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Monday, June 16, 2025

Soros, 94, absent from son’s wedding, at ‘intimate family service’, insider insists ‘in good health’

 Billionaire George Soros was not at the Saturday wedding of his son Alex Soros and Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, Page Six can exclusively reveal.

But while the top Democratic donor skipped the Saturday nups, the father of the groom, 94, did attend a smaller Friday family service, which was reportedly officiated by a rabbi and an imam in celebration of both Abedin’s Muslim faith and Soros’ Jewish heritage. 

Guests at the blowout Saturday event at Alex’s sprawling estate in Water Mill, N.Y., included Bill and Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon, Vogue icon Anna Wintour and Nicky Hilton Rothschild.

A source close to the elder Soros told Page Six that the philanthropist and his wife Tamiko Bolton, “hosted an intimate family service on Friday morning at their home.”

George Soros did not attend the Saturday wedding of his son, Alex.via REUTERS
The insider added that Soros is “94 years old and in good health,” when asked if the billionaire might’ve skipped the Saturday event for any health reasons.

It wasn’t otherwise clear why Alex’s dad didn’t attend the bigger bash.

We previously reported that Boyz II Men — the band behind ’90s hits like “End of the Road” and “Motownphilly” — performed on Saturday night, while toasts were made by speakers including Abedin’s son, Jordan (whom she shares with ex-husband Anthony Weiner), and the prime minister of Albania, Edi Rama.

The billionaire father-of-the-groom did attend a smaller Friday family service.
Page Six exclusively revealed that Soros and Huma Abedin were engaged.@humaabedin/Instagram

Reports said that Alex’s brother Jonathan, Hillary Clinton and Wintour also spoke at the Saturday event, where the menu included agnolotti pasta, chilled pea soup, American Wagyu steak and grilled prawns.

“Anyone who was anyone was there,” an insider said of the star-studded wedding where guests also included Microsoft scion Rory Gates.

According to Vogue, the bride wore two custom wedding dresses for the two-ceremony celebration: one by Erdem and one by Givenchy.

The event was at Alex’s Water Mill, NY, estate.INSTARimages.com
Guests at the wedding included Bill and Hillary Clinton and other VIPs.INSTARimages.com

The mag reported: “On Friday, there was an intimate service at Soros’s father’s home in Southampton with family and friends, to sign the Nikah in honor of Abedin’s Muslim faith and the Ketubah in honor of Soros’s Jewish heritage.” And, “On Saturday, a larger celebration took place at the couple’s home nearby.”

Earlier this year, top Dem donor George Soros and Hillary Clinton were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by then-President Biden at a White House ceremony. 

The Hungarian-born hedge-fund billionaire gave more than $175 million to Democrats during the 2022 midterms, according to Federal Election Commission records — and in 2024 gave another $60 million for House and Senate Democrats and other left-wing causes through his Democracy PAC, records showed. 

Soros and Abedin got engaged last summer.
The band Boyz II Men played the nuptials.@alexsoros/Instagram

Page Six exclusively revealed earlier this year that billionaire Soros’ 39-year-old son and Clinton’s former aide, 48, sent out save-the-date cards for their New York nuptials in February.

Page Six also broke the news of the power couple’s engagement last summer. “It’s a classic Clinton world couple,” an insider subsequently told us. “Alex is the perfect match for Huma. He’s insanely wealthy and powerful — everything that Huma cares about.”

Abedin was previously married to disgraced Democratic politician Weiner, but she filed for divorce in 2017 — nine months after his infamous “Carlos Danger” sexting scandal surfaced.

https://pagesix.com/2025/06/16/society/george-soros-absent-from-son-alexs-wedding-to-huma-abedin/

Iran comes crawling back to the negotiating table -reports

 

Is Israel getting Iran good?

Sure looks like it, with this report from the Wall Street Journal:

DUBAI—Iran has been urgently signaling that it seeks an end to hostilities and resumption of talks over its nuclear programs, sending messages to Israel and the U.S. via Arab intermediaries, Middle Eastern and European officials said.

