There's a new explanation for why the citizens of Clintonville, Wis., have been hearing booms this week:

There was a 0.9 percent drop in sales of existing homes in February from January, the National Association of Realtors reports. But, at an annualized rate of 4.59 million they were still up 8.8 percent from February 2011.

"The market is trending up unevenly," NAR chief economist Lawarence Yun concludes in a statement from the association.

President Obama will nominate Dartmouth College president, Jim Yong Kim, to head the World Bank. A physician and anthropologist by training and global-health expert, Kim's background makes him an out-of-the-box choice. He would become the first Asian American to head the important international funding organization.

Update at 10:12 a.m. ET. It's Official:

"It's time for a development professional to lead the world's largest development agency," President Obama just said as he announced he is nominating Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank.

Our original post:

"President Barack Obama will nominate Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank," The Associated Press reports, citing "senior administration officials" as its sources.

On Saturday Louisiana holds its Republican presidential primary, and Friday all four remaining candidates will be campaigning in the state. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, both of whom have won other Southern primaries, have been in and out of Louisiana all week, hoping to keep their slim chances at the GOP nomination alive with another win there.

Neither a balky sound system nor a gale that delayed Santorum's motorcade dampened the enthusiasm of members of the Mandeville Tea Party earlier this week.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A bill to establish a National Conservation Area that would give permanent protection 1,000 acres of unique landscapes in the San Juan Islands is wending its way through Congress. A key committee took up the legislation Thursday.

Along with the word that U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be formally charged with murder today for the deaths of unarmed Afghan men, women and children on March 11, was the news that the death toll had grown to 17. Until Thursday afternoon, U.S. military officials had consistently said that 16 people were killed.

As The Associated Press has reported, officials made the change without offering a public explanation for it.

KENNEWICK, Wash. – The massive factory being built to treat radioactive sludge at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation has serious design problems, especially with huge mixing containers meant to treat that waste. That’s according to testimony by top Department of Energy officials and federal contractors at a hearing in Kennewick Thursday night. Correspondent Anna King was there.

KENNEWICK, Wash. – Top managers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation say they’re going to have to reexamine key components of a massive waste treatment plant under construction in southeast Washington. That’s according to testimony at a marathon hearing in Kennewick Thursday. The federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board was there to listen to concerns about the plant being built to treat 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. Correspondent Anna King reports.