By GABRIELA AOUN ANGUEIRA

MacKenzie Scott, one of the world’s richest women and most influential philanthropists, has donated $60 million to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, according to a Tuesday announcement from the nonprofit.

The donation is among the largest single gifts Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has made to a nonprofit, and the largest the Center for Disaster Philanthropy has ever received.

Patricia McIlreavy, CDP president and CEO, called the gift a “transformative investment” that would help the nonprofit “strengthen the ability of communities to withstand and equitably recover from disasters.”

The gift comes at a time when climate disasters are becoming more frequent and costly and as President Donald Trump stokes uncertainty about how much federal support communities will receive to recover from future emergencies.

Founded in 2010, CDP offers advice and resources to donors seeking to maximize their impact on communities recovering from climate disasters and other crises. The organization emphasizes medium- and long-term recovery, two oft-neglected phases of disaster response.

CDP also does its own disaster giving, including through its Atlantic Hurricane Season Recovery Fund which will soon support Hurricane Melissa recovery in the Caribbean, according to the group.

The $60 million grant would go toward “improving disaster preparedness, addressing the root causes of vulnerabilities to hazards and providing vital resources for the long-term recovery of disaster-affected communities,” according to a CDP statement.

Scott, 55, amassed most of her wealth through shares of Amazon that she acquired after her divorce from the company’s founder and executive chairman, Jeff Bezos. Forbes estimates her current wealth to be about $34 billion.

Soon after her divorce, Scott signed the Giving Pledge, promising to give away at least half of her wealth throughout her lifetime. She has donated more than $19 billion since 2019.

The author of two novels is known for her quiet and trust-based giving. Scott rarely comments on her donations apart from sporadic essays published on her website, Yield Giving.

Nonprofits are often surprised to learn they are receiving one of her grants, which come without restrictions on how groups can use the money.

McIlreavy told The Associated Press she found out about the gift in September through a phone call. “There was a disbelief and joy mixed together,” she said.

The lack of restrictions allows CDP to put some of the money toward general operations like staffing, an aspect of nonprofit work for which it is often difficult to fundraise.

McIlreavy said nonprofits trying to raise money for administrative costs can sometimes feel like they are running a pizza shop. “People would come in and say ‘I want pizza, but I don’t want to pay for the staff to make it, or the trucks that bring in the cheese.’”

The support comes as climate disasters continue to grow in frequency and cost, stretching the abilities of both governments and donors to respond.

The U.S. has experienced at least 14 disasters this year that exceeded $1 billion in damages, according to Climate Central, totaling $101.4 billion. That count does not include the deadly July Texas floods, which are still being assessed.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which manages the federal response to disasters. He has denied major disaster declaration requests to states even when FEMA assessments proved extensive damage. His administration has also cut billions in disaster resilience funding.

The uncertainty is challenging for survivors, and for donors and philanthropists who can’t anticipate where and when their support will be most needed, said McIlreavy.

“When people are facing disasters across this country, not knowing what may come, how they may get assistance and from whom, that steals a bit of the hope that is intrinsic in any recovery,” she said.

Several other groups announced this month that they received grants from Scott, including the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, which got $40 million, and the Freedom Fund, which received $60 million. Scott donated $70 million to UNCF, the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships to minority students, last month.

Scott hinted at a new cycle of donations in an Oct. 15 essay on her website while downplaying her own giving and touting the power of smaller acts of kindness and generosity.

“What if care is a way for all of us to make a difference in leading and shaping our countries?” Scott wrote. “There are many ways to influence how we move through the world, and where we land.”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

A 65-year-old St. Paul man who admitted to fatally stabbing his neighbor last year during a fight, reportedly over money, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Tuesday.

Robert L. Ramsey (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Robert L. Ramsey pleaded guilty to unintentional murder last month for the death of 70-year-old Lester Haynes in the hallway of their apartment building, off Dale Street and south of Interstate 94, on Nov. 3. At sentencing, Ramsey was given credit for 359 days already in custody.

A witness told police that Haynes had been watching football with friends when Ramsey showed up. An argument over money “turned physical and the two men tussled,” the criminal complaint said.

Hallway surveillance video showed Haynes pushed Ramsey out of his apartment and that they then grabbed hold of each other’s clothing. Haynes tried to hit Ramsey with an object, which fell to the floor after Ramsey “spun and threw” Haynes into a door across the hall from his apartment.

Ramsey held a knife with a long blade and swung at the side of Haynes’ face, making contact, the complaint said. Ramsey pushed Haynes with his left hand and used his right hand to stab the man’s left torso as he fell to the floor.

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Haynes grabbed onto Ramsey’s legs while sitting on the floor. “Ramsey repeatedly tried to stab (Haynes’) neck and upper torso with the knife, but the knife blade was no longer attached to the handle,” the complaint said.

