President Donald Trump says that fired FBI Director James Comey’s testimony on June 8 absolved him and exposed Comey as "a leaker."

WASHINGTON — If one believes James B. Comey’s account of his encounters with President Trump, it could present a prosecutable case of obstruction of justice, several former prosecutors said Thursday.

“My supposition as a prosecutor would be that Flynn has something on the president,” she added. “You will recall that Flynn asked for immunity, saying that he has a story to tell. Perhaps the president believed that ending the investigation meant that Flynn would never tell that story. I assume investigators will be delving into this, as it is clearly relevant to whether the president acted with a corrupt intent in trying to derail the Flynn investigation.”

Trump says U.S. committed to NATO's Article 5 on common defense

White House social media director Dan Scavino violated Hatch Act with tweet targeting GOP congressman

White House social media director Dan Scavino Jr. violated a federal law that bars public officials from using their positions for political activity when he urged President Trump's supporters to defeat a GOP congressman, the Office of Special Counsel has concluded.

Why history says Theresa May should go

For the third time in two years, the British electorate has defied expectations.

Whether she steps down graciously or hobbles on until her government collapses under the weight of its own contradictions, she is not long for the leadership.

Despite betting markets and expert forecasts that predicted Theresa May’s Conservatives to win a large majority in the U.K. parliamentary elections, the Tories instead lost ground on Thursday, resulting in a hung parliament. As we write this in the early hours of Friday morning, Conservatives will end up with either 318 or 319 seats, down from the 330 that the Tories had in the previous government. A majority officially requires 326 seats.1Although, there are some ambiguities on account of Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party which traditionally does not take its seats in parliament, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, who traditionally does not vote.

There were also a lot of events during the campaign, but the compressed time frame makes them hard to sort out from one another. How much did the Conservative manifesto hurt the Tories? Did terrorist attacks in Manchester and London work against them? Was May’s perceived softness toward President Trump a factor, especially after Trump began to attack London Mayor Sadiq Khan? Given the results of the French election, is there an overall resurgence toward liberal multiculturalism in Europe, perhaps as a reaction to Trump? We don’t know the answers to these questions, although we hope to explore some of them in the coming days. We do know that elections around the world are putting candidates, pollsters and the media to the test, and there isn’t a lot they can be taking for granted.

President Trump assailed Qatar for funding terrorism “at a very high level” Friday, just hours after the U.S. State Department urged Arab states to ease their blockade against the Gulf country.

This isn’t the first time the U.S. has shifted its posturing since this crisis in Qatar began. While Trump seemingly praised the six Arab countries (Libya and Yemen were also among them) Tuesday for their decision to sever relations with Qatar, the president later reiterated in a call with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani Wednesday the importance of a “united” Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional body of which Qatar is a member, offering to help resolve the dispute.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Fortified by a 20-point lead in the opinion polls, Theresa May, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, called a general election in April assuming that, all things being equal, she couldn’t possibly lose. In 2015, David Cameron had won a small and fragile majority in the House of Commons, but this was Mrs. May’s opportunity to transform it into, as she said, a “strong and stable” government that would be well-placed to lead the U.K. through the choppy waters of leaving the European Union. An increased majority, she promised, would “strengthen” her hand in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations.

Perhaps that’s the real message of this election: Britain’s divisions desperately require a political party, and a prime minister, capable of rising above them. On current evidence, however, there is no sign of that kind of savior riding to the rescue. A fractious, disgruntled, country remains just that. The electorate sent a clear message on Thursday: Trust nobody. The U.K. awaits the arrival of a politician who can recognize and then surmount that; on the evidence available, it will be waiting for some time yet.

Most used to work in July and August. Now the vast majority don’t. Are they being lazy, or strategic?

The summer job is considered a rite of passage for the. American Teenager. It is a time when tossing newspaper bundles and bussing restaurant tables acts as a rehearsal for weightier adult responsibilities, like bundling investments and bussing dinner-party plates. But in the last few decades, the summer job has been disappearing. In the summer of 1978, 60 percent of teens were working or looking for work. Last summer, just 35 percent were.

With tougher high-school requirements and greater pressure to go to college, summer classes are the new summer job. The percent of 16-to-19-year-olds enrolled in summer school has tripled in the last 20 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rise may be directly related to the fact that parents and high schools are encouraging students to take on more classwork,

Trump’s Ignorance Won’t Save Him

The president’s defenders have a simple explanation for the conduct James Comey described to Congress: Trump didn’t know what he was doing. Washington Bureau Chief Yoni Appelbaum argues that the president’s ignorance is no excuse. Trump is the commander-in-chief and is responsible for his actions.

