MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist, author, and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has married a Seattle science teacher who expressed gratitude “for the exceptional privilege it will be to partner in giving away assets with the potential to do so much good when shared."
Dan Jewett, who made the announcement in a letter to the website of the nonprofit organization the Giving Pledge on Saturday, said he never imagined he would be in a position to talk about giving away significant wealth during his lifetime in order to make a difference in other people's lives.
Jewett has been a teacher for decades and most recently taught chemistry at the private Lakeside School, where Scott's children attended.
“And now, in a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know — and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others," Jewett wrote.
After donating $1.68 billion to 116 nonprofits, universities, community development groups, and legal organizations last July, Scott asked a team of advisers to help her “accelerate” her 2020 giving with immediate help to those financially gutted by the pandemic.
Scott went on to donate a total of $5.7 billion in 2020 by asking community leaders to help identify 512 organizations for seven- and eight-figure gifts, including food banks, human-service organizations, and racial-justice charities.
She was listed as No. 2 among the 50 Americans who gave the most to charity last year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual rankings.
Bezos topped the list by donating $10 billion to launch the Bezos Earth Fund.
With the pandemic shifting consumer behavior even more online, this year’s NewsFront virtual festivities marked changing habits that are here to stay.
California's population declined in 2020 for the first time since state officials have been measuring it.
An Army trainee has been arrested after authorities say he boarded a South Carolina school bus with a gun and held the driver and elementary school students hostage before letting them off the bus.
A federal grand jury has indicted the four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest and death, accusing them of willfully violating the Black man’s constitutional rights.
All the COVID metrics are now looking quite good in the U.S., but still quite bad in India. Florida and Texas are next to enact new strict voting restrictions.
Amusement park regulation varies from state to state, but no American amusement park receives federal oversight. In fact, the largest parks are free to regulate themselves.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says Broadway theaters can reopen Sept. 14 and will be allowed to decide their own entry requirements, like whether people must prove they’ve been vaccinated to attend a show.
Facebook's oversight board punts on the big Trump decision, Biden changes his tune on vaccine patent protections while Tucker Carlson spreads more misinformation, why Peloton's treadmill is a design fail, and more.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) joined the NYC Cannabis Parade, the first since the Empire State legalized marijuana. The senator promised to continue to fight for "fair, just, and full legalization" on a federal level.
A closer look at bitcoin's experience during the pandemic reveals a handful of major developments that have helped push the OG cryptocurrency to new heights.
