Elton John Can't Adopt: Ukraine

Elton John will not be able to adopt a 14-month-old Ukrainian child because the pop star is too old and isn't traditionally married, Ukraine's minister for family affairs says. The pop singer toured a hospital for HIV-infected children in eastern Ukraine on Saturday as part of a charity project and said he and his longtime partner, David Furnish, wanted to adopt an HIV-infected boy named Lev, the AP reports.

But a government minister says adoptive parents must be married, and Ukraine does not recognize homosexual unions as marriage. John and Furnish tied the knot in 2005 in one of the first legal civil unions in the UK. The minister also said John was too old—at 62, the singer easily exceeds Ukrainian law requiring a parent be no more than 45 years older than an adopted child. (More Elton John stories.)