Meanwhile in the nation’s capital, health care reform is in that middle stage, where it’s hard to keep track of all the deals that may or may not wind up in a final package that may or may not pass, um, who knows when. Perhaps it’s just me who can’t keep up. Let’s take Tuesday for example. Here’s a recap of what happened, as reported by the New York Times:

U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid said he and a group of 10 Democratic senators had reached “a broad agreement” to resolve a dispute over a proposed government-run health insurance plan. That agreement would sideline for now a public health care option and instead allow Americans aged 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare. In addition, a federal agency would negotiate with insurance companies to offer national health benefit plans, similar to those offered to federal employees, including members of Congress. Debate over a public health care option has ginned up a great deal of rancor and misinformation. But if these private plans don’t lead to affordable health care, the government would step in to offer a public option, the Times reports. Meanwhile the Times says the U.S. Senate rejected an amendment that would have placed strict controls on abortion yesterday, even as the normally more liberal U.S. House passed a similar amendment. Ayieee. Confused yet?

A major financial ratings firm downgraded the state of Illinois’ creditworthiness, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The decision by Moody’s comes at a terrible time for the state. Gov. Pat Quinn is pushing for a new round of borrowing to help close the state’s $11.6 billion budget gap. A downgraded credit rating means it’ll be more expensive for Illinois to borrow because it is perceived as a greater risk. In what is at best a dubious honor for Illinois, Moody’s decision leaves only California with a worse credit rating among states, the Sun-Times reports.

Down South, Alabama’s Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers are engaged in a war of words over no-bid contracts. The Democrats say Gov. Bob Riley is a hypocrite for criticizing his Democratic predecessor, Don Siegelman, in 2002 for the $1 billion in no-bid contracts Siegelman’s administration wracked up. The lawmakers say Riley’s administration has let $2.6 billion in no-bid contracts during his. No-bid contracts are let without competitive bidding and are generally viewed as vulnerable to abuse, like favoritism, nepotism, etc. Riley’s office, meanwhile, isn’t taking the attacks lying down. A Riley spokesman is giving as good as he gets in fact. He’s saying the Democratic lawmakers are a bunch of hypocrites because they’ve engaged in their own no-bid contracts.

Out West, a feud among drug traffickers is playing out in California, with small, elite killing squads operating on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border as they try to wrest control of the illegal drug market, reports the New York Times.

From the media world, there’s good news and bad news. Let’s start with the good news. Google has teamed up with the Washington Post and New York Times to offer online readers what they hope is a tool to attract more eyeballs, and thus help struggling newspapers. It’s not a game changer. But it’s a start. “The idea is to simplify things for readers by grouping developing stories about a hot topic — say, Tiger Woods — on a single Web page, with updates automatically highlighted at the top of the screen,” writes Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post.

Now the bad news: While nearly two-thirds of former Los Angeles Times journalists would like to remain in the news business, more than half believe their former paper eventually will fold – and nearly as many think newspapers in general have been mortally wounded, according to a recent informal survey by the Journalism Shop.

Meanwhile on the other coast, Connecticut lawmakers learned Wednesday that the state’s budget woes may get much worse in 2012, possibly growing to $3.4 billion from the current $385 million, the Associated Press reports.

And state transportation officials in Virginia laid out plans Wednesday to further slash $851.5 million from road-building operations over the next six years — meaning that the state’s six-year road plan has been reduced by $4.6 billion since spring 2008, according to the Virginian-Pilot.

U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders unveiled a health care reform proposal that they said would cover most of the country’s uninsured population and reduce the federal deficit, the New York Times reports.

Colum McCann’s “Let the Great World Spin,” a novel about daring, luck and mortality in 1970s New York, won the fiction prize Wednesday night at the 60th annual National Book Awards, according to the Associated Press.