Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit she and her ex-husband Bill Gates founded and built into one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations over the past 20 years.

“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” French Gates posted on the X platform yesterday. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.”

She praised the foundation’s CEO, Mark Suzman, and the foundation’s board of trustees, which was significantly expanded after the couple announced their divorce in May 2021. French Gates will receive $12.5 billion as part of her agreement with Gates, which she said would commit to future work focused on women and families. The foundation said that Gates would supply those funds personally, not from the foundation’s endowment.

Crews conduct controlled demolition on Baltimore bridge span

Crews set off a network of linked explosives Monday to break down the largest remaining span of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and with a boom, the steel section crumpled into the water in seconds.

The explosives flashed orange and let off plumes of black smoke upon detonation. The longest trusses toppled away from the grounded Dali container ship and slid off its bow, sending a wall of water splashing back toward the ship.