Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to link the Senate’s $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure plan to a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package is starting to backfire, as moderate Democrats warn they may not vote for a budget resolution needed to begin the reconciliation process unless it’s paired with a vote on the Senate bill.

Rep. Ed Case said in an interview Friday that he wouldn’t be able to vote for the budget resolution without Pelosi also committing to holding a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The Senate is planning to vote on both measures in the next week or two.

“I have many concerns with a proposed $3.5 trillion budget resolution,” the Hawaii Democrat said. “Those are separate concerns from the linkage to the infrastructure bill. But for the purposes that we’re talking about here, I do not support the speaker’s insistence that this bill would not pass without the budget resolution, so I hope she changes her mind because I can’t — I don’t support the direction that she has taken.”

Case said he’s “not at all alone” in his thinking, which interviews with other members confirmed.

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Former Illinois governor and convicted felon Rod Blagojevich has told the ABC7 I-Team that he plans to go to federal court on Monday in an effort to open the door to another possible run for statewide office.

Blagojevich says that on Monday afternoon he will return to the same Chicago courthouse where political life as he knew it came to a screeching halt more than a decade ago.

This time though, the former Illinois governor would return to the courthouse on his own fruition to take action against the government and not in handcuffs while in the custody of the government.

Nearly a year and a half after the former Illinois governor was freed from federal prison after serving eight years for corruption he wants the door re-opened to run for statewide office again.

Myanmar’s military leader has declared himself prime minister and said he will lead the country under the nation’s state of emergency until elections are held in two years’ time – vastly extending the timeline given when the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi six months ago.

“We must create conditions to hold a free and fair multiparty general election,” Gen Min Aung Hlaing said on Sunday during a recorded televised address. “We have to make preparations. I pledge to hold the multiparty general election without fail.”

He said the state of emergency would achieve its objectives by August 2023. In a separate announcement, the military government named itself “the caretaker government” and Min Aung Hlaing the prime minister.

This weekend, 80,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines will expire in Arkansas. There simply weren't enough people in the state willing to get their jab — even though cases and deaths from the delta variant are rising there at an alarming rate.

"Prior to the vaccine, I was heartsick because people died and we couldn't help them. Now, they don't get the vaccine and we can't help them," says Tammy Kellebrew, a pharmacist who travels to rural hospitals across the state. "And so after every death, I go back to the pharmacy and I cry, and then I go back to work."

"I'm angry, upset, disappointed," says Dr. Jose Romero, health secretary for Arkansas. "As a nation, we've worked so hard to get this vaccine out. And not to have them accepted by the public is difficult to understand and difficult to accept."

Arkansas, a largely white, rural state powered by farming, factories and rugged individualism, has one of the country's lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates. Just 36% of the state's 3 million people are fully vaccinated.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R)on Sunday accused health experts of "hyperbole" and "exaggeration" in regards to the current COVID-19 surge brought on by the more infectious delta variant.

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, McMaster affirmed to host Dana Perino that he would not be enacting a statewide mask mandate and when it came to vaccinations the governor said he would let residents "make their decision" based on information provided to them.

Perino noted that South Carolina has recently seen increases in the number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, with cases rising by over 250 percent and hospitalizations rising by more than 120 percent.

"I think that the tone and the — I think of some exaggeration [is] going on, some hyperbole. Those figures that you just mentioned, yes the rates are going up but they're way below what they were a year ago," McMaster said. "We have put the fire out. It's smoldering in places and could come back up, but the house is not on fire again."

OTTAWA — Nine governors want the Biden administration to explain why it is keeping the U.S. border closed to most Canadians.

"It is our strongly held view as Governors that the public health data, science and advice of our own experts support a responsible, timely reopening plan,” the border state governors wrote in a joint letter, dated Friday, to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“At this point in the nation’s work to get the economy back on track, it is imperative that the federal government work more closely and transparently with us and our Canadian provincial counterparts to quickly define and implement a reopening plan.”

...snip...

The letter was signed by Alaska’s Mike Dunleavy, Minnesota’s Tim Walz, New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu, Ohio’s Mike DeWine, Washington’s Jay Inslee, Maine’s Janet Mills, Montana’s Greg Gianforte, North Dakota’s Doug Burgum and Vermont’s Phil Scott.