The newest female Dem power trio spotted at this Manhattan hotspot
The newest female Democratic power trio was recently spotted at the swanky Midtown restaurant The Polo Bar.
Huma Abedin, the ex-wife of disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner, broke bread with Hillary Clinton and George Clooney's wife, Amal, at the celebrity hotspot last week, a source told Paula Froelich of NewsNation.
'There were secret security and bodyguards everywhere,' the source said.
'They were just huddled together at a table talking.'
3 Huma Abedin served as vice chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and was her deputy chief of staff when she was secretary of state.
Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Abedin is tying the knot with philanthropist George Soros' son Alex, who controls his dad's $25 billion dollar Open Society Foundations, one of the world's largest private philanthropic funds that donates to liberal political causes.
The 48-year-old — who started her political career as an intern for Clinton in 1996, then became her deputy chief of staff and vice chair of her 2016 presidential campaign — now runs the Democratic Party inside circle, Froelich's sources said.
3 Abedin is marrying George Soros' son Alex this month.
Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
Clooney, an international lawyer, and her hubby — who famously penned the 2024 New York Times essay 'I Love Joe Biden, But We Need A New Nominee' — are liberal icons and run the Clooney Foundation for Justice together.
3 An international lawyer, Amal Clooney helps run the Clooney Foundation for Justice.
Corbis via Getty Images
Abedin, Clinton and Clooney are now considered 'the female triumvirate of the Democratic Party,' Froelich said, adding that Adedin's wedding to Soros will take on June 14 in the Hamptons and may include the Dems talking about plans to revive the party.
'If these people are picking the new party head, we are in trouble,' an insider told her.
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Los Angeles Times
24 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
West Virginia sends hundreds of National Guard members to D.C. at Trump team's request
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A protest against Trump's intervention drew scores to Washington's Dupont Circle on Saturday afternoon before a march to the White House, about a mile and a half away. Demonstrators assembled behind a banner that said, 'No fascist takeover of D.C.,' and some in the crowd held signs that said, 'No military occupation.' Trump was at his Virginia golf club after Friday's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, announced Saturday that he was sending a contingent of 300 to 400 National Guard members. 'West Virginia is proud to stand with President Trump in his effort to restore pride and beauty to our nation's capital,' Morrisey said. Morgan Taylor, one of the organizers of Saturday's protest, said demonstrators who turned out on a hot summer day were hoping to spark enough backlash to Trump's actions that the administration would be forced to pull back. 'It's hot, but I'm glad to be here. 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Dickstein said she turned out to protest with friends and relatives to 'prevent a continuous domino effect going forward with other cities.' The West Virginia National Guard activation suggests the administration sees the need for additional manpower, after Trump played down the need for Washington to hire more police officers. Maj. Gen. James Seward, West Virginia's adjutant general — a chief aide to the governor and commanding general of the National Guard — said in a statement that members of the Guard 'stand ready to support our partners in the National Capital Region' and that the Guard's 'unique capabilities and preparedness make it an invaluable partner in this important undertaking.' Federal agents have appeared in some of the city's most highly trafficked neighborhoods, garnering a mix of praise, resistance and alarm from local residents and leaders across the country. City leaders, who are obligated to cooperate with the president's order under the federal laws that direct the district's local governance, have sought to work with the administration, though they have bristled at the scope of the president's takeover. On Friday, the administration reversed course on an order that aimed to place the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration as an 'emergency police commissioner' after the district's top lawyer sued to contest. After a court hearing, Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, issued a memo that directed D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement regardless of any city law. District officials say they are evaluating how to best comply. In his order Monday, Trump declared an emergency, citing the 'city government's failure to maintain public order.' He said that impeded the 'federal government's ability to operate efficiently to address the nation's broader interests without fear of our workers being subjected to rampant violence.' In a letter to city residents, Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, wrote that 'our limited self-government has never faced the type of test we are facing right now.' She added that if Washingtonians stick together, 'we will show the entire nation what it looks like to fight for American democracy — even when we don't have full access to it.' Brown and Pesoli write for the Associated Press. AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
It's time to save the whales again
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Protecting the environment from pollution and from loss of wilderness and wildlife quickly moved from a protest issue to a societal ethic as America's keystone environmental legislation was passed at around the same time, written by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by a Republican president, Richard Nixon. Those laws include the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) , the Clean Air Act (1970), the Clean Water Act (1972) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), which goes further than the Endangered Species Act (1973) in protecting all marine mammals, not just threatened ones, from harassment, killing or capture by U.S. citizens in U.S. waters and on the high seas. All these 'green' laws and more are under attack by the Trump administration, its congressional minions and longtime corporate opponents of environmental protections, including the oil and gas industry. Republicans' disingenuous argument for weakening the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act is that the legislation has worked so well in rebuilding wildlife populations that it's time to loosen regulations for a better balance between nature and human enterprise. When it comes to marine mammal populations, that premise is wrong. On July 22, at a House Natural Resources subcommittee meeting, Republican Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska introduced draft legislation that would scale back the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Among other things, his proposal would limit the ability of the federal government to take action against 'incidental take,' the killing of whales, dolphins and seals by sonic blasts from oil exploration, ship and boat strikes or by drowning as accidental catch (also known as bycatch) in fishing gear. Begich complained that marine mammal protections interfere with 'essential projects like energy development, port construction, and even fishery operations.' Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), the ranking member on the House Resources Committee, calls the legislation a 'death sentence' for marine mammals. It's true that the marine mammal law has been a success in many ways. Since its passage, no marine mammal has gone extinct and some species have recovered dramatically. The number of northern elephant seals migrating to California beaches to mate and molt grew from 10,000 in 1972 to about 125,000 today. There were an estimated 11,000 gray whales off the West Coast when the Marine Mammal Protection Act became law; by 2016, the population peaked at 27,000. But not all species have thrived. Historically there were about 20,000 North Atlantic right whales off the Eastern Seaboard. They got their name because they were the 'right' whales to harpoon — their bodies floated for easy recovery after they were killed. In 1972 they were down to an estimated 350 individuals. After more than half a century of federal legal protection, the population is estimated at 370. They continue to suffer high mortality rates from ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear and other causes, including noise pollution and greater difficulty finding prey in warming seas. Off Florida, a combination of boat strikes and algal pollution threaten some 8,000-10,000 manatees. The population's recovery (from about 1,000 in 1979) has been significant enough to move them off the endangered species list in 2017, but since the beginning of this year alone, nearly 500 have died. Scientists would like to see them relisted, but at least they're still covered by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. A 2022 study in the Gulf of Mexico found that in areas affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill 12 years earlier, the dolphin population had declined 45% and that it might take 35 years to recover. In the Arctic Ocean off Alaska, loss of sea ice is threatening polar bears (they're considered marine mammals), bowhead and beluga whales, walruses, ringed seals and harp seals. On the West Coast the number of gray whales — a Marine Mammal Act success story and now a cautionary tale — has crashed by more than half in the last decade to fewer than 13,000, according to a recent report by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, the nation's lead ocean agency, is an endangered species in its own right in the Trump era). Declining prey, including tiny shrimp-like amphipods, in the whales' summer feeding grounds in the Arctic probably caused by warming water are thought to be a major contributor to their starvation deaths and reduced birth rates. The whale's diving numbers are just one signal that climate change alone makes maintaining the Marine Mammal Act urgent. Widespread marine heat waves linked to a warming ocean are contributing to the loss of kelp forests that sea otters and other marine mammals depend on. Algal blooms off California, and for the first time ever, Alaska, supercharged by warmer waters and nutrient pollution, are leading to the deaths of thousands of dolphins and sea lions. What the Trump administration and its antiregulation, anti-environmental-protection supporters fail to recognize is that the loss of marine mammals is an indicator for the declining health of our oceans and the natural world we depend on and are a part of. This time, saving the whales will be about saving ourselves. David Helvarg is executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean policy group. His next book, 'Forest of the Sea: The Remarkable Life and Imperiled Future of Kelp,' is scheduled to be published in 2026.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Hochul throws shade on Mamdani's NYC-owned grocery store plan
Gov. Kathy Hochul threw cold water Saturday on socialist NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's proposal to bring government-owned-and-operated grocery stores to the Big Apple. 'I favor free enterprise,' Hochul told business leaders at a Hamptons breakfast hosted by supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, when asked about Mamdani's pie-in-the-sky plan. The response drew huge applause from attendees, including Catsimatidis. 3 Socialist NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's proposal to bring government-owned-and-operated grocery stores to the Big Apple was slammed Saturday by Gov. Kathy Hochul. James Keivom The Gristedes supermarket owner later told The Post Mamdani's plan would fail miserably, pointing to failures at a Kansas City, Mo.-owned grocery store that closed Monday after years of being a huge money pit for taxpayers and being plagued by rampant shoplifting and empty shelves. Kansas City reportedly invested $18 million the past decade trying to keep the store afloat. 3 'I favor free enterprise,' Hochul (left) told business leaders at a Hamptons breakfast hosted by supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis (right). Obtained by NY Post 'New York City is a capitalist city – look what happened in Kansas City?' he said of the now-shuttered Sun Fresh Market. 'These types of grocery stores just don't work.' Hochul, a moderate Democrat, has yet to made an endorsement in the mayoral race. Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and frontrunner heading in November's mayoral election, has proposed opening five municipal grocery stores — one in each borough — and potentially expanding to a larger network of stores. 3 Mamdani has proposed opening five municipal grocery stores — one in each borough — and potentially expanding to a larger network of stores. James Keivom He's estimated the first five would cost $60 million combined to build. Critics have said they fear Mamdani's plan to create 'Soviet' markets would leave customers stuck with just one brand or generic brands of items like bread and milk. They also said that fixed prices at city-run markets could force competing private businesses like Gristedes to shutter, leaving New Yorkers with less selection. Mamdani's campaign declined to comment.
