The Virginia Senate approved legislation Tuesday to allow nonprofit adoption agencies to reject gay prospective parents, sending the measure to Gov. Robert McDonnell, says the Associated Press.

The Republican governor has said he would sign the “conscience clause” bill, which backers say protects the religious rights of faith-affiliated, state-funded adoption and foster-care charities by allowing them to deny placements based on their moral beliefs. Critics contend the measure’s intent is not to safeguard religious liberty but to deny adoption to gays and lesbians.

The bill, approved earlier this month in the House, was passed by the Senate on a 22-18 vote, with two Democrats joining all 20 of the chamber’s Republicans in support. It was modeled on a similar statute in North Dakota, the first state to enact such legislation.

Nonprofit health-care cooperatives in eight states will receive $638-million in federal loans to begin offering insurance to individuals and small businesses, according to the Associated Press.

The financing, announced by the Obama administration on Tuesday, arises from the federal health-insurance law mandating coverage for the uninsured by 2014. The consumer-run co-ops in Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Wisconsin will compete for customers in state-run insurance exchanges, with an aim of keeping pressure on private firms to hold down prices.

The loans will be paid out in installments as the co-ops meet benchmarks for providing service and controlling costs. More than half of the money will go to Freelancers Union to provide coverage for independent contractors, who constitute a rising proportion of the work force.

A judge on Tuesday rejected a New York City plan to require single adults to prove they have no other housing options before being admitted to homeless shelters because Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration failed to consult the public and City Council on the policy, says The Wall Street Journal.

State Supreme Court Justice Judith Gische said City Hall violated New York’s charter in seeking to implement the new shelter rules unilaterally in November. She did not rule on the merits of the policy, saying her decision on the flawed process made the substantive issues “academic.”

Advocates for the homeless challenged the policy in court, arguing that it would put more individuals out in the street. The City Council also opposed the restrictions.

The city said it would appeal Justice Gische’s ruling. Seth Diamond, commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services, said the…

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The nonprofit organization behind the dormant U.S. National Slavery Museum filed a bankruptcy reorganization plan last week that relies on donations to repay creditors and resurrect construction plans, The Wall Street Journal says.

In plans submitted Friday, five months after the long-planned Fredericksburg, Va., museum filed for Chapter 11 protection, the organization said expects to collect $900,000 this year and “is optimistic that its fundraising efforts will be sufficient” to put the project back on track.

Launched in 1993 by former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, the museum has amassed a large collection of artifacts and memorabilia, but the project has languished for years under mounting debts and tax bills. The September bankruptcy filing came after the city of Fredericksburg sought to sell the 38-acre parcel it had donated to the museum to recoup unpaid property taxes on the…

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New research suggests that charitable support for African-American students diminishes as the children get older and negative stereotypes about black teenagers kick in, according to Miller-McCune magazine.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School assessed donor response to nearly 6,000 appeals at an online charity that allows people to contribute directly to classrooms in need. In appeals with photos of all-white or mixed-race classes, funding rates increased with the students’ age, but for all-black groups, the trend was reversed.

The results “offer both encouraging and discouraging messages,” the research team said in its report, noting that young black children “elicited a great deal of charitable behavior, even more than white children” but that donors’ generosity “appears to diminish sharply once African-Americans enter adolescence.”

In other…

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British charity shops are reaping revenue growth by branching into online retail, particularly on eBay, the Financial Times writes.

Some 6,000 U.K. nonprofit organizations are now offering new and used goods on eBay, and the company’s British division reported that sales by its charities rose 56 percent to nearly $10-million in 2011, a year that saw contributions to U.K. charities remain flat.

“Charities are coming to Ebay as they’re more likely to find a buyer who will pay a higher price online than one who randomly walks in off the high street,” said Lorin May, head of charity for British eBay.

Online charity auctions of donated celebrity items are also increasingly popular, with Unicef and Children in Crisis raising $128,000 by selling the flamboyant hat worn by Princess Beatrice to last year’s royal wedding.

John Junker, who built the nonprofit Fiesta Bowl into one of college football’s biggest national showcases, is set to plead guilty to charges that he solicited employees to make political contributions and reimbursed them with organizational funds, his attorney tells The Arizona Republic.

The longtime CEO of the Tempe, Ariz., game could face 2½ years in prison under a proposed plea agreement, the newspaper reports.

Mr. Junker was fired last March after an internal investigation detailed the campaign-contribution scheme and other misuse of Fiesta Bowl funds during his time as chief of the organization.

His lawyer said Mr. Junker would not be criminally charged for any other alleged financial improprieties.

Organizers of a Race for the Cure held Sunday in El Paso said more than 11,000 people participated in the city’s 20th annual Susan G. Komen breast-cancer fundraiser, nearly matching last year’s turnout, the El Paso Times and Reuters report.

The race was closely watched as the national cancer organization’s first event since the controversy over its decision to pull, and then reinstate, grants to Planned Parenthood for breast-screening exams.

The controversy “hasn’t affected the turnout as far as we are aware of,” said Stephanie Flora, executive director of Komen’s El Paso chapter. No protests were reported at the event, which included a competitive 5K run, a 5K run and walk, and a 1-mile fun run.

Participants told the El Paso Times they had not heard about the Planned Parenthood flap or did not consider it an issue in deciding to support the fundraising event for breast-cancer a…

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The Chicago News Cooperative, a nonprofit journalism outlet that provided regional coverage for The New York Times, will effectively close next week, the Times and the Chicago Reader report.

The founder and editor of the cooperative, James O’Shea, told the staff on Friday that the nonprofit newsroom, established in the fall of 2009, would cease operating its Web site and supplying content to the Times on February 26.

The move came after the MacArthur Foundation, which had provided about $1-million to the cooperative, told the organization it would limit its funding to smaller grants for specific reporting projects until the Internal Revenue Service rules on applications for 501(c)(3) status by nonprofit journalism organizations.

The cooperative asked The New York Times to increase its payments for Chicago coverage, but Mr. O’Shea said both sides concluded that the arrangement…

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The acquisition of secular medical centers by financially thriving Catholic hospitals could give rise to a new front in the battle between religious leaders and the government over reproductive-health services, The New York Times says.

About 20 such deals have been struck in the past three years. Experts expect the trend to increase as federal health-care reform forces hospitals to become more efficient, spurring smaller facilities to consolidate with larger institutions, many of them faith-affiliated.

Seattle’s Swedish Health Services agreed to stop providing elective abortions when it merged this month with Providence Health & Services, a Catholic system. In December, Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky nixed a deal to bring the University of Louisville Hospital under the wing of Catholic Health Initiatives amid uncertainty about whether the public hospital would be required to follow…

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