Trump's lawyer Marc Kasowitz rejects James Comey's allegations

US President Donald Trump's personal lawyer has rejected allegations made by James Comey, the former FBI director, before US lawmakers.

Marc Kasowitz said Mr Trump never sought to impede the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

He suggested that leaks by Mr Comey should themselves be investigated.

Mr Comey told Congress that the Trump administration's comments about him and the FBI were "lies plain and simple".

He told a Senate committee they were wrong to denigrate the agency and its leadership.

Mr Comey was also "confused" by the "shifting explanations" for his sacking, which came as he led a probe into any links between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

When reporters asked Mr Trump himself whether he thought Mr Comey was telling the truth, he did not respond but simply pursed his lips and smiled.

Mr Trump's attorney, Marc Kasowitz, said in a statement that Mr Comey's testimony "finally confirmed publicly" that the president was not under investigation as part of any probe in Russian political meddling.

In the statement, Mr Trump also denied asking Mr Comey for his loyalty or to drop an investigation into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn during private meetings.

In his testimony, Mr Comey said Mr Trump had repeatedly told him he was doing a "great" job.

He also suggested he was fired to "change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted".

The former FBI boss remained largely composed throughout almost three hours of testimony but became impassioned when delivering his opening remarks.

He told the panel that the White House "chose to defame me, and more importantly the FBI" by claiming the agency was "poorly led".

"Those were lies, plain and simple. And I'm so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them," he continued.

  • How the drama unfolded

  • What questions remain?

  • Trump v Comey: Who said what 

     

     

    "The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is and always will be independent," he said in his opening remarks.
    Mr Comey was leading one of several Russia investigations before Mr Trump fired him.
    US intelligence agencies believe Russia interfered in the US election and they are investigating alleged links between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
    But there is no known evidence of collusion and President Donald Trump has dismissed the story as "fake news".
    His spokeswoman Sarah Sanders on Thursday hit back at Mr Comey, saying: "I can definitively say the president is not a liar."

    'Staggering blow' for Trump - Anthony Zurcher, BBC News

    For Donald Trump the good news from James Comey's testimony is that the former FBI director clearly said the president was not directly under FBI investigation at the time he was fired. The bad news was, well, everything else.

    On multiple occasions, Mr Comey said he was either concerned or knew that the president or his administration was lying "plain and simple" - about the circumstances of his dismissal and about the nature of his meetings with the president.

    It's clear the president woefully mishandled this, for which he has paid a high price ever since. By unceremoniously sacking him, and offering a muddle of explanations for it, he created an adversary with both the means and the motivation to respond in the most damaging way.

    Mr Comey had a friend leak disturbing information about the president's actions to the media. He was given the biggest spotlight in a generation to publicly air further details. He stood before a Senate committee not just to defend himself, but also the honour of the FBI.

    The White House may claim today's testimony is a technical exoneration. Politically, however, it's a staggering blow. And when it comes to the presidency, politics is everything.

  • Five takeaways from Comey's testimony

     

    During Thursday's testimony, Mr Comey emphasised that Russia's political meddling was "not a close call", adding: "There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever."
    When asked by the Senate Intelligence Committee whether the president tried to stop the Russia investigation, Mr Comey said: "Not to my understanding, no."
    He said he it was not for him to say whether Mr Trump's actions were an obstruction of justice.
    Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the committee's vice chairman, pressed Mr Comey on why he decided to keep a record of his conversations with Mr Trump.
  • Comey 'confused' by Clinton probe order
  • Key quotes in Comey prepared statement
  • The Trump-Russia story - in 200 words
"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting" he said. 


Mr Comey, who published his prepared remarks a day before the hearing, detailed one meeting with Mr Trump in which the president asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House aide Jared Kushner to leave the Oval Office.

"I knew something was about to happen that I needed to pay very close attention to," he said. "I remember thinking that that was a very disturbing development." 

