For the first time in 100 years, melting even as it hit the ground, snow fell on Baghdad.   It’s considered the first time in living memory that there’s been snowfall and residents were out enjoying it, despite the obvious danger.   It’s not exactly the Christmas Truce or anything, but I’m sure Iraqis are thankful for whatever gives them a moment’s respite:

For a couple of hours anyway, a city where mortar shells routinely zoom across the Tigris River to the Green Zone became united as one big White Zone. There were no reports of bloodshed during the snowstorm. The snow showed no favoritism as it dusted neighborhoods Shiite and Sunni alike, faintly falling (with apologies to James Joyce) upon all the living and the dead.

But not too much relief.   If you think this arrests the urgency of global warning, Reuters is quick with the bummer news…