Few memories haunt Republicans more deeply than the 1995-96 partial shutdown of the federal government, which helped President Bill Clinton reverse his falling fortunes and recast House Republicans as stubborn partisans, not savvy insurgents.

Now, as Congress careens toward a budget impasse, government insiders wonder if another shutdown is imminent — and whether Republicans again would suffer the most blame.

Leaders of both parties say they are determined to avoid a shutdown. But they have not yielded on the amount of spending cuts they will demand or accept. Meanwhile, shutdown talk is rippling through Washington and beyond.

"It's good for political rhetoric to talk about a government shutdown. But I don't know anybody that wants that to happen," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said on "Fox News Sunday."

Behind the scenes, Senate officials are spending Congress' President's Day recess week poring over the spending proposal passed by the House early Saturday, according to one Democratic leader.

Jurors in some Lake County cases won't get free lunches while serving because budget cuts have forced judges to halt a practice of using public money to feed them.

The changes affect Lake Superior Civil Division Courts but not jurors serving in the better-funded Lake Circuit and Lake Criminal Courts.

Chief Superior Court Judge John Pera said he is frustrated and embarrassed by the move to end lunch payments, a change that is the result of 30 percent spending cuts over the last two years. The civil courts already are at a disadvantage with other courts that receive revenue from tax and user fees that aren't shared, The Times in Munster reported.

"We struggled long and hard over every penny in our budget to see where we can cut and still provide the same level of service the public expects," Pera said.

A former juvenile court judge defiantly insisted he never accepted money for sending large numbers of children to detention centers even after he was convicted of racketeering for taking a $1 million kickback from the builder of the for-profit lockups.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella was allowed to remain free pending sentencing following his conviction Friday in what prosecutors said was a "kids for cash" scheme that ranks among the biggest courtroom frauds in U.S. history.

Ciavarella, 61, left the bench in disgrace two years ago after he and a second judge, Michael Conahan, were accused of using juvenile delinquents as pawns in a plot to get rich. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has dismissed 4,000 juvenile convictions issued by Ciavarella, saying he sentenced young offenders without regard for their constitutional rights.

Ciavarella maintained the payments were legal and denied that he incarcerated youths for money.

"Never took a dime to send a kid anywhere. ... Never happened. Never, ever happened. This case was about extortions and kickbacks, not about 'kids for cash,'" said Ciavarella, who plans to appeal.

President Barack Obama says improving math and science education is essential to helping the U.S. compete globally, and he wants the private sector to get involved in making it happen.

Obama recorded his weekly radio and Internet address during a visit this past week to Intel Corp. outside of Portland, Ore. He praised the company for making a 10-year, $200 million commitment to promote math and science education — and held it up as an example of how corporate America can make money at the same time it builds the country.

"Companies like Intel are proving that we can compete — that instead of just being a nation that buys what's made overseas, we can make things in America and sell them around the globe," Obama said. "Winning this competition depends on the ingenuity and creativity of our private sector. . But it's also going to depend on what we do as a nation to make America the best place on earth to do business."

Obama's West Coast swing, which also included a dinner with big names in California's Silicon Valley, was part of his push to promote a budget proposal that increases spending on education, research and development and high-speed Internet, while cutting other areas. Republicans newly in control of the House are pushing much deeper cuts and resisting new spending.

A Texas man on Nebraska's death row for killing two men has appealed his case to the state Supreme Court.

Marco Torres Jr., formerly of Pasadena, Texas, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and other charges in the 2007 shooting deaths of two Grand Island men, 48-year-old Timothy Donohue and 60-year-old Edward Hall.

Prosecutors said Torres fled to Texas after the shootings and burned Hall's car in a remote area. He was arrested in Houston.

Torres is asking the high court to throw out his conviction because some evidence shouldn't have been allowed, and his objection to the sentencing process shouldn't have resulted in a death sentence, among other things. Arguments will be heard March 2.

A Florida Supreme Court ruling that threw out a $145 billion award against cigarette makers is biting Big Tobacco back, making it dramatically easier for thousands of smokers to sue and turning the state into the nation's hot spot for damage awards.

The 2006 ruling has helped generate more than $360 million in damage awards in only about two dozen cases. Thousands more cases are in the pipeline in Florida, which has far more smoking-related lawsuits pending than any other state.

Though the justices tossed the $145 billion class-action damage award, they allowed about 8,000 individual members of that class to pursue their own lawsuits. And in a critical decision, they allowed those plaintiffs to use the original jury's findings from the class-action case.

That means the plaintiffs don't have to prove that cigarette makers sold a defective and dangerous product, were negligent, hid the risks of smoking and that cigarettes cause illnesses such as lung cancer and heart disease. The plaintiffs must mainly show they were addicted to smoking and could not quit, and that their illness — or a smoker's death — was caused by cigarettes.

Jurors have sided with smokers or their families in about two-thirds of the 34 cases tried since February 2009, when the first Florida lawsuit following the rules set by the Supreme Court decision went before a jury. Awards have ranged from $2 million or less to $80 million, though tobacco companies are appealing them all.