Cuts in support for anti-AIDS efforts in Africa by wealthy countries due to the global financial crisis are crippling health-care programs, the aid group Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

A study of AIDS programs in eight Africa countries by the international charity found widespread effects of the money cuts, with clinics turning away patients due to lack of resources.

The organization urged wealthy nations to step up and fulfill their commitments despite the recession's impact on their coffers. The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has seen its budget increase slightly, from $6.8-billion in 2010 to just under $7-billion for 2011, according to the plan's head, Eric Goosby. But the Doctors Without Borders study found that U.S. government aid to international efforts to fight AIDS has essentially remained flat.

Mr. Goosby...

New York Law School has received $20-million from the Starr Foundation, in New York, for its $100-million, seven-year capital campaign, reports The National Law Journal. The drive seeks to support the school's scholarship endowment and double the size of the institution's faculty.

The grant, announced Wednesday, was made in honor of the foundation's chairman, Maurice Greenberg, who attended the law school with the help of a scholarship he received after serving in World War II. Mr. Greenberg retired from his leadership of the insurance company American International Group, or AIG, in 2005.

Scholarships were also supported by a new $6-millon gift to Cleveland State University by Anand Julka, founder of a technology company, says The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Mr. Julka, president of Smart Solutions, in Beachwood, Ohio, earned a master's degree at the university after arriving in the...

A charity in Cambridge, Mass., that intended to produce and distribute $100 laptop computers to the world's poorest children has instead decided to focus on the more cutting-edge technology, the electronic reading tablet, according to the Associated Press.

One Laptop Per Child's original plan was to manufacture 100-million laptops within two years and sell the machines to governments and organizations in developing countries for distribution to kids. Today about 2 million of the machines are in use, and the charity was never able to get the computers' prices much below $200 each.

Nicholas Negroponte, the charity's founder, says the group's new tablets will be based on a design by Marvell Technology Group, which unveiled a prototype this year that it says will cost about $99.

Despite some signs that New York's arts organizations are beginning to emerge from the recession, a new survey finds that many are still suffering the downturn's effects, according to Crain's New York Business.

Of 114 cultural groups polled in January by Alliance for the Arts in its annual survey, 42 percent said they expect to cancel or postpone programs in 2010; the same percentage reported similar plans in last year's survey. And slightly more groups this year —30 percent, compared with 25 percent in 2009 — said they are postponing moves or capital projects.

However, layoff predictions were less dire this year, with only 18 percent saying they expect to shed employees in 2010, compared with 38 percent last year.

In other news, The Seattle Art Museum, which has reduced its staff by about 7 percent through attrition and layoffs, announced Wednesday that it will close its doors for...

Many current and former church employees could lose retirement money because of a little-known loophole in federal pension protections, says National Public Radio.

For example, when the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, Del., had to file for bankruptcy as a result of sex-abuse lawsuits, the diocese's lay employees and retirees learned that their pension plan was underfunded and isn't protected like corporate pension plans.

According to bankruptcy filings, the diocese had set aside less than 15 percent of the amount it needed to meet pension obligations, and now some of the pension funds are caught up in the bankruptcy.

John D. Mazzuto, who gave $1.5-million to Yale University last year, has been indicted on charges of fraudulently inflating the value of a business he owned and misleading investors into buying shares of his company’s stock, according to The New York Times.

A 1970 graduate of Yale, Mr. Mazzuto gave shares of the company, Industrial Enterprises of America, to Yale and to family members, friends, and other companies he controlled. The recipients then allegedly sold the shares, giving some of the profits to Industrial Enterprises, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Yale sold its shares before their value plummeted and earned about $1.5-million. The university apparently did not know that Mr. Mazzuto was issuing stocks in a way that prosecutors say was illegal, according to investigators. A spokesman for the university declined to comment on how Mr. Mazzuto’s donation was vetted.

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Paul Greenhalgh, the director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, has announced he plans to leave his post on June 1, says The Washington Post.

At a meeting yesterday with Corcoran staff members, Mr. Greenhalgh, who has been at the helm of the museum for four years, said he was returning to his native England to lead the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia.

Mr. Greenhalgh cited a desire to change his lifestyle and his two-year battle with cancer, which he said was in remission, as among his reasons for stepping down. He came to Corcoran at a time when the institution was struggling with its finances. Mr. Greenhalgh said that while the institution remains financially fragile, some important donors have recently returned to the museum.

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The International Committee for the Red Cross says it has trained and equipped more than 70 Taliban members as part of a program it initiated to deal with injuries sustained in battle, reports the Telegraph, a British newspaper.

The nonprofit organization, which says it remains neutral in global conflicts, also said it has provided first-aid training and kits to civilians living in conflict areas, Afghan security-forces personnel, taxi drivers used to transport the wounded, and the charity’s own staff members.

In a rare bit of good news for the beleaguered opera world, the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s endowment grew to $139.8-million, an increase of 30 percent over fiscal 2009, and the company has raised more than $16.6-million in contributions, writes the Chicago Tribune.

The company saw a 12 percent drop in subscription ticket sales in the 2009-10 season and was forced to use roughly $2.7-million in reserve funds to balance its books for fiscal 2010.

In a statement, the opera’s general director, William Mason, cautioned that the group "must continue to be vigilant about spending and reduce costs wherever possible."

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Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, last week returned $5-million donated by Minnesota businessman, Tom Petters, who was convicted of fraud in what prosecutors have called a $3.5-billion Ponzi scheme, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Mr. Petters had pledged $10-million to the university’s Farmer School of Business and paid off about half of that amount. The university has wired the money to a receiver appointed by the federal court in Minnesota.