Shit is tough for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. You gotta sell the oil, keep it chummy with the United States, and also prove you deserve to run things around the holiest sites for all Muslims. Which means you gotta be holier than thou. Which means you gotta get more sword-happy head-cutter-offers.

President Obama will address the nation in prime time Wednesday evening to lay out his strategy to fight the Islamic State. Combating the group has become a high priority since its brutal staged executions of two Americans. Coincidentally, Missouri and Texas have prisoner executions scheduled for Wednesday night.

As the Islamic State's militants planned their brutal videotaped killing of a second American prisoner, one photographer in Turkey was describing for readers and other journalists how he was treated as a captive of the group—and how he almost didn't survive the ordeal.