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The North Dakota oil boom has produced a housing shortage — and workers are living in company-owned "man camps" like this one outside the town of Williston.

New Boom Reshapes Oil World, Rocks North Dakota

Breakthrough technology is allowing previously untapped oil to be drilled in the U.S., Canada and South America. And experts say that's moving the global energy supply's center of gravity away from the Middle East and toward the Americas. In a decade, they say, that could make the U.S. a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia. Small towns like Williston, N.D., are reaping the benefits — and bearing the burdens — of the boom.

Sakina sits with her 18-month-old son, Shafiq, at a women's shelter in Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan, last October. Sakina spent seven months in prison for leaving a forced marriage. The Afghan government recently backed down from a plan to take control of women's shelters, and women's groups are hailing it as a victory.

Afghan Women Fight Back, Preserve Shelters

Women's groups in Afghanistan rose up in protest when the government said it was planning to take control of women's shelters. After months of discussion, the government backed down. The shelters will remain independent and are able to receive money from donors.

Egyptian demonstrators protest against the emergency law in front of the Interior Ministry in Cairo on Friday. The country's military rulers announced last week that the Hosni Mubarak-era measure would remain in effect until at least next June.

In Egypt, Mubarak-Era Emergency Law To Stay

Critics say Egypt's military rulers are using the law, which allows for arbitrary arrests and harsh sentences, to impose their will. The government says it had no choice but to employ the measure after a mob attack on the Israeli Embassy earlier this month.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) at the Capitol last week.

Shutdown Showdown Continues: Senate Has Key Vote Today

Lawmakers in Washington are still at odds over how to put some more money into the coffers of the stretched-thin Federal Emergency Management Agency. If the dispute isn't settled by the end of the week, part of the government might have to shut down.

Voters waited in long lines in Birmingham, Ala., to cast their ballots in the 2008 presidential elections. But next year, the lines across the country may be longer as state election offices face budget cuts.

Voters May Face Slower Lines In 2012 Elections

Facing cutbacks, election offices across the country are making tough decisions, such as trimming the number of voting sites and shortening the number of days for early voting. Doug Lewis, who runs The Election Center, says that at the very least, voters should be prepared for slower lines in 2012.

The day's news includes word that two people, one of them an American, were killed at a CIA station in Kabul.

Living People To Appear On Stamps For First Time

But which acclaimed American should be featured first? The U.S. Postal Service is inviting suggestions from the public after ending its longstanding rule that people cannot appear on a stamp while they're still living.

Construction at the new Nemours Children's Hospital, at the medical city at Lake Nona, Fla., in late 2010.

Growth Of Children's Hospitals Raises Adult-Size Questions

Most big children's hospitals are nonprofits, but you wouldn't know that looking at the bottom lines of many of them. They're pouring billions of dollars into new buildings, adding beds and equipment and staff at the same time Washington, the states and employers grapple with health care spending.

A man stands in a sewage-filled street in Fallujah in 2010. The Fallujah wastewater treatment system was left unfinished more than four years past the initial deadline. The sewage facility is among hundreds of projects funded by U.S. taxpayers that remain abandoned or incomplete, wasting more than $5 billion, according to auditors.

The Greedy Battle For Iraq's 'Hearts And Minds'

In 2009, Peter Van Buren joined a team working to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and economy. For the next year, he encountered comically misguided projects, greedy contractors and oblivious bureaucrats. In his new book, We Meant Well, he recounts the ground-level waste and corruption he saw.

Workers clear the wreckage of a July 23 high-speed-train collision in Wenzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang province. The crash killed 40 people and raised questions about the safety of the country's high-speed-rail network, which the Chinese government has held up as an example of its technological prowess and with which it had hoped to attract overseas buyers.

From Progress To Problem: China's High-Speed Trains

Nearly two months after a collision on China's high-speed-rail network killed 40 people, the government is still investigating why it happened. But critics blame the haste with which the network was built, corruption and a disregard for human life.

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