The recent unrest in Baltimore has impacts far beyond the United States. Reputation matters, and events like those that transpired in Baltimore are a proverbial black eye on the U.S.’s image. More specifically, the impact is on public diplomacy.

More than $20 billion worth of Russian money gathered under the high ceilings of New York’s Neue Galerie on Monday evening to open a new exhibit featuring the private collection of one of the country’s top bankers — and to promote the new oil company he has just taken part in founding.

In recent years an important direction of state policy is support for Russian culture and language in the Russian world abroad. The Public Chamber and the Russian Peace Foundation are implementing ‘The Russian Corner’ project.

When the British Museum lent one of the sculptures known as the Elgin marbles to the State Hermitage Museum here last year, the move angered Greece, which wants the sculptures back, and set off a spirited debate about restitution. But it was also a diplomatic coup by one man: Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage and a skilled cultural ambassador.

Alibaba is hoping to re-create March Madness in November. The Chinese online shopping giant is teaming up with top leagues in the National Collegiate Athletic Association to stream the first regular-season games played in the country online. 

Students at Emerson Elementary learned more about Japanese culture through exchanging cultural artifact boxes with students from a Japanese classroom. Beth Dalin, a third-grade teacher at Emerson, said she hoped the project showed students that they have more in common with students from Japan than they may have previously thought.