Republican attorney general candidate Todd P’Pool announced Thursday that former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson and former University of Kentucky basketball player Travis Ford will headline a fundraiser for him in October. Grayson served as Kentucky Secretary of State from 2003 to 2011, before taking a position in January as the Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University.

Democratic Governor Steve Beshear has picked up another endorsement from a noted Republican politician. Former Sixth District Congressman Larry Hopkins says he has nothing against GOP Challenger, David Williams, but he believes Beshear is doing a good job and should be re-elected.

Senior citizens across central Kentucky who are looking to hire someone for help around the house now have an online resource to connect with other seniors. The Bluegrass Area Agency on Aging and Independent Living is teaming up with the city of Lexington and the AARP to launch the new website, called the Bluegrass Help at Home Registry. 

An exhibition basketball game between Georgetown University's Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets descended into a brawl and then a full-on melee Thursday, one day after visiting Vice President Joe Biden stopped by to watch Georgetown play another team, the Shanxi Brave Dragons, in Beijing.

Both the Rockets and the Brave Dragons are professional teams. In Wednesday's game, the Hoyas beat the Brave Dragons, 98-81.

Beginning Friday and continuing through Monday, Sept. 5, Kentucky State Police will participate in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" campaign.  KSP will partner with the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety and local law enforcement agencies across the state. The nationwide initiative is a concerted effort by all law enforcement agencies to reduce alcohol-related injury and fatality crashes by targeting impaired drivers.

The ordinance regulating Clark County pawnbrokers and precious metal dealers aimed at helping people recover goods stolen, often for drug money, has come full circle, and two others are one step closer to enactment. On Tuesday, the Winchester Board of Commissioners approved the second reading of an ordinance requiring pawnbrokers to hold items bought without a pawn agreement for 10 days before reselling them, and precious metal dealers to hold their bought goods for five days before recycling or reselling them. It also requires them to report goods received to law enforcement by 11 a.m. daily.

With prescription drug overdoses the leading cause of accidental deaths in Kentucky, state House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, is calling on the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure to better monitor doctors who over-prescribe pain medication. If the board does not take action, Stumbo is prepared to look for an agency that will, he said in a news release. Kentucky loses 82 people a month to drug overdose deaths, said Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug to treat advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The drug got the green light faster than many other drugs under review, and advocates of personalized medicine say this bodes well for other gene-based drugs in development.

Anna Hazare will be allowed to stage a 15-day public hunger strike in New Delhi. As we reported yesterday, Hazare was in a standoff with the Indian government, which arrested him for planning a protest without a permit.

Police have been flown into the tiny Pacific resort island of Aitutaki, where officials say their bank has been robbed — a first for the small, tight-knit community. Part of the Cook Islands, Aitutaki is famous for its beaches, which ring a large lagoon full of clear, ice-blue water.

Tourism is the island's biggest industry — and that has local officials thinking that the shocking bank robbery was perpetrated by a visitor, not a resident.