A 91-year old man has donated $500,000 to a tiny rural volunteer fire department in Missouri in an act of generosity that will transform the fortunes of the struggling organization, whose members have been using equipment from the 1980s. Sam Sloan, a resident of Calhoun, Missouri, donated the lump sum to the struggling department, KMBC…

The auction record for British surrealist Leonora Carrington was smashed at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday night, marking a new high point for the artist, who lived in Mexico for most of her life and was until her death in 2011 one of the last surviving participants of the surrealist movement of the 1930s.…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average passed 40,000 points for the first time on Thursday, powered by strong quarterly results from corporate America and rising bets of interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The index has more than doubled since the spring of 2020 when the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 to be a global pandemic.…

Joe Biden asserted executive privilege to stop House Republicans obtaining recordings of his interviews with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s retention of classified information after his time as a senator and as vice-president to Barack Obama. In a letter reported by the New York Times and other outlets on Thursday, the White…

The Lucy Letby inquiry should be broadcast to the public to prevent the spread of “grossly offensive” conspiracy theories, lawyers for the families of her victims said. The inquiry, which will begin on 10 September and be held at Liverpool town hall, will examine how the nurse was able to murder babies at the Countess…

The Metropolitan police have been forced to respond to rumours circulating online that nails have been stuck to children’s playground equipment, saying there have been no confirmed incidents in London. In recent days parents’ WhatsApp groups have been inundated with reports that vandals have glued nails to children’s slides and other playground equipment. The reports…

Europe’s macroeconomic outlook is brighter — but markets may be underestimating the potential for sudden destabilization due to geopolitics, the vice-president of the European Central Bank said Thursday. “We are talking about the electoral cycle that is going to take place not only in the U.S., but as well in Europe. And simultaneously, we are…

Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed on Wednesday by the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, in a move which experts say ignores the reality of Florida’s climate threats. The legislation, which comes after Florida had its hottest year on record since 1895, also bans…

A primary school in south Devon has closed as it does not have drinking water as officials investigate a local outbreak of a disease that causes sickness and diarrhoea. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said 22 cases of cryptosporidiosis, a waterborne disease caused by a microscopic parasite, had been confirmed in Brixham and more…

Police on Wednesday took back a lecture hall from pro-Palestinian protesters who for hours occupied the building at the University of California, Irvine, then cleared a student encampment that stood for more than two weeks, witnesses said. Officers from about 10 nearby law-enforcement agencies converged on the campus after university officials requested help because protesters…