The New York State Board of Regents agreed Tuesday to abandon restrictions on museums selling art to cover their operating costs, according to The New York Times.

The board had been expected to make the regulations imposed in 2008 permanent following the failure of a state bill to bar such “deaccessioning” of museum collections. But David Steiner, the state’s education commissioner, said that “there was no consensus on the efficacy of the regulations,” which will be allowed to expire on October 8.

In other arts news, the entertainment conglomerate Warner Bros. has donated $5-million to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History to create a state-of-the-art film theater, writes The Washington Post.

The museum’s 270-seat auditorium will be renamed the Warner Bros. Theater and outfitted with new sound and screen technology, including digital 3D projection. The deal...

A coalition of community hospitals in Massachusetts wants the state’s attorney general to impose strict conditions on the planned sale of a Catholic hospital chain to a private-equity firm, The Boston Globe writes.

Lawrence General Hospital, Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital, and Southcoast Hospitals Group in New Bedford say tight rules are needed for them to remain viable and keep fees down for low-income patients in the face of competition from Caritas Christi Health Care facilities, which will become for-profit if their sale to Cerberus Capital Management goes through.

The proposed conditions include a prohibition on Caritas using “improper” incentives to recruit doctors from its rivals and a three-year ban on price increases. The coalition also wants Cerberus to commit to keeping Caritas for seven years rather than the now-planned three-year pledge.

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Three groups with roots in auto racing have won the X Prize Foundation’s $10-million contest to advance the technology for developing super-fuel-efficient vehicles, The New York Times writes.

Edison2 of Lynchburg, Va., a company that has worked on cars for the Indianapolis 500 and 24 Hours of Daytona races, won the $5-million top prize for its 830-pound Edison2 Very Light Car. Li-Ion Motors of Mooresville, N.C., and a Swiss firm, Peraves, split the other $5-million.

The three winners emerged from 111 teams that entered the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize in 2007 with proposals for cars that would get at least 100 miles to the gallon, or its equivalent for non-internal-combustion engines. The insurance company put up the money for the prize.

Read an article from The Chronicle's archive about the growing interest in prize philanthropy.

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More than 40 community clinics in California have sought help from a $22-million loan fund to survive a state budget stalemate that is costing the facilities hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, the Los Angeles Times says.

Seven Los Angeles County health clinics have borrowed $4.5-million from the fund established by health-care providers and other groups. Clinics in the county are losing an estimated $330,000 a day in reimbursements from Medi-Cal, the state insurance program for low-income patients, while lawmakers wrangle over the spending plan.

With statewide requests exceeding available funds by $9-million, the loan program has approved only 27 loans so far. Applicants must agree to repay the loans within a month of any budget agreement.

To read more about how state budget woes are affecting charities nationwide, read this article from The Chronicle's archive.

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China’s best-known philanthropist says that more than 100 of his wealthy peers have responded to his appeal to donate their fortunes, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reports.

Chen Guangbiao said Wednesday that the charity commitments followed his announcement last week that he would follow the Giving Pledge advocated by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, becoming the first Chinese tycoon to do so.

Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett said Tuesday that they will not press wealthy Chinese to commit to the Giving Pledge during a visit to the country this month, saying their intent in coming to China is to share their philanthropic experience with the country’s "newly minted" crop of successful entrepreneurs, The Seattle Times writes.

The Giving Pledge “is just one approach to philanthropy, and we do not know if it's the right path forward for China,” they wrote in a letter published by...

The $97,000 Audi that the New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady received from a nonprofit group serving disabled people raises questions about the role of celebrity spokesmen for charities, writes a Boston Globe columnist.

Joanna Weiss, the newspaper columnist, wrote that the football star, who last week signed a $72-million contract extension, should feel “some well-deserved shame” for accepting the car owned by the charity Best Buddies and provided by Audi, one of its corporate backers.

Mr. Brady has appeared for several years at Best Buddies events and serves as honorary chairman of an Audi-sponsored bike race that benefits the charity.

“The honorable thing [for Brady] would have been to say, ‘Thanks, Audi and Best Buddies, but I’ll buy my own car. Take that $97,000 you’re writing off and use it for the charity, instead,’” Ms. Weiss wrote.

The car was the third Mr. Brady has ...

The Guardian newspaper has teamed up with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to start a Web site that will regularly cover long-term global development work, Puget Sound Business Journal reports.

The site, which was unveiled on Tuesday and is partially financed by the Gates Foundation, will feature reporting and commentary on poverty, hunger, infant mortality, and climate-change efforts and will track progress toward reaching the millennium development goals adopted by the United Nations in 2000, according to a Guardian statement.

The partnership with the British daily newspaper is the latest in a series of news-media projects involving the foundation, including a grant to Seattle University that supported a Seattle Times series on homelessness in the Puget Sound region and the financing of Crosscut, a news and opinion blog about the Seattle area.

A powerful New York State senator accused of diverting millions of dollars from a network of nonprofit health clinics was ousted in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, writes The New York Times.

Pedro Espada Jr., the majority leader of the State Senate, lost by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in his Bronx district to Gustavo Rivera, a first-time candidate and a past aide to several New York politicians.

Mr. Espada and several associates are the target of a lawsuit filed in April by New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who alleges they siphoned $14-million from the Comprehensive Community Development Corporation. Mr. Espada serves as president of the nonprofit organization, which operates clinics in the South Bronx. He has called the lawsuit the result of a political conspiracy, not any wrongdoing.

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Las Vegas’s Liberace Museum, which for 31 years has showcased the flamboyant pianist’s collection of clothes, cars, and instruments, will shut down October 17, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Jeffrey Koep, chairman of the board of the Liberace Foundation, said the museum has been unable to maintain cash flow as the one-time TV star and Vegas fixture’s cultural legacy faded since his death in 1987. “Keeping that brand alive has been very difficult,” Mr. Koep said.

In other arts news, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is making Philadelphia the second city in its “Arts Challenge” effort, announcing a three-year, $9-million grant competition for artists and cultural organizations, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Applicants must submit plans for arts projects that take place in or benefit Philadelphia and must be able to secure matching funds. The new competition...

Six medical workers, including four Americans, were released on bail in Zimbabwe Monday after spending the weekend incarcerated on charges of illegally treating AIDS patients, the Associated Press and Harare newspaper The Zimbabwean report.

The suspects, who also include a New Zealander and a Zimbabwean, could face fines and deportation if convicted of distributing antiretroviral drugs without a license or a pharmacist’s supervision.

The team operates out of two clinics under the sponsorship of the Allen Temple AIDS Ministry, in Oakland, Calif. The Christian group said its teams have worked in Zimbabwe for more than a decade without coming under scrutiny over the licenses.

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