Free Republic

Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Wednesday that he plans to give his wealth to his foundation. In a Twitter thread that doesn’t allow replies, Gates announced he was transferring $20 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s endowment this month and will increase spending to $9 billion per year by 2026. “As I look to the future, I plan to give virtually all of my wealth to the foundation,” Gates wrote. “I will move down and eventually off of the list of the world’s richest people.” Gates is currently the fourth-richest person on earth and has a net...

In the last several weeks, farmers in the Northern Plains have been battered by blizzards, winter storms, high winds, and extreme flooding. These weather phenomena have delayed farmers from plantings in high-producing crop regions. Every week plantings are delayed, the harvest yield shrinks, and this comes at a precarious time as the global food supply chain is fracturing. Private weather forecasters and ag specialist BAMWX warned about delayed plantings across the Northern Plains to Midwest to the Ohio Valley. Some farmers might not be able to plant until at least May as widespread above-average moisture, and widespread well below average...

The limb, complete with skin, is just one of a series of remarkable finds emerging from the Tanis fossil site in the US State of North Dakota. But it's not just their exquisite condition that's turning heads - it's what these ancient specimens purport to represent. The claim is the Tanis creatures were killed and entombed on the actual day a giant asteroid struck Earth. The day 66 million years ago when the reign of the dinosaurs ended and the rise of mammals began. The BBC has spent three years filming at Tanis for a show to be broadcast on...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Environmental groups on Tuesday sought to cancel the December sale of oil and gas leases beneath more than 234 square miles of public lands in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. In a formal protest letter sent to the Bureau of Land Management, the three groups said the agency had not done enough to curb greenhouse gas emissions from oil field activities. Any leases sold in the Dec. 9 sale will not be issued until the protest is resolved. The three environmental groups — Montana Environmental Information Center, Earthworks and WildEarth Guardians — sued the BLM...