 

During another meeting with Mr Trump, Mr Comey said the president appealed to him to "let go" an investigation into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn and his ties to the Kremlin.
After US media reported the conversation, the president warned Mr Comey in a tweet, saying he "better hope there are no 'tapes' of our conversations".
Mr Comey told the committee he hoped there were tapes, calling on Mr Trump to release them.
"The president surely knows whether he taped me, and if he did my feelings aren't hurt. Release all the tapes, I'm good with it," he said.
The White House has refused to say whether any such tapes exist.
After Mr Trump's tweet about potential tapes, Mr Comey said he realised it was important to release his own account of the story.

He revealed that he asked a "good friend of mine" who is a professor at Columbia Law School to share contents of the memo with a reporter, in order to build pressure for a special counsel.
As a result of this episode, former FBI chief Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel to lead an independent investigation into the Trump campaign's potential ties to the Kremlin.
Mr Comey said he was "sure" Mr Mueller was also looking at whether Mr Trump obstructed justice.
Mr Trump attacked Mr Comey for leaking the documents, saying it showed that members of the US government are "actively attempting to undermine this administration".

What's the reaction?

"He's new in government, and so therefore I think he's learning as he goes," said Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. "I'm not saying it's an acceptable excuse. It's just my observation."
"If you want to convict the president of being inappropriate, putting Comey in a bad spot, being rude, crude and a bull in a china shop, you would win," Senator Lindsey Graham told the BBC.
"The American people elected a bull in a china shop to help them with their lives, not this."
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said "it's hard to overstate the impact of Jim Comey's testimony today" and that "it seems like the walls are closing in".

BBC NEWS
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Tom Cruise's The Mummy gets some grim reviews



The reboot of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise has received some scathing reviews from critics.
The film, which is released in the UK on 25 June, also stars Annabelle Wallis and Russell Crowe.
Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw said: "This has some nice moments but is basically a mess.
"The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb: a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts."

'Monster fail'

Empire was slightly more kind, with Dan Jolin awarding the film three stars.
"It's running and jumping grin-flashing business as usual for Cruise, once more on safe character territory as an Ethan Hunt-esque action protagonist who couples up with a much younger woman, while another woman chases after him," he wrote.
"And if the next instalment-teasing conclusion is anything to go by, Cruise seemed to have enough fun making this that he may just return for more."


Geoffrey Macnab gave the film two stars in his review for The Independent.
"The stunts are by far the best element here," he said.
Whether it's planes being torn apart, Cruise and Wallis driving through the woods with the Mummy in pursuit or the very spectacular finale, the visual effects are first rate.
"Whenever the action stops, though, the film becomes derivative and empty headed."



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Taliban territory: Life in Afghanistan under the militants

Sixteen years after they were ousted in the US-led invasion, the Taliban have fought their way back to control swathes of Afghanistan. The country remains mired in conflict, and recent months have seen a series of bloody attacks. In the south, key towns are now Taliban territory. The BBC's Auliya Atrafi was invited by the militants to spend four days behind the front line in Helmand province witnessing life under their control.
In the town of Sangin, two dozen men sat cross-legged inside a huge mud compound. Under the full moon, their black turbans cast deep shadows over their sunburned features.
These were the Taliban's special forces; the Red Unit. They sat quietly as they listened to their commander Mullah Taqi telling war stories, gently cradling their M4 machine guns. The M4s, with their night-vision scopes, were one of the main reasons they had captured nearly 85% of Helmand province from less-well-armed Afghan forces.
But these victories had presented Taliban leaders with an unexpected challenge.
The people they now ruled had lived with government services for more than a decade. Schools, hospitals, development - residents had become accustomed to them. So how could a group entirely focused on taking territory evolve into one that could attempt to run it?


Who are the Taliban?

  • The hardline Islamic Taliban movement swept to power in Afghanistan in 1996 after the civil war which followed the Soviet-Afghan war, and were ousted by the US-led invasion five years later
  • In power, they imposed a brutal version of Sharia law, such as public executions and amputations, and banned women from public life
  • Men had to grow beards and women to wear the all-covering burka; television, music and cinema were banned
  • They sheltered al-Qaeda leaders before and after being ousted - since then they have fought a bloody insurgency which continues today
  • In 2016, Afghan civilian casualties hit a new high - a rise attributed by the UN largely to the Taliban
Setting up our visit to Taliban territory took months. It had been years since a journalist with international media had secured such access. But in mid-May, we crossed the frontline in Gereshk, following a boy on a motorbike. We drove on the main Kabul-Herat highway towards Kandahar.
Just by an Afghan National Army post, the boy suddenly turned left, leaving the highway behind, and rode into scattered settlements. He handed us over to two Taliban guards who were manning a makeshift base. One sat with us in the car, while the other led us on a motorbike towards the Zanbulai area. 


