Your poem praises Jesus, it doesn’t revile him

Israeli television reported that Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to advance annexation of West Bank land as part of a coalition deal with the far-right Religious Zionism party.

Details:

The US Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the health care worker mandate to go into effect but blocked enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees. Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh sided with the liberal justices on the health care worker mandate. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis knocked Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh for lacking a “backbone” in their decision on the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for certain health care workers. DeSantis slammed them both during a guest appearance on the popular conservative podcast “Ruthless” that aired Friday. On the nurse mandate and the doctor mandate, Roberts and Kavanaugh joined with the liberals to allow the nurse mandate, DeSantis said to a booing crowd. But honestly, Roberts and Kavanaugh did not have a backbone on that decision, DeSantis also said. “That’s just the bottom line. DeSantis also vowed to enforce Florida’s protections for nurses amid the health care worker vaccine mandate. The Florida governor called the OSHA vaccine mandate ruling a “no-brainer” and said that anybody who’s not a far-left jurist was going to come out that way. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration mandate had gone into effect on Monday and had required businesses with at least 100 employees to require workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or wear a mask while going through weekly testing. Recently the state of Florida sued President Joe Biden’s administration over its coronavirus vaccine mandate for federal contractors, opening yet another battleground between Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and the White House. The lawsuit, announced by DeSantis at a news conference, alleges the president doesn’t have the authority to issue the rule and that it violates procurement law.

Steve Randy Waldman wonders: what if one person could hire another to age for them.

Huff Post reports: Every infection provides a chance for the virus to mutate, and omicron has an edge over its predecessors: It spreads way faster despite emerging on a planet with a stronger patchwork of immunity from vaccines and prior illness.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom expects widespread infections: Tedros said he’d like to see 70% of people in every country vaccinated by mid-year.

Political reports:

Harris’ elevated role also thrust her into a legislative initiative that is seemingly going nowhere. During an interview on Thursday, she made an impassioned plea for voting rights legislation, pointing the blame at both Republicans and members of her own party for standing in the way of changing the Senate rules to get election reform passed by simple-majority vote.

NPR Reports:

The first U.S. state to feel the effects of the eruption was Hawaii, where waves over a foot were reported in Kauai and nearly three feet tall in Hanalei. “We are relieved that there is no reported damage and only minor flooding through-out the islands,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

In Connections Episode 2, James Burke describes how the Library of Alexandria got such a large collection of books —  if you came to Alexandria on a boat and you owned a book you had to lend it to the library to be copied.

(video n/a)