BILL GATES

Microsoft’s charm offensive with the world’s governments is starting to lose some of its luster as the software giant is confronting its toughest antitrust scrutiny since co-founder Bill Gates was in charge.

As the ranks of America’s super wealthy grow, the roster of major philanthropists is expanding to include not-so-typical megadonors — among them, a professional clarinetist, a Ph.D. in meat science, and a lawyer who regularly argues before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two bills that would make it easier for hydrogen hubs and underground carbon sequestration projects to come to historically coal-dependent West Virginia are headed to the desk of Republican Gov. Jim Justice.

Does The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have too much power and influence.

Bill Gates is looking to West Virginia as he plans for the next phase of his effort to reboot U.S. nuclear energy technology: powering the east coast.

Bill Gates topped The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of the 10 largest charitable gifts announced by individuals or their foundations in 2022.

Twitter suspended an account that used publicly available flight data to track Elon Musk’s private jet.

Asia’s richest man, coal magnate Gautam Adani, made his vast fortune betting on coal as an energy hungry India grew swiftly after its economy was liberalized in the 1990s.

Only scattered challenges to certification of the midterm election have been reported in the United States, and not a single one is based on any problems with the accuracy of the results.

Kari Lake, the defeated Republican candidate for Arizona governor, has filed a public records lawsuit demanding Maricopa County hand over a variety of documents related to the election.

Outgoing Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey says his Republican administration will ensure an orderly transition to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

Philanthropic foundations have made some new commitments at the U.N. climate conference in Egypt over the past two weeks.

Several SpaceX employees who were fired after circulating an open letter calling out CEO Elon Musk’s behavior have filed a complaint accusing the company of violating labor laws.

Bill Gates, on a visit to Kenya, has announced his foundation will spend $7 billion to improve health, gender equality and farming in Africa.

Defeated Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake says she’s assembling lawyers and collecting evidence of voters who had trouble casting ballots as she considers her next move.

Officials in Arizona’s most populous county have aggressively batted down rumors and slanted and false claims as vote counting has come under intense scrutiny in the battleground state.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in an interview with CNN that he will give away the majority of his wealth during his lifetime.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly has won his bid for reelection in the crucial swing state of Arizona.

Works by artists including Cézanne, Seurat, and van Gogh sold for a record-breaking $1.6 billion during Christie's two-day auction of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul G.

Democrats are holding on to narrow leads in key Arizona contests, but the races for U.S. Senate and governor are still too early to call.

Margins between Democrats and Republicans narrowed considerably Wednesday in key Arizona races.

Election officials assured voters that every ballot would be counted after a printing malfunction at about one-quarter of the polling places across Arizona’s most populous county slowed down voting.

What happens when a prolific user of social media buys the platform.

The sheriff in metropolitan Phoenix says he’s stepped up security around ballot drop boxes after a series of incidents involving people keeping watch on the boxes and taking video of voters after they were apparently inspired by lies about the 2020 election.

Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates combined characteristic optimism with sobering questions about persistent gender inequality and hunger at an event the Gateses’ foundation convened on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will get some high-powered help this week to reach its $18 billion goal to fund another three years to slow the spread of these diseases.

The far-right forces that former Sen. John McCain successfully marginalized within the Arizona Republican Party are back and in full control, with profound implications for one of the nation’s most closely matched battlegrounds.

Bill Gates says the global hunger crisis is so immense that food aid cannot fully address the problem.

Local election officials preparing for the rapidly approaching midterm elections have one more headache: trying to combat misinformation that can confuse, anger and disenfranchise voters.

Warren Buffett's company has trimmed its investment in Chinese electric car and battery maker BYD for the first time since it bought 225 million shares in 2008, an investment that has soared in value.

Some 150 artworks from the collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul G.

As the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to expand its governance, it announced Thursday that it has added two trustees to its board.

Bill Gates has called for South Korea to further step up in international efforts to prevent infectious diseases like COVID-19 as he stressed the need for the world to be better prepared for the next pandemic.

A major economic bill headed to the president has “game-changing” incentives for the nuclear energy industry, experts say, and those tax credits are even more substantial if a facility is sited in a community with a coal plant that's closing.

Bill Gates, concerned about the “significant suffering” caused by global setbacks including the COVID-19 pandemic, announced Wednesday that he will donate $20 billion to his foundation so it can increase its annual spending.

The WTA women’s professional tennis tour and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are partnering to raise awareness about — and money for — women’s health and nutrition around the world.

The trade association for U.S. nuclear plant operators says it hopes to nearly double their output over the next three decades.

A report in The New York Times says the rocket ship company run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired several employees involved in an open letter that blasted the colorful billionaire for his behavior.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms.

Brash, outspoken and sometimes juvenile, Elon Musk has long been a prolific user of Twitter, the social media platform he now hopes to buy.

The “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax” included in President Joe Biden's proposed budget is part of the administration’s effort to reduce the federal deficit.

The largest public power company in the United States is launching a program to develop and fund new small modular nuclear reactors as part of its strategy to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A handful of Americans donated at least $1 billion to charity last year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual ranking of the 50 Americans who gave the most to charity in 2021.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency have signed an agreement to participate in a next-generation nuclear energy project with TerraPower, a company started by Bill Gates.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Wednesday it will add four new members to its board of trustees.

Government and business leaders have urged global cooperation on climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and the economic recovery at the World Economic Forum’s virtual gathering this week.

New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for a “paradigm shift” in the way the world approaches climate policy, saying his country would leverage its presidency of the Group of Seven industrial nations to push for standards to fight global warming.

A tiny Wyoming town faces transformation when a company started by Bill Gates builds a new type of nuclear power plant there.

Many states in the U.S. are coming to the conclusion that solar, wind and other renewable power sources might not be enough to keep the lights on as they seek to dramatically cut their use of fossil fuels.

Anti-poverty group Oxfam has called for governments to impose a one-time 99% tax on the world’s billionaires and use the money to fund expanded vaccine production for the poor.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting of world leaders, business executives and other heavyweights to go virtual for the second year in a row.

Microsoft says it is opening an inquiry into how it responds to workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

In a story published December 31, 2021, about the top charitable donations of the year, The Chronicle of Philanthropy erroneously reported the value of Microsoft stock donated by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in 2000.

The Giving Pledge announced Tuesday that 14 more billionaires, including the CEOs of DoorDash and Pinterest, had promised in 2021 to donate more than half their fortunes, bringing the total to 231 philanthropists from 28 countries.

Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates say they will still work with the Giving Pledge.

Former President Barack Obama’s foundation says it has received a $100 million donation from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos that it says is the largest individual contribution it has received to date.

A rare first printing of the U.S. Constitution has sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $43.2 million, a record price for a document or book sold at auction.

A small city in the top U.S. coal-mining state of Wyoming will be home to a Bill Gates-backed experimental nuclear power project near a coal-fired power plant scheduled to close soon.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says it will spend $120 million to boost access to generic versions of drugmaker Merck’s antiviral COVID-19 pill for lower income countries, if the drug gets approved by regulators.

The United Kingdom is hosting a meeting aimed at attracting billions of dollars in foreign investment for green projects in Britain.

Microsoft has confirmed that executives in 2008 warned Bill Gates to stop sending flirtatious emails to a female employee but dropped the matter after he told them he would stop.

After years of avoiding it personally, CNN's Anderson Cooper explores in a book the complicated legacy of the Vanderbilt family — what he calls America's version of “The Crown."

A Republican-backed election review in Arizona's largest county has failed to come up with proof to support former President Donald Trump's false claims of a stolen election.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump who were hired by Arizona Senate Republicans to review the 2020 vote count are preparing to deliver their findings.

Have you heard the one about climate change.

Officials are touting faint progress on money, but little on pollution at a United Nations world leader summit on climate change.

Board members overseeing Arizona’s most populous county have reached a deal with the Republican-controlled state Senate that will end a standoff over its demand that they hand over computer routers for use in an unprecedented partisan election review.

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has funded organizations that received the most money for racial equity in 27 different states following the police killing of George Floyd.

Leaders of the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations — grant makers that have committed billions of dollars to fight the coronavirus — are warning that without larger government and philanthropic investments in the manufacture and delivery of vaccines to people in poor nations, the pandemic could set back global progress on education, public health, and gender equality for years.

John Hoffman and Janet Tobias’ “Fauci” is the first big-screen documentary of the nation’s top infectious disease expert and ubiquitous face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Washington’s Supreme Court has issued a key decision that helps protect people who are living in their vehicles from having them towed.

The divorce of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates has been finalized.

Jessica Springsteen had no luck going solo in Tokyo.

Philanthropists Melinda French Gates, MacKenzie Scott and the family foundation of billionaire Lynn Schusterman awarded $40 million Thursday to four gender equality projects.

A British man has been charged in the United States in connection with a Twitter hack last summer that compromised the accounts of prominent politicians, celebrities and technology moguls.

Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates will continue to work together as co-chairs of their foundation even after their planned divorce.

Newly released records show the top Republicans in Arizona’s largest county dodged calls from Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, as the then-president sought to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in key battleground states.

Warren Buffett resigned Wednesday as trustee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which says it will announce plans in July to answer questions raised about its leadership structure.

Republicans in Congress are alarmed by the leak of confidential IRS data to ProPublica that has enabled the investigative news organization to reveal that famous billionaires including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg paid little in U.S. income tax at times.

The richest 25 Americans pay less in tax — 15.8% of adjusted gross income — than many ordinary workers do, once you include taxes for Social Security and Medicare, the nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica found.

Despite damaging allegations suggesting Bill Gates pursued women who worked for him, don’t expect changes to his roles at the two iconic institutions he co-founded, Microsoft and his namesake philanthropic foundation, raising accountability concerns from critics.

The top Republicans in Arizona’s largest county gave an impassioned defense of their handling of the 2020 election.

As much as billionaire couple Bill and Melinda Gates want to keep their pending divorce private, the split is already sending shockwaves through the worlds of philanthropy and public health.

Bill and Melinda Gates say they're divorcing.

A new mass fundraising campaign aims to inspire 50 million people around the world to make small donations to Covax, the international effort to push for equitable global distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations.

President Joe Biden has wrapped up his two-day climate summit, saying the climate crisis has created an opportunity to remake the global economy and produce millions of jobs in clean energy and technology.

In closing President Joe Biden's global climate summit, world leaders shared stories of their own nations' drives to break away from climate-wrecking fossil fuels.

President Joe Biden takes center stage in a two-day climate summit highlighting America's return to the fight to curb global warming.

President Joe Biden takes center stage in a two-day climate summit highlighting America's return to the fight to curb global warming.

Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl have teamed up for a hard-rock pandemic anthem called “Eazy Sleazy.”.

Billionaire philanthropists John and Laura Arnold have committed to donate 5% of their wealth annually as part of an effort to encourage increased, timelier donations to charities.

WASHINGTON – At least one group in America is unlikely to get any money from President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan — his own top aides. Most of Biden’s senior West Wing advisers made far more than the threshold that would qualify them for direct payments from the president’s COVID-19 relief bill, according to White House financial disclosure forms released Saturday. Others in the West Wing — whose positions don't require Senate confirmation — have had deep ties to the business world. He was listed as having a salary of $1.8 million, according to his disclosure form. Brian Deese, head of the national economic council, was previously global head of sustainable investing at BlackRock, according to his disclosure.

In Rhode Island, 30% of prison staff have refused the vaccine, a higher rate than the incarcerated, according to the state’s Department of Corrections. Prison staff helped accelerate outbreaks by refusing to wear masks, downplaying people’s symptoms, and haphazardly enforcing social distancing and hygiene protocols in confined, poorly ventilated spaces ripe for viral spread. AdStill, some correctional officers are refusing the vaccine because they fear both short- and long-term side effects of the immunizations. The resistance to the vaccine is not unique to correctional officers. It was updated on March 16, 2021, to add the percentage of Rhode Island prison staff who have declined to be vaccinated.

