In a welcome break from two wars, terrorism and soaring oil prices, US President George W Bush on Saturday celebrated his daughter Jenna’s wedding on his Texas ranch.
Far from the pomp and publicity of past White House nuptials, Jenna, 26, wed fiance Henry Hager, 30, less than one year after he proposed at dawn atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park on Maine’s coast.
“Today is my daughter Jenna’s wedding day. This is a joyous occasion for our family, as we celebrate the happy life ahead of her and her husband Henry,” the president said in his weekly radio address.
“It’s also a special time for Laura, who this Mother’s Day weekend will watch a young woman we raised together walk down the aisle,” he said, hours before the ceremony on the 850-hectare estate.
With twin sister Barbara as her maid of honor and Hager’s brother Jack as best man, 14 young women attendants and 14 male ushers, Jenna and Henry married at 7:30pm before a cream-colored Texas limestone cross that the president ordered erected near a lake on the ranch.
A Houston minister, Kirbyjon Caldwell, officiated. Caldwell recently announced he was supporting Democratic Senator Barack Obama, a fierce Bush critic, for president in the November election.
“He is a family friend,” said Laura Bush’s press secretary, Sally McDonough.
Hours before the outdoor ceremony, tiny Crawford — population 751 — sat under a gray ceiling of clouds and the weather forecast called for a partly cloudy evening with 33˚C temperature.
The more than 200 family and friends — including former president George Bush and wife Barbara — gathered by a lake on the property for the event, followed by a reception under a tent.
“She just wanted to get married at home. She just feels a lot more comfortable there. And it will be really beautiful. This is the time when the wildflowers are all blooming,” Laura Bush said on Monday.
Guests were to shake their tail feathers to the funk, classic rock and rhythm and blues tunes of The Tyrone Smith Revue party band, McDonough said.
Best wishes messages could be seen at a local church as well as some of the tiny town’s souvenir shops, which were making the most of the attention, selling US$11 computer mousepads and US$10 coffee mugs adorned with the happy couple’s picture.
Jenna was to wear an Oscar de la Renta gown with matte beading and embroidery and the ring was to be a Hager family heirloom reset with sapphires, McDonough said.
She declined, however, to confirm that the newlyweds would honeymoon in Europe before settling down in Baltimore, about 45 minutes drive from Washington and the most powerful father- and mother-in-law in the world.
Hager, who is set to receive his business degree in a few weeks, met Jenna during the president’s 2004 reelection and worked as an aide to Bush’s since-departed political guru, Karl Rove.
The White House managed press attention with near-surgical precision, claiming that key details were “private,” then doling them out either in dribs and drabs sure to stoke media interest, or in splashy exclusive interviews like a Vogue magazine article that drove early coverage.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese