Stevenson, who represents Callahan, said he expects both Alabama execution dates to be called off.

"There is every indication these will be stayed. The question is by whom and when?" he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed only one execution to be carried out since it agreed to hear the Kentucky case. That execution occurred in Texas on Sept. 25, the same day the court agreed to take the Kentucky case.

Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said the U.S. Supreme Court has not ordered a halt to all executions.

"Hopefully the Supreme Court will allow these to go forward. You are talking about cases that have been litigated over 20 years," Crenshaw said.

Arthur had been scheduled to die Sept. 27, but Gov. Bob Riley delayed the execution temporarily to allow the state Department of Corrections to change its execution procedures. The new procedures provide more checks to make sure an inmate is unconscious before receiving drugs to stop the lungs and heart.

Arthur, 65, who has maintained his innocence, was sentenced to death for the Feb. 1, 1982 killing of Troy Wicker, 35, of Muscle Shoals. The victim's wife, Judy Wicker, testified she had sex with Arthur and paid him $10,000 to kill her husband, who was shot in the face as he lay in bed.

At the time of his arrest for the Wicker killing, Arthur was serving a sentence at a prison work release center for an earlier slaying.

Callahan, 60, was was convicted of the abduction and asphyxiation of Jacksonville State University student Rebecca Suzanne Howell, who disappeared from a Calhoun County washateria on Feb. 4, 1982.

Callahan and death row inmate Willie McNair have filed court suits challenging Alabama's legal injection procedures as unconstitutionally cruel. U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins has combined the two cases and tentatively scheduled them for trial the last week of November.

Later Wednesday, Ryan's lawyers took his fading hopes to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they asked Justice John Paul Stevens to keep Ryan out of prison while he asks the full court to step in.

"No jury trial is perfect — to be sure. But perhaps no federal trial has ever been as deeply and fundamentally flawed as this one," Ryan's attorneys wrote, saying his corruption conviction stemmed from chaotic and unfair jury deliberations.

Ryan's chief defense counsel, former Gov. James R. Thompson, acknowledged that getting the Supreme Court to set bond would be unusual.

Ryan, 73, has been free on bail since he was convicted in 2006 of steering state contracts to friends, using tax dollars to run his campaigns and covering up drivers license bribery.

The verdict capped one of Illinois' biggest political scandals, bringing with it nine years of investigations and trials that wrecked Ryan's career and sent dozens of others to jail.

"The voluminous record here demonstrates that the appellants were guilty of the crimes with which they were charged," Wood wrote.

Ryan and Warner had sought a new trial based on chaotic jury deliberations at the end of the trial. Two jurors were dismissed and replaced with alternates after the jury had deliberated for eight days. One juror brought an outside legal document into the jury room as a persuasive tool in defiance of the trial judge's instructions.

The appeals court said Ryan and Warner had shown no "reasonable probability" that the U.S. Supreme Court would take their case or reverse their convictions.

Ryan's wife, Lura Lynn, said when reached by phone at the couple's Kankakee home that her husband was not available. "We had not heard this," she said. "I have no comment."

Warner's attorney, Edward Genson, was not immediately available for comment, his office said.

Ryan has been assigned to the federal correctional institution at Duluth, Minn., a minimum security camp. But he is trying to get his assignment switched to the correctional center at Oxford, Wis.

Warner has been assigned to a federal prison in Colorado.

The lawyer, Ed Jacobs, refused to say if Robert Levy's agreement would be a guilty plea. Levy has not been charged with any crime.

"We're going to get it over with in one day of bad publicity," Jacobs said Wednesday.

Levy did not return a call seeking comment from The Associated Press. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office would not comment on the scheduled court appearance.

Levy was elected in 2005 to preside over a city where the political corruption is almost as famous as the casinos. Four of the last nine mayors have been charged with taking bribes; three men who were on the city council last year are now in prison in another bribery case.

