Names and faces
■ Bill and Melinda Gates, who run one of the world’s largest philanthropies, are divorcing after 27 years of marriage. They announced the divorce on Twitter in posts at the same time. “After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” they wrote. Bill Gates, 65, is one of the world’s wealthiest people and a co-founder of the software giant Microsoft. In the statement, the couple added that they would continue to run the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has an endowment worth nearly $50 billion and whose mission is to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives. “We continue to share a believe in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives,” according to the statements. “We have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,” they said. “We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.” In her 2019 memoir, “The Moment of Lift,” Melinda Gates, 56, wrote about her childhood, life and private struggles as the wife of a public icon and stay-at-home mom with three kids. They met after she began working at Microsoft as a product manager in 1987. She wrote that she won Gates’ heart after meeting at a work dinner, sharing a mutual love of puzzles and beating him at a math game. The couple were married in 1994 in Hawaii. Bill Gates was Microsoft’s CEO until 2000 and since then has gradually scaled back his involvement in the company he started with Paul Allen in 1975. He served as chairman of Microsoft’s board until 2014. Last year, Gates, formerly the world’s richest person, said he was stepping down from the board to focus on philanthropy.
■ Alan Moore has many, many stories still to tell. The celebrated British author known for “V for Vendetta” and “Watchmen” among other works has a deal with Bloomsbury for the story collection “Illuminations” and a five-volume fantasy series, “Long London.” In a statement Monday, Moore said he was “bursting with fiction, bursting with prose” and thanked his publisher for its commitment to “expanding the empire of the word.” Moore’s “Illuminations,” scheduled for fall 2022, takes in everything from ghosts to the big bang theory. “Long London” follows a “sometimes-accessible shadow city that is beyond time,” starting with London after World War II and “following the populations of writers, criminals, artists, and magicians through that familiar city and a version of London just beyond our knowledge,” according to Bloomsbury. The first volume of “Long London” comes out in 2024.