One proposal approved 21-17 by the Republican-led Senate would aim to save money by changing how health insurance benefits for teachers and government workers are managed.

The measure, now headed to the Democrat-led House, is key to the overall budget deal because it could be a trade-off to get Republicans to vote for tax increases.

The House passed bills to create incentives for Medicaid recipients to lead healthy lifestyles, among other reforms, which now are headed to the Senate.

Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm has told about 35,000 of the state's more than 53,000 workers not to report to work on Monday if a shutdown occurs. The remaining workers, mostly related to public health and safety, would stay on the job.

A partial state shutdown would mean most government operations would cease, including liquor deliveries, lottery ticket sales, the issuance of driver's licenses and construction on state roads.

Republicans have pushed Granholm to accept a temporary budget that would extend the one currently in place, giving legislators more time to craft a long term deal.

Granholm has said she won't sign a temporary budget unless she has assurances higher taxes to pay for education, public health and other programs are part of the deal.

Leaders in both the Democrat-led House and Republican-controlled Senate are optimistic a deal will be reached to avoid a shutdown.

"It's kind of like horse racing. If you're a horse that does well in the last sprint, you wait. But if you wait too long, there's going to be too much distance for you to catch up and you're not going to make it," said Steffen Schmidt, professor of political science at Iowa State University.

While supporters are impressed with Obama's signs of strength - his fund-raising prowess, the huge crowds at rallies, the Internet following - some are getting anxious that he hasn't risen in the polls.

"I am worried that he hasn't done more to close the gap," said a New York lawyer who has donated the maximum $2,300 to Obama's campaign and spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's positive that he hasn't fallen farther behind."

Preeta Bansal, a New York supporter, said she's not concerned.

"It's going to be a long fall. The race is just beginning and he's on fire," said Bansal, referring to recent stump speeches where she said he's been "superb."

New York City Councilman James Sanders, a Queens Democrat who supports Obama, conceded that supporters are "always concerned" and looking for the candidate to shine. But he said there's tremendous excitement for Obama, and real optimism that he can knock out Clinton.

"On the ground, the people, the groundswell is growing," Sanders said.

To overtake Clinton, the Obama campaign plans to drive home the message that the battle comes down to the following question: "Who do people think is most likely to bring about the change we need?"

David Axelrod, a top Obama adviser, said the Illinois senator won't hesitate to draw sharp contrasts with Clinton where contrasts are "germane and real." But don't expect a smackdown any time soon.

"I know there's a rooting interest, a kind of blood lust in the political community to see a kind of steel-cage match between Obama and Hillary," Axelrod said. "I don't think that's either politically smart or consistent with who he is."

The campaign has pinned much of its strategy on winning Iowa. Polls show Obama is in a close three-way race there with Clinton and John Edwards.

The campaign also has begun to deploy staff and build up ground operations in the states holding primaries on Feb. 5. And in the coming months, star supporter Oprah Winfrey "will do some things for us," Axelrod said.

Google is watching you. But you already knew that. Every time you conduct a search using its search engine, Google keeps tabs—and uses the information to send you ads tailored to the interests and tastes suggested by your searches.

Here's something you probably didn't know: The company may let you close the blinds, digitally speaking. Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told legislators on Sept. 27 that the company is exploring whether to let users keep Google from tracking the sites they're visiting. To do so, the company would enable Web surfers to shut off so-called cookies, the bits of code used to track the sites visited by individual computers and deliver ads related to those sites. Schmidt outlined that and other steps in an e-mail to Senator Charles Schumer read during a Senate hearing concerning Google's proposed purchase of DoubleClick. Google also is investigating technology that would keep user data collected from different sources from being concentrated in one place, and ways to better notify customers of Google's data-collection practices.

Government Influence

The proposals demonstrate the lengths to which Google may go in exchange for government approval of its planned $3.1 billion acquisition of online ad outfit DoubleClick, which specializes in ad placements across the Web. Senators on the Judiciary Committee also heard from Google opponents, including Microsoft, that would like to see the deal blocked. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told senators that they should not let the deal go forward without rules governing how information can be collected and used, and how long it can be kept.

Senators can't block the deal, but they can influence the thinking of the Federal Trade Commission, which will ultimately decide whether to let it go forward. The most likely scenario is that the FTC will propose restrictions on how Google and DoubleClick can combine the information they collect—if it decides to do anything at all. In July, the FTC approved a similar $6 billion acquisition by Microsoft of aQuantive, a DoubleClick competitor. The government agency also approved Yahoo!'s  $680 million acquisition of the 80% of online ad exchange Right Media that it did not yet own.

An Industry Issue

Opponents say owning DoubleClick will give Google too much control over online advertising, and in particular the user data collected and stored on Google's massive computers. Google counters by saying the whole online advertising industry is in the midst of consolidation. As the number of Web sites where people spend their time has grown, online ad giants have acquired ad networks to expand the number of users they can monitor and the number of sites on which they can place ads. In testimony before the committee, Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond argued that despite the search leader's success (more than 60% of searches are performed on the company's site and it brings in roughly 75% of all search ad revenue) it's no different from competing online advertising players, particularly Microsoft. "This is an industry issue," said Drummond. "That is how these issues should be worked out, not in the context of one company."

Google said it would welcome global privacy laws governing how Web companies obtain, combine, retain, and use the massive amounts of data collected on the Web surfing and searching habits on individual computers. But it doesn't want those rules to apply solely to its deal with DoubleClick. Through its general counsel, Brad Smith, Microsoft also said it would support privacy legislation.

Pipeline or Choice?

However, Smith and Scott Cleland, president of Precursor, a telecom research and consulting firm, also argued vehemently for rules that would treat Google differently from its main search competitors. According to Smith and Cleland, Google's dominance of search and access to the advertisers and sites that work with DoubleClick would enable the company to become a "pipeline" through which most of the Web's relevant data would flow. The reason, they argued, is that Google's ability to reach the majority of U.S. Web surfers on the most highly trafficked Web sites would be so great that advertisers would be forced to work with the company.

And, with Google's access to advertisers, any publishers not working with Google would also feel they had to work with the company, further increasing Google's reach. As a result, Google would be able to potentially collect Web surfing data on most Internet users, which would also lead to increased advertiser reliance on the company. "In a lot of ways it would be like combining the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ," Microsoft's Smith said. "Somebody could build an alternative exchange, but would anybody go there to take their company public?…this merger is about creating a single pipeline."

Drummond argued that Google—whose main business is selling ads based on search keywords and then displaying those ads on its search pages, as well as the partner sites those same searchers visit—is not in the same business as DoubleClick, which delivers ads that an advertiser and Web publisher have contracted for outside of DoubleClick's site. "There is no pipe," said Drummond. "A user, at a moment's notice, can go use another and they do all the time…there are all kinds of choices."

Whether the government will single out Google at all is an open question. The hearing was the first round of what Senator Herb Kohl  called a "heavyweight fight." In the next round, Google, Microsoft, and others plan to speak about privacy issues before the FTC at a two-day "town hall" meeting, starting Nov. 1.

A series of videos created by Boston law firm Choate Hall & Stewart echoes the "Mac vs. PC" ads created by Apple. The video series, called "Choate vs. Megafirm," features a frustrated Megafirm employee complaining about his firm, while a self-assured Choate employee sings her employer's praises.

However, sometimes law firms recognize when their attempts to be hip go too far. Los Angeles firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges pulled a video from their Web site before it even went live. The video, titled "A Day in the Life of an Associate," followed a jeans-wearing associate named Ivey who plays Ultimate Frisbee in between meetings with partners.

"Some of the associates, some of the partners, thought it was too contrived; maybe corny was probably a better word," said A. William Urquhart, the firm’s hiring partner.

Monica Prestia, who began working for Bloomberg LP as a sales representative in 1997, filed a suit in June claiming the company discriminated against her after she became pregnant in February of 2005.

The company treated her differently than similarly employed male workers and subjected her to "harassment, hostile work environment and other forms of discrimination," the complaint said.

The suit seeks unspecified damages and is pending in court.

On Thursday, the EEOC accused the New York-based company of similar discrimination, saying it engaged in a pattern of demoting women, diminishing their duties and excluding them from job opportunities after they disclosed they were pregnant.

Bloomberg LP spokeswoman Judith Czelusniak did not respond to a request for comment on the Prestia case; in court papers the company denied the allegations. About the EEOC suit on Thursday, Czelusniak said: "We believe strongly that the allegations are without merit and we intend to defend the case vigorously."

The agency brought the suit on behalf of three senior employees who had filed complaints with the EEOC regarding Bloomberg LP, saying the activities occurred with malice or reckless indifference to federal anti-discrimination laws. The EEOC is the federal agency charged with interpreting and enforcing laws passed to prevent discrimination in the workplace.

The women were expected to bring their own motion in court next week that further details their claims. They were identified by the EEOC as Tanys Lancaster, Jill Patricot and Janet Loures.

Lancaster was said to be earning close to $300,000 in a senior position in the company's Transaction Products Department when she announced her pregnancy.

"Almost immediately I began to suffer demotions, decreases in compensation as well as retaliation after I complained to Human Resources," she said in a statement.

Lancaster is no longer employed with Bloomberg. Patricot and Loures are still working there.

Patricot, who worked as a manager in the Global Data Division, claims that after returning to her job following maternity leave, she was demoted to an entry level position because her schedule had changed due to child care demands.

Loures was also a manager in the Global Data Division, and said her duties and staff were reduced starting with her first maternity leave and continuing through a second one. She is now employed in an entry-level clerical position, the EEOC said.

The EEOC said the women's claims of discrimination due to gender and pregnancy "were echoed by a number of other female current and former employees who have taken maternity leave."

Richard Roth, an attorney for the woman in the separate suit filed in June, said in an interview Friday that the EEOC complaint "helps expose what's really going on behind the scenes at Bloomberg."

It is a culture that Michael Bloomberg, who is a potential presidential candidate, was accused of fostering while he headed the company. Bloomberg stepped down as CEO to run for mayor in 2001 but retains a 68 percent stake in the company. A spokesman for Bloomberg declined to comment on the cases Friday.

While Bloomberg was CEO, a female sales executive accused him in a lawsuit of sexual harassment and other claims similar to these new allegations.

The suit, filed by Sekiko Sakai Garrison in 1997, claimed that he and other male managers displayed a discriminatory attitude toward pregnant women and new mothers.

It said that when he found out Garrison was pregnant, he told her "Kill it!" and said "Great! Number 16!" -- an apparent reference to the number of women in the company who were pregnant or had maternity-related status at the time.

It also claimed Bloomberg and other men at the company made "repeated and unwelcome" sexual comments, overtures and gestures, contributing to an offensive, locker-room environment.

Bloomberg adamantly denied the accusations; the suit was settled in 2000. Terms were not disclosed.

"They violated the integrity of the game," Mayer's attorney, Bruce Afran, told The Associated Press. "This is a way of punishing Belichick and the Patriots."

Mayer is seeking more than $184 million in damages for Jets ticket holders.

Belichick was fined $500,000 by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and the team was fined $250,000 for violating a league rule that prohibits clubs from using a video camera on the sidelines for any purpose -- including recording signals relayed to opposing players on the field. New England also must forfeit a first-round draft pick next year if it makes the playoffs or a second- and third-rounder if it doesn't.

"They were deceiving customers," said the 48-year-old Mayer. "You can't deceive customers."

The lawsuit maintained that because other teams found illegal videotaping by the defendants, Jets ticket holders should be compensated for all games played in Giants Stadium between the Jets and Patriots since Belichick became head coach in 2000.

The two calculated that because customers paid $61.6 million to watch eight "fraudulent" games, they're entitled to triple that amount -- or $184.8 million -- in compensation under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.

"How many times have the Patriots done this? We find it hard to believe they did it just once," Mayer said. "We just want to get to the truth of the matter of what the Patriots did to the Jets. I think the ticket holders are genuinely concerned about it. This is a type of misrepresentation."

Patriots spokesman Stacey James declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Mayer and Afran, who consider themselves public interest lawyers, have been thorns in the side of New Jersey politicians for years, filing lawsuits and demanding investigations to advance their grievances. They are well known in the state but generally have had little success in their causes.

Both have lost bids for elected offices, and Mayer once served as a presidential campaign adviser to Ralph Nader.

Their demand in March for a probe of Gov. Jon S. Corzine's gifts to a former girlfriend was rejected by a federal prosecutor. In 2006, a judge vetoed their effort to block Corzine's appointment of Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to fill the governor's seat in the U.S. Senate.

They also failed to get a court to order a special election to replace Gov. James E. McGreevey when he resigned in 2004.

Now, they're taking on the Patriots.

Their latest lawsuit asserted that the secret videotaping violated the contractual "expectations and rights" of Jets ticket holders "to observe an honest match played in compliance with all laws and regulations."

The actions of Belichick and the Patriots violated federal and state racketeering laws, as well as the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and New Jersey Deceptive Business Practices Act, according to the lawsuit.

"Having been a lifelong Jets fan, as soon as I heard this, I was completely outraged," Mayer said. "The NFL just slapped them on the wrist. I'm a consumer lawyer, and this is consumer fraud."