Sidney J. Weinberg Jr., a senior director of Goldman Sachs who gave some $50-million to health, science, and education institutions, died Monday at his home in Massachusetts, The New York Times reports. He was 87.

Mr. Weinberg, whose father and brother led Goldman Sachs for much of the 20th century, joined the investment-banking firm as a general partner in 1965. Six years later, he started a foundation that has made grants to the Carnegie Institution for Science, Harvard Business School, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and Princeton University, among other organizations.

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Public-interest groups are raising questions about major telecommunications firms’ donations to minority organizations that have run advocacy campaigns to back mergers and regulatory changes favored by their corporate benefactors, according to the Los Angeles Times.

AT&T, Comcast, and other big telecommunications companies have given millions of dollars in donations, products, and services to minority groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens, the NAACP, and the National Urban League.

Leaders of those groups have written to the Federal Communications Commission opposing "net neutrality," the principle that Internet providers should not restrict content on their networks, and other positions advanced by telecommunications companies.

Advocacy groups say there is no link between the corporate support and their public positions. But Malkia Cyril, executive director of the...

Several New York State museum executives and legislators are criticizing a state board’s surprise decision last month to abandon regulations barring institutions from selling works to cover operating expenses, says The New York Times.

The New York State Board of Regents had been expected to make the two-year-old temporary ban on such sales permanent but instead voted to let the rule expire.

Leaders of large New York City institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney and Guggenheim museums wrote to Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the board, shortly before the vote last month to oppose a permanent ban. The Museum Association of New York and smaller institutions in the state would like to see the rule in place.

In other arts news, the nonprofit Sundance Institute, which puts on an annual film festival in Park City, Utah, is starting an international program to promote...

The retail mogul Leon Levine’s philanthropy has pledged $20-million to establish a cancer-treatment facility at Charlotte’s Carolinas Medical Center, writes the Charlotte Business Journal.

The Leon Levine Cancer Institute, named for the founder of the Family Dollar chain of discount stores, will focus on treatment of rare and complex cancers along with research and education programs. Carolinas HealthCare, which owns the Charlotte hospital, plans to raise $5-million more for the institute.

The Leon Levine Foundation previously gave $10-million toward construction of a children’s hospital that opened in 2007 on the medical center’s campus.

Read this article from The Chronicle's archive about the Levine foundation and its efforts to help charities that have been hurt by the bad economy.

Caritas Christi Health Care, Cerberus Capital Management, and the Massachusetts attorney general’s office are reportedly near a deal to approve Cerberus’s purchase and privatization of Caritas, a nonprofit hospital network, according to The Boston Globe.

Citing sources familiar with the negotiations, The Globe reports that the controversial takeover plan twice fell apart during the talks but that the parties have now agreed on conditions to pave the way for Cerberus, a New York private-equity firm, to buy the six Catholic hospitals.

The conditions include additional money from Cerberus to cover Caritas’s debt, a guarantee by the company not to close any of the hospitals based on financial performance for at least three years, and continued fiscal oversight of the hospitals by the attorney general’s office.

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Britain’s Charity Commission has approved nonprofit status for a druid organization, marking the country’s first official recognition of the ancient practice as a religion, the BBC and Third Sector Online report.

Four years after rejecting a previous application by the Druid Network, the regulatory panel decided that the nature worship first practiced in the British Isles thousands of years ago meets the criteria to be considered religious activity.

The network was founded in 2003 to educate the public about druidry and facilitate its practice.

The Bill &  Melinda Gates Foundation will commit $34.8-million over five years to increase graduation rates at the nation’s two-year colleges, reports The Washington Post.

The foundation’s Completion by Design effort will finance up to five programs for increasing community-college graduation. Currently fewer than one in five students at two-year schools earn an associate degree or certificate.

The Gates program was to be announced Monday on the eve of the first White House Summit on Community Colleges. The Obama administration has made two-year colleges a key part of its efforts to better equip students with marketable job skills.

The White House was due to unveil on Monday a new public-private partnership intended to help community colleges align their curricula with employers’ needs, according to The New York Times.

Five major corporations—Accenture, Gap Inc., McDonald’s, PG&E, an...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing a national nonprofit organization for allegedly firing a New Orleans woman due to her obesity, writes the Associated Press.

The federal agency says Lisa Harrison was capable of doing anything required by her job at Resources for Human Development, which serves people who are disabled, homeless, or recovering from addictions. Ms. Harrison died after filing an EEOC complaint, but the suit will continue on behalf of her estate.

The nonprofit, whose headquarters is in Philadelphia, did not immediately return a call for comment.

The former chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund faces criminal charges in connection with his receiving uncut diamonds from model Naomi Campbell, Bloomberg writes.

South African prosecutors charged the former charity head, Jeremy Ratcliffe, last week with possession of uncut diamonds. If convicted, he could face 10 years in jail.

Mr. Ratcliffe acknowledged possession of the diamonds and resigned his seat on the charity’s board in August following Ms. Campbell’s testimony at the war-crimes trial of the former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

The ex-supermodel told the court in The Hague that she gave the gems to Mr. Ratcliffe after receiving them in 1997 at a dinner for Mr. Mandela. She said she believed they had come from Mr. Taylor, who is alleged, among other charges, to have armed rebels in Sierra Leone in exchange for diamonds.

A growing number of U.S. cities are revamping parking meters to collect money for the homeless, USA Today says.

At least 16 cities, including Las Vegas, Nashville, and Virginia Beach, Va., this year, have put up the donation meters to discourage people from giving spare change to panhandlers. Money dropped in the meters goes to local organizations that provide services to the homeless.

Proponents of the meters say they discourage aggressive panhandling, and they direct donations where they can do the most good, but some advocacy groups contend that reducing one-to-one donations serves to isolate and stigmatize homeless people.