LinkedIn Co-Founder Apologizes for Deception in Alabama Senate Race

The money went to a small group of social media experts that included Jonathon Morgan, the chief executive of New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm.

They created a Facebook page intended to look like the work of conservative Alabamians, and used it to try to split Republicans and promote a conservative write-in candidate to take votes from Mr. Moore.

They also used thousands of Twitter accounts to make it appear as if automated Russian bot accounts were following and supporting Mr. Moore, according to an internal report on the project. The apparent Russian support for Mr. Moore drew broad news media coverage.

Democratic political strategists say the small Alabama operation — which accounts for a minuscule share of the $51 million spent in the contest — was carried out as a debate about tactics intensified within the party.

Democrats had been shocked to learn of Russia’s stealth influence campaign to damage Hillary Clinton and promote Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential race. But at least a few Democrats thought their party could not shun such tactics entirely if others were going to continue to use them.

Bill Gates, Others Launch Clean Energy Fund

The $1 billion Breakthrough Energy Ventures will invest in companies that make clean energy cheaper

 .. Fellow investors include Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn Corp. Chairman Reid Hoffman, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Chairman Jack Ma, and retired hedge fund manager John Arnold.
.. Members include billionaires Tom Steyer, George Soros and Richard Branson, and the University of California.
.. Reducing the cost of renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, and making it cheaper to add more of this power to the grid are areas the fund would likely support, Mr. Gates said in an interview.
.. While current clean-energy technologies should be used as much as possible, the technologies that will enable the U.S. and the world’s other major economies to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 will be invented in the next 10 to 20 years, Mr. Gates added.
.. “By 2050, at least the large countries in the key sectors have to essentially be at zero,” he said.
.. Mr. Gates said that he and other investors want to convince the Trump administration to maintain or increase government funding for energy research and development.
.. U.S. venture-capital equity financing has fallen for new energy and other clean technology companies, to $2.2 billion this year through September, from $5.7 billion in 2011
.. More investment in next-generation technologies, such as power storage, could help solve some of the problems that come from generating more power from wind and sunshine, some energy industry participants and analysts said.