Viral News: As the Covid-19 pandemic retrenches, President Biden is expected to order today that all federal employees must be vaccinated or subjected to weekly testing, social distancing, mask requirements, and restrictions on travel.

  No exception will be made for front line medical workers. They will have to get the shot.

  New mask and safety mandates are meeting resistance by Republican leaders in Washington and the stupid states where the Delta variant of the coronavirus is filling hospital beds.

  After the Capitol physician reinstated a mask mandate, Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, wrote, “The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state.”

  The numbers prove him wrong. About 97 percent of new cases are among people who have not been vaccinated.

  Overall, new cases of Covid-19 are up 145 percent across the country and deaths are up 6 percent over the past two weeks. It’s the worst in states where ignorance and suspicion are entrenched. In Louisiana, new cases are up 307 percent over the past two weeks; Mississippi, up 274 percent; Oklahoma, 229, Alabama, 217, Alaska, 185, Texas, 178.

If You Build It: After weeks of negotiations, the Senate voted 67-to-32 yesterday to take up a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Seventeen Republicans voted in favor, giving great hope that it will ultimately pass. The money would go to fix and build roads, bridges, rail, transit, water facilities and more. 

  Even Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell voted in favor, but the bill still has to formally pass the bitterly divided House and Senate.

Five Ring Roundup: American Caeleb Dressel won his first Olympic gold medal for an individual race on Thursday, setting an Olympic record of 47.02 seconds in the 100-meter freestyle.

  Bobby Finke became the first American man since 1984 to win the Olympic men’s 800-meter freestyle. 

  Olympic tennis authorities have decided to move matches to late afternoon and evening to escape the baking heat in Tokyo.

  Russia’s Daniil Medvedev was struggling under so much in heat and humidity yesterday that at one point the chair umpire asked him if he could continue playing. “I can finish the match but I can die,” Medvedev replied. “If I die, are you going to be responsible?” 

  The decision by American gymnast Simone Biles to pull out of a couple of events has set off a national barroom sports argument. The internet is aflame with criticism of Biles. 

  Notably the right winger and Newsweek columnist Charlie Kirk called the four-time Olympic gold medalist a “sociopath” and a “shame to the country” for declining to continue in the team and all-around individual competitions.

  Before Tokyo, Biles won 30 Olympic and world championship medals, including 23 golds, the most of American gymnast. She said she pulled out to focus on her mental health.

  “We are raising a generation of weak people like Simone Biles,” Kirk told listeners of his podcast The Charlie Kirk Show. “If she’s got all these mental health problems: don’t show up.”

  Biles competes in a sport in which she could end up paralyzed if she doesn’t have her head together. But somehow a lot of sports fans think she owes them something.

  Columnist Lindsay Crouse writes for The NY Times that, “She may be wearing a USA leotard, but she doesn’t work for us. No matter what hopes and dreams we invested in her, she earned her place, and she gets to decide. Athletes, and their physical and mental health, are not commodities.”

The Obit Page: Ron Popeil, the television pitch man who invented gadgets you didn’t need but couldn’t live without, has died at age 86 in Los Angeles. Popeil created the Ronco company and sold such late night classics as the Pocket Fisherman, the Veg-O-Matic, the Bedazzler, and Mr. Microphone. His catch lines “Set it, and forget it!” and “But wait, there’s more!” became part of the American lexicon. — Dusty Hill, the long-bearded bluesy bassist for the band ZZ Top has died at 72. The band’s Southern rock and blues were big in the 1970s and 80s.

The Spin Rack: The bankrupt Remington Arms company has offered $33 million to settle lawsuits brought by families of nine of the 22 victims in the 2012 Sandy Hook School massacre in Connecticut. The families have sought $225 million and punitive damages of $1billion. Twenty children and six teachers were killed with a semi-automatic Remington rifle. — The French government gave teenagers $350 each to buy things like books, music, or tickets to performances that would expose them to culture and roughly half the money is being spent on “Manga,” Japanese comic books. — As the FBI continues to hunt down January 6^th rooters, they’ve arrested Daniel Christmann, 38, a Brooklyn plumber who ran for the New York State senate. He streamed his breach of the capitol online. — The popular children’s animated television show “Arthur” featuring Arthur the Aardvark, is ending after 25 years.

Facing the Music: The singular Wu-Tang Clan album once owned by the criminal hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli was sold to an unnamed buyer, according to federal prosecutors. The price was not released, but Shkreli paid $2 million for it.

  Shkreli, who was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy, forfeited the album after his sentencing. He is known as the “Pharma Bro” who jacked the price of the lifesaving pill Daraprim from $13.50 to $750. 

-30-