Obama Presidential Center’s grand opening celebrations to begin in June
Workers finish installing words from President Barack Obamaâs speech marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march, on the exterior of the Obama Presidential Center Museum building on Feb. 17, 2026, in Chicago. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(CHICAGO) — The Obama Presidential Center’s grand opening celebrations will begin in June, almost five years after its groundbreaking in Chicago, the Obama Foundation announced.
The center — a museum and public gathering space in honor of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama — will be dedicated on Thursday, June 18, and the campus will open to the public the next day, the foundation said in a press release.
The celebrations will run through June 21 “with a series of events that bring together the changemakers, community members, volunteers, and supporters who made the Obama presidency a reality and that welcome visitors to celebrate the power of hope and change,” the foundation said.
“It is easy to look around right now and feel like the challenges we face are simply too big,” President Obama said in a video posted to social media. “But hope is not about ignoring the hard stuff. It is that thing inside us that insists something better awaits if we are willing to work for it. Here on the South Side of Chicago, hope is getting a permanent home.”
The presidential center had sparked some controversy with community organizers expressing concern that development in the historic Jackson Park neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side could lead to gentrification of the neighborhood, while park preservationists challenged the construction in court, citing environmental concerns.
President Obama told “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts ahead of the groundbreaking in 2021 that he’s “absolutely confident” that the center will benefit the local community.
Larry Summers, president emeritus and professor at Harvard University, during an interview in New York City, Sept. 17, 2025. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced on Wednesday that he would resign from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard University at the end of the academic year.
Summers — who has been on leave from the university since November — also resigned from his role as the co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, according to a Harvard spokesperson.
The resignation was made “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government,” the spokesperson said.
“I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year,” Summers, a former Harvard president, said in a statement. “I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.”
He added, “Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues.”
The news was first reported by the Harvard Crimson.
Summers announced in November he was stepping back from public life after his apparent conversations with Epstein, the late sex offender who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019, were released by the House Oversight Committee.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein,” Summers said in a statement at the time.
ABC News previously reported that Summers maintained a relationship with Epstein for many years, particularly during Summers’ term as president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006.
He flew at least four times on Epstein’s aircraft, according to flight records made public during litigation against Epstein and he was the top official at Harvard during a time when the university received millions in gifts from the disgraced financier.
All of those gifts were received prior to Epstein’s guilty plea in Florida in 2008 to charges of solicitation of prostitution with a minor, according to the university’s review of its Epstein connections.
No Epstein survivor has alleged wrongdoing by Summers and there is no public record evidence to suggest Summers was involved in any of Epstein’s crimes.
Summers served as U.S. treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton from 1999 to 2001.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A person was shot in an incident involving U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson told ABC News.
The shooting occurred early Tuesday morning, the Santa Rita Fire District said. Emergency responders provided first aid at the scene and the person was taken to a hospital in unknown condition, officials said.
The sheriff’s office said it’s working with the FBI and Customs and Border Protection.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Les Wexner speaks onstage at the 2016 Fragrance Foundation Awards presented by Hearst Magazines – Show on June 7, 2016 in New York City. (Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Fragrance Foundation)
(WASHINGTON) — Members of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday are set to depose retail billionaire Leslie Wexner, whose wealth fueled Jeffrey Epstein’s fortune before an alleged multimillion dollar theft ended their relationship, newly revealed documents suggest.
After learning that Epstein stole hundreds of millions from him in 2007, Wexner opted to quietly resolve the issue with Epstein, who at the time was being investigated by federal prosecutors for both sex crimes and money laundering, according to emails and a memo later drafted by prosecutors.
A vitally important person in the transformation of Epstein from college dropout to multimillionaire adviser to the ultra-wealthy, Wexner — a businessman behind brands like Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works — has received substantial scrutiny over his association with Epstein since Epstein’s arrest and death by suicide in 2019.
Years after the two severed ties, prosecutors in New York initially included Wexner in a group of potential co-conspirators to be investigated after Epstein was arrested in July 2019, though they later determined there was “limited evidence regarding his involvement,” according to a recently-released 2019 email from an FBI agent who was part of the sex crimes investigation.
“The Assistant U.S. Attorney told Mr. Wexner’s legal counsel in 2019 that Mr. Wexner was neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect,” a spokesperson for Wexner told ABC News in a statement following the release of Epstein files by the Department of Justice last month. “Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again.”
Lawyers for Wexner, in a meeting with federal prosecutors about two weeks after Epstein’s arrest, claimed that Wexner “had no knowledge of any inappropriate or unlawful activity with young women by Epstein” and that Wexner’s dealings with Epstein were “more professional than social,” according to a December 2019 prosecution memo summarizing the investigation into Epstein’s potential collaborators.
Wexner’s attorneys said the two ended their relationship after Wexner learned that “Epstein had stolen or otherwise misappropriated several hundred million dollars” from him, according to the memo. The memo stated that Epstein personally profited by repeatedly purchasing properties for the Wexners before buying them for himself at a fraction of the cost.
“The Wexners then decided to cut off Epstein,” prosecutors wrote in the memo summarizing their discussion with Wexner’s counsel.
