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A28 u.s. news
Diahuebs 8 september 2022

Obamas return to White House: Official portraits unveiled

(AP) — Former President ly from photographs taken in
Barack Obama and his various locations on the State
wife Michelle returned Floor of the White House.
to the White House on Getting the dress just right
Wednesday for the unveil- was the hardest part, she said.
ing of official portraits
with a modern vibe: him Obama's portrait is destined
standing expressionless for display in the Grand
against a white back- Foyer of the White House,
ground and her seated on the traditional showcase for
a sofa in the Red Room paintings of the two most
wearing a formal light recent presidents. Clinton's
blue dress. and George W. Bush's por-
traits currently hang there.
The artist whom Barack
Obama selected to paint his Mrs. Obama's portrait likely
portrait says the "stripped will be placed with her pre-
down" style of his works decessors along the hallway
helps create an "encounter" on the Ground Floor of the
between the person in the White House, joining Barba-
painting and the person look- ra Bush, Hillary Clinton and
ing at it. Laura Bush.

Robert McCurdy likes to ed in January 2017. Obama selected from hundreds of started to cry. The White House Histori-
present his subjects with- himself visited in April to images. He spends a year to cal Association, a nonprofit
out any facial expression help celebrate the anniver- 18 months on each portrait She had planned on having organization that is funded
and standing against a white sary of the major health care and said he knows he's done Mrs. Obama stand in the through private donations
background, which is how law he signed. "when it stops irritating me." portrait, "to give it a certain and sales of books and an an-
America's 44th and first Black dignity," but said the former nual Christmas ornament,
president will be seen here The former first lady chose She kept sinking into the first lady "has so much dig- helps manage the portrait
for posterity, in a black suit artist Sharon Sprung for her couch she sat on while they nity that I decided to do it sit- process and, since the 1960s,
and gray tie. portrait. sat on sturdier chairs. Then ting just because ... it was too has paid for most of those in
the president "flicked" away much looking up at her. I'm the collection.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden The portraits do not look like the printed talking points she that much shorter than her."
invited Obama and the for- any others in the collection to had handed out to everyone Congress bought the first
mer first lady back to their which they will be added, in in the room. Then she just Sprung worked on the por- painting in the collection, of
former home to unveil their terms of style and substance. "went still" and had to "gasp trait for eight months, day George Washington. Other
official portraits. It was Mrs. for air a little bit" when some- and night, the most time portraits of early presidents
Obama's first visit since her McCurdy works from a one else in the meeting asked she's ever spent on a single and first ladies often came to
husband's presidency end- photograph of his subjects, her why she paints. Then she painting. She worked entire- the White House as gifts.

One-legged Stone Age skeleton may show oldest amputation

(AP) — The 31,000-year-old skel- searchers concluded the foot bones plant life in the region has medicinal
eton of a young adult found in a weren't missing from the grave, or properties.
cave in Indonesia that is missing lost in an accident — they were care-
its left foot and part of its left leg fully removed. Also, the community would have
reveal the oldest known evidence had to care for the child for years af-
of an amputation, according to a The remaining leg bone showed a terward, since surviving the rugged
new study. clean, slanted cut that healed over, terrain as an amputee wouldn't have
Maloney said. There were no signs of been easy.
Scientists say the amputation was infection, which would be expected
performed when the person was a if the child had gotten its leg bitten This early surgery "rewrites the his-
child — and that the "patient" went off by a creature like a crocodile. And tory of human medical knowledge
on to live for years as an amputee. there were also no signs of a crush- and developments," Maloney said at
The prehistoric surgery could show ing fracture, which would have been the briefing.
that humans were making medical expected if the leg had snapped off in
advances much earlier than previ- an accident. Before this find, the earliest example
ously thought, according to the study of amputation had been in a French
published Wednesday in the journal The person appears to have lived farmer from 7,000 years ago, who
Nature. for around six to nine more years had part of his forearm removed.
after losing the limb, eventually dy- Scientists had thought that advanced
Researchers were exploring a cave in ing from unknown causes as a young medical practices developed around
Borneo, in a rainforest region known adult, researchers say. 10,000 years ago, as humans settled
for having some of the earliest rock down into agricultural societies, au-
art in the world, when they came This shows that the prehistoric for- thors said.
across the grave, said Tim Maloney, agers knew enough about medicine
an archaeologist at Griffith Univer- to perform the surgery without fatal But this study adds to growing evi-
sity in Australia and the study's lead blood loss or infection, authors con- dence that humans started caring for
researcher. cluded. Researchers don't know what each other's health much earlier in
kind of tool was used to amputate the their history, said Alecia Schrenk, an
Though much of the skeleton was in- limb, or how infection was prevent- anthropologist at the University of
tact, it was missing its left foot and the ed — but they speculate that a sharp Nevada, Las Vegas, who was not in-
lower part of its left leg, he explained. stone tool may have made the cut, volved with the study.
After examining the remains, the re- and point out that some of the rich