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"Safe" isn't a defined engineering term. Planners must decide, based on risks and probabilities, how safe they want to make something — whether it's an airplane, bridge, or nuclear power plant. But sometimes it's hard to estimate exactly what the likelihood of a particular calamity might be.

Centuries ago, Afghanistan was a vital stop along the ancient Silk Road where cultures of the East and West converged. Artifacts from that rich cultural crossroads are currently on display at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. — after being hidden away for more than two decades in Kabul.

Frank Miller's 300

Iraq's southern marshlands were once as famous as the Florida Everglades; they supported a vibrant culture based on fishing, water-buffalo herding and reed gathering. The Marsh Arabs were on their way to restoring their old lives, but now a drought and government inaction are threatening the marshes.

Bad weather in key growing regions was among a confluence of factors driving world food prices to record levels, a U.N. analyst says. But the price spikes are giving U.S. farmers an incentive to boost production.

Every year since Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, it had taken in more money through payroll taxes than it paid out. Not anymore. Now, a nation that borrowed surplus revenues for decades has to start paying that money back. But where's it going to come from?

The Darker Side of Hope (And the Audacity of 'Our Posterity')

Now that House Republicans have voted to repeal President Obama's health care law— a largely symbolic act — their real work begins: trying to replace the law with what House Majority Leader Eric Cantor calls a "better alternative." Here's a look at what provisions may be on the table.

He served as the first director of the Peace Corps in the administration of his brother-in-law President John F. Kennedy. He was also Democrat George McGovern's running mate in 1972.

Federal agents in California recently busted a series of pot farms they say have all the markings of organized crime. The farms were found in unexpected places, many of them at suburban homes near Sacramento. Law enforcement officials say it's not an isolated problem. Seizures of indoor marijuana plants in the state were up 81 percent this year.