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George W Bush gives Michelle Obama a mint at his dad’s funeral
GEORGE W. Bush was today captured on camera handing Michelle Obama a cough drop at his dad’s funeral – the continuation of a longstanding running joke between the pair.
Michelle laughed as she was handed the mint after they were first caught doing the same at Senator John McCain’s memorial service in September.
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The ceremony at Washington National Cathedral, the nexus of state funerals, will cap three days of remembrance by dignitaries and ordinary citizens as they honoured the Republican president.
The 41st president’s casket has been lying in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda since Monday, with a river of mourners passing through around the clock.
The viewing comes to a close at 7am (1pm GMT) in Washington today.
The casket and the family will arrive at the cathedral just before 11 a.m., when the service is expected to begin.
The service itself is closed to the public, but will be covered by major television networks around the world.
President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, and the remaining former presidents and their families: George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary.
Trump has had strained relations with all of them at various points in his relatively short political career But since Bush Sr’s death, Trump has extended traditional courtesies to the Bush family, including allowing them to stay at the presidential guest house and visiting with them there.
Four men are expected to deliver eulogies including the late president’s son and former president George W. Bush.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who held the post while the elder Bush was president is also expected to speak as is the former Republican Senator for Wyoming Alan Simpson who has known the Bush family since the 1960.
Historian and Bush’s biographer Jon Meacham is also expected to give a speech at the service.
What will happen after the service?
Bush’s casket will return to Texas late Wednesday for the last time and is expected to lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston until 7am tomorrow morning.
The church will also hold its own memorial service for the former president later that morning.
A motorcade will take Bush’s body to Union Pacific Railroad Westfield Auto Facility, where a funeral train will transport the late president’s remains to Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
He’ll be laid to rest on the grounds of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, near his wife, Barbara, and their daughter Robin, who died of leukaemia in 1953 at age 3.
#remembering41
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