Kentucky regulators have reached agreement with Prosper Marketplace Inc. in a case involving hundreds of state residents and the sale of unregistered securities, the Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions announced Wednesday.

Christmastime and the new year send television into overdrive with specials and holiday-themed episodes. What stands out? Here's a look at noteworthy programs and a countdown to the most special of all specials.

CINCINNATI — It spread like a cold virus through a day care center.

Irish historian Peter R. L. Brown and Indian historian Romila Thapar have been chosen as co-recipients of the $1 million John W. Kluge Prize, a Library of Congress achievement award for the study of humanities.

British police say a trash collector can hold on to the mound of mutilated cash he found stuffed into a wastebasket in the English town of Lincoln earlier this year.

Extendicare, the large health-care chain that owns the Richmond nursing home where the staff was videotaped abusing and neglecting an 84-year-old Alzheimer's patient, has big plans to profit from the aging of the Baby Boomers.

The one that didn't get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man. The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.

On the eve of congressional hearings, union leaders agreed to concessions on Wednesday, removing a roadblock to a proposed rescue of the U.S. auto industry as Congress weighs whether to give carmakers $34 billion in emergency aid or allow them to face bankruptcy.