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King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia has died. He was 90 and had been hospitalized for a lung infection. Abdullah was born before Saudi Arabia was even a country. It was the early 1920s, and his father, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, set out to conquer the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula.

For the sixth time since Saudi Arabia's founder, Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, died in 1953, one of his sons has ascended to the throne, and it took place Friday without a hitch. When King Abdullah died early Friday at age 90, his half-brother, Salman, was named the new monarch within an hour.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has died. The health of Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud had previously been the subject of rumors; word emerged earlier this month that he was indeed ill with a lung infection. Abdullah was 90 years old. He ruled Saudi Arabia for nearly 10 years, having assumed the throne after his brother King Fahd died in 2005.

When it comes to females and sports, Saudi Arabia is starting to change. Saudi Arabia sent its first female competitors to the Olympics in 2012, after years of sending only men. The public schools, like many institutions, are segregated by gender, and only boys have been allowed to play sports.

The Kurds are involved in several Middle East dramas at the moment. Yet they live in multiple countries across the region and are playing different roles in different places. In Iraq, Kurdish fighters are working closely with the U.S. to battle the Islamic State.

At a front-line outpost - a few sandbags, soldiers and grenades perched on the brow of a hill - the Iraqi Kurdish soldiers known as Peshmerga are looking out toward the town of Jalula, maybe three miles away. A few months ago, the so-called Islamic State seized Jalula in eastern Iraq.

In Iraq, Kurdish militiamen fighting the group that calls itself the Islamic State are key American allies. In Syria, some Kurdish fighters battling the very same Islamic State are considered part of a terrorist group, according to the U.S. government. What gives?

High Ranking officer is claiming that Sadam Hussein's core group of officers has influenced events in the militant underworld.

New threat from the Naqshbandi Sufi militant group,

During Egypt's 2011 revolution, activist Dalia Ziada assumed all of the male protesters around her were fighting for her rights, too. But the following years told a different story. NPR's Host Jacki Lyden talks with Ziada about the evolution of women's rights in Egypt from the 2011 uprising to the current upheaval.