Agriculture Secretary John R. Block is severing...

Agriculture Secretary John R. Block is severing his ties with an Illinois business partner whose financial problems may have posed a threat to Block’s farming business, officials said. Block’s partner, John W. Curry of Galesburg, Ill., moved to file for bankruptcy this week after an Iowa judge appointed a receiver to take over Curry’s assets in that state. “The partnership is in the process of being dissolved,” John Ochs, Block’s press secretary, said in Washington. “It was a mutual decision which benefited both parties.”