| Washington Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters. The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the record now being reviewed by FBI and congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia. The U.S. Justice Department, in the face of rising pressure from Capitol Hill, named former FBI chief Robert Mueller on Wednesday as special counsel to investigate alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and possible collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Moscow. Who is ‘Bobby Three Sticks’ Mueller? Read the profile. Scandals enveloping U.S. President Donald Trump have left Republican lawmakers and lobbyists increasingly gloomy about the prospects for passing sweeping tax cuts, a rollback of Obamacare and an ambitious infrastructure program. A bill proposed in Congress on Wednesday would require the U.S. National Security Agency to inform representatives of other government agencies about security holes it finds in software like the one that allowed last week's "ransomware" attacks. Under former President Barack Obama, the government created a similar inter-agency review, but it was not required by law and was administered by the NSA itself.
World headlines Hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, a harsh critic of the West and the standard bearer of Iran's security hawks, has drawn on economic discontent to mount an unexpectedly strong challenge to pragmatist Hassan Rouhani in Friday's presidential elections. Just four months after taking office, Donald Trump will make the earliest foray into Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking by any U.S. president next week. But with mounting obstacles at home and abroad, he faces long odds of succeeding where more experienced predecessors have failed. Turkey has said the U.S. special envoy in the battle against Islamic State should be removed because he supported Kurdish militants, and warned that Ankara would act unilaterally if it faced attack from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Russian President Vladimir Putin and France's new President Emmanuel Macron held their first phone conversation and discussed possible further cooperation in resolving the Ukraine crisis, the Kremlin said in a statement. 
A clocks salesman speaks with a customer at his shop in Islamabad, Pakistan May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Caren Firouz
UK elections Prime Minister Theresa May pitched selective market intervention and stiffer rules for businesses as the tonic Britain needs to navigate Brexit when she unveiled her main pre-election pledges on Thursday. Outlining the Conservative party's proposals May vowed to make it harder for foreign companies to take over British firms and threatened to clamp down on soaring executive pay as she set out plans for the government to take a greater say in the running of UK Plc. The Conservative party has a 15 point lead over the opposition Labour party, down sharply from three weeks ago but still indicating a hefty majority for her, an Ipsos MORI poll shows.
Business Swirling uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump's political future saw world stocks extend their steepest fall in over six months on Thursday, though there were signs of stabilization elsewhere as the dollar and gold steadied. Wal-Mart Stores Inc reported slightly higher-than-expected quarterly sales at established U.S. stores as customer visits increased and online purchases accelerated. “I don’t know why anyone would buy new equipment when there’s so much stuff out there that’s perfectly capable of doing the job”. Many U.S. companies emerged from the last recession extremely wary of spending on buildings and expensive new equipment, unless it was sure the returns would justify it. New applications for U.S. jobless benefits unexpectedly fell last week and the number of Americans receiving unemployment aid hit a 28-1/2-year low, pointing to rapidly shrinking labor market slack.
Entertainment & Media U.S. musician Chris Cornell, who gained fame as the lead singer of Soundgarden and later Audioslave, died on Wednesday in Detroit, his representative said. He was 52. Roger Ailes, former chief executive of Fox News Channel , has died. Ailes was 77, according to Fox's website.
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