Jane Arraf

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis is stressing efforts against Iran and changing the U.S. tone in the region with visits to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Human Rights are lower on the agenda.

Venezuelan activists are calling for mass protests on Wednesday. Also, Sabrina Siddiqui of The Guardian talks about Georgia's runoff election, and an Egyptian-American aid worker has been released.

Defense Secretary James Mattis is traveling to Saudi Arabia at the start of a trip to several countries in the Middle East. We look at what the trip means for U.S. foreign relations.

Egyptian authorities say no tourists were involved but one security officer was killed and four others injured. The ancient monastery is about 130 miles from the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh.

More than 300,000 civilians are still trapped in northern Iraq's Mosul. ISIS has kept them there as human shields to prevent the U.S. and Iraq from launching airstrikes and mortars against them.

After three years in detention, Egypt has cleared Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker accused of child abuse and human trafficking. The case was emblematic of Egypt's crackdown on aid groups.

An investigation into U.S.-launched airstrikes targeting ISIS and killing an estimated 150 civilians last month is underway. Survivors say families were forcibly packed into houses by ISIS fighters.

Survivors of last month's U.S. airstrike on the Iraqi city of Mosul, which targeted ISIS but is suspected of killing scores of civilians, talk about why they were in the houses that collapsed on them.

The Iraqi commander coordinating the battle tells NPR the Iraqi military will slow an offensive pushing into the crowded old district of the city, using fewer U.S. and Iraqi air strikes.

Amgad Naguib collects old ticket stubs, wigs, letters and toothbrushes that he says tell Egypt's history. "I am sure I have more dresses and hats and handbags than you and all your friends," he says.

A New York-based group of medics is working near the frontlines in Mosul, giving emergency care to Iraqi troops fighting ISIS.

As the fight to push ISIS out of Mosul grinds on, civilians stream out of liberated areas that are unlivable, and Iraqi forces "clear" areas of holdouts and fire mortars at remaining ISIS areas.

Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak is a free man for the first time in six years. He was freed from house arrest at a military hospital after being cleared of claims he ordered Arab Spring protesters shot.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was freed Friday morning after six years in detention. His lawyers say he has left a military hospital where he has essentially been under house arrest.

In the Syrian desert near Jordan's border, some 60,000 refugees live in dire conditions. A trip with the Jordanian military provided a glimpse of the Rukban camp. Few outsiders have seen it.

He landed in Chicago for a graduation celebration trip after President Trump's travel ban took effect on citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries. He was held overnight in a cell and then sent back.

A Jordanian man was one of scores who lawyers say was coerced into giving up his visa at a U.S. airport during the first days of President Trump's travel restrictions. He's back in Amman.

The Trump administration is considering listing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. It's banned in some countries but considered a mainstream political group elsewhere in the Mideast.

With a temporary lifting of President Trump's ban on refugee admissions to the U.S., Syrian families have been getting back on flights they were bumped off last week.

Syrian refugees in Jordan who had flights cancelled by the Trump administration travel ban began receiving calls on Sunday from a U.N. agency asking if they are prepared to travel on Monday.