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.

Planning a trip to Cuba? These days, Americans who want to visit the island can book a room on Airbnb.com, the home-stay website, and browse flights on CheapAir.com. These are options unimaginable six months ago, and they reflect the growing range of travel choices borne of the détente between the two countries.

History will be quick to remind us that China, India, and the Middle East had rich and refined cultures while Europeans were still struggling through the material and intellectual poverty of the Dark Ages and before the existence of the Americas was even known to them.

New warnings from U.S. officials and lawmakers over tactics used by Islamic State online are putting renewed focus on the terror network’s activities. FBI Director James Comey warned Thursday that ISIS is increasing their reliance on social media to spread their “poison” message.

Two years ago, the Obama administration announced a new strategy to curb online espionage.(...)The White House said it would increase public awareness of the threat, encourage the private sector to increase its defenses, focus diplomacy on protecting trade secrets overseas, improve trade secret theft legislation and make investigations and prosecutions of corporate and state-sponsored trade secret theft a top priority.

The US State Department is asking for more than $6 million to convert its Interests Section in Havana to an embassy and $528,000 for a new program called “Cuba Outreach Initiative,” budget documents show.