The first important part of James Comey’s testimony was that he cast some doubt on reports that there was widespread communication between the Russians and the Trump campaign. That was the suspicion that set off this whole chain of events and the possibility that could have quickly brought about impeachment proceedings.

The good news is the civic institutions are weathering the storm. The Senate Intelligence Committee put on a very good hearing. The F.B.I. is maintaining its integrity. This has, by and large, been a golden age for the American press corps. The bad news is that these institutions had better be. The Trump death march will be slow, grinding and ugly.

While many Americans make sense of James Comey’s testimony on his meetings with President Trump, Republican senators are quietly moving toward something that has been their party’s goal for nearly eight years: dismantling the Affordable Care Act. The question, of course, is how they plan to replace it.

After all, voters may not properly attribute policy gains like the Medicaid expansion to the legislation that President Obama championed, but they will remember who took their health care away.

LONDON — Like a stumbling figure from “The Walking Dead,” Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, has yet to realize that she is a political zombie. For all her poise as she spoke on Downing Street on Friday, the day after Britain’s general election, when she declared her intention to continue in office, she is roaming the land of the undead. Sooner or later, reality is going to bite — hard.

As an admirer of Mrs. May, I wish she had chosen to leave with honor intact, instead of subjecting herself, and the country, to the ordeal ahead. The party is well and truly over. Will someone have the grace to tell her?

LONDON — In a global economy amply stocked with anxiety-provoking variables, Britain just added another.An election designed to bolster the government’s mandate instead yielded fundamental confusion over who is in charge as the nation prepares for fraught negotiations in its pending divorce from the European Union.

“The outlook for Brexit is now very unclear,” Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy, said as the sun rose over London. “The odds of a softer Brexit have increased as a result of the outcome last night. At the same time, it also does increase the odds of a cliff-edge Brexit.”

WASHINGTON — Speaker Paul D. Ryan sought to excuse President Trump’s overtures to James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, about pulling the plug on an investigation as a stumble by a political novice unfamiliar with the strict conventions of the capital.

In the end, this might be the rare time that a person with the pride and self-esteem of Mr. Trump might prefer to be judged a clumsy amateur rather than someone who really knew what he was doing.

9 questions Donald Trump needs to answer at today's news conference

President Donald Trump hasn't taken questions from the White House press corps since May 18. That's 22 days ago. That will change later today when he holds a joint press conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohanni.

It's one thing to accuse someone else of lying. It's another to accuse them of lying under oath, which is what Trump and Kasowitz have done. Lying under oath means you could wind up in jail. Remember, too, that Trump and Comey are not playing by the same rules. Comey has testified under oath about his meetings and interactions with Trump. Trump has not done the same in regards those same meetings.

Trump: I would speak under oath on Comey

US President Donald Trump says he is "100%" willing to speak under oath about his conversations with ex-FBI chief James Comey.Speaking at the White House, he denied having asked for Mr Comey's loyalty or for an inquiry into his former national security adviser to be dropped."James Comey confirmed a lot of what I said, and some of the things he said just weren't true," Mr Trump said.

"One hundred per cent," Mr Trump said.

UK election result: How the world reacted

The result of the UK election, with the ruling Conservatives unexpectedly losing their overall majority, has sent shockwaves across Europe and beyond.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said it was uncertain when Britain would have a clear Brexit strategy."One year after their referendum, we still don't know the British position in the negotiations on Brexit and it seems difficult to predict when we will, because democracy often requires time," she observed.A spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government would not comment on the election result out of "politeness and respect" while the process of forming a new government was ongoing.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday night buoyed House Republican leaders who were hopeful that his leadership would unite fractious lawmakers around a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. But fundamental disagreements still divide Republicans on one of the central promises of their 2016 campaigns: repealing the health law.

WASHINGTON — President Trump spent his first weeks in office vowing to crack down on illegal immigration with deportations and other get-tough proposals. But when he went before Congress on Tuesday to lay out his agenda, he offered a far broader plan that echoes an approach long favored by mainstream Republicans for reshaping the nation’s immigration laws.

“This is more of a political rationalization for just cutting out family categories, rather than some belief that if we got more highly skilled people, it would genuinely help the economy,” Mr. Anderson said.