No, President Obama's Nobel Prize isn't the only news coming out of Washington this morning. Senate Democrats, split over the size and scope of a proposed unemployment benefits extension, reportedly struck a deal last night and could vote on the measure (S. 1647) next week. And unlike most bills that work their way through Congress these days, the Senate version is  actually more generous than the bill that passed the House in late September. Bloomberg has more on the compromise:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, announced a compromise plan yesterday that would extend aid to all states for at least 14 weeks. The hardest-hit states, with unemployment rates topping 8.5 percent, would get a 20-week extension.

Because Illinois' unemployment rate is still well above 8.5 percent, workers would now have the ability to access up to 99 weeks of insurance (26 weeks of state-backed benefits, 53 weeks of federally-funded support through the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program and the stimulus plan, and 20 more congressionally-mandated weeks.) That latest extension -- bankrolled by an extension of the federal unemployment tax, which costs employers about $14 an employee per year, through June 2011 -- would prove incredibly helpful to the 40,000 Illinoisans who are scheduled to exhaust their insurance by the end of the year. We will track its progress next week.