FRANKFORT, Ky.— A Kentucky child killer who asked a court to be put to death could have his wish granted as early as next month.

The Kentucky Supreme Court issued an order Thursday clearing the way for Marco Allen Chapman’s execution. Chapman asked that public defenders not be allowed to file additional appeals because he wants to be executed for the murders of two children in the northern Kentucky town of Warsaw in 2002. Chapman has said the delays merely “drag out the misery” for himself and the family of the two children he killed. His defense attorneys called his request for a speedy execution “suicide by court.” Under state law, the execution would go forward on Nov. 21 unless another appeal is filed.

Town’s parade draws fire for dropping ‘Christmas’

PATCHOGUE, N.Y.— A famed fireworks company is pulling out of a holiday boat parade because “Christmas” was dropped from the event’s name.

Fireworks by Grucci won’t lend its sparkle to Patchogue’s Nov. 23 parade — decorated yachts on the Patchogue River — because the organizers have renamed it the Patchogue Holiday Boat Parade. It was the Patchogue Christmas Boat Parade last year, when the Grucci company donated $5,000 worth of fireworks.

The company’s vice president, Philip Butler, who has criticized the secularization of Christmas in the past, said parade organizers were “using all the themes of Christmas and plagiarizing all those themes.” Organizers in the Long Island town said the parade has had several names over its roughly 15-year existence. The name was changed again this year after complaints that the use of “Christmas” seemed to make the parade less inclusive. “When I think about fireworks, I don’t think about Christmas anyway,” Mayor Paul Pontieri said. “I think about the Fourth of July.” The venerable Grucci company is famous for providing spectacular fireworks displays at major national celebrations. It is based in Brookhaven, not far from Patchogue.

Al Gore delivers environmental message at Harvard

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— Al Gore returned to his alma mater to help Harvard University launch its new greenhouse gas reduction effort.

The former vice president and 1969 Harvard graduate, told a campus audience on Wednesday that it’s time to find ways to make better use of knowledge to save the global environment. Riffing off Harvard’s Latin motto of “truth,” he said the challenge is to find truth in the climate crisis and “use that as a basis of a new concept of who we are.” Gore, who has shared the Nobel Peace Prize and starred in the Academy Award-winning global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” also received an annual service award.

Associated Press reports