Trump on Civil War: Why couldn’t they have worked that out?
Trump on Civil War: Why couldn’t they have worked that out?
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. president had a historical question: Why did America’s Civil War happen? “Why could that one not have been worked out?”
Remarks by Donald Trump, aired Monday, showed presidential uncertainty about the origin and necessity of the Civil War, a defining event in U.S. history with slavery at its core. Trump also declared that President Andrew Jackson was angry about “what was happening” with regard to the war, which started 16 years after his death, and could have stopped it if still in office.
Trump, who has at times shown a shaky grasp of U.S. history, questioned why issues couldn’t have been settled to prevent the war that followed the secession of 11 Southern states from the Union and brought death to more than 600,000 Americans, North and South.
“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Examiner that also aired on Sirius XM radio. “People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”
In fact, the causes of the Civil War are frequently discussed, from middle school classrooms to university lecture halls and in countless books. Immigrants seeking to become naturalized are sometimes asked to name a cause of the war in their citizenship tests .
2 Muslim men killed by mob over cow theft charges in India
GAUHATI, India (AP) — Two Muslim men were beaten to death by a mob in northeastern India over allegations of cow theft, the latest in a series of similar attacks across the country, police officials said Monday.
Senior Assam state police official Mukesh Aggarwal said police have filed a criminal complaint and are trying to identify the members of the mob, but no arrests have been made so far.
The attack took place Sunday in a village in Nagon district , 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of the state capital, Gauhati, when a mob accused the two men of trying to steal cows and began beating them with sticks and rocks.
Police in the district said that by the time they reached the scene the men were already in critical condition, and were declared dead at a hospital.
This is the third cow-related death in the country in the past month. On April 1, Pehlu Khan, a Muslim cattle trader, was lynched by a mob in the western state of Rajasthan as he transported cattle he had bought at an animal fair back to his home state of Haryana. Khan and his family were small dairy farmers.
The rise in cow-related lynchings and beatings began after the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party was voted to power in a landslide victory in 2014. Most of the attacks have been attributed to local Hindu radical groups.
Attacker kills 1, wounds 3 in stabbings at Texas university
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — An attacker with a machete-like knife fatally stabbed one person and wounded at least three others Monday on the University of Texas campus, and authorities said a suspect was in custody.
There was no immediate word from police about a possible motive.
Student Rachel Prichett said she was standing in line at a food truck outside a gym when she saw a man with a large knife approach the person standing behind her.
“The guy was standing next to me,” Prichett said. “He grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved the knife in it. I just started running as fast as I could.”
Police identified the suspect as a 21-year-old student named Kendrex J. White, who was armed with a hunting knife.
No cut in salt, fewer grains: Gov’t eases school meal rules
LEESBURG, Va. (AP) — Schools won’t have to cut more salt from meals just yet and some will be able to serve kids fewer whole grains, under changes to federal nutrition standards announced Monday.
The move by the Trump administration partially rolls back rules championed by former first lady Michelle Obama as part of her healthy eating initiative.
As his first major action in office, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the department will delay an upcoming requirement to lower the amount of sodium in meals while continuing to allow waivers for regulations that all grains on the lunch line must be 50 percent whole grain.
Schools could also serve 1 percent flavored milk instead of the nonfat now required.
“If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition — thus undermining the intent of the program,” said Perdue, who traveled to a school in Leesburg, Virginia, to make the announcement.
16 dead after tornadoes, floods ravage Midwest, South
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Several southern states braced for more severe weather Monday in the wake of storms, tornadoes and flooding that claimed 16 lives and left authorities in Arkansas searching for two children swept away by raging waters.
The outbreak that began Saturday over much of the U.S. Midwest and South included at least four tornadoes in Texas and severe flooding after more than a foot of rain fell in parts of Missouri. The storm even spawned a rare mid-spring snowstorm in Kansas.
It’s not over yet. More flooding and tornadoes are possible as storms roll eastward in a band stretching from Alabama into the Ohio River valley. A wind advisory was in effect over much of the South. Parts of the Florida Panhandle could be affected by severe thunderstorms or high winds and dangerous rip currents.
In Missouri, docile creeks swelled to dangerous levels, and river levels jumped after the downpours. The Missouri State Emergency Management Agency counted 143 water rescues statewide but acknowledged that countless others probably weren’t reported. Hundreds of people were evacuated, a levee was topped in a rural area northwest of St. Louis, and a 57-mile stretch of Interstate 44 was closed.
The Mississippi River was well above flood stage at several points, including Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where it is expected to crest later this week within a half-foot of the all-time record of 48.9 feet.
Police: Race not factor in San Diego pool party shooting
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A gunman despondent over a recent breakup opened fire at a poolside birthday party and phoned his ex-girlfriend as he kept shooting strangers, killing one woman and wounding six other partygoers before he was killed by officers, police said Monday.
Peter Selis, 49, sat on a pool chair during most of the rampage, calmly shooting guests at the party with a .45-caliber handgun. The victims were black and Latino and Selis was white, but police don’t think race played a factor.
“These victims were just in his vicinity when he committed this terrible tragedy,” Chief Shelley Zimmerman said. “What started as a celebration of a friend’s birthday party turned into a tragedy of epic proportions.”
Witnesses said Selis was wearing a black coat and sitting alone during the party for a man’s 50th birthday Sunday at an apartment complex near the University of California, San Diego.
At one point the guest of honor invited the man to join the party. That’s when Selis drew a handgun and shot the honoree in the torso, said Demetrius Griffin, a friend at the party.