Five members of the Church of the Almighty God, a Chinese cult, have been sentenced to death for the fatal beating of a woman whom they were trying to convert to their cult. Official efforts to combat not just fringe cults but also more mainstream Christian churches in China have deep historical roots.

Marriage and the family are in serious disarray, and the culture wars have made fixing it hard. But points of alliance could emerge between the left and the right if we put down the weapons long enough.

Kurdish frustration at the Turkish government’s lack of action against ISIS is boiling over into the streets of Germany, where riot police report feeling trapped in a “proxy war.”

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is visiting Germany, highlighting the extremely important Sino-German trade relationship. Now, it seems as though German Chancellor Angela Merkel is trying to parlay that relationship into a tool for controlling Putin. That raises some interesting and unsettling questions for the U.S.

Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area are quickly becoming two of the most powerful cities in the country. So far both have grown without bumping into each other, but a conflict might be coming.

A new measure in California looks to bring modest prison reforms to the state’s harsh system. With the help of massive donations from a conservative evangelical, it looks likely to pass—but even then, CA’s reforms will still lag behind those pursued by more conservative states.

After a month of media hype about Kim Jong-Un’s disappearance, we have new details about the Hermit Kingdom’s behavior on the world stage.

The Boston Globe believes that calling ISIS “Daesh” will help defeat them. They’re unfortunately wrong in both facts and views.

Warsaw desperately wants to wean itself off of dependence on Russian natural gas, but exploration of domestic shale reserves (fracking) has so far been a disappointment.

India and Pakistan have been trading fire on the border for a week. Small conflicts like this one are horrible for those caught in the shelling, but they also serve the interests of key domestic constituencies in both Pakistan and India.