CHINA-MAOIST REVIVAL — Fifty years after Mao Zedong unleashed the decade-long Cultural Revolution to reassert his authority and revive his radical communist agenda, the spirit of modern China's founder still exerts a powerful pull. Millions of people were persecuted, publicly humiliated, beaten or killed during the upheaval, as zealous factionalism metastasized countrywide, tearing apart Chinese society at a most basic level. 

CHINA-US-MILITARY — China's defense ministry criticizes a U.S. report assessing its island-building efforts in the South China Sea, saying it "hyped up" China's so-called military threat.

INDIA-ROAD COLLISION — A truck and an overcrowded motorized rickshaw collide in southern India, killing 16 people, half of them from a single family, police say.