Mercer County will host five judges from Mongolia later this month to learn the ins and outs of the U.S. legal system. [...] Jamkhandi said host families are a significant ingredient of U.S.-sponsored exchange programs, allowing international professionals a “unique perspective of American life and culture. More importantly, home stays foster friendships, a key element in people-to-people diplomacy.”

The program, which began in 2011 and is funded by a State Department grant, brings groups of international coaches, sports administrators and mostly teenage athletes to the public university's campus in Fairfax County, Virginia. [...] Participants gain a deeper understanding of inclusion and diversity in athletics, organizers say, at the same time that they get a glimpse of American culture — specifically, American sports culture.

The day before returning to their respective homelands, Lara Tietz and Emma Gregersen came by The Tidewater News for a quick visit with their host, Welton Deshields of Franklin. [...] Lara, 17, lives in Kassel, Germany; Emma, 18, is from Thy, Denmark, and both said they’ve enjoyed their first visit to the United States of America. The Lions clubs in their localities helped in getting the two to travel stateside.

Student chefs from City of Glasgow College are preparing to defend their international cook-off title in a live head-to-head competition in America. [...] The college students triumphed over their American opponents in the inaugural Atlantic Cup cooking challenge, held during the launch of City of Glasgow College’s new £228m super college last year. The cook-off also saw the launch of an international student exchange programme.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s is billed as the “first major museum exhibition to focus on American taste in design during the exhilarating years of the 1920s.” Rather than narrow the lens on this era of rapid cultural and technological change, this concentration on the post-World War I United States is a lively, international showcase of design.

Fourteen years ago, it was founded as a local coffee and bakery chain store in a Taiwanese night market. Today, a U.S. city mayor signed an official document creating a day in its honor. [...] Some local Taiwanese businesses saw this recognition as proof of how proactive the U.S. government had become in attracting investment." Others saw it as a more profound sign that a sector of Taiwan's soft power in the U.S. was on the rise.