by the Angels. "Of course I had seen the show on television. I watched it every year," she tells CNN. "But it was so different when I got here and got to meet the other girls."


Here is a news article: Here's one in the eye for Malcolm Gladwell. The New Yorker's big-haired, big-brained and big-mouthed columnist argued in a recent article that 'the revolution will not be Tweeted'.

 Well now, Gap has gone back on plans to revamp its logo, thanks to pressure from Twitter and Facebook. Oh yeah – social media brought the Wispa back, it got Rage Against the Machine to number one in the music charts and now it's taken on the High Street. And Malcolm thinks social media can't bring social change. Tsk tsk.

 Oh alright, I don't care about Gap's logo either. If you've missed it – and I wouldn't blame you if you had – Gap said it was changing its logo to a new one that nobody much liked. Faced with complaints, Gap said they wouldn't make the change after all. For all I know, this was a Salad Cream-style publicity stunt.

 A far more sensible response to Gladwell came yesterday from the founders of Twitter. Ev Williams and Biz Stone dismissed Gladwell's argument, saying that Twitter, like any communication tool, could be used as a complement to activism but could not replace action.

 Williams said: "Anyone who’s claiming that sending a tweet by itself is activism, that’s ludicrous — but no one’s claiming that, at least no one that’s credible."

 That's the most important point – and it's the reason why I haven't bothered writing about Gladwell so far – he's arguing against a position that almost nobody has taken.

 Most people are arguing that, like the telephone or email, services like Twitter can be quick and effective communication tools. Even Gladwell acknowledges that. In a Q&A with New Yorker readers, Gladwell said: "In combination with grass roots work, [Twitter] can be a very useful tool."

 So what's the problem, then? Once again this sounds like a journalist from traditional media trying to make a new tool fit an old paradigm and complaining when it doesn't. Citizen journalism won't replace professional journalism, tweeting won't replace activism, home cooking won't replace restaurants, dogs won't replace cats. Why is all this so hard to grasp?

 Gladwell has form in this area, sadly. In 2006 he was demonstrating his inability to grasp blogging. "Without the New York Times," he said, "what would there be for bloggers to blog about." I said at the time he was wrong but at least he was a few years ahead of Andrew Marr.

 In dismissing Twitter in 2010, Gladwell is right on schedule. Expect his takedown of Foursquare some time in 2012. ||||| (CNN) -- The internet's logo snobs won this one.

 Gap Inc. on Monday announced it will drop a new version of its logo after thousands of Facebook and Twitter users called for a return to the classic blue box with tall, white letters -- a logo the clothing retailer has used for more than 20 years.

 The now-defunct new logo featured a white background, black letters and a small blue square in the top right corner. After the company proposed the new logo on its website on October 4, the internet lit up with snotty comments about the new look. "It reminds me of the old Microsoft Free Clip-art galleries," one Facebook user wrote. "I can't believe this is happening."

 Another wrote: "It totally looks like a powerpoint design!"

 The company responded with a Facebook post of its own on Monday.

 "OK. We've heard loud and clear that you don't like the new logo," the company said. "We've learned a lot from the feedback. We only want what's best for the brand and our customers."

 More than 1,700 people clicked that they "liked" that decision.

 "Yay! I don't know why it matters, but it does," one Facebook user wrote in response to that post.

 Another Facebook user wrote: "bit of an embarrassing 180 [degree turn], but at least you had the guts to face up to it, well done."

 After the logo complaints started rolling in, Gap on October 6 said it would "crowdsource" the design of its brand, meaning it would take alternate suggestions from fans and might decide to use one of them.

 But on Monday the company said that idea didn't work either.

 "We've learned a lot in this process," the company said in a press release. "And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community. This wasn't the right project at the right time for crowdsourcing."

 A Gap spokeswoman did not immediately respond to CNN's requests for comment.

 The back-and-forth has spawned several joke websites.

 One, called Crap Logo Yourself, lets people create their own icons in the style of the now-dead Gap logo.

 And two Twitter accounts were born from the snafu.

 @NewGapLogo has been responding to complaints.

 "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," said an October 7 post on that Twitter feed.

 Another, @OldGapLogo, had been calling for a return to the old logo. On Tuesday, however, that account posted what appeared to be a final tweet:

 "Well...looks like my work here is done. Peace. I'm out," it said.

 Plenty of news sites and blogs took their stabs at the new logo, too.

 Vanity Fair even wrote an obituary for it:

 "The new Gap logo is survived by its antagonistic Twitter feed and a dozen 'failed branding strategies' slide shows, in which it will be archived in the annals of history," the magazine wrote. "To heaven, the Helvetica now ascends."

 This obviously isn't the first time a company has backed off of a branding change. The blog The Stir has a nice roundup of marketing history's biggest blunders, including the New Coke experiment.

 For more information about why Gap says it changed the logo in the first place, see this article by Marka Hansen, president of Gap North America, on the Huffington Post.

 "We want our customers to take notice of Gap and see what it stands for today," Hansen wrote on October 7. "We chose this design as it's more contemporary and current. It honors our heritage through the blue box while still taking it forward."

 Well, at least until they changed it back again. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Who says social media don't matter? Malcolm Gladwell, the New Yorker's "big-haired, big-brained and big-mouthed columnist," may think Twitter is a silly fad, but the Gap logo case says otherwise, writes Shane Richmond for the Telegraph. The retailer recently abandoned its cheap-looking new logo after an outcry online. "And Malcolm thinks social media can’t bring social change. Tsk tsk," he writes. The iconic American retailer's decision to ditch the ugly logo came after a wave of highly critical—and occasionally hilarious—comments posted to Twitter and Facebook. "It reminds me of the old Microsoft Free Clip-art galleries," wrote one person on Facebook, according to CNN. "It totally looks like a powerpoint design!" wrote another. (Click here to read more on Twitter.)