The comment comes ahead of the upcoming NATO summit in Brussels that is set to take place on 11-12 July, where the US is expected to demand other member-states to increase their military spending to 2% of GDP, in accordance with the alliance's requirements.

US NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison shared his [sic 'her'] opinion that Russia is attempting to "flip" Turkey and a number of other NATO members in an interview with Fox News.

"I do think Russia is trying to flip Turkey. They are trying to flip many of our allies. They want to destabilize the strongest defense alliance in the history of the world - NATO," she said.

At the same time, she expressed confidence that Turkey will remain a US ally as a "NATO strong member."

Syrian military air defences struck an Israeli warplane and shot down Israeli missiles targeting the T4 air base in Homs province in response to an act of "aggression" on Sunday night, Syrian state media said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said Israel does not comment on foreign reports.

Israel has grown deeply alarmed by the expanding clout of its arch enemy Iran during the seven-year war in neighbouring Syria. Israel's air force has struck scores of targets it describes as Iranian deployments or arms transfers to Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Damascus, as well as its allies Iran and Russia, blamed Israel for an April 9 air strike on the same Homs base, an attack that killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) members. Tehran vowed at the time to respond.

Syrian state news agency SANA said the missile attack on Sunday caused only material damage.

"Our air defence systems thwarted an Israeli aggression and brought down a number of missiles that were targeting the T4 airport," it cited a military source as saying.

The air defences hit one of the "attacking planes and forced the rest to leave" Syrian air space, it added.

Kiev must acknowledge the mass killing of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in the 1940s for what it is - ethnic cleansing - Polish President Andrzej Duda said after reportedly snubbing an invitation for a joint commemoration.

On Sunday, Duda visited Ukraine to mark the 75th anniversary of the Volhynia massacres, the mass killing of civilians by radical Ukrainian nationalists in what is now western Ukraine. The brutal massacres carried out by the UPA, the militant wing of Stepan Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), was part of a larger campaign of ethnic cleansing by Nazi Germany and its allies, but is considered a distinct episode of Ukrainian-Polish ethnic conflict by many historians.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called the recent allegations raised against Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, "serious" in a statement on Friday.

"These are serious allegations and issues," a spokesman for Ryan told USA Today in an email. "The university has rightfully initiated a full investigation into the matter. The speaker will await the findings of that inquiry."

Jordan has been accused of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse carried out on members of the Ohio State University wrestling team, where Jordan served as an assistant coach in the 1990s.

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's transition team unveiled a plan Friday to shake up the fight against crime, including reduced jail time but stiffer controls on weapons, as the country reels from a militarized drug war.

The concept of "transitional justice" is part of the incoming government's security strategy, Olga Sanchez, Lopez Obrador's proposed interior minister, told Reuters in an interview before her team unveiled the plan.

Transitional justice typically involves leniency for those who admit guilt, truth commissions to investigate atrocities and the granting of reparations for some victims.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced the closure of the Gaza Strip's main commercial crossing, in what he describes as a crackdown against the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement.

"We will crack down immediately on the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. In a significant move, we will today shut down the Kerem Shalom (border) crossing," Netanyahu said in a speech to his party members at the Israeli Knesset on Monday.

"We will double our efforts against Hamas," he said, adding that Israel would "deal with Hamas with a heavier hand," but did not give any details.

The death of Dawn Sturgess from what police say was exposure to Novichok has sparked a new fit of Russia-blaming, as an MP, high-profile commentators and mainstream journalists pointed the finger at Moscow.

As British police launched a murder investigation into the poisoning and death of Dawn Sturgess, 44, in Amesbury, various self-styled chemical weapons experts on Twitter have cried for Russia's blood, squarely blaming Moscow for the incident yet in the early stages of the investigation.

Mike Gapes, the Labour and Co-operative MP for Ilford South who recently got some limelight by urging British parliamentarians against providing any commentary to RT, immediately named Russia as a party responsible for Sturgess' death.

Pundits spotlight abortion as Trump mulls pick.

Just one day before President Trump is set to announce his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy in a primetime address from the White House, a top Democratic senator suggested that stopping the nominee is more important than the upcoming midterm elections.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., acknowledged that so-called red-state Democrats may be tempted to vote for Trump's selection out of political necessity, but urged his colleagues Sunday to consider more than their political careers.

"Beyond the procedure, beyond the gamesmanship, it is a life-and-death important decision to be made by this court on so many issues," the Senate minority whip said on NBC's Meet the Press.

US Senator Ron Johnson, who recently paid a visit to Russia, said Washington's sanctions against Moscow had no effect, the Washington Examiner wrote.

A group of senators and congressmen arrived in Russia on June 30. On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, received the delegation, in addition, the American politicians met with Russian deputies.

"You undertake something and no one ever sits down to analyze, 'Does it work,'" the Senator said according to the article.


Johnson pointed out that the sanctions do not have the devastating economic effect that was thought to have on Moscow.

"And I think it would be difficult to say that the sanctions against Russia are really working very well," he said.

Meanwhile, the politician said that Russia intends to reestablish its influence in the former USSR [Soviet Union], and if anyone wants to stop it, it needs to be opposed to that, but that does not mean that we should be adversaries," he said.

Lawyers for President Donald Trump unleashed a blistering attack on former FBI Director James Comey in a confidential memo last year to the special counsel, casting him as "Machiavellian," dishonest and "unbounded by law and regulation" as they sought to undermine the credibility of a law enforcement leader they see as a critical witness against the president.

The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, underscores the intense effort by Trump's legal team over the last year to tarnish Comey's reputation and pit the president's word against that of the former FBI director. Comey's firing in May 2017 helped set in motion the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, and one-on-one conversations with Trump that Comey documented in a series of memos helped form the basis of Mueller's inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.

The June 27, 2017, letter was written by Marc Kasowitz, then the president's lead lawyer, as Mueller and his team were in the early stages of their investigation into Trump associates and as they had begun examining whether the president, by firing Comey, had sought to stymie an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. The White House initially pointed as justification for the firing to a Justice Department memo that faulted Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, though Trump later said that "this Russia thing" was on his mind when he made the move.

It's not clear to what extent, if any, the attacks on Comey have resonated with Mueller's team, which is broadly investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and continues to seek an interview with the president to assess whether he had a corrupt intent when he fired the FBI director. And even in the face of withering criticism, Comey has been largely consistent in his telling of his interactions with Trump in his memos, his book and press interviews he's given in recent months.