When Haynes crawled and grabbed his fishing poles near his door, “Ramsey turned and viciously kicked” Haynes’ head and left him lying on the floor, the complaint continued.

Paramedics transported Haynes to Regions Hospital, where he was pronounced dead from the chest stab wound. A man who witnessed part of the incident later gave police the blade of a filet knife he had removed from Haynes’ body.

Police arrested Ramsey at his apartment that night. He had a Band-Aid on his thumb, “but investigators saw no other injuries to his face or neck area,” the complaint said. He did not give a statement to police.

By JIM MUSTIAN and JACK BROOK

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Immigration officials have deported a father living in Alabama to Laos despite a federal court order blocking his removal from the U.S. on the grounds he has a claim to citizenship, the man’s attorneys said Tuesday.

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U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick last week ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep Chanthila “Shawn” Souvannarath, 44, in the United States while he presented what the judge called his “substantial claim of U.S. citizenship,” court records show. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand but was granted lawful permanent residence in the U.S. before his first birthday, according to court filings.

But Souvannarath on Sunday messaged his wife on WhatsApp and told her he was in Dongmakkhai, Laos, according to a screenshot she shared with The Associated Press. The message ends with “love y’all.”

“It is very unfortunate, especially for the children that we have together,” Beatrice Souvannarath told AP.

Emails, phone calls and text messages sent to ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned.

The ACLU of Louisiana, which is representing Souvannarath, called the deportation a “stunning violation of a federal court order.” Before his deportation, Souvannarath had been detained at a newly opened ICE facility at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

“ICE just ignored a federal court order and tore yet another family apart,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director for the ACLU of Louisiana, in a statement. “This administration has shown it will ignore the courts, ignore the Constitution and ignore the law to pursue its mass deportation agenda, even if it means destroying the lives of American citizens.”

The deportation comes as Trump administration officials have repeatedly clashed with the courts over their attempts to deport large numbers of immigrants. There have been previous cases of U.S. citizens being deported, including U.S.-born children.

Chanthila Souvannarath was taken into ICE custody in June following an annual check-in with immigration authorities in Alabama, where he had been living, his wife said.

“When he went to check in, they detained him. And our two younger kids were with him,” Beatrice Souvannarath told AP. “It was the hardest two months of my life.”

He spent much of his childhood living with one or both of his parents in Hawaii, Washington state and California. His father, a native of Laos, is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and Souvannarath claims his citizenship derives from that status.

“I continuously lived in the United States since infancy,” Souvannarath wrote in a letter from immigration detention, “and I have always considered myself an American citizen.”

Souvannarath filed an emergency motion seeking to delay his deportation. Dick, the federal judge based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, issued a temporary restraining order Thursday, citing the “irreparable harm that would be caused by immediate deportation.”

“Though the government has an interest in the enforcement of its immigration laws, the potential removal of a U.S. citizen weighs heavily against the public interest,” wrote Dick, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama. Souvannarath would be “unable to effectively litigate his case from Laos,” she added.

The court docket shows no changes in Souvannarath’s case since the judge issued the temporary restraining order, which was set to expire Nov. 6. Dick declined to through her office to comment.

Mustian reported from New York.

By KEN SWEET

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration is moving to overrule any state laws that may protect consumers’ credit reports from medical debt and other debt issues.

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has drafted what’s known as an interpretative rule related to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, interpreting the law in a way that says the FCRA should preempt any state laws or regulations when it comes to how debt should be reported to the credit bureaus like Experian, Equifax and Trans Union.

This repeals previous Biden-era rules and regulations that allowed states to implement their own credit reporting bans. More than a dozen states like New York and Delaware prohibit the reporting of medical debt on a consumers’ credit report.

Medical debt is often the most disputed part of a consumer’s credit report, because insurance payments can take time, and oftentimes patients do not have the means to fully pay a medical bill if insurance is not covering a procedure that has already taken place.

The three credit bureaus jointly announced in 2023 they would no longer track any medical debts below $500, which at the time the bureaus said would eliminate 70% of all medical debts reported on consumers’ credit files. But some states have gone further than that. New York, Delaware and others passed laws where medical debts can no longer be reported to the credit bureaus.

The CFPB, which is largely not operating at the moment with the exception of actively repealing previous rules written under President Biden or earlier, says in its rule that Congress intended to “create national standards for the credit reporting system” under the FCRA and state laws run afoul of that intention.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that Americans owe roughly $220 billion in medical debt. In Republican-controlled states like South Dakota, Mississippi, West Virginia and Georgia, roughly one in six Americans have outstanding medical debt, according to the KFF.

Having outstanding, delinquent medical debt can impact the ability for an individual to apply for a mortgage, a credit card or an auto loan.

A spokesperson for the Bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment.