Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May waits for the result of the vote in her constituency at the count centre for the general election in Maidenhead, June 9, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville

UK election

It was never meant to be a high-stakes gamble, but British PM Theresa May's attempt to strengthen her leadership by calling an early election has instead left her authority in tatters. Results show May's Conservatives have lost their majority in parliament. But May, facing scorn for running a lackluster campaign, is determined to hang on. A spokesman for her office said she would go to Buckingham Palace to ask Queen Elizabeth for permission to form a government - a formality under the British system. Without the desired larger majority, May will now be in the thrall of two wings of her party that oppose her plans to leave the European Union: "purists" who want a clean break with the bloc and "remainers" who are pressing for closer ties, two Conservative sources said. That throws into doubt the complex talks on Britain's departure from the EU that are due to begin in just 10 days.

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Latest updates and analysis following the UK election

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Washington

Former FBI Director James Comey prepares to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "Russian Federation Efforts to Interfere in the 2016 U.S. Elections" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

During former FBI director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, he vividly recounted conversations with President Donald Trump that he viewed as an effort to undermine an investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Comey said that after his firing, he shared a memo describing his conversations with the president to a "close friend" and told him to share its contents with a reporter, a revelation that drew sharp criticism from Trump’s lawyer.

In his first tweet about the hearing, Trump wrote: “Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication...and WOW, Comey is a leaker!”

But the investigation has contributed to a steady erosion of Trump's political capital. According to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll taken from June 1 to 5, even before the Comey testimony - 38 percent of Americans said they approved of Trump, versus 58 percent who disapproved.

Factbox: Did Comey's testimony support an obstruction of justice charge?

World

Europe's chief executive appealed to EU governments to forge a military alliance to defend the bloc and enhance its power abroad, warning that the United States was no longer prepared to do it for them.

China said it was monitoring U.S. military activities in the South China Sea, after two U.S. bombers conducted training flights over the disputed waters.

South Korea has found what appears to be a North Korean drone equipped with a camera on a mountain near its border with the isolated nation, the South's military said, suggesting the device was on a spying mission.

A woman detonated her explosive belt in a market east of the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, killing at least 30 and wounding 35, Iraqi security sources said. Islamic State claimed the attack in the town of Musayab, south of Baghdad, in a statement on its Amaq news agency. It didn't identify the bomber.

Qatar vowed to ride out the isolation imposed on it by fellow Arab states over its alleged support for militant groups and said it would not compromise its sovereignty over foreign policy to resolve the region's biggest diplomatic crisis in years.

Russia may seize U.S. diplomatic property in Moscow and complicate life for an Anglo-American school unless Washington hands back two diplomatic compounds in the United States before July, the daily Kommersant newspaper reported. In December, then U.S. president Barack Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russians over what he said was their involvement in hacking last year's U.S. presidential election, allegations Moscow flatly denies. The U.S. authorities seized two Russian diplomatic compounds, one in Maryland and another on Long Island, at the same time. Moscow did not retaliate, saying it would wait to see if relations improved under Trump.

Business

SoftBank said it would buy two firms that build walking robots from Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc, adding to the Japanese company's growing artificial intelligence portfolio.

Governments across Asia - most notably Hong Kong and Singapore - have launched a raft of initiatives to grab a slice of the $100 billion invested in fintech globally. But a thicket of regulations is making it tough for firms to scale up, according to a report by the Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Nordstrom could go private.