Kazakhstan

With its simple menu and casual atmosphere, the Training Cafe looks like many other local eateries in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty. But unlike the others, its 40-person staff is exclusively composed of patients from local psychiatric institutions.

Timur Bekbosunov is a glam-rock opera singer from Kazakhstan, but he got his start in Kansas.

A paid informant helped officials arrest three New Yorkers who allegedly planned to aid the so-called Islamic State. But the shock is less about the violence they hoped to commit and more about how young New Yorkers were tempted to join a jihadi group.

The capital of Kazakhstan is a modern city rising from a largely-rural, largely-Soviet countryside. But it still has its quirks. For example, climb to the top of the new Bayterek and in one direction you can see the presidential palace. In the other, though, you’ll see the world’s largest tent.

A remarkable 17-year effort by US; Russian scientists to secure an abandoned nuclear testing facility in Kazakhstan was finally completed last fall. Host Marco Werman speaks about the largely secret operation with journalist Eben Harrell.