diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index f47967ccfe..983cdea179 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ Merged from 1.0:
 
 
 1.1-beta1
+ * add SOURCE and CAPTURE cqlsh commands (CASSANDRA-3479)
  * add nodetool rebuild_index (CASSANDRA-3583)
  * add nodetool rangekeysample (CASSANDRA-2917)
  * Fix streaming too much data during move operations (CASSANDRA-3639)
diff --git a/NEWS.txt b/NEWS.txt
index addf0937a4..4d64428895 100644
--- a/NEWS.txt
+++ b/NEWS.txt
@@ -60,6 +60,10 @@ Features
       be pinned to specfic media.
     - Hadoop: a new BulkOutputFormat is included which will directly write
       SSTables locally and then stream them into the cluster.
+      YOU SHOULD USE BulkOutputFormat BY DEFAULT.  ColumnFamilyOutputFormat
+      is still around in case for some strange reason you want results
+      trickling out over Thrift, but BulkOutputFormat is significantly
+      more efficient.
     - Hadoop: KeyRange.filter is now supported with ColumnFamilyInputFormat
     - Hadoop wide row mode added to ColumnFamilyInputFormat
     - The bulk loader is not longer a fat client; it can be run from an
diff --git a/examples/simple_authentication/README.txt b/examples/simple_authentication/README.txt
index 3de5092fd2..dcf95538d9 100644
--- a/examples/simple_authentication/README.txt
+++ b/examples/simple_authentication/README.txt
@@ -10,5 +10,16 @@ You can then set the authenticator and authority properties in cassandra.yaml
 to use those classes. See the two configuration files access.properties and
 passwd.properties to configure the authorized users and permissions.
 
+When starting cassandra, you need to specify the location of the passwd.properties
+and access.properties files by adding JVM args similar to the following either
+in cassandra-env.sh or as commandline arguments:
+
+    -Dpasswd.properties=conf/passwd.properties
+    -Daccess.properties=conf/access.properties
+
+For example, you might invoke cassandra as follows:
+
+    bin/cassandra -f -Dpasswd.properties=conf/passwd.properties -Daccess.properties=conf/access.properties
+
 Please note that the code in this directory is for demonstration purposes. In
 particular, it does not provide a high level of security.
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/locator/Ec2Snitch.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/locator/Ec2Snitch.java
index 4ffc0e85a8..1dced958b2 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/locator/Ec2Snitch.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/locator/Ec2Snitch.java
@@ -51,10 +51,15 @@ public class Ec2Snitch extends AbstractNetworkTopologySnitch
 
     public Ec2Snitch() throws IOException, ConfigurationException
     {
+        String az = awsApiCall(ZONE_NAME_QUERY_URL);
         // Split "us-east-1a" or "asia-1a" into "us-east"/"1a" and "asia"/"1a".
-        String[] splits = awsApiCall(ZONE_NAME_QUERY_URL).split("-");
+        String[] splits = az.split("-");
         ec2zone = splits[splits.length - 1];
-        ec2region = splits.length < 3 ? splits[0] : splits[0] + "-" + splits[1];
+
+        // hack for CASSANDRA-4026
+        ec2region = az.substring(0, az.length() - 1);
+        if (ec2region.endsWith("1"))
+            ec2region = az.substring(0, az.length() - 3);
         logger.info("EC2Snitch using region: " + ec2region + ", zone: " + ec2zone + ".");
     }
 
diff --git a/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/locator/EC2SnitchTest.java b/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/locator/EC2SnitchTest.java
index a72069a856..103db51b58 100644
--- a/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/locator/EC2SnitchTest.java
+++ b/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/locator/EC2SnitchTest.java
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ import org.junit.Test;
 
 public class EC2SnitchTest
 {
+    private static String az;
 
     private class TestEC2Snitch extends Ec2Snitch
     {
@@ -47,13 +48,14 @@ public class EC2SnitchTest
         @Override
         String awsApiCall(String url) throws IOException, ConfigurationException
         {
-            return "us-east-1d";
+            return az;
         }
     }
 
     @Test
     public void testRac() throws IOException, ConfigurationException
     {
+        az = "us-east-1d";
         Ec2Snitch snitch = new TestEC2Snitch();
         InetAddress local = InetAddress.getByName("127.0.0.1");
         InetAddress nonlocal = InetAddress.getByName("127.0.0.7");
@@ -69,4 +71,14 @@ public class EC2SnitchTest
         assertEquals("us-east", snitch.getDatacenter(local));
         assertEquals("1d", snitch.getRack(local));
     }
+    
+    @Test
+    public void testNewRegions() throws IOException, ConfigurationException
+    {
+        az = "us-east-2d";
+        Ec2Snitch snitch = new TestEC2Snitch();
+        InetAddress local = InetAddress.getByName("127.0.0.1");
+        assertEquals("us-east-2", snitch.getDatacenter(local));
+        assertEquals("2d", snitch.getRack(local));
+    }
 }