Legitimate questions about the virus created perfect conditions for conspiracy theories. COVID CLAIM: Boyle says the coronavirus is a genetically engineered bioweapon that escaped from a high-level lab in Wuhan, China. COVID CLAIM: Nikulin argues the U.S. created the virus and used it to attack China. He first voiced the belief in a Jan. 20, 2020, story by Zvezda, a state media outlet tied to the Russian military. EVIDENCE: There is no evidence that the U.S. created the virus or used it as a weapon to attack Iran.

FILE - In this May 28, 2019 file photo Arizona Republican Sen. Paul Boyer, at the podium, is seen with Arizona Gov. For months, four elected Republicans and one Democrat on the board overseeing Arizona's most populous county have been facing threats and harassment for backing election results that saw Democrat Joe Biden win the state. All were from Trump supporters who questioned election results that saw a Democrat win Arizona for the first time since 1996. GOP senators demanded access to all the county’s election materials in mid-December, after Trump backers failed in court to overturn election results in Arizona and other battleground states. “But county board of supervisors?” he said.

AdAbout 100 taxpayers in the state have wealth in excess of $1 billion, according to the state Department of Revenue. The bill's sponsor, Democratic Rep. Noel Frame of Seattle, said the measure isn't an attack on the state's richest residents. The Washington state measure “would be the first of its kind if it passes,” he said. Frame said Washington — one of just a few states without an income tax — leans too heavily on its sales tax, disproportionately affecting those with less income. In a blog post in late 2019, Gates wrote about inequality and his push for changes in the tax code, including his support of an unsuccessful voter initiative that would have created a state income tax.

George W. Bush jokes with CNN's Larry King after finishing the "Larry King Live" show from the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville, Tenn. King, who interviewed presidents, movie stars and ordinary Joes during a half-century in broadcasting, has died at age 87. For 25 years until 2010, “Larry King Live” was a fixture on CNN's weeknight schedule, and that was after a lengthy career as a late-night radio host. So did “Larry King Live.” He was busy. “Larry King Live” was a type of show that would feel foreign on cable news today, given its obsession with hard-nosed political combat. “My dad always asked me, 'Did you see who Larry King talked to last night?'"

FILE - In this Nov. 20, 2017, file photo, Larry King attends the 45th International Emmy Awards at the New York Hilton, in New York. In its early years, “Larry King Live” was based in Washington, which gave the show an air of gravitas. “Do you know who I am?”“Always loved Larry King and will miss him,” Seinfeld tweeted Saturday. Originating from Washington on the Mutual network, “The Larry King Show” was eventually heard on more than 300 stations and made King a national phenomenon. “Larry King Live” debuted on June 1, 1985, and became CNN’s highest-rated program.

(AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)LONDON – Anti-poverty organization Oxfam warned Monday that the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic will lead to the biggest increase in global inequality on record unless governments radically rejig their economies. By contrast, Oxfam said it could take more than a decade for the world’s poorest to recover their losses. Oxfam said the basis of the scenario plotted was in line with many other economic forecasts. Oxfam has traditionally sought to inspire debate at the World Economic Forum's annual gathering of business and political elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos. Political leaders will be joined by business executives and campaigning organizations such as Oxfam during the discussions between Jan. 25-29.

A group of more than 3,000 scientists from 130 countries also released a statement Friday before the summit linking investment in the environment with pandemic recovery plans. “The twin threats of COVID-19 and climate change are, above all, caused by human actions. It reversed the withdrawal by President Donald Trump, who ridiculed the science of human-caused climate change. The adaptation summit will focus more on how to build a world that can cope with the effects of climate change that already is happening. “While the year ahead will be defined by our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the centuries ahead will be defined by how green that recovery actually is,” Ban said.