But the president appears to be in denial over the unprecedented spike in violent crimes during his two terms as president. In an op-ed published in theHarvard Law Review, Obama refused to take credit for a 10.8 percent increase in murders from 2014 to 2015 — the largest increase in a single year since 1971.
In his Harvard Law Review op-ed, Obama claimed crime “remains near historic lows,” and he was adamant that there “is no growing crime wave”.
The president, who has 11 days left in office, took pride in using his “clemency power” to pardon hundreds of hardened criminals back onto the streets — more than any president in history.
Obama bragged that he will be “the first President in decades to leave office with a federal prison population lower than when I took office.”
In an interview with a Chicago CBS News affiliate, the president blamed social media for providing a platform to broadcast high profile crimes, such as the one involving a white man who was tortured for hours by 4 young black people.
Obama called the senseless hate crime in Chicago “terrible” and “despicable”.
AGofundme pageset up for the victim, who is autistic, has collected over $129,000.
A suspect is in custody following a shooting at Fort Lauderdale airport, near Hollywood, Fla., that left 3 dead and 9 wounded on Friday. The death toll is expected to rise.
The shooting occurred in terminal 2 around 12:55 pm on Friday. The Broward County mayor confirms that 5 people have died and at least 9 are wounded. The shooter is reportedly in custody.
Ft. Lauderdale airport is located about 25 miles north of Miami International Airport in South Florida.
Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to conflicting reports of an active shooter outside the airport and inside the baggage claim area. Officials later confirmed the shooter was a lone gunman.
As the sounds of gunshots rang out, hundreds of people rushed the doors and ran out onto the tarmac where they were quickly rounded up by airport security. Buses were brought in to ferry the people back to the terminals.
Fox News reportsairport personnel are working to resume normal operations and allow planes to land in a few hours.
30 airlines are serviced at the Ft. Lauderdale airport which is among the 25 busiest airports in the country.
Burrell debuted the show in June, announced as “a mix of encouragement of entertainment” that would “feature her unique take on music, life and society.”
Her canceled radio show is the latest hit for the 44-year-old gospel singer after a sermon at the Love & Liberty Fellowship Church in Houston in which she decried the“perverted homosexual spirit.”
Kim Burrell’s scheduled appearance on Thursday’s “Ellen DeGeneres Show” has been cancelled in the wake of an anti-gay sermon she delivered emerging online last week. The gospel singer was slated to perform alongside Pharrell on the daytime talk show, but he’ll now appear solo.
As reported online and by the Gossip Cop, Burrell called gays “perverted” during a homophobic sermonshe gave at the Love & Liberty Fellowship Church in Houston, which she founded in 2010. Also during her speech, the singer said that “the perverted homosexual spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women.” She then went on to describe specific homosexual acts as sinful.
Ellen will address the controversy on Tuesday’s episode. Burrell was supposed to sing “I See A Victory,” her duet with Pharrell from the soundtrack of the new movie Hidden Figures.
Pastorand gospel singerKim Burrell is still catching backlash over her fiery sermon condemning gays for spreading HIV/AIDS in the church. In a video uploaded toYoutube.com,Burrell warned gays will diein 2017.
In the video, Burrell, 44, is heard saying, “Anyone filled with the homosexual spirit, beg God to free you. That perverted homosexual spirit and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women.”
Burrell, who is pastor and founder of Houston’s Love & Liberty Fellowship church in Houston, continued:
“You as a man, you open your mouth and take a man’s penis in your face, you are perverted! You are a woman and will shake your face in another woman’s breasts, you are perverted!”
She then targeted Bishop Eddie Long as an “embarrassment to the church”. The 63-year-old prosperity preacher based in Atlanta is rumored to be infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
“I’ve never seen anything as heartbreaking as Bishop Eddie Long go down to nothing,” Burrell remarked about recent photos of Long’s skeletal appearance.
Burrell’s fire and brimstone sermon implied that homosexuals in the church community are spreading HIV through unprotected sex.
34 years after the AIDS virus first scorched the earth, men who have sex with men (MSM) still lead the nation in new HIV contraction rates.
The HIV epidemic continues unabated in cities like NY, D.C. and Atlanta, where men forego condoms and take a drug known as PrEP to prevent HIV infection. But there are indications that the drug isn’t as effective due to new strains of the HIV virus.
Anew campaignhas been launched to convince black women to take PrEP. Black women are the 2nd group most likely to contract HIV from men who have sex with men.
Burrell was already backtracking from her controversial statements on Facebook Live. She said her warning of a deadlier HIV epidemic was taken out of context:
We’re not in a war against flesh and blood. I came on because I care about God’s creation and every person from the LGBT and anything else, any other kind of thing that is supporting gay. I never said LGBT last night. I said S.I.N. and whatever falls in the sin was preached.
“What I posted was not all I preached to. Isn’t that something? That is a design of the enemy to make it look like I have a personal agenda against [gay] people. To the carnal all things are carnal, and to the spiritual all things are spiritual.”
Burrell is scheduled to appear on the Ellen Degeneres’s daytime talk show on January 5th. And we all know Ellen is openly gay.