Contributions

Arts and education philanthropist Eli Broad today will announce his largest investment to date in Los Angeles charter schools, $23.3 million to jump-start at least 17 new campuses run by two major charter-school organizations. Broad's gift is believed to be the largest by any private donor to local charter schools and underscores his goal of creating effective schools outside the direct jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Unified School District. L.A.

In years past, building a central park was about creating an escape from urban life with little nod to what it was replacing. But the designers of the Orange County Great Park, which is being built on 1,347 acres of the former El Toro Marine Corps base, are taking a new approach, embracing the site's military past rather than bulldozing it.

Headlines about dangerous toys from China dominated the news for months last year, prompting congressional hearings and consumer questions about the Asian manufacturing giant's product safety. But Walter and Shirley Wang, Bel-Air residents with three children, asked a different question: Where were the headlines pointing out that some of the problems were caused not by shoddy Chinese manufacturing practices but by American design flaws?

Developer and philanthropist Donald Bren on Tuesday reached beyond the Orange County communities he helped build and define, announcing an $8.5-million donation to benefit after-school programs in Santa Ana and east Los Angeles County. The gift will bolster Santa Ana-based THINK Together, an after-school program that extends the school day for children who need extra coaching with classwork or homework help, often because their parents are working or lack English skills.

Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy A. Simon solicited donations from companies he regulates to help pay for a nonprofit conference on green energy hosted last month by one of his political patrons, documents and interviews show. Two weeks after the conference, the three most generous corporate donors to the Willie L. Brown Jr.

The Los Angeles Free Clinic will change its name next month to the Saban Free Clinic in honor of a $10-million donation, the largest in the clinic's 41-year history, from philanthropists Haim and Cheryl Saban. The gift, which the clinic plans to announce today, will be used to create an endowment, said clinic co-director Abbe Land.

A journalism museum set to open next month in Washington has received a $25-million donation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Newseum says the grant is its largest donation to date. In return for the gift, the Newseum will name two broadcast studios and a conference center in honor of the Knight brothers. One of the studios will be the home of the ABC program "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." The $450-million Newseum is set to open April 11.

The news hit Opera Santa Barbara like Wagnerian thunder: An anonymous donor had pledged $5 million -- the largest gift in the group's 14-year history. The windfall, announced in February, will finance an annual production by one of the donor's six favorite composers. In an operatic flourish, the benefactor's name will be unveiled only after his or her death -- on programs for productions made possible by the bequest.

Saudi Arabia remains the world's leading source of money for Al Qaeda and other extremist networks and has failed to take key steps requested by U.S. officials to stem the flow, the Bush administration's top financial counter-terrorism official said Tuesday. Stuart A.

Nobody at the Nelson Gallery at UC Davis knew what to expect in the box of 150 photos that arrived last week from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The gallery is one of 183 academic art museums that were given a box of photos taken by the prolific pop artist from the foundation's archive of 23,543 such pictures. The public opening of the box in Davis on Friday was billed by museum officials as an event resembling journalist Geraldo Rivera's famous unveiling of Al Capone's vault on live national television.