Harry Truman's haunted White House

Former President Harry Truman had a lot on his mind in June 1945. In office for just two months, he was saddled with countless pressing problems. Although the European part of World War II was over, Imperial Japan showed no sign of giving up. Planning for an invasion (which advisers warned could claim 1 million casualties) was well underway. The United Nations was being created. The atomic bomb was in the final stages of development. And, he was quickly realizing, he lived in a haunted house.

The Trumans had moved into the White House in early May, following former President Franklin Roosevelt's unexpected death that April. In June, wife Bess (who was never fond of Washington in the best of circumstances) and daughter Margaret spent the summer at the family home in Independence, Mo., leaving Harry alone in his new residence. Nights can be long and lonely upstairs in that big empty house. Truman had just sat down to write a letter when something caught his ear. He told his wife, “I sit here in this old house and work on foreign affairs, read reports and work on speeches - all the while listening to the ghosts walk up and down the hallway and even right here in the study. The floors pop and the drapes move back and forth.” A year later, Truman was once again alone in the White House while his wife and daughter were summering in Missouri. At 4 a.m. one morning the president was awakened by “three distinct knocks” on his bedroom door. He threw on his bathrobe and flung open the door. All he found was a dark and deserted hallway. He heard footsteps coming from Margaret's bedroom across the corridor. Truman stuck his head in and looked around. The room was empty.

He decided, “This damned place is haunted sure as shootin'.” Truman was so bothered by all the strange nocturnal noises that he eventually told the White House architect about the disturbances. Lorenzo Winslow attributed the sounds to nature, explaining night air cooled the hundreds of tons of wood inside the old house, making it snap and groan. But still the eerie noises kept growing louder and more ominous, until the reason for them was finally discovered in 1948.

Science, not the supernatural, was at work. The historic house was literally falling down in slow motion. One architectural error after another had been committed over the decades. Shortcuts had been made when the house was rebuilt after the British burned it in 1814. Presidents had repeatedly changed its layout to suit their whims, adding hallways here while unknowingly removing support walls there. Lead pipes were eventually added, bringing running water to the mansion and adding tons of additional weight to it as well. Former President Calvin Coolidge unwittingly made a bad situation worse by adding a third floor in 1927.

The groans Truman heard late at night weren't ghosts; they were the death moans of a mansion locked in a losing struggle to hold itself up. Things grew so bad that when Truman returned the day after his improbable 1948 re-election victory, he was ordered out of the very house he had fought to keep for another four years. The Federal Works Agency warned him the White House was in such serious danger of collapsing his safety couldn't be guaranteed another minute. The Trumans had to get out – right that minute. They moved into the Blair House next door and the White House was immediately stripped of all furnishings. It was gutted until only the historic walls remained. The house was rebuilt in an exact replica of the original.

The first family returned to the restored White House on March 27, 1952. Twelve other presidents and their families have lived there in the decades since. And yes, there are still reports from time to time of ghost sightings late at night. But even before the landmark was reconstructed, its architect seriously doubted spirits of the dead revisited there. “No president who passed away would come back to the White House to haunt it, considering what he went through when he lived here,” Winslow chuckled. Harry Truman agreed: “Why they would want to come back here I could never understand.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/harry-trumans-haunted-white-house

Pakistani court overturns death sentence for Christian woman in blasphemy case

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam’s prophet, ordering her to be freed if she was not accused of any other crime. Chief Justice Saqib Nisar overturned the conviction by the Lahore High Court that had sentenced Asia Bibi, a mother of four, to death in 2010. Her case has outraged Christians worldwide and been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help Bibi were assassinated. A hardline Islamist party has threatened street protests if Bibi were to be freed or her sentence reduced.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-blasphemy-verdict/pakistani-court-overturns-death-sentence-for-christian-woman-in-blasphemy-case-idUSKCN1N50EK?il=0

Secretary of State Pompeo calls for end to fighting in Yemen

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Tuesday for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen and said U.N.-led negotiations to end the civil war should begin next month. In a statement, Pompeo said missile and drone strikes by Iran-allied Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should stop, and the Saudi-led coalition must cease air strikes in all populated areas of Yemen.

Yemen is one of the poorest Arab countries and faces the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by a nearly four-year-old war that pits the Houthis against the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the West. “The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” Pompeo said, using an acronym for unmanned aerial vehicles. “Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen,” he added.

The United States helps the coalition by refueling its jets and providing training in targeting. Pompeo said last month that he had certified to the U.S. Congress that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were working to reduce civilian casualties in Yemen. Three-quarters of Yemen’s population, or 22 million people, require aid and 8.4 million people are on the brink of starvation.

U.N. special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said earlier this month that the United Nations hoped to resume consultations between the warring sides by November. Both Pompeo and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis voiced support for the U.N. effort.

Mattis, addressing a forum in Washington on Tuesday, defended U.S. efforts to help reduce casualties by the Saudi-led coalition and said all sides needed to take meaningful steps toward a ceasefire and negotiations in the next 30 days. Mattis added that the Saudis and Emiratis appeared ready to embrace efforts by Griffiths to find a negotiated solution to the conflict. “We’ve got to move toward a peace effort here. And we can’t say we’re going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days,” Mattis said.

Pompeo said the consultations planned by Griffiths should start in November “to implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation.” A cessation of hostilities and resumption of a political track would help ease the humanitarian crisis, Pompeo said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-usa/secretary-of-state-pompeo-calls-for-end-to-fighting-in-yemen-idUSKCN1N502G?il=0

Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk flew to the Seattle area in June for meetings with engineers leading a satellite launch project crucial to his space company’s growth. Within hours of landing, Musk had fired at least seven members of the program’s senior management team at the Redmond, Washington, office, the culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites, according to the two SpaceX employees with direct knowledge of the situation. Known for pushing aggressive deadlines, Musk quickly brought in new managers from SpaceX headquarters in California to replace a number of the managers he fired. Their mandate: Launch SpaceX’s first batch of U.S.-made satellites by the middle of next year, the sources said.

The management shakeup and the launch timeline, previously unreported, illustrate how quickly Musk wants to bring online SpaceX’s Starlink program, which is competing with OneWeb and Canada’s Telesat to be first to market with a new satellite-based Internet service. Those services - essentially a constellation of satellites that will bring high-speed Internet to rural and suburban locations globally - are key to generating the cash that privately-held SpaceX needs to fund Musk’s real dream of developing a new rocket capable of flying paying customers to the moon and eventually trying to colonize Mars. “It would be like rebuilding the Internet in space,” Musk told an audience in 2015 when he unveiled Starlink. “The goal would be to have a majority of long-distance Internet traffic go over this network.”

But the program is struggling to hire and retain staff, the employees said. Currently, about 300 SpaceX employees work on Starlink in Redmond, the sources said. According to GeekWire, Musk said in 2015 the Redmond operation would have “probably several hundred people, maybe a thousand people” after 3-4 years in operation. So far this year, about 50 employees left the company “on their own accord,” one of the SpaceX employees said, though the reason for those departures was unclear. Overall, SpaceX employs more than 6,000 staff. As of Tuesday, there were 22 job openings - including a job making espresso drinks - for the Redmond office, according to SpaceX’s website.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-starlink-insight/musk-shakes-up-spacex-in-race-to-make-satellite-launch-window-sources-idUSKCN1N50FC?il=0

>>3672917

Well I am glad that Pompeo & Mattis could be of assistance!

>>3672921

I have watched this several times it is very interesting..a lot of work went into this investigation. hmm I wonder who called for the crash…. yup nothing to see here

This pic reminds me of Otto Warmbier

>>3672958

Yup and look at the face of the Iranian…he's like is that as low as you can go…pathetic!

Austria to withdraw from U.N. migration agreement: APA

Austria will follow the United States and Hungary in withdrawing from a United Nations agreement on migration, APA news agency said on Wednesday, citing Austrian concerns about its sovereignty and potential restrictions on its freedom to act. Austria will not sign the agreement dealing with refugees and migrants rights, which will be adopted in December at a United Nations conference in Marrakech, Morocco, APA said, citing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache. The Austria government is due to make a cabinet decision on the treaty later on Wednesday, APA added. Kurz said earlier this month he viewed some of the points of the agreement very critically.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-migrants-austria/austria-to-withdraw-from-u-n-migration-agreement-apa-idUSKCN1N50JZ?il=0

Indonesia removes Lion Air director after plane crash: Antara news agency

Indonesia’s transport minister removed on Wednesday the technical director of the Lion Air airline and several of its technicians after the crash of one of its jets with 189 people on board, the Antara news agency reported on Wednesday. “Today we dismiss (the director) from his position and his duty,” Budi Karya Sumadi said, citing the accident on Monday as the reason. He said technicians were also dismissed. It was not clear whether the removal was permanent or temporary. Lion Air’s chief executive, Edward Sirait, told Reuters he had not heard of the minister’s order.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-crash-lion-air/indonesia-removes-lion-air-director-after-plane-crash-antara-news-agency-idUSKCN1N50JB?il=0

