U.S. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. Photo: Wiki Commons.

A week ago, the White House was on top of the world. President Barack Obama announced a new framework agreement with Iran and five other great powers to resolve the long-standing stand-off over Iran’s nuclear program. And after producing a detailed fact sheet, the White House got some unexpected good news: Sen. Mark Kirk, the Republican co-author of sanctions legislation the president had said would kill the talks if it passed, said he would shelve his bill until the June 30 final deadline for the nuclear discussions.

That promise is no longer operative. Kirk told me Thursday that he is pushing for a full Senate vote on his Nuclear Weapons Free Act of 2015, legislation he authored with Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, who was indicted last week by a grand jury on corruption charges.

Read full story at the Chicago Tribune.