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Oregon man, freed after using Molotov cocktail to start fire, set six more

An Oregon man was charged with using a Molotov cocktail to start a brush blaze in the wildfire-devastated state — then busted again just hours later for allegedly going back and starting six more, cops said.

Domingo Lopez Jr., 45, was first arrested Sunday afternoon after witnesses told cops he started a fire on the grassy edge of a Portland freeway with an incendiary device made out of a plastic bottle with a wick, the Portland Police Bureau said.

He admitted starting the blaze, which was extinguished without any injuries or property damage, cops said.

Lopez Jr. was booked into jail at 6:45 p.m. Sunday on charges of reckless burning and second-degree disorderly conduct — then released on his own recognizance later that night, court records show.

He was found walking along the edge of the same highway just after 3:30 a.m. Monday as cops joined fire crews to investigate reports of six more fires, Portland police said.

This time, he appeared to start the fires with a lighter, which was seized as evidence, the force said.

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Kamala Harris Slips Up, Reveals Plans for ‘Harris Administration’ During Roundtable

Joe Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris seemingly slipped up during a virtual roundtable on Monday after she touted economic plans under a “Harris administration.”

During the roundtable with small business owners in Arizona, Harris promised they would have an ally in the White House with the “Build Back Better” initiative.

But the California senator suggested she was at the top of the Democratic ticket.

“A Harris administration, together with Joe Biden as the president of the United States,” she said.

She then quickly clarified:

“The Biden-Harris administration will provide access to $100 billion in low-interest loans and investments from minority business owners.”

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COVID Numbers Inflated 600% Due to False Positives among University Athletes: Report

A rash of false-positive coronavirus tests has led the University of Arizona to issue an apology to student-athletes who it claimed had the virus but did not.

The university reported Thursday that 13 student-athletes had tested positive for COVID-19 — a single-day record for the school.

Three days later, however, Arizona athletics said in a statement that the actual number of positive tests was just two. That means the initial numbers inflated the total by more than 600 percent.

“On Thursday, Arizona Athletics reported a single-day high of positive COVID-19 test results for student-athletes,” the university said Sunday. “After concluding an exhaustive contact-tracing protocol, the medical director for Arizona Athletics requested additional testing of the samples, stating that the contact history reports did not support the positive test results.

“After further review, Arizona Athletics Director of Medical Services Dr. Stephen Paul said conflicting information prompted a rerun of the test samples. The retest showed that false positive results were previously reported.

“On Sep. 3, the athletics department reported 13 positive test results for athletes, after a rerun of those tests, two came back positive,” the university said.

Better safe than… accurate or effective.

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Netflix Star and Biden Surrogate Jerry Harris Raided By FBI For Allegedly Soliciting Photos and Sex From Minors

Jerry Harris, star of Cheer on Netflix and former Joe Biden presidential campaign surrogate, has been raided by the FBI for allegedly soliciting photos and sex from minors.

FBI agents executed a search warrant at Harris’ home in Naperville, Illinois, on Monday afternoon.

The investigation was launched after allegations made against 21-year-old Harris by 14-year-old twin brothers.

USA Today spoke to the boys, who described a pattern of harassment, both online and at cheer competitions, that started when they were 13 and Harris was 19. It continued for more than a year. “Harris is accused of asking one of the brothers to have sex with him in 2019 at two Varsity cheerleading competitions,” the newspaper reports.

“The FBI is conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity in the area,” Siobhan Johnson, FBI special agent and public affairs officer, told USA Today.

Harris, 21, is known for his role in Netflix’s recent “Cheer” docuseries, which followed a cheer team working to make it to the National Cheerleading Championship. USA Today reports, “In February, Harris stood on a Dallas stage beside Oprah Winfrey, who handed him her microphone and asked him to pump up the crowd with his signature ‘mat talk.’ The same month, he interviewed celebrities on the red carpet of the Oscars for ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show.’ In June, he filmed a short video with former Vice President Joe Biden, encouraging young Black voters to turn out on Election Day.”

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Nearly two decades after 9/11, the parallels between the post-terrorist attack ‘New Normal’ & that of Covid-19 can’t be ignored

Both the 9/11 attacks and the Covid-19 pandemic have dramatically shaped Western society. But the changes they wrought were devastating and unnecessary, pushed through by control-hungry governments who saw opportunity in crisis.

While both the worst terror attack in US history and the deadliest pandemic in a generation were immediately hyped as the defining elements of the era, the uncomfortable reality is that neither terrorism nor the novel coronavirus pose any risk more severe than taking a bath.

However, the media hype – fueled by think tanks and governments drooling over the possibility of adopting controls that would normally spark popular revolt – has created the same climate of fear that allowed the imposition of the post-9/11 police state, paving the way for a post-Covid regime that will make the Patriot Act look cuddly.

The shocking changes to the American “way of life” that have followed both events were in no way required, or even logical, responses to the crises in question. It took an unlikely series of what the government described as “intelligence failures” for the events of 9/11 to fall into place, and the Trump administration scrapped completely adequate pandemic response plans to adopt a regime of lockdowns and economic shutdowns that will likely end up doing more harm than the virus itself. Had governments followed their own procedures, neither catastrophe likely would have happened.

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