In the midst of a ferocious Israeli air campaign, Tehran has told Arab officials it would be open to returning to the negotiating table as long as the U.S. doesn’t join the attack, the officials said. Iran also passed messages to Israel saying it is in the interest of both sides to keep the violence contained.

Reuters has a very similar story here.

The Journal notes that Israeli aircraft are flying freely over Tehran and there's not a thing the mullahs can do to stop them.

This is one example of what that means, among many:

The moment the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting TV studios was struck by Israeli rockets. pic.twitter.com/zdnGspVBj5

— Raymond Arroyo (@RaymondArroyo) June 16, 2025

They had their cheerleaders in the Western press. but the backdrop of the building on fire is a beaut:

It’s his real account. 😬 https://t.co/OHtaN8Xeor

— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) June 16, 2025

And the mullahs are reportedly not coping well:

JUST IN 🔴

Israeli official says Khamenei is in a troubled mental state, struggling to cope with the loss of close associates and unable to adapt to their replacements. - Channel 12: pic.twitter.com/4nLdRGX50i

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 16, 2025

So now they want to return to the negotiating table -- after some fifty years of bloodcurdling rhetoric and vicious warfare, from themselves and their crummy little proxies. 

Now Israel is having its way.

What it tells us is Israel must really have them on the ropes, having taken out their proxies in Hamas and Hezb'allah and to some extent the Houthis, and then disabling their air force. Doing that has allowed Israel to dispense with expensivee missile strikes, and just send the fighter jets in to take out everything that needs to be taken out.

As President Trump has noted, these clowns had their chance, but instead of cut a deal with President Trump, they blew it.

Now they're getting the stick, and they're crying uncle.

Well, so long as Israel has the wherewithal to win in this war against Iran, they really ought to finish the job, so Iran won't make them come over again. Most of the world is sick and tired of these lunatics who are now getting what they deserve. Let's hope Israel, to the extent it practically can, and the U.S., ignore this call for more endless talks which are likely only a bid to buy time and arm up some more.

What Iran' mullahs need to be doing now, if they want to survive, is start surrendering unconditionally. At this late date, and after all they've pulled, the solution for them is a complete surrender, a complete rebuilding, much as Japan had to take at the end of World War II.

They had their chance, and now it's time for something different.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/06/iran_comes_crawling_back_to_the_negotiating_table_reports.html

Cracks in the OpenAI-Microsoft relationship are reportedly widening

 OpenAI and Microsoft may be reaching an inflection point in their relationship, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The report, citing anonymous sources, says OpenAI executives have considered publicly accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior throughout their partnership. OpenAI executives also mulled whether to seek a federal regulatory review of their contract with Microsoft.

OpenAI is trying to loosen Microsoft’s grip on its intellectual property and computing resources, but the startup also needs the tech giant’s approval to complete its for-profit conversion.

The two companies are in a standoff over OpenAI’s $3 billion acquisition of the AI coding startup, Windsurf. OpenAI doesn’t want Microsoft to get Windsurf’s intellectual property — which could enhance the cloud provider’s own AI coding tool, GitHub Copilot — according to the report.

While Microsoft was once a major accelerant to OpenAI’s growth, the companies’ relationship has grown tense. In recent months, OpenAI has reportedly tried to reduce its reliance on Microsoft for cloud services.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/16/the-cracks-in-the-openai-microsoft-relationship-are-reportedly-widening/

'Trump to Abruptly Depart G-7 After Calling for Tehran Evacuation'

 

President Donald Trump is set to abruptly depart the Group of Seven leaders’ summit in Canada, hours after he took to social media to call for the evacuation of Iran’s capital Tehran.

Trump’s change of plans was announced about an hour after he urged Iran’s leadership to sign a deal to limit its nuclear program and Israel signaled strikes would continue.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was leaving for Washington “so he can attend to many important matters,” and in a follow-up post on X said the departure was due to “what’s going on in the Middle East.”

It wasn’t clear if Trump knew of a fresh round of attacks Israel may have planned for the city, which has a population of more than 9 million people, nor what the next steps will be for the US when the American president arrives in Washington. Despite the abrupt announcement, Trump is expected to participate in a dinner before leaving the summit Monday evening.