There, waiting for us. was Mullah Taqi, the head of Taliban special forces. He stood with a group of his men, all nursing sophisticated weaponry.
Throughout the visit we were accompanied by a Taliban media team who controlled what we saw.
We were not allowed to film anything to do with opium. The opium trade is synonymous with this region - Afghanistan produces about 90% of the world's opium - and helps fund the Taliban.
I tried to explain to their media head, Asad Afghan, the English concept of "an elephant in the room". He put his hand on my shoulder and said: "Opium is our economic necessity, but we hate it as much as you do."
The fact is the Taliban need the money they get from drugs - it buys arms and helps fund their fight.




Our first encounter with Taliban governance came in the market. Sangin has been fiercely contested for more than a decade - hundreds of UK, US and Afghan troops lost their lives here - and finally fell to the Taliban in March this year.
The old Sangin bazaar had been flattened in the battle for the city. We walked through its makeshift replacement, a sea of tarpaulin and boxes. Two men were arguing by a food stall.
"I can't read!" shouted shopkeeper Haji Saifullah. "How was I supposed to know the biscuits were out of date?" He fidgeted with his turban, pushing it to one side nervously.


The other man was the Taliban mayor of Sangin, Noor Mohammad. He ordered Haji Saifullah to be imprisoned for three days and to pay a fine.
Next on the mayor's list was inspecting petrol containers to see if they had been altered to pour under the promised gallon. After that came examinations for people who claimed to be doctors, but who he suspected were lying.
Later we drove to Musa Qala, the Taliban's de facto capital. Just short of the town, we stopped at a travelling bazaar set up on a dry riverbed. 


Musa Qala is famous for the opium trade but it is also a commercial lifeline for the district. Traders come here all the way from the Afghan-Pakistan border areas.
At the bazaar you could buy motorbikes, cows, ice-cream - and less conventional commodities such as ammunition.
Bullets for an AK47 were 25 cents (15p) each. Bullets for a Russian machine-gun used to be 40 cents each, but were reduced to 15 cents because - according to the shopkeeper - too many of them had been captured from the Afghan security forces.
Image caption Bullets on sale in the market in Musa Qala
While the Taliban focus on health, safety and trading standards in Sangin was surprising, more discoveries awaited us in Musa Qala. Despite it being the Taliban capital, the school and hospital were still being funded by the government in Kabul.
Read more about the conflict:
"The government recently did their inspections; our schools were officially registered; our salaries that were locked for a year were later released," said Abdul Rahim, the government's head of education for Musa Qala.
He said the Taliban did not have any problem with government inspectors, and that the system was working.
"The government give us stationery and everything else, we implement the government syllabus and the Taliban don't have a problem with it," he said. 


But not everything was running smoothly. Across Afghanistan, about 40% of pupils enrolled in schools are female, according to US Aid. Not in Musa Qala, however. No girls over the age of about 12 were being educated in the Taliban capital. But girls were deprived of education here even before the Taliban took hold, because it is a very conservative area.
For the boys, meanwhile, there were not enough basic supplies.
"The way our school is run is good, as in security, but we have one problem and that's we don't have enough books," said one student, Dadul-Haq. "One student will be missing maths, the other chemistry - not all pupils have the same books."
It struck me that in education, at least, the Taliban are tentatively experimenting by allowing wider access to education - at least for boys - than during their earlier regime. Under them, before 2001, many fewer boys went to school in the countryside. But experiences like Haji Saifullah's - the biscuit seller in Sangin - have made rural Afghans realise that education and literacy are essential. They will not turn you into an infidel, as their forefathers feared.
Now the Taliban appear to have realised that they cannot fight the modern world forever, so some have opted to join it on their own terms. 



