In brief: Gates Foundation campus gets $350 million boost

SEATTLE – Bill and Melinda Gates announced Friday they are making a $350 million gift to their foundation to help pay for construction of the nonprofit’s new headquarters.

The new Gates Foundation campus next to Seattle Center will provide office space for foundation staff currently scattered across five buildings in Seattle’s south Lake Union neighborhood.

The foundation broke ground in July 2008 on its new headquarters across the street from the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project. They expect the campus to be finished by spring 2011.

Bill and Melinda Gates have given more than $21 billion to their foundation over the past decade. The world’s largest charitable foundation focuses on world health, world development, education reform in the United States and help for youth and families in the Pacific Northwest.

Snowmobile restrictions follow judge’s ruling

BOZEMAN – A National Forest Service official says the agency is imposing new restrictions on snowmobiles in a wilderness area south of Bozeman in response to a recent ruling from a federal judge.

Gallatin Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson says snowmobile use in the Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area will be limited to just two areas.

Those are the Big Sky Snowmobile Trail and a “play area” for cross-country snowmobile travel near Golden Trout Lakes.

The machines will be allowed from Dec. 2 through April 15.

A 2006 travel plan from the Forest Service had opened new portions of the 18,000-acre wilderness area to snowmobile use. In September, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula ruled that the expansions were contrary to the 1977 law that created the wilderness area.