The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved plans for a downtown museum to house the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad’s art collection, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The 5-0 vote essentially clears the way for construction of the $80-million to $100-million facility as part of Los Angeles’s Grand Avenue project. Final approval by the Grand Avenue Authority, a state-local body overseeing the downtown revitalization effort, is considered a formality as all four of its members have publicly stated support for the museum.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Broad said he is waiting for the authority’s vote on Monday before formally announcing whether he will house his collection of 2,000 contemporary works in Los Angeles or at a competing site in Santa Monica.

In other arts news, several major North American museums are employing observers to study visitors’ habits at close...

The retail giant Target said Monday that it will not respond to appeals to give money to gay-friendly causes as a way to quell the controversy over its $150,000 donation to support a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate who opposes same-sex marriage, reports the Associated Press.

The advocacy group Human Rights Campaign said it had been in talks with the chain, headquartered in Minneapolis, to donate to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues in Minnesota amid protests and boycott threats over its contribution to a group that supports the Republican candidate Tom Emmer.

In a statement, Target said it was “best to wait” before taking further action on the controversy. “We believe that it is impossible to avoid turning any further actions into a political issue and will use the benefit of time to make thoughtful, careful decisions on how best to move forward,” the company said....

President Barack Obama’s signature on legislation to use federal stimulus funds to extend Medicaid assistance to states sent a wave of relief rippling through Jewish philanthropy circles, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports.

The bill was a top lobbying priority for the Jewish Federations of North America, whose members and their partner hospitals, nursing homes, and social-service agencies receive nearly $6-billion a year in government assistance via Medicaid.

The measure, which the president signed last week, will save Jewish groups $150-million to $200-million and spare many from cutting back on Medicaid programs.

The philanthropist and Internet tycoon Pierre Omidyar will invest $100-million to $200-million in socially minded businesses and nonprofits in India over the next five years, The Wall Street Journal writes.

The Omidyar Network, a venture-philanthropy group established by the eBay founder, will open a Mumbai office next month. Jayant Sinha, head of Omidyar Network India, said the local arm will identify and work with enterprises that bring poor people into the banking system, promote social media, and use technology to improve government transparency.

The Omidyar organization has been active in India since last year and has already invested about $60-million of its $350-million in global commitments there.

The California Assembly on Monday approved legislation to apply the state’s open-records law to foundations affiliated with public colleges and universities, the Associated Press and the San Francisco Chronicle report.

The 60-0 tally sends the measure back to the state Senate for a final vote before it goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed similar legislation last year. The current bill includes a provision exempting some anonymous donors, an effort to respond to the governor’s concern that disclosure would keep many donors from giving.

Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat, resurrected the measure earlier this year after the California State University-Stanislaus Foundation refused to reveal Sarah Palin’s fee for speaking at a June campus fund-raising event. The foundation eventually disclosed that Ms. Palin was paid $75,000.

Executives at New York’s defunct St. Vincent’s Hospital earned million-dollar salaries and paid out $17-million to management consultants as the city’s last Catholic hospital fell into bankruptcy, former staff members, patients, and neighbors of the facility claim in a lawsuit filed Monday, writes the Associated Press.

The 161-year-old Greenwich Village institution closed in April shortly after filing for bankruptcy, citing debts exceeding $1-billion. The suit, filed on behalf of a group that calls itself the Coalition for a New Village Hospital, seeks disclosure of St. Vincent’s fiscal records, a formal probe of the hospital’s finances, and a public hearing on the issue.

The suit cites St. Vincent’s 2008 tax return, which also lists $104-million in unspecified “other” expenses, as evidence that officials at the hospital could have done more to shore up its finances. “If what we...

A member of a St. Louis Catholic charity’s board said he was barred by the organization from seeking the panel’s presidency because he is gay, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes.

Jeffrey Goldone, who has served five years as vice president of the board of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of St. Louis, said he was dropped from the candidate list for president several weeks after being nominated in May. In an August 2 letter to “fellow Vincentians,” Mr. Goldone said he was told his candidacy could bring “shame and embarrassment” to the organization.

The international society’s rules assert opposition to “discrimination of all kinds” but also state that local dioceses have a duty to ensure that their activities are not “contrary to Catholic faith or morals.” Zip Rzeppa, the St. Louis group’s executive director, said Mr. Goldone “has done much good” but that he “disqualified himself for ...

British antiwar activists, as well as some soldiers and the families of Iraq and Afghanistan casualties, are criticizing former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s plan to donate profits from his memoirs to a charity for wounded veterans, the British daily the Independent reports.

Mr. Blair announced Monday that he will give proceeds from the book, due for release next month, and his approximately $7.5-million advance from Random House to the Royal British Legion for programs to rehabilitate wounded soldiers.

Critics dismissed the donation as a bid by Mr. Blair to assuage his guilt for leading the country into the publicly unpopular Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Frances Shine, whose son lost a leg in Iraq, called the gift an “insult,” and a soldier posting on a military Web forum suggested Mr. Blair give the money to help Iraqis wounded by British troops.

Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean’s plan to run for president of his native Haiti has renewed scrutiny of his charity, Yele Haiti, which raised millions of dollars in the aftermath of the devastating January earthquake but also drew criticism of its spending and management practices, says The New York Times.

Mr. Jean stepped down as chief executive of Yele Haiti earlier this month after announcing his presidential bid. The charity has raised more than $10.5-million for earthquake relief through July 31 and has reported spending about one-third of the money so far.

Leaders of several tent camps for earthquake survivors have said that promised aid from Yele has not materialized, or has been short-lived and token in nature, according to The Times. Mr. Jean characterized such accounts as “hearsay” arising from “the overall fear and anger in those camps.”

His candidacy has also raised concerns that...

Officials with the Christian aid charity whose workers were killed last week in an ambush in northern Afghanistan now believe militants rather than robbers were behind the attack, the Associated Press writes.

Leaders of the International Assistance Mission, as well as local police, initially said they suspected a criminal motive for the attack, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility. Ten members of the charity’s medical team were killed as they returned to Kabul from the remote Nuristan Province.

Dirk Frans, the charity’s director, said Thursday that the organization’s research “suggests that the murders were not a robbery. We are now working on the assumption that the attack was an opportunistic ambush by a group of non-local fighters.”

Christian groups may be particularly vulnerable when operating in Muslim countries, with some organizations saying intimidation and violence...