Asad Afghan, the Taliban's media co-ordinator, used a proverb to make his point. "The fire may have burnt our house, but it made our walls stronger," he said. He meant that the Taliban had learned from the past mistake of isolating themselves from modernisation.
Many say the Taliban have brought some security - albeit with limited freedoms - to the countryside they control. Areas used to years of fighting between troops and militants are now seeing a dramatic rise in trade. Many people say they prefer the Taliban's swift - but flawed - system of justice to the previous administration, which they say was riddled with corruption and patronage.



We visited the district hospital which, like the school, was funded by the government but run by the Taliban. It is meant to serve 120,000 people, but lacked many basic facilities. There was not one female doctor; neither was there a paediatric specialist. It wasn't even possible to get a chest X-ray.
To cater for women the Taliban had built a separate facility next door, run by female staff.
One doctor said the dual system had created a responsibility vacuum and opened the door to corruption. "I haven't been paid in the past six months - not only me but also the entire staff of the hospital," he said.
"[Government] supervisors write things on paper that don't turn into reality. Our medicine for three months doesn't last us more than a month and half… this is because sometimes the Taliban come and want medicine for themselves."
We asked the Taliban's supervisor for health services, Attaullah, if we could interview a female nurse, but he refused.
Her husband told him that he had no problem with the interview, but Attaullah said: "It is your right to allow the interview and my responsibility to stop it.
"What would be the difference between us and the government if we allowed interviews with women?"
During the four days I was in Taliban territory, I only saw women in clinics and being transported around by their male relatives. But men here have always preferred women to stay at home out of sight. Even if the Taliban were not here, it is unlikely things would be very different.
Some activities were limited. In Musa Qala, using mobile phones and the internet was banned for security and religious reasons - our Taliban media handlers communicated via walkie-talkies. Filming and playing musical instruments are also not allowed. One young man told me he was given 40 lashes for watching a Bollywood film.
The Taliban have cracked down on bachabaze - dance parties involving teenage boys that can often end in sexual abuse. They also come down hard on homosexuality, although it appears the Taliban legal process can be influenced with a mixture of pulling strings and bribes. 


Ireminded him that the Taliban also had a culture of obedience and were disciplined, so didn't he think they would be able to direct their devotion to war into the art of politics? He dropped his head, thought for a moment and shook his head doubtfully. He didn't think so.
At night, we would dine with local Taliban leaders and discuss these themes.
One evening a Taliban leader strove to convince us of the benefits of life under the Taliban by contrasting it with the failings of the Afghan government. But it struck me that the world they wanted to create was too absolute for a human society.
I suggested that society was messy, complicated and always in transition, and wondered how successful any government would be trying put it in a fixed framework.
The leader, Musavir Sahib, was a tiny man, with long beard and blue eyes. He was adamant: "Our governance is based on sacred scripture; it is the best solution for any human society.
"Afghans are adaptable people," he added. "When we took over the country for the first time, very soon people started dressing up like us. And then when the Americans came, they started dressing up like the Americans. So surely they will adopt our governance again."
He could not conceive that people could oppose Taliban rule and were coerced by them into doing what they wanted.

BBC NEWS 
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General election 2017: Voters to go to the polls

Voting in the UK general election is under way at more than 40,000 polling stations across the country.

Polls opened at 07:00 BST on Thursday, with counting starting once voting ends at 22:00 BST.

A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 46.9 million people registered to vote.

That is up from the last general election, in 2015, when there were 46.4 million registered voters.

Some votes have already been cast, through postal voting, which accounted for 16.4% of the total electorate at the 2015 general election. People with an undelivered postal vote can still deliver it by hand to their local polling station.

Overall turnout in 2015, when the Conservatives won 331 out of 650 seats, was 66.4%, up from 2010.

 




A handful of seats are expected to be declared by midnight, with the final results expected on Friday afternoon.
Unusually, no local elections are taking place at the same time, so results might come through earlier than in recent general elections.
In 2015 the first seat to declare was Houghton and Sunderland South, at 22:48 BST.
To form a majority in the House of Commons one party must win 326 seats - in 2015 a Conservative majority was not confirmed until 13:34 BST.
The weather forecast is for some rain in south-west England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales on Thursday, with south-east England remaining cloudy and dry.
Image copyright Reuters
 
 

Polls close at 22:00 BST, but officials say anyone in a polling station queue at this time should be able to cast their vote.

