Attorneys involved in the gay marriage case said Tuesday that couples can begin picking up marriage license applications sometime on or after Nov. 10. A judge at the New Haven Superior Court, where the case began in 2004, still must decide the precise date.

The state Supreme Court's decision allowing same-sex marriages became official Tuesday with its publication in the Connecticut Law Journal. The publication triggered a 10-day period when motions for reconsideration can be filed.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said after that period ends on Nov. 10, the Superior Court judge can act on the high court's ruling.

The judgment may come later that week because Nov. 10 is a Monday, a busy day for the Superior Court, and Tuesday is a state holiday.

The state Department of Public Health is having new marriage applications printed that reflect the change. Instead of putting one name under "bride" and the other under "groom," couples will see two boxes marked "bride/groom/spouse." The new forms are expected to be shipped out to city and town clerks later this week.

The old court was dissolved on Sunday under a new constitution that took effect last week. The temporary 21-member court chosen at random from the ranks of the 31 former justices is supposed to operate until a permanent body takes over in 2009.

Judges warned last week that they would refuse to take seats determined by the "degrading" lottery.

Ex-justice Mauro Teran was the first to reject his seat following Wednesday's selection. He said the rest would follow suit, and called the lottery "an affront to the judicial office."

It is not clear what officials will do if all the judges refuse their seats.

Ragip and Kemal Shabani channeled 1.5 tons of heroin through Europe from the mid-1990s until 2003, when they were shut down, prosecutors said. They used a small town in Kosovo as their base with branches in Macedonia, Albania, Spain and the Czech Republic, according to the Federal Criminal Court.

The trial — considered one of Switzerland's largest-ever drug cases — was held under high security in the southern town of Bellinzona, with only some relatives and journalists allowed into the courtroom.

Judge Jean-Luc Bacher sentenced Ragip Shabani to 15 years in prison for breaking Swiss narcotics law, and ordered the 42-year-old to pay 300,000 francs ($261,400) in court costs.

Kemal Shabani, 28, was given only a two-year suspended sentence for participating in a criminal organization, and was charged 90,000 francs ($78,400) in court costs.

Sen. Dianne Wilkerson was charged with attempted extortion as a public official and theft of honest services as a state senator. She did not enter a plea during an initial court appearance Tuesday.

She faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.

Wilkerson, 53, lost the Democratic primary in September to former teacher Sonia Chang-Diaz despite support from Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick. She is running a write-in campaign for the Nov. 4 election, in hopes of retaining the seat she has held since 1993.

Wilkerson was ordered Tuesday to have no contact with witnesses and retain any documents related to the extortion case or to her personal finances.

In asking for those conditions, Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil said Wilkerson has a "long history of acting as if she is above the law."

Wilkerson's attorney, Max Stern, said she would obey the judge. She has been released on an unsecured $50,000 bond.

The girl's father, Jon E. Pomeroy, 43, and stepmother, Rebecca A. Long, 44, each could face three to four years in prison if convicted of criminal mistreatment.

King County Superior Court Judge Cheryl Carey ordered the couple to avoid contact with the girl and her 12-year-old brother, who are both in foster care. The couple declined to comment afterward.

The couple was charged on Oct. 13, two months after the girl was removed from the home near Carnation, about 20 miles east of Seattle, by the state Department of Social and Health Services.

In court documents, a deputy sheriff described the girl as "extremely skinny and pale" and found she weighed only 48 pounds.

Court documents also said that doctors who evaluated the girl found that she was extremely malnourished and that she hadn't gained weight since she was 9.

The girl told investigators she was allowed about 6 ounces of water each day, and was monitored by Long to keep from drinking extra water. Pomeroy was aware of her treatment but did nothing to stop it, the girl said.

Long told police that she used the water restriction to punish her stepdaughter. The son was not similarly mistreated.

Both Long and Pomeroy had been released from the King County Jail after each posted $20,000 bond.

"I believe it's finally going to be over. I'm getting myself prepared to be done and get it over with," Marco Allen Chapman told The Associated Press.

Defense attorneys this week asked the state Supreme Court to stay the 36-year-old's execution, set for Nov. 21. Even though Chapman dismissed his lawyers in 2004 before pleading guilty to murder, public defenders have continued to file motions on his behalf, questioning his competency.

Attorneys have also filed motions arguing that he shouldn't be put to death until appeals are exhausted in a separate case questioning Kentucky's execution protocol. That case is pending before the state Supreme Court.

Chapman has been found competent three times. He has sued public defenders, seeking an order to stop them from filing additional appeals. He says he wants to be executed for murdering 6-year-old Cody Sharon and 7-year-old Chelbi Sharon in the northern Kentucky town of Warsaw in August 2002.

The Kentucky Attorney General's office asked the state's high court on Tuesday to call off any more competency tests and allow Chapman to be executed.

If the lethal injection goes forward, he would become the first Kentucky inmate put to death since 1999.

Chapman remains hopeful that the court proceedings are swiftly concluded and says he's sorting through what could be the final details of his life.

"We're still working on things, like what to do with my remains," Chapman said.

In a television ad this week, Dole questioned the Christian credentials of Democratic challenger Kay Hagan. The state senator responded angrily, filing a lawsuit on Thursday and airing an ad of her own that says Dole is breaking the Bible's Ninth Commandment by bearing false witness.

The two candidates are locked in one of the nation's closest Senate races. An Associated Press-GfK poll released this week found Hagan has a slight edge. The pair has spent months swapping negative ads, but even some Republicans think Dole's assertions about Hagan and her faith have gone too far.

"It's pretty risky," said Republican political consultant Carter Wrenn, who worked for the late Jesse Helms, the senator Dole replaced in Washington six years ago. "Anytime you start questioning somebody's religion, you're getting on thin ice."

Dole was once considered such a sure thing that Democrats struggled to recruit a challenger for a Senate seat that has been in Republican hands for 35 years. But a surge in Democratic registrations and excitement surrounding the party's presidential nominee Barack Obama have boosted Hagan's campaign.

Dole's 30-second advertisement shows clips of some members of an atheist advocacy group — the Godless Americans Political Action Committee — talking about some of their goals, such as taking "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and removing "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency. It goes on to question why Hagan went to a fundraiser at the home of a man who serves as an adviser to the group.

"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took Godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?" the narrator says.

The ad ends with a picture of Hagan while another woman declares in the background, "There is no God!"

Hagan is a Presbyterian church elder who teaches Sunday school. On Wednesday, her attorneys demanded the ad come down within 24 hours. On Thursday, Hagan's attorneys filed a lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court accusing Dole of defamation and libel.

"Each airing of the advertisement further injures (Hagan's) good name and reputation in the community," Hagan's attorneys wrote in court documents. Thursday's court filing does not detail Hagan's full case against Dole, but allows Hagan 20 days to file the full complaint.

Dole's campaign says the ad does not question Hagan's faith, only her agenda and associations, and attorneys for Dole said in a letter to Hagan's legal team that the ad was factual. Dan McLagan, a Dole spokesman, said the campaign had no plans to pull the ad from the air and dismissed the lawsuit as a "silly political gimmick."

"This lawsuit is frivolous and we will file a motion to dismiss," he said. "Kay Hagan knows that the Dole campaign ad is accurate and she is trying to confuse voters until Election Day."

Hagan responded Thursday with an 30-second spot of her own. Referring to the Ninth Commandment in the Old Testament, Hagan says the campaign is about creating jobs and fixing the economy, "not bearing false witness against fellow Christians."

"Elizabeth Dole's attacks on my Christian faith are offensive," Hagan says in the ad. "She even faked my voice in her TV ad to make you think I don't believe in God. Well, I believe in God. I taught Sunday School. My faith guides my life, and Sen. Dole knows it."

The editorial board of The Charlotte Observer, the state's largest newspaper, compared Dole's ad to an infamous spot run in 1990 by Helms against challenger Harvey Gantt, who is black. That ad showed a pair of white hands crumpling a rejection letter, while a narrator slammed "racial quotas."

Wrenn, who helped write the so-called "hands" ad, said both ads were probably put together under similar circumstances.

"When you get down into the 11th hour of a campaign, the pressure gets up pretty high, and your sleep deprivation factor gets up pretty high," Wrenn said. "Sometimes you just lose your judgment a little bit."