LOUISVILLE, Ky. —

It might just be the best Christmas present ever for one Kentucky woman. An extremely generous gift from an anonymous donor is making her life a lot easier.

"It took my breath away. It touched my heart that they had did this for me. So, I thank them for everything they have done for me and my grandkids," said Regina Russell, the recipient of a car from an anonymous donor.

The gift of transportation is something Regina Russell has needed for a long time.

"The car that I had, it was a 2003. I had it ever since, and it just broke down. So, I was getting on the bus," Russell said.

The 61-year-old is raising two of her grandkids. She took her 16-year-old and 9-year-old granddaughters in when their mother was having a rough time. Their father is incarcerated. Despite no transportation, she's managed to get them to and from doctors and dental appointments, grocery shopping and other places all through a pandemic.

"I took the bus for about a year, and getting on it with all this COVID going on, I didn't want to get sick," Russell said.

Russell has been in the Louisville Urban League's senior jobs program for the past two years, which prepares them to find employment. That's currently her only source of income. When someone reached out to the league about wanting to gift someone with a car, they knew Russell would be the perfect recipient.

"When they called me up, I had prayed on it and prayers work. God is good. I prayed every day for me to get some time of transportation," Russell said.

Russell says her grandchildren are just as grateful as she is.

"Giving in life, once you keep giving, you will always get back more," Russell said. "So, what he did for me, that's a blessing. He will get blessed."

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama inmate has won a reprieve from a scheduled lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court said the state could not proceed without his pastor in the death chamber.

Thursday's planned execution of Willie B. Smith III was called off late at night when the U.S. Supreme Court maintained an injunction.

The state prison system said afterward that the execution would not proceed in light of the ruling.

Alabama has maintained that non-prison staff should not be in the room for security reasons.

The 51-year-old Smith was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of 22-year-old Sharma Ruth Johnson in Birmingham, Alabama's largest city.