The NBA's spat with Beijing made big news, but it goes much further. Tens of thousands of foreign firms are opening themselves up to Communist Party scrutiny.

China is using a previously little-used mechanism to quietly control relations with foreign brands and businesses operating in China, say experts. And more and more international firms in China are quietly complying with the demands of the CCP. That mechanism is a party committee that operates within private and state-owned firms and institutions whose members are drawn from both the party and the companies in question. Officially, these committees exist to allow businesses to remain better informed of legal and regulatory changes, and up to date with the political climate in China. Yet they’re a behind-the-curtains way for the party to increasingly exercise influence over companies operating in China, say experts.

States are increasingly allowing cannabis use, but getting insurance coverage is proving tough for the industry.

Major insurance providers, including Berkshire Hathaway and Aon, have begun to offer coverage to American companies in the legal marijuana industry, which had long been off-limits due to regulatory or reputational reasons. But investors and executives say many insurers remain cautious in their approach, resulting in higher prices. They argue that more widely available coverage is sorely needed.

Danish Husain is lifting long-forgotten languages and making a political statement.

As a young boy, whenever he visited his ancestral village at Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh and listened to the marsiyas — elegies to Imam Hussain and his martyrdom in Karbala — it would leave a profound mark on Danish Husain. Growing up as a Shia Muslim, he learned from these marsiyas to always side with the underdog, to never be gung ho about your victory.

Inspired by those marsiyas, Husain brought to life a unique form of multilingual storytelling in 2016: Qissebaazi, an Urdu term coined by Husain that roughly translates to “playing with the stories.” So far Qissebaazi, an offering from Husain’s theater group Hoshruba Repertory, has performed stories in Urdu, Sanskrit, Marathi, Haryanvi, Punjabi and Bengali, supplemented with a bridge language like Hindi or English so the audience can follow along.

While not overtly political, his work makes a statement in the age of Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalism — that India’s cultural, racial and linguistic diversity is worth celebrating.