‘All I can say is I feel sorry’ Epstein was — throughout 2007 — the subject of an ongoing investigation in Florida into sex crimes involving minors that had expanded to probe potential financial crimes and money laundering. The Wexners did not report the alleged theft of their funds to law enforcement and instead resolved the matter privately, according to prosecutors.
Wexner was contacted by federal prosecutors in Florida as early as August 2007 regarding the Epstein investigation, according to handwritten notes released last month by the Department of Justice. Notes from an August 2007 call between an attorney for Wexner and a DOJ representative suggest that prosecutors inquired about Wexner’s interactions with his “money manager,” documentation of their meetings, and whether Wexner ever visited Epstein’s home.
At the time, prosecutors had begun to broaden their investigation to not only cover sex crimes but also potential money laundering and wire fraud, documents suggest.
“She just wanted to know if Les has been to my house,” Epstein emailed his associate Ghislaine Maxwell in August 2007, in an apparent reference to the prosecutor’s contact with Wexner’s lawyer, according to emails obtained by DDOSecrets, a transparency website that received a cache of Epstein emails that were not included in the DOJ’s disclosures.
“That’s odd?? Why” Maxwell responded.
“It’s bulls—, she just wanted to let him know about an investigation is my guess,” Epstein wrote back.
It is unclear if Wexner was aware of the investigation into financial crimes when his attorney was contacted, but in the following months, Wexner began the process of ending Epstein’s role as his money manager, according to emails in the DDOSecrets collection between lawyers for Epstein and Wexner.
“All I can say is I feel sorry. You violated your own number 1 rule … Always be careful,” Wexler emailed Epstein in 2008 days before Epstein reported to prison for soliciting underage sex, according to documents included in DDOSecrets collection.
“No excuse,” Epstein replied.
‘She pretty much wants everything’ According to a 2019 prosecution memo, Wexner’s wife began to look into Epstein’s management of their money after Epstein claimed he was “having legal problems involving an overly aggressive police chief and some sort of massage.”
According to the memo, Abigail Wexner discovered Epstein “misappropriated a significant amount of the family’s funds,” including by purchasing property on the Wexners’ behalf before selling it to himself at a fraction of the cost.
“When confronted, Epstein tried to convince Wexner’s wife that she did not understand the financials and insisted that he had the Wexners’ best interests at heart,” the memo said. “The Wexners did not want to bring unnecessary public attention to the issue, so they withdrew the power of attorney, and hired counsel to negotiate a private settlement with Epstein.”
Epstein resigned from the foundation and all of his roles with Wexner in September 2007, according to an independent review conducted in 2020 of Epstein’s involvement with the Wexner Foundation.
“Mr. Wexner terminated Epstein as his financial advisor, revoked his power of attorney, and directed that he be removed from all bank accounts,” a spokesperson for Wexner said in a statement to ABC News.
As early as October 2007, emails indicate that Epstein began transferring assets back to Wexner.
“When speaking with [Abigail Wexner], she pretty much wants everything,” Wexner’s financial controller told an attorney for Epstein.
Later that year, an attorney for Wexner pushed the process along, telling an attorney for Epstein that his client “is eager to execute documents,” according to the DDOSecrets cache.
Prosecutors wrote in a 2019 memo that Epstein returned $100 million to Wexner by January 2008.
Though the dispute with Wexner was privately resolved by January 2008, Epstein’s attorneys appeared to have mounted a pressure campaign to discredit the prosecutor pursuing a money laundering investigation into Epstein, according to emails in the DDOSECRETS collection. Epstein had signed a non-prosecution agreement in September 2007, but his lawyers continued to negotiate with the government over its terms for several more months.
“In what can only be seen as an attempt to intimidate Mr. Epstein, Ms. Villafana [an assistant U.S. Attorney] then added money-laundering and unlicensed wire-transmittal to the list of violations under investigation even though there was no evidence against Mr. Epstein concerning these charges,” attorneys for Epstein wrote in a letter to the Office of Professional Responsibility dated Feb. 11, 2008.
By June 2008, Epstein began his jail sentence in Palm Beach after reaching the controversial plea deal that allowed him to avoid federal charges.
‘You and I had gang stuff for over 15 years’ Although Epstein and Wexner appear to have severed ties following Epstein’s plea deal, documents released by the DOJ suggest that Epstein may have attempted to rekindle their relationship in subsequent years by drafting a letter reminding Wexner of shared experiences and alleged secrets. In the letter, Epstein wrote that he protected him when he was questioned by Wexner’s wife about his management of their money.
“You and I had ‘gang stuff’ for over 15 years. A great deal of it, that she was unaware of. I had no intention of divulging any confidence of ours, no matter what accusations she made. And she made quite a few,” Epstein wrote in the draft note. Based on publicly available documents, it is unclear whether Epstein ever sent the note to Wexner.
Wexner publicly addressed his relationship with Epstein in August 2019 amid mounting public pressure, saying in a letter to his charitable foundation that he was “deceived” by Epstein.
“As the allegations against Mr. Epstein in Florida were emerging, he vehemently denied them. But by early fall 2007, it was agreed that he should step back from the management of our personal finances. In that process, we discovered that he had misappropriated vast sums of money from me and my family. This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now,” Wexner wrote.