The BBC's main election programme, fronted by David Dimbleby, starts at 21:55 BST, with live coverage from scores of counts.

Dimbleby, fronting his 10th election night broadcast, will be joined by Mishal Husain, Emily Maitlis, Jeremy Vine.

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will have their own overnight programmes but will join Huw Edwards from 07:00 BST on 9 June.

On the radio, an overnight broadcast by BBC Radio 4 will be hosted by Jim Naughtie and Carolyn Quinn.

On BBC Radio 5 live, the overnight show will be hosted by Stephen Nolan and Emma Barnett.

Full coverage of the results as they come in will be on the BBC politics online live page and front page scorecard, with all the big breaking stories from around the country and analysis by correspondents.

BBC NEWS

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Car boot sale diamond fetches £650k at auction

A diamond ring bought at a car boot sale for £10 has been sold for £656,750 at auction in London.
The jewel was expected to fetch £350,000, but went for almost double that at Sotheby's on Wednesday.
The owner believed the "exceptionally-sized" stone was a piece of costume jewellery when she bought it at West Middlesex Hospital in Isleworth, west London, in the 1980s.
Unaware it was a 26 carat diamond, she wore it daily for decades.
The cushion-shaped white diamond is thought to have been from the 19th Century.
Ahead of the sale, the head of the auction house's London jewellery department, Jessica Wyndham, said: "The owner would wear it out shopping, wear it day-to-day. It's a good looking ring.
"No-one had any idea it had any intrinsic value at all. They enjoyed it all this time."
Ms Wyndham said the owner - who does not want to be identified - assumed it was not a genuine gemstone because it was in a "filthy" mount and it did not have the sparkle of a diamond.
It wasn't until after 30 years of wearing the ring that the owners took it to Sotheby's and a jeweller told them it may be valuable.


Another eye-catching item from the Sotheby's sale was a Cartier diamond brooch worn by Margaret Thatcher.
It was worn the day she offered her resignation as Prime Minister to the Queen.
With its geometric chevron design, the brooch was eventually sold for £81,250, having been estimated to fetch up to £35,000.


Proceeds from that sale will be donated to charity.
Ms Wyndham said: "It was a thrill to bring the hammer down on two objects which have been the subject of so much interest and attention over the last few weeks and to see that attention translate into such strong bidding competition."

BBC NEWS
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Paris pollution victim sues France for bad air

A Parisian woman is taking the French state to court for failing to protect her health from the effects of air pollution.
Clotilde Nonnez, a 56-year-old yoga teacher, says she has lived in the capital for 30 years and seen her health deteriorate.
However, it became worse than ever when pollution in Paris hit record levels last December.
Her lawyer says air pollution is causing 48,000 French deaths per year.
"We are taking the state to task because we think the medical problems that pollution victims suffer are as a result of the authorities' lack of action in tackling air pollution," François Lafforgue told Le Monde newspaper.
More cases would be brought in the coming weeks, in Lyon, Lille and elsewhere, he added.
Paris has struggled for years to combat high levels of smog and the authorities have introduced fines for any vehicle not carrying a "Crit'Air" emissions category sticker - part of a scheme to promote lower-emitting vehicles.
Several routes in the capital now have restrictions on car use and a 3km (1.8-mile) stretch of the Right Bank of the River Seine has become pedestrianised.
Ms Nonnez says she has led a healthy life, first as a dancer and more recently as a yoga teacher, but has increasingly suffered from respiratory problems, ranging from chronic asthma to pneumonia.
When pollution hit the worst levels for a decade last December, her existing bronchial condition prompted an acute pericarditis attack.
"The doctor treating me says Paris air is so polluted that we're breathing rotten air. She has other patients like me, including children and babies too. My cardiologist says the same," she told the France Info website.

 
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Apple to scan iPhones for child sex abuse images

  Apple has announced details of a system to find child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on customers' devices. Before an image is stored on...