When Starbucks first opened in China in 1999, the company's future seem doomed in a country that has thousands of years of tea-drinking history. However, in just 17 years, Starbucks changed and revolutionized the way the Chinese view and drink coffee. […]It's been reported that Starbucks intends to double its locations in the country by 2019.

In 2015, 45.5 million visitors came to the City of Angels, an increase of 1.3 million from the previous year, tourism officials announced Monday. The numbers marked the fifth consecutive year of growth, according to Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board. Garcetti has set a goal of boosting tourism to Los Angeles to 50 million people per year by 2020.

Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has acquired Legendary Entertainment, the Hollywood production company behind “The Dark Knight,” “Jurassic World” and “Godzilla” movies. […] The deal represents the largest acquisition to date of a U.S. production company by a Chinese firm and the latest sign of the deepening ties between Hollywood and the world's most populous country.

In 2013, North Korea conducted its third nuclear test, and the world responded by inducing a period of brinksmanship that came dangerously close to spiraling the unending Korean War out of control. [...] Any creative collaboration one could possibly imagine between the US and North Korea is not only theoretically possible, but an actual reality.

On Friday, State Department officials announced that they would revamp their efforts to counter ISIS messaging online — among other ways, by opening a new “Global Engagement Center.” That same day, the President and various high-ranking members of the national security establishment met with representatives from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other Internet powerhouses to discuss how the United States can fight ISIS messaging via social media.

A high-level panel of foreign policy and social media experts recently questioned “the U.S. government’s ability to serve as a credible voice against the (ISIS) terrorist group’s propaganda,” a sad commentary on the current state of our government’s ineffectual efforts to counter an ISIS social media recruiting and propaganda campaign.

The key question in assessing Europe’s power resources is whether the EU will retain enough cohesion to speak with a single voice on a wide range of international issues, or remain a limited grouping defined by its members’ different national identities, political cultures and foreign policies. The answer varies by issue.