NEW YORK — Amazon said Thursday that founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has finalized his divorce with wife MacKenzie, who will end up with a stake in the online shopping giant worth more than $35 billion.

In a tweet, MacKenzie Bezos said she is giving Jeff Bezos all her interest in The Washington Post, the newspaper that he bought in 2013, and Blue Origin, the space exploration company he founded.

“I’m grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process,” Jeff Bezos said in a tweet Thursday. “And am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.”

The Bezoses, who have four children, first announced they were divorcing in January, just before the National Enquirer published a story that said Jeff Bezos was having an affair with a former TV host. He later accused the tabloid’s publisher of threatening to publish explicit photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the Enquirer obtained private messages between himself and his lover.

When the divorce is complete, which is expected to happen in about 90 days, MacKenzie Bezos will have a 4% stake in Amazon. Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest people, will have a 12% stake in the company, valued at more than $108 billion on Thursday.

 

Congress invokes powers to challenge Trump on war in Yemen

WASHINGTON — Rejecting a plank of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, the House on Thursday invoked never-before-used powers to demand that his administration withdraw support from the Saudi-led war in Yemen . The Senate passed the same resolution in March with bipartisan support.

Trump is expected to issue a veto of the measure , his second as president, and Congress does not have the votes to override him. But the action was nonetheless a milestone for lawmakers, who have shown a renewed willingness to assert their war-making powers after letting them atrophy for decades under presidents from both parties.

“The president will have to face the reality that Congress is no longer going to ignore its constitutional obligations when it comes to foreign policy,” said Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Yemen was plunged into a civil war in September 2014, when rebels known as Houthis swept into the capital and overthrew the country’s internationally recognized government. The Saudi-led coalition began fighting the rebels months later in a campaign that Saudi Arabia said was aimed at curbing Iranian influence. At the time, the Houthis were allied with forces backed by Iran; in the years that followed, Iran’s role in the conflict has grown.

 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends contempt-of-court hearing

NEW YORK — The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to subject Tesla CEO Elon Musk to escalating fines to muzzle him from revealing important information about his company without the approval of lawyers, an SEC attorney told a judge Thursday.

The attorney, Cheryl Crumpton, spoke about appropriate punishment after urging U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan to find Musk in contempt for violating a deal with the SEC that requires him to clear any tweets that could disclose important company information with lawyers first.

At the end of the hearing, the judge ordered both sides to try to negotiate a resolution over the next two weeks as she expressed reluctance to rule unless she must.

 

Mormons repeal ban on baptisms for children of gay parents

SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Thursday repealed rules banning baptisms for children of gay parents and making gay marriage a sin eligible for expulsion — marking a reversal of policies condemned as jarring detours from a push by the faith to be more compassionate about LGBTQ issues.

The 2015 rules that were approved by global church leaders had prohibited baptisms for children living with gay parents until the children turned 18 and disavowed same-sex relationships.

With the change, children of gay parents can now be baptized as long as their parents approve the baptisms and acknowledge that the children will be taught church doctrine, the church said in a statement from its highest leadership group called the First Presidency.

The faith widely known as the Mormon church said in a statement that it is not changing its doctrinal opposition to gay marriage and still considers same-sex relationships to be a “serious transgression.”

But people in same-sex relationships will no longer be considered “apostates” who can be kicked out of the religion, the statement said. That label given to same-sex couples in the 2015 policy was widely condemned by LGBQT members and allies as being demeaning and hurtful to people who already struggle to find acceptance in the faith.