A federal judge said Monday he would not order that Vermont's only nuclear plant be allowed to remain open while a lawsuit to determine its long-term future plays out.

The state is moving to close the Vermont Yankee plant, with both the governor and the state Senate on record as wanting it to close when its initial 40-year license expires next March.

The plant's owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., got a 20-year license extension for Vermont Yankee from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and filed a lawsuit arguing that the federal action pre-empts the state's effort to close the plant.

Last month, Entergy went to court asking for a preliminary order allowing it to stay open while the underlying lawsuit works its way through the courts — possibly all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Monday's order, Judge J. Garvan Murtha said there was no need for such an order because the main trial in the case is scheduled for mid-September, only eight weeks away.

"The motion is denied, because Entergy has failed to show that any irreparable harm it may incur between now and a decision on the merits" of its lawsuit, Murtha wrote.

During two days of hearings in late June, Entergy lawyers and witnesses told Murtha that they needed a decision on the preliminary injunction by July 23 so the company could order the specially fabricated nuclear fuel it needs to load into the reactor core during a refueling outage set for October.

The San Francisco Superior Court announced Monday that it's laying off more than 40 percent of its staff and shuttering 25 courtrooms because of budget cuts.

Presiding Judge Katherine Feinstein said the actions were necessary to close a $13.75 million budget deficit caused by state budget cuts. She said the cuts mean it will take many more hours to pay a traffic ticket in person, up to 18 months to finalize a divorce and five years for a lawsuit to go to trial.

"The civil justice system in San Francisco is collapsing," Feinstein said.

Some 200 of the court's 480 workers will be let go by Sept. 30, including 11 of 12 commissioners who preside over a variety of cases. And she said it could get worse if optimistic revenue projections don't materialize by January.

"The future is very, very bleak for our courts," Feinstein said at a Monday press conference. Feinstein said criminal cases would remain largely unaffected because of constitutional guarantees of speedy trials. Every other type of court, though, is facing significant cutbacks.

The San Francisco courts aren't the only courts facing cutbacks, only the most dramatic. The Judicial Council, which manages the judicial branch's budget, will decide Friday whether to cut funding of local courts by 8.8 percent or about $305 million.

Other courts are considering unpaid furloughs for workers, shorter hours for clerks and other cost-cutting measures. None are going as far as San Francisco, but the budget woes have caused discord within the judiciary.

The Alliance of California Judges was formed almost three years ago by judges unhappy with the Judicial Council's fiscal management. In particular, the Alliance is demanding administrators scrap plans for a new computer system projected to cost $2 billion to fully install state wide.

Instead, court administrators are proposing delaying the project for a year, which would save $100 million.

Authorities searched Saturday for a man charged with first-degree murder who allegedly swapped identities with another prisoner and walked out of a Washington courthouse.

U.S. Marshals spokesman David Neumann said officials are looking for 24-year-old James Brewer, a suspect in a fatal shooting in Washington in June. Neumann said authorities are still investigating how Brewer escaped Friday.

D.C. Superior Court records, however, say that before Brewer was called before a judge, he switched identification bracelets with a prisoner arrested on a drug charge. Brewer then apparently posed as the other person and was released because the charge, possession of PCP, is a misdemeanor.

Brewer is described as a black man, 5 feet, 9 inches tall, about 180 pounds with dreadlocks. Brewer, who also goes by "Sticky," is considered armed and dangerous.

Officials say he is known to travel to Newport News, Va., where he was arrested Thursday. He may also be interested in traveling to Philadelphia.