A roundup of other stories and interesting reads.

The Senate gave final approval late Wednesday evening to legislation providing added unemployment benefits through November to millions of Americans who have been out of work for six months or more by 59 to 39 margin. The House is expected to pass the measure tomorrow. The complete story in the New York Times.

A multimedia presentation produced by Latoya Egwuekwe: The Geography of a Recession.

Jim Hightower on Grinning Bankers.

The teen unemployment rate in June was at 25.7 percent—about three times the national rate of 9.5 percent—and up from last year's rate of 24.3 percent: Unemployed Teens.

Cash-hungry states eye online retail for tax revenue. The story in the Los Angeles Times.

Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic offers his take on the Shirley Sherrod case and the response of the Obama Administration in a post entitled Lacking All Conviction while Matt Yglesias of Think Progress on JournoList faux scandal writes that "at some point conservatives need to ask themselves about the larger meaning of this kind of conduct—and Andrew Breitbart’s—for their movement. Beyond the ethics of lying and smear one’s opponents, I would think conservatives would worry about the fact that a large portion of conservative media is dedicated to lying to conservatives. They regard their audience as marks to be misled and exploited, not as customers to be served with useful information." Somehow I don't think we arrived at that point.

The New York Times reports that Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, will unveil his own financial sector regulatory reform proposal on Monday after being unable to reach on a compromise measure with the GOP members on the committee.

The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, hoping to break a months-long logjam on the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the Depression, will unveil his own proposal on Monday, without yet having a single Republican endorsement.

The chairman, Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, said on Thursday that the committee would take up the bill on March 22.

The breakdown in bipartisan talks dimmed hopes for a sweeping rewrite of Wall Street’s rules, nearly two years after the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns started a financial crisis that has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Mr. Dodd suggested that he was acting out of a sense of urgency. The House adopted a regulatory overhaul — a priority of the Obama administration — in December on a largely party-line vote. But bipartisan negotiations in the Senate have repeatedly faltered over several critical points, notably the creation of a consumer financial protection agency to regulate mortgages, credit cards and other products.

While it's worth waiting to see what Senator Dodd's proposals actually are and if they include a stand alone independent Consumer Finance Protection Agency and a reigning in of esoteric derivative instruments, it is a relief to hear that Senator Dodd now has a "sense of urgency." It has long been clear that the Republicans are not interested in governing. With their interminable delays, they have sought, and frankly largely succeeded, in derailing the agenda of the Obama Administration. While it may not be too late to actually achieved wide-ranging reforms, that window of opportunity is now measured in just months. The hour of getting down to business is now.