Indonesian rescue workers believe fuselage of crashed plane found

Indonesian search and rescue workers believe they have found the fuselage of a Lion Air passenger jet that crashed with 189 people on board, and are also trying to confirm the origin of an underwater “ping” signal, officials said on Wednesday. Ground staff lost touch with flight JT610 of Indonesian budget airline Lion Air 13 minutes after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 took off early on Monday from Jakarta, on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-crash/indonesian-rescue-workers-believe-fuselage-of-crashed-plane-found-idUSKCN1N5051?il=0

>>3673030

I have a feeling this is just the beginning..

>>3673071

Yup, and it turns out he's pretty great at it, kek!

India central bank governor may resign, reports say; rupee down

Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel may consider resigning from his post given a breakdown in relations with the government, TV channels reported on Wednesday, sparking a sell-off in the rupee and bonds. Indian television channels CNBC-TV18 and ET Now cited sources as saying that Patel could quit. The RBI and the finance ministry declined to comment.

The government has invoked never-before-used powers under the RBI Act that allow it to issue directions to the central bank governor on matters of public interest, the Economic Times newspaper reported. It said the government had sent letters to the RBI governor in recent weeks exercising powers under section 7 of the RBI Act on issues ranging from liquidity for non-bank finance companies, capital requirements for weak banks and lending to small- and medium-sized companies. Section 7 says that ‘the Central Government may from time to time give such directions to the Bank as it may, after consultation with the Governor of the Bank, consider necessary in the public interest’, a statute that has not been used in independent India, according to the Economic Times.

The 10-year benchmark bond yield rose to 7.87 percent from its previous close of 7.83 percent. The rupee fell to 73.99 to the dollar from 73.6750 on Tuesday, after touching 74.04, its lowest since October 15. “It is difficult to believe that the RBI governor will resign because it is unprecedented and would look quite irresponsible and (an) immature step,” said a senior trader at a foreign bank. “But it is quite worrisome to see the government trying to continuously interfere into the RBI’s operations.”

IN THE OPEN

Tensions between the RBI and the government have spilled into public after Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said last week that undermining central bank independence could be “potentially catastrophic”, indicating the authority is pushing back against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers ahead of a general election due by May. Adding to the row, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley blamed the central bank for failing to stop a lending spree during 2008-2014 that left banks with $150 billion of bad debt. Patel and other regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, met Jaitley and other top finance ministry officials at a meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council on Tuesday to discuss the liquidity crunch. However, there was no sign of resignation by Patel at the meeting, officials said. Patel and his deputy governors are expected to meet top finance ministry officials on Friday.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-cenbank-govt/india-central-bank-governor-may-resign-reports-say-rupee-down-idUSKCN1N5085?il=0

U.S. Postal Service patent dispute heads to Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a dispute involving a small Alabama company that accused the U.S. Postal Service of infringing its patented mail processing system and improperly convincing a federal tribunal to cancel the patent. The justices will hear an appeal by Return Mail, Inc of a lower court ruling that upheld the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal’s 2015 determination that the company’s patent covering a system for processing undeliverable mail was invalid. Return Mail argued that since the Postal Service, a self-supporting independent federal agency, cannot be sued in the same way as private companies it should not be eligible to ask the patent office to review a patent’s validity like private companies can. The Trump administration, backing the Postal Service, asked the Supreme Court not to hear the case.

The case began in 2011 when Return Mail sued the U.S. government, accusing the Postal Service of stealing its technology after the company had tried to license its system but the agency instead developed its own. The Postal Service challenged the patent’s validity at the patent office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The board’s patent review processes have become especially popular with high-technology companies that are frequent targets of patent lawsuits and have led to a high rate of patent cancellation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last year upheld the board’s decision to invalidate a key part of Return Mail’s patent. Rulings by the board can prevent further challenges to a patent’s validity in a federal district court, where infringement lawsuits are typically resolved. But the same constraints are not applied to the federal government when it is accused. Return Mail argued that this means the government should not be allowed to launch challenges before the board.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-postalservice/u-s-postal-service-patent-dispute-heads-to-supreme-court-idUSKCN1N02NX