Legislators will prepare this week for the task of redrawing the political district lines. Tim Storey, a senior fellow from the National Conference of State Legislatures, on Thursday will explain the process and history of political redistricting to the legislators who will start the process either in a special session or the next regular session of the General Assembly in 2012. The state redistricts political boundaries once every decade to reflect the population changes shown by the U.S. Census.

There was a 0.8 percent drop in sales of existing homes in June from May, the National Association of Realtors just reported. They dipped to an annual rate of 4.77 million.

According to NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, there was "an unusual spike in contract cancellations in the past month."

In a sweltering airplane hangar, Gov. Steve Beshear on Tuesday afternoon delivered refreshing news: Three Henderson industries intend to create up to 47 new jobs and invest more than $4 million here. “It’s a further indication that we are on the right track,” Beshear said, commending the “vibrant companies and smart entrepreneurs that are determined to not just survive the recession, but thrive and grow.”

The data on default rates of student loans doesn't look favorable for Maysville Community and Technical College. But Dr. Ed Story, president of MCTC cautions the data isn't official yet and Kentucky Community and Technical College staff are working with the U.S. Department of Education to verify the official default rate for MCTC. "Even if it's close to that, we're not very happy with it," said Story of a recent news article that indicates MCTC has a 29 percent three-year default rate on student loans.

Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation.

Ed Kilgore is a special correspondent for The New Republic.

Jeffrey H. Anderson was the senior speechwriter for Secretary Mike Leavitt at the Department of Health and Human Services.

President Obama repeatedly insists that the debt ceiling must be raised by at least $2.4 trillion. Why this particular amount, rather than, say, an even $1 trillion or $2 trillion? Because $2.4 trillion is Obama's estimate for what it would take to get him through the next election without needing to deal with another debt ceiling battle. In other words, $2.4 trillion is a politically generated figure.

As the United Nations escalates its dire warnings about what's happening in the Horn of Africa, declaring today that drought and famine in southern Somalia threaten millions of people, NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports from a refugee camp in Kenya that an area straddling Somalia, Ethiopia and northern Kenya has been dubbed "the triangle of death."

Are organic foods all they're cracked up to be?

Saying it's the "largest aircraft order in aviation history," American Airlines just announced that it plans to buy at least 460 fuel-efficient "narrowbody" passenger jets between 2013 and 2022.

The purchases are to be split between Boeing and Europe's Airbus, the company says: