Google hasn't shied away in the past from taking political positions in its popular doodle images on its google.com homepage. Thursday's doodle is no exception. It features a rainbow-colored illustration of popular Winter Olympic sports, including alpine skiing, hockey, curling, and ice skating.

In Sochi, Russia, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today praised the power of sport to promote human rights and unite people regardless of their age, race, class, religious, ability, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity in a first of its kind address to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

When, fifteen years ago, Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister under the ailing Boris Yeltsin, few would have thought that he was to become one of Russia’s longest-serving political leaders in living memory. Fifteen years into his “era,” Putin has reached unassailable heights of prestige, masterly defeating his would-be challengers among street protesters and oligarchs and getting more than a bang for his ruble on the international stage.

The winter Olympics kick off in the Russian city of Sochi on Thursday, whether Russia is ready for them or not. And it increasingly appears that Sochi might not actually be all that ready. Here are 15 signs – some of them superficial, some legitimately alarming – that the Olympics could get off to a bumpy start.

Amid continued debate over whether or not Sochi is prepared to host the 2014 Olympics, which begins Thursday, reporters from around the world are starting to check into local hotels — to their apparent grief. Some journalists arriving in Sochi are describing appalling conditions in the housing there, where only six of nine media hotels are ready for guests.

Anyone who has watched an Olympics whose vision is sharp will notice that the logo for Sochi 2014—which appears in every stadium, on every ticket, and on tens of millions of dollars’ worth of Olympic merchandise—is remarkably different from those of previous Olympics. It contains no drawing and features only unassuming lowercase lettering, the five Olympic rings, and a Web address.

Corporate sponsors of the Sochi Winter Olympics should act now to urge Russia to halt the rising tide of discrimination, harassment, and threats against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, 40 of the world’s leading human rights and LGBT groups said today, in an unusual joint open letter.

The Russian blockade began at midnight on Jan. 29. At factories and warehouses across neighboring Ukraine, truckers had picked up their regular haul of cargo that afternoon and made their way to the eastern border. If their radios were tuned to the news as they drove along the icy highways, they would have heard some alarming bulletins.