The crossword hasn’t moved, but we did change your newspaper yet again. What now? Let me give you the short version.

• The most notable difference in today’s paper is the absence of the A&E section. In its place is something called “Features.”

Features section editor Keith DuCharme will tell you more about exactly what’s happening in his column on page 9.

“Features” represents a step toward something about which we Daily staffers spent a lot of time talking about last fall. We also occasionally mentioned the idea of increasing the A&E section’s breadth in the paper.

The idea is to not restrict our coverage to what can literally be considered arts and entertainment. There is a lot more to the lives of ISU students and other Ames residents, and we want to portray that in this section. We have always tried to do that with the cover story in the Thursday “High Note” section — now we’re making a conscious effort to do it in every day’s paper.

Changing the name of the section is a superficial but important move in that direction.

We’re not done monkeying with Features, either. But I’ll let Keith tell you about that.

• Daily cartoonist and illustrator Eric Gapstur is now producing a daily comic strip. You’ll find it on page 2 today. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a lot of Eric’s strips already — and I think you will have a lot of fun getting to know these characters.

• Readers often ask why we don’t cover professional sports very often. The short answer is that there isn’t space … but that’s changing a little bit with the addition of the Bottom Line — all the day’s biggest scores and national news — to the Sports section.

I think that’s enough preamble, don’t you? I am genuinely excited about the coming semester — both about what events it holds for all of us in Ames and about the role I expect the Daily will play in telling you about it.