The daughter of a major benefactor of the arts in Houston is contesting her father’s final will, alleging that his lawyers pressured him to leave most of his money to cultural charities, The Houston Chronicle reports.

In the last of his nine wills, signed in 2003, five years before his death at age 95, the oilman and philanthropist Alfred C. Glassell Jr. left the bulk of his $500-million estate to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and a family foundation that supports the arts. His daughter, Curry Glassell, would receive about $1.6-million after taxes.

In a trial set to begin Monday, Ms. Glassell will seek reinstatement of an earlier document that would give her about $100-million. She says her father’s lawyers took advantage of his frail condition to coerce him into leaving more to the museum, for which their firm did pro bono work. Her mother and brother, who runs the family...

The pharmaceuticals mogul Patrick Soon-Shiong has offered the University of California regents a $100-million guaranty to underwrite the reopening of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Mr. Soon-Shiong said the funds come with “no strings attached” and are intended to reassure regents hesitant to reopen the Los Angeles facility, which shut down inpatient services two years amid questions over medical errors and patient deaths. The regents are expected to vote November 19 on a plan to reopen the hospital.

Mr. Soon-Shiong, a former UCLA surgeon who has made billions in biotechnology and drug development, has become a major player in health-care philanthropy in recent years. Earlier this month he and his wife, the actress Michele B. Chan, pledged $65-million to the St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif.

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Three Washington-area charities were left off the list of eligible recipients for this year’s Combined Federal Campaign due to an error by the region’s United Way chapter, according to The Washington Post.

The affected groups — the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, the animal-rescue service Animal Allies, and the Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons — took in a combined $70,000 to $80,000 in payroll deductions from government employees last year.

Bill Hanbury, chief executive of the United Way of the National Capital Area, said the three organizations fell through the cracks of a paperwork pile-up stemming from new, more stringent submission procedures for participating charities. He said the United Way would make up their expected losses out of its own budget.

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The gritty TV crime drama “The Wire” and one of its stars are part of a new effort by Boston officials and activists to help troubled young people explore ways to change their lives, The Boston Globe reports.

A curriculum developed over the past year by the actress Sonja Sohn, who played the detective Shakima Griggs on the acclaimed HBO series, and James Dauphine of Boston’s Ella J. Baker House will involve screenings of the show and question-and-answer sessions with participants about its parallels to their lives.

Ms. Sohn conducted a pilot of the program, called Rewired for Life, in Baltimore, where the series was set and filmed. The effort is an offshoot of Rewired for Change, a nonprofit group the actress founded with other “Wire” veterans to work in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

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Advocates for blind and deaf performers are criticizing the casting of a seeing and hearing actress to play Helen Keller in a forthcoming off-Broadway production of The Miracle Worker, says The New York Times.

“We do not think it’s OK for reputable producers to cast this lead role without seriously considering an actress from our community,” said Sharon Johnson, executive director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, of the choice of Abigail Breslin, the Oscar-nominated co-star of Little Miss Sunshine.

David Richenthal said his chief criterion in casting the role was to line up a prominent actress, saying it would be “financially irresponsible” to mount a major revival “without making a serious effort to get a star.”

In other arts news, Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival has hired Elizabeth Hurley, the Metropolitan Opera’s top fund raiser, as its executive director,...

The National Trust for Scotland, the organization in charge of managing many of the country’s key historic properties, has sold its Edinburgh headquarters for an estimated $14.4-million to a private developer, writes The Times.

Roiled by money troubles, the trust has cut more than 40 positions and temporarily closed some of its properties, setting off an internal dispute over its leadership and direction. Kate Mavor, chief executive of the organization, said the move to a new headquarters “will free up significant resources for our charity” to pursue its cultural-heritage mission.

John Pemberton Jr., executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1962 to 1970, died last week of congestive heart failure at age 90, reports The New York Times.

Under Mr. Pemberton’s leadership, the organization more than doubled its membership and adopted a more aggressive legal strategy, representing defendants in controversial civil-liberties and civil-rights cases rather than pursuing appeals on constitutional matters. Its clients during his tenure included Black Panthers, Vietnam draft resisters, Ku Klux Klan members, and the U.S. soldier accused of ordering the My Lai massacre.

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Mercy Corps, a charity that works in developing countries, is organizing book clubs that go beyond reading and talking — seeking to move people to help women in poor countries, notes Prospecting, The Chronicle’s fund-raising column.

Humor plays an important role in building identity, yet charities and foundations don’t seem to laugh at themselves very often, writes Gabriela Fitz, co-director of IssueLab, an online publisher of nonprofit research, as noted on The Chronicle’s Give and Take review of the best nonprofit blogs.

Plus, from Friday’s round-up:

• Criticism of Hollywood’s volunteerism week.

• Huffington Post’s search for “the biggest game changer in philanthropy.”

• A pitch to create new measurement tools.

• Opinion: Why capping the charitable tax deduction would hurt giving.

• How two foundations were able to diversify their boards.

Strict new nutritional standards for New York City schools designed to counter childhood obesity have taken bake sales out of students’ arsenal for charity fund-raising, says the Village Voice.

Since June, when the city’s health and education departments issued the new wellness policy that strictly limits sugar, fat, and calorie levels in school food, they have enforced a regulation that only Parent-Teacher Associations can hold bake sales, and then only once a month and not during school lunch periods.

While health officials welcome the new rules, students say the ban removes their lowest-cost and highest-return vehicle to raise money for school projects and charity donations. A Facebook petition drive to overturn the edict has attracted some 3,500 signatures and support from 12 high schools.