Your weekly surf around the web, curated by TAI staff.

Did you see the news that Pope Francis is about to change Catholic teaching on gay marriage? Once again, the “Francis effect” is working its magic on the media’s coverage of the new pontiff.

Call it another win for President Obama’s “smart diplomacy”: cut back on defense spending at home while China boosts its own military to unprecedented levels.

Yet another western plan for Ukraine ended in failure today. Will this hurt Obama’s standing in the Middle East?

Beijing is about to hit a landmark moment that wasn’t included in any of its Five Year Plans: the first default in its domestic bond market. This dubious milestone comes, perhaps unsurprisingly, courtesy of one of the country’s struggling solar producers.

With NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio in town, Governor Andrew Cuomo made an appearance at a pro-charter school rally, alongside one of the Mayor’s biggest rivals in his campaign to cut support for charters.

With the Crimea crisis showing no sign of winding down, TAI editor Adam Garfinkle sat down to talk with Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinkski about the broader repercussions for American foreign policy around the world.

Hilary Clinton is open to changing certain parts of the ACA. Could centrist space for compromise be opening up?

You’ve probably seen images of Venezuelans lining up by the thousands to buy scarce consumer goods like butter and toilet paper. How exactly does Chavista policy create these shortages?

From Mali to Nigeria to Somalia, a wide array of Islamist militant groups are taking advantage of weak states to sew chaos. The Pentagon is taking notice, but not necessarily in the way we’ve come to expect.