" Jesse Nichols, a librarian on the Senate Finance Committee and the first black appointed to a clerical position in the Senate, recalled that "Senator Gore used to come in and out of the clear blue sky he would say, 'Jesse, bring me a Coca-Cola.

CNN: Excerpt: 'The Prince of Tennessee: The Rise of Al Gore'

Sometimes a big blue hand would come down out of the sky and sweep away one or more levels of the square tower, or even the whole thing.

NEWYORKER: Ziggurat

Those pictures were her one real memento of him, page after page of watercolors from a world that, even before she opened the book for the first time, was gone forever, leaf green and sky blue and damson, wiped out by a tide of cattle trucks and unmarked graves.

NEWYORKER: The Bell Ringer

We had isolated snow flakes falling out of the sky on the walk to the stadium, but now the skies are blue.

BBC: As it happened - autumn Tests

While air pollution has remained a nagging problem since then, Beijingers have learned to live with the situation, and there have been enough blue sky days in the capital city to keep the Air Quality Index (AQI) out of the news until last week that is.

FORBES: Air Quality In China