Israel had earlier warned one Tehran neighborhood to evacuate and video showed massive traffic jams as people sought to escape. Soon after Trump’s post, Iran’s Fars news agency reported several explosions east of the city.

“Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

In another pair of Truth Social posts, Trump appeared to hit back at Republican-leaning critics who’ve warned against US entanglement in Israel’s offensive against Iran. “AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” he wrote in one.

Trump’s comments jolted markets with US equity index futures turning modestly lower and crude contracts erasing declines.

Earlier in the day, Trump had said Iran wanted to make a deal, and “as soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something.” He didn’t provide any more details.

French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that Trump’s early departure from the G-7 meeting could mean a positive development in the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel.

“If the US can obtain a ceasefire that is a good thing,” Macron told reporters in Alberta.

Alex Pfeiffer, a White House spokesperson, denied claims on social media that the US would join Israel in its military offensive against Iran.

“American forces are maintaining their defensive posture, and that has not changed,” he said in a post to X.

Ongoing campaign

Israeli officials have said their forces have taken control over much of Iranian airspace and severely damaged key facilities used in Iran’s missile and nuclear programs since the assault was launched Friday, sparking fears of a widening conflict in the Middle East.

“They want to stop and continue producing the weapons of death, both the nuclear weapons that threaten our existence and the ballistic missiles, but we are committed to destroying these two threats,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a press conference Monday, before Trump’s latest comments. “If that can be achieved in another way, please – but we gave it a chance for 60 days,” he added, referring to the period that ended with Israel’s attacks Friday.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Monday that Tehran has indicated that it wants to de-escalate hostilities with Israel and is willing to resume nuclear talks with the US as long as Washington doesn’t join the Israeli attacks. The newspaper cited Middle Eastern and European officials it didn’t identify. A similar report by Reuters says Iran conveyed the message through Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

Oil fell on the WSJ report, with Brent futures dropping around 4% after rising over 10% Friday. US Treasuries pared earlier drops and European bonds gained as traders reacted to diminishing concerns about inflation.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has never left the negotiating table,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a phone call with European officials Monday. “But naturally, our focus at this stage is on response to Israel’s aggression that is both effective and leaves them with regret.”

The conflict showed no sign of letting up. Iran fired several waves of drones and missiles over the last 24 hours, while Israel continued hitting Tehran, killing one more senior military official and setting the state-television complex ablaze with a strike during a live broadcast.

About the same time as Trump was speaking in Canada, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency cited a senior security official as saying the country is prepared to deliver a “major blow” to Israel following its recent strikes on Iranian cities and targets. Shortly afterward, air raid sirens sounded as Israel reported it had detected more missile launches. Later, authorities gave the all clear and there were no reports of new missile strikes.

In a telephone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian reaffirmed that his country will respond to Israel’s ongoing strikes with proportional retaliation.

“We do not seek to escalate the conflict, but we will respond to any attack on Iranian soil in a manner that will make them regret it,” Pezeshkian said.

Since Friday, 224 people have been killed in Iran, according to the government, which said most of the casualties were civilians. Iranian attacks killed 24 people in Israel, according to the Israeli government press office, and injured 592.

Israel’s campaign is “ahead of schedule,” Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday, declining to say how long it’s expected to last.

“We’re going to go about our operation to remove these two threats,” he said, referring to Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. “Whether Iran will decide to meet with the United States and agree to terms that they should have taken a month ago, or two weeks ago, or two months ago, you know, that’s up to Iran to decide.”

Netanyahu told ABC News on Monday that his military was seeking to end what he called half a century of conflict, and didn’t rule out targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to achieve the goal. He added that it’s in Washington’s interest to support Israel in the mission to end Iran’s nuclear program.

The exchange of missile salvos between Israel and Iran is the most serious escalation after years of shadow war. Analysts fear it might push the Middle East into a regional conflict, causing wider human loss and potentially disrupting energy flows and vital trade routes.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-iran-wants-talk-190547812.html