Levy disappeared from city life in late September before resurfacing to resign on Oct. 10. He cited ill health and a federal investigation into his Vietnam war record as his reasons for leaving.

The Press of Atlantic City reported last fall that the Vietnam veteran's claims that he was a member of the Green Berets were untrue. He apologized, but federal authorities have been looking into whether Levy made that claim to increase his veteran benefit payments.

During his absence from city hall, Levy spent time in a substance abuse and mental health treatment center in northern New Jersey. Jacobs described the mayor's time there as "a detox situation."

Turkey's prime minister said Tuesday increased military action against separatist Kurdish rebels was "unavoidable" and pressed the United States for a crackdown on guerrilla bases in northern Iraq.

Turkish helicopters pounded rebel positions near the border with rockets for a second day and Turkey brought in troops by the truckload in an operation against mountainside emplacements.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told members of his party in parliament "it is now unavoidable that Turkey will have to go through a more intensive military process."

But he also suggested he was not seeking an immediate cross-border offensive against the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, holed up in bases in northern Iraq. "The responsibility of leadership does not allow for narrow mindedness, haste or heroism," he said.

"We must remember that Turkey is part of this world and diplomacy has certain requirements," Erdogan added, suggesting the world expected Turkey to exhaust all nonmilitary options.

Erdogan flies to Washington on Nov. 5 for talks with President Bush that could be key to whether Turkey carries out its threat of a major military incursion. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also expected in Turkey later this week.

"We will openly express that we expect urgent steps from the United States, which is our strategic partner and ally and has a special responsibility regarding Iraq," Erdogan said.

The United States, Iraq and other countries have been calling on Turkey to refrain from a cross-border campaign, which could throw one of the few stable areas in Iraq into chaos. A Turkish incursion would also put the United States in an awkward position with key allies: NATO-member Turkey, the Baghdad government and the self-governing Iraqi Kurds in the north.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush's discussions with Erdogan would include "the fight against terrorism _ in particular our joint efforts to counter the PKK."

Turkish Cobra attack helicopters blasted suspected PKK targets in the Mount Cudi area, near the southeastern border with Iraq for a second day, trying to hunt down some 100 rebels believed to be hiding in mountainside caves, the private Dogan news agency reported.

The fighting has claimed the lives of three Turkish soldiers and six guerrillas, local news reports said.

Transport helicopters flew in commando units to block possible rebel escape routes on Cudi, Dogan reported.

An AP Television News cameraman said attack helicopters escorted four Black Hawk helicopters on Cudi, as they airlifted soldiers to the mountain and picked others up. Smoke could be seen rising from areas that had been hit in the attacks.

Dogan reported a 100-vehicle military convoy traveling from Cizre toward the border.

A Kurdish political party warned that the fighting threatened to increase animosity between the Turkish and Kurdish populations in Turkey.

Turkey is "moving toward a dangerous war in our region which will seriously damage historical relations between Turks and Kurds," Nurettin Demirtas, a senior party official, told reporters.

Erdogan's Cabinet scheduled a meeting for Wednesday to discuss possible economic measures against groups supporting the Kurdish rebels.

Deputy Prime Minister Hayati Yazici said Turkey was considering a series of sanctions against the self-governing Kurdish administration in Iraq's north.

Yazici would not give any details, but the Iraqi region is heavily reliant on Turkish electricity and food imports, as well as Turkish investment in construction. There has been talk of shutting down the Habur border crossing _ the only vehicular route into Iraq from Turkey.

Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurd regional government, complained that economic sanctions "would represent a collective punishment against Kurdistan's people."

He warned that Turkey and the U.S. Army also would suffer if the border crossing was closed. About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military there.

In an interview printed Tuesday in Turkey's Milliyet newspaper, Massoud Barzani, the leader of Iraq's Kurdish region, called for a peaceful solution to the crisis. He said that if the PKK did not give up violence, it would "confront not only Turkey but the whole Kurdish nation."

But he questioned Turkey's motives, suggesting it is interested in targeting not only the PKK but also Iraqi Kurds.

At least 46 people have been killed by the PKK in Turkey over the past month, according to government and media reports. Those included at least 30 Turkish soldiers killed in two ambushes that were the boldest attacks in years and increased domestic pressure on Erdogan to act.

Earl Wesley Berry was set to be executed at 6 pm (2300 GMT Tuesday), but the procedure was halted when the Mississippi Department of Corrections received the ruling from the Supreme Court ordering a stay of execution at 5:41 pm (2241 GMT).

"Now that the United States Supreme Court has deemed the method of execution needs to be reviewed, the state (of Mississippi) will await the final order of the court," read a Department of Corrections statement.

"The agency will work within any newly established guidelines to ensure that executions are carried out in a constitutional manner."

The Supreme Court did not give reasons for the stay or say who voted for or against it, but an earlier Court statement said that two of the court's conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, opposed staying the execution.

Five votes of the seven top US justices must approve a stay of execution for it to be enacted.

Berry was on death row for killing a woman in 1987.

New details about the "protections" given Blackwater contractors allegedly involved in the shootings sparked outrage from congressional Democrats yesterday, along with a flood of letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from committee chairmen demanding more information.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who heads the Judiciary Committee as well as the appropriations subcommittee overseeing State's budget, called the contractor issue the latest example of the Bush administration's refusal to hold anyone from "their team" accountable for misconduct or incompetence. "If you get caught," Leahy said in a statement, "they will get you immunity. If you get convicted, they will commute your sentence."

Most of the questions centered on who had authorized what many critics interpreted as a form of immunity from prosecution and why such protections -- designed for government employees -- were extended to private contractors.

Meanwhile, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have reached agreement that the U.S. military command in Iraq will exert tighter controls over security contractors in Iraq, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said yesterday.

Preliminary guidelines established by a State-Defense working group include common training standards and rules for the use of force for contractors as well as coordination of all contractor "movements" with the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq. The new guidelines will be presented to the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker for review before Gates and Rice make a final decision in the matter, Morrell said.

Military officers have complained that contractors guarding U.S. diplomatic convoys interfere with military operations and that their aggressive behavior undermines efforts to win "hearts and minds" in Iraq.

One major concern for Gates involves keeping the military abreast of the movement of contractors through the combat zone, Morrell said. "If it is unsafe or deemed not advisable to go there, someone is going to have the control to say: 'No, not at this time.' It would be MNF-I [Multi-National Force-Iraq] that would have that authority. Ultimately, the military has to sign off, in the battle zone, of movements into particularly dangerous areas." The decision to offer Blackwater guards protection from any use of their statements was made by State Department personnel in Baghdad without approval from Washington, sources said. Department lawyers subsequently determined that decades-old federal court rulings required such guarantees against self-incrimination for all government employees during internal investigations; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that the protections also applied to federal contractors.

But the inability of State's own law enforcement branch to pursue a possible criminal case based on the Blackwater statements, as well growing controversy over the Sept. 16 shootings here and in Baghdad, led Rice early this month to ask the FBI to take over the investigation.

To avoid compromising their own investigation, a team of FBI agents sent to Baghdad was not allowed to speak to the original investigators about the case or see the statements. Some of the dozen or so Blackwater personnel involved, at least two of whom have returned to the United States, declined FBI interviews.

In a statement yesterday, the Justice Department confirmed that no broad immunity from prosecution had been granted. But in a reflection of law enforcement dismay over what are considered impediments to a criminal case, Justice added that it would proceed "knowing that this investigation involves a number of complex issues."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that State has no power to immunize anyone from federal criminal prosecution. "We would not have asked the FBI and the Department of Justice to get involved in a case that we did not think that they could potentially prosecute."

But several law enforcement officials, none of whom would speak on the record about an ongoing investigation, said it remained uncertain -- even without the protections -- whether the contractors could be prosecuted under U.S. law.