Jane Arraf

The United States' closest allies in Iraq, the Kurds, vote for their regional parliament on Sunday, as the old leadership shifts to a new generation with new issues.

Iraqis have been protesting over faltering public services and lack of jobs in Basra, the country's main port city and the heart of its southern oil fields.

Iraq's port city of Basra is a hub of oil wealth but is poor and angry. Protests have continued for weeks over a lack of drinking water and an excess of political corruption — with some blaming Iran.

North Carolina and South Carolina are preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Florence. Also, a new poll shows President Trump's approval rating at 39 percent, and an update on unrest in Basra.

Unrest in one of Iraq's biggest cities, Basra, has shaken up the country at a time of political instability. Basra is an oil hub, but people are poor and a water crisis has pushed them to the edge.

Anti-government protesters set fire to the Iranian consulate in Basra, Iraq. Security officials say forces guarding the building withdrew to prevent clashes with demonstrators.

More than a year after ISIS was driven out, residents are doing their best to rebuild in historic neighborhoods left in rubble. "Even if no one else came back," a shopkeeper says, "I would come back."

More than a year after the end of the battle of Mosul, the large Iraqi city still has neighborhoods in rubble and a traumatized people trying to rebuild their lives.

An Iraqi man looks back on seven decades in the city of Mosul, recalling the times of turmoil and horror but also savoring the city's better days.

Egypt is building a new capital about 30 miles away from overpopulated Cairo.

The protests sweeping Basra and other southern provinces in the past week threaten to destabilize Iraq's caretaker government.

Protests have gripped areas in southern Iraq for several days. The government has cut off access to the Internet, making it more difficult to get accurate information.

NPR recently visited the base, where 150 U.S. soldiers and Marines provide support for Iraqi and U.S.-backed Syrian forces.

A U.S. major general tours a remote outpost of troops along the Iraq-Syria border, where U.S. Marines and soldiers fire into Syria to hit ISIS targets and help secure the relative calm in Iraq.

NPR travels with a U.S. general as he tours the remote border of Iraq and Syria, where U.S. troops are shelling ISIS targets and trying to secure Iraq.

About 3,800 objects purchased by Hobby Lobby were returned to Iraq in May. Some come from an ancient Sumerian city, Irisagrig, and indicate that life there was "pretty good," an archaeologist says.

Antiquities that had been smuggled into the U.S. and bought by Hobby Lobby, the craft store giant, are headed back to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, Iraq's main archeological museum.

Homosexuality isn't illegal in Egypt but human rights groups say other laws have been used to target LGBT Egyptians. "Prison killed me. It destroyed me," says an Egyptian woman jailed after a concert.

The battle that the United Nations and aid agencies have feared in the Yemen civil war has begun. A Saudi-led coalition began its attack on a major port city with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.

The U.S.-backed coalition says it aims to oust Iranian-sponsored Houthi rebels, but aid groups warn of potentially high civilian casualties.