Associated Press

Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes is asking lawmakers to pass legislation next year to ensure that Kentucky soldiers deployed overseas are able to cast ballots. One of the measures Grimes proposed during a Capitol press conference on Wednesday would allow soldiers to return absentee ballots via email, lifting a requirement that ballots be send back via the U.S. Postal Service.

Female soldiers from Fort Campbell deploying to Afghanistan will field test the first Army body armor that is shorter and better tailored specifically to fit women's physiques. Members of a female engagement team from the 101st Airborne Division, who will be directly interacting with Afghan women during the coming deployment, have been equipped with the female prototypes of the newest generation of Army tactical vests.

Senator Richard Lugar says he will not campaign for the man who vanquished him in May's Republican primary.  Lugar told conservative Indiana blogger Abdul Hakim-Shabazz in an interview posted Monday that he would not actively support Republican Senate nominee Richard Mourdock on the campaign trail. 

The state Department of Education is withholding $3.4 million in funding from the public school system in Nashville over a rejected charter school. The Metro Nashville school board last week defied an order by the state Board of Education to approve the application from Phoenix-based Great Hearts Academies.

The Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority will start eight children on the road to college savings by opening accounts for them with initial $1,000 deposits. The children are the winners of a summer reading program sponsored by the KHEAA and the state Department for Library and Archives.