NPR News

In September 1991, Aseel Albanna was about to finish her last year of architecture school in Baghdad. Wanting a break from the years of war and hardship, she took a trip to the U.S. But a planned four-week visit turned into a 20-year stay.

Family members in Kentucky arranged for her to complete her architecture degree at the University of Kentucky. She then lived and worked in Louisville until she moved to Washington, D.C., in 2005.

There's a solar trade war going on inside the U.S., sparked by an invasion of inexpensive imports from China.

The U.S. solar industry is divided over these imports: Panel-makers say their business is suffering and want a tariff slapped on the imports. But other parts of the industry say these cheap panels are driving a solar boom in the U.S.

Language Advisory: The songs linked to in this article contain lyrics that some listeners may find offensive.

As many people head back to the gym this month, we're doing our part to help with The Ultimate NPR Workout Mix.

We're asking people what songs make them move, and it turns out music is just as important for motivating professional athletes as it is for the rest of us. We caught up with Los Angeles Lakers forward Matt Barnes after a recent practice --he says that before games, it's all about one rapper.

The bone-thinning disease called osteoporosis is a big problem for women past menopause. It causes painful spine fractures and broken hips that plunge many women into a final downward spiral.

So it seemed to make sense to monitor older women's bones on a regular basis to see when they need to start taking drugs that prevent bone loss and fractures. Since Medicare will pay for a bone-density scan every two years, that's what many women have been getting.

This week, reports have started to filter out of the remote northern mountains of Mexico that the Tarahumara indians are facing hunger. The indians were immortalized by the book Born To Run, in which writer Christopher McDougall paints a portrait of a proud tribe that thrives on long distance running — a tribe that with little in their stomachs and even less on their feet, puts to shame even the best American ultra-marathoners.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich is most in his element when he's fighting against social injustice.

Wherever he sees an outrage against the little guy, you'll find the Ohio Democrat railing against it – like at a recent public meeting about a new trash-to-energy facility Cleveland wants to install in a west side neighborhood.

Now that President Obama has made his decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, an obvious question is what will it mean for the 2012 presidential election?

Obviously, no one really knows the answer to that though that won't stop weeks if not months of speculation.

The key to Keystone is, which side will have the most success in framing its case to enough voters for it to make a difference?