LOUISVILLE (AP) – The University of Louisville’s board of trustees has passed a plan that would offer health insurance to domestic partners of school employees.

The board approved the measure by a 14-1 margin. Louisville is the first state public university to endorse a plan that would allow non-married gay and straight partners of school faculty and staff to take part of the benefits plan.

The trustees said they weren’t trying to make a social statement with the plan, but felt the move was necessary to keep the school competitive with other universities who were already offering similar benefits.

“From an economic development position this does send to the rest of the country that this is an enlightened institution,” said trustee Bill Stone. “This is not an endorsement of gay marriage or any of the other lightning issues.”

More than 250 colleges and universities already offer domestic partner health benefits according to the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based gay-rights advocacy group.

The plan would affect more than 4,800 employees.

“It is a moral issue from the standpoint of the university doing the right thing and being able to provide equity in their compensation packages,” said engineering professor Gina Bertocci, who worked with the school’s administration while it studied the issue.

Trustee Donna Tinsley Denny cast the lone vote against the plan. Denny said she didn’t necessarily disagree with the policy, but felt the school didn’t do enough research before pushing the program through.

“I need to have more information before me to make a decision,” she said.

The decision could have a ripple affect at the University of Kentucky, which has been considering adopting a similar plan for at least five years.

School spokesperson Jay Blanton earlier said domestic partner benefits would not be considered but then recanted, saying the school is reviewing all of its benefits and compensation, including benefits for domestic partners.

Kentucky trustee Russ Williams, a senior trainer in human resources, said he would like to see the school follow in Louisville’s footsteps. Williams said a more competitive benefits plan would help the school reach its goal of becoming a top 20 research institution.

“It’s been discussed enough, the decision needs to be made,” he said. “This is very consistent with our need to attract and retain the best faculty and staff.”

The Family Foundation, a national conservative group, issued a statement condemning the plan.

“The decision … to approve domestic partner benefits puts an important tax-supported state institution in the position of undermining marriage,” said Martin Cothran of the Family Foundation in Kentucky. “U of L has now divorced itself from the idea that marriage should be encouraged.”

State Sen. Richard Roeding, R-Lakeside Park, said he will consider introducing legislation in the General Assembly that would challenge the program.

“I find this very repulsive,” Roeding said. “I don’t want to entice any of those people into our state. Those are the wrong kind of people.”

Louisville president James Ramsey said he’s not worried about any backlash from state legislators affecting the money the school receives from the state budget.

“I think people realize that if this is needed to help the University of Louisville achieve its legislative mandate and be competitive, it’s good for Louisville and it’s good for Kentucky,” he said.

Roeding’s comments drew the ire of the Log Cabin Republican club of Kentucky, which called on the state senator to resign and asked the Kentucky Republican Party to denounce his remarks.

“His comments diminish his office and prove him unworthy of public service,” said Jimmy LaSalvia, president of the statewide affiliate of the nation’s largest organization of Republicans whose mission is to support fairness and equality for gay and lesbian Americans “He’s ‘the wrong kind of person’ to hold public office.”

The plan will not cost the school any money. Louisville provost Shirley Willihn-ganz said the individual premiums would simply be paid by their partners.

BOSTON (AP) – A Taunton man who is already serving a prison sentence for manslaughter has been indicted in the 1992 killing of a Taunton city planner.

Timothy Imbriglio, 35, was indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the death of Gerald Rose.

Bristol District Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. said investigators were recently able to match DNA found in Rose’s house to Imbriglio. Rose’s body was found in his house on Feb. 17, 1992. He had been strangled.

Walsh said investigators believe Rose may have been killed during a gay encounter.

Imbriglio is in prison after being convicted of manslaughter in the 1996 killing of an elderly man from New Bedford. Henry Cohen, 82, was also strangled. Prosecutors said Cohen and Imbriglio had been seen together at a rest stop on Route 140 that was known for gay encounters.

Walsh said investigators began to focus on Imbriglio as a possible suspect in Rose’s killing as a result of evidence preserved in the Cohen case. He would not say what type of DNA evidence linked Imbriglio to Rose’s killing.

LAS VEGAS (AP) – The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board has authorized its lawyer to fight a local company’s attempt to trademark the phrase “What happens in Vegas does not always stay in Vegas.”

Samaritan Pharmaceuticals applied last summer to federally register the phrase to promote its research-stage medical products and southern Nevada’s biotech industry.

Several board members say because the company’s research involves treatment for AIDS patients, the slogan could be used to imply that visitors who engage in sexual activities in Las Vegas will be infected with the disease.

The authority has spent nearly $115 million to promote its trademarked slogan, “What happens here, stays here,” in a national campaign to attract visitors to Las Vegas.

Samaritan chief financial officer Eugene Boyle said his company’s trademark applications would highlight that efforts are underway to develop lifesaving drugs in a place known largely for its casinos.

NEW YORK (AP) – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has taken its support of AIDS-related research and care to a new level, announcing a $500 million grant to an international fund that provides AIDS assistance in poor countries.

The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will receive the grant over five years.

The gift dwarfs the $150 million that the charity already has given since the Global Fund was created four years ago, and the additional $287 million the foundation announced last month to speed development of an AIDS vaccine.

The fund “is one of the most important health initiatives in the world today,” Bill Gates said in a statement announcing the gift. “We need to do everything we can to support its continued success, which will save millions of lives.”

The announcement came as nearly 25,000 scientists, advocates and policy-makers met in Toronto for the 16th International AIDS Conference.

Governments have been the main contributors to the Global Fund, whose total income to date is $9 billion. But this falls far short of what is needed, fund organizers say, and the level of support from rich nations, especially the U.S. has been controversial.

“When the richest man on Earth provides such generous support for the Global Fund, the risk is that some donor governments may mistakenly think they are now off the hook,” Joanne Carter of Results, an advocacy organization, said in a statement representing a coalition of such groups.

However, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation, said she hoped the grant would spur more money from others, not less.

“We hope all donors – public and private, large and small – will step up their support and make long-term commitments,” she said in a statement.

So far, 132 countries have received money from the Global Fund. About 544,000 people have received treatment for AIDS and more than 1.4 million others for tuberculosis. More than 11 million bed nets have been given out to prevent bites from the mosquitoes that spread malaria.

“The impact of the Global Fund can be seen in towns and villages throughout Rwanda,” says a statement by that country’s president, Paul Kagame. “Thousands of people who would otherwise be dead are healthy and working to build a better future for their families and our country.”

The new Gates Foundation gift “sends a strong message about the importance of sustainability” of such funds, said Richard Feachem, the Global Fund’s executive director. Instead of a one-time provision of AIDS drugs, the gift demonstrates “an unprecedented moral commitment to sustain this treatment until death,” he said.

OLYMPIA (AP) – Lawyers for same-sex couples were given more time to possibly challenge the state Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Washington’s same-sex marriage ban.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys still haven’t decided whether to ask the high court to reconsider its 5-4 decision, which held that the state’s law limiting marriage to straight couples was constitutional.

The court agreed to move the deadline for a reconsideration filing from Aug. 15 to Aug. 29, while the lawyers considered their next move.

“The longer we have to think about it, the better off we are,” said Lisa Stone, director of the Northwest Women’s Law center. “We are analyzing every conceivable option, and nothing’s off the table at this point.”

Supreme Court justices rarely agree to revisit a ruling, lawyers in the case said.

“It’s an important case, so I think the court’s obviously going to keep treating it that way,” said Assistant Attorney General Bill Collins, who defended the state’s Defense of Marriage Act in court.