Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch could be jailed for up to ten years if found guilty of misconduct.

Fox News senior judicial analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, believes that the Senate's investigation into whether former Attorney General Loretta Lynch intervened in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, could result in a prison sentence for AG Lynch of 5-10 years.

Judge Napolitano notes that if emails exist between former AG Lynch and former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz that improperly discuss the Hillary Clinton email investigation, then the Obama attorney general could be charged with "misconduct in office," a felony carrying five to ten years in jail

The government has almost doubled the Queen's income to £82 million, apparently to cover the cost of "essential works" at Buckingham Palace. Republicans say funding for the monarchy must be tightly controlled, especially under austerity.

The Crown Estate, which includes Regent Street, St James' Park, and thousands of acres of farmland, coastline and forests, made profits totaling £328.8 million ($419 million) in the year to March 2017, up eight percent on the previous year.

The government has therefore granted an increase in the Sovereign Grant - the percentage of profits from the Crown Estate that is paid out to Her Majesty.

The Queen will now get 25 percent of the Crown Estate's profits for the next ten years, up from 15 percent.

The US-based division of the global pharmaceutical giant Merck has been hit by the 'Petya' ransomware attack that has crippled computer systems across the world on Tuesday.

"We confirm our company's computer network was compromised today as part of global hack," Merck said in a statement on Tuesday. "Other organizations have also been affected. We are investigating the matter and will provide additional information as we learn more."

"The company is currently experiencing a hostile ransomware attack on its network systems," said an internal Merck memo quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer. "While IT risk management and global security respond to this threat please remain calm."

Right after the U.S. government shot down a Syrian government plane in Syria, the Russian government broke off the coordination of its operations along with the U.S. and America's allied forces in Syria (otherwise known as «deconfliction of forces» there), and warned that:

In areas where Russian aviation is conducting combat missions in the Syrian skies, any flying objects, including jets and unmanned aerial vehicles of the international coalition discovered west of the Euphrates River, will be followed by Russian air and ground defenses as air targets — meaning ordered out, or else immediately shot down.

U.S. President Donald Trump's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Marine Corps General Joseph F. Dunford, spoke at the National Press Club in Washington later that day. Only a video from the National Press Club is, as of yet, available of this important event (the first post-warning top U.S. government official public statement about it), no transcript yet; but here is what Dunford said (and the time he said it in the video), which struck this reporter as being important in his comments, at this historic moment when the likelihood of a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia — World War III — was higher than it has been ever since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis between U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and U.S.S.R. Premier Nikita Khrushchev:

9:00- 'prosecute the defeat-ISIS campaign in Syria, which is the reason why we are in Syria'

He said that to 'defeat ISIS' is 'the reason', not 'a reason', we're there. Very important word-choice. Profoundly meaningful in this context.

Götterdämmerung

1. (Germanic mythology) 'The twilight of the gods'. The myth of the destruction of the gods in a final battle with the forces of evil; the apocalypse.
2. Any cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event, especially of a regime or an institution.

The UK's cascading constitutional crisis continues. The horrific fire at Grenfell Tower in London on June 14th, which occurred just 6 days after a snap election delivered a 'shock' hung parliament (the UK's second in just 7 years), has shaken the country to its core at a time when trust in the authorities is already teetering.

Up to 600 people lived in 120 flats in Grenfell Tower. The fire started at 1am (when it was probably almost fully occupied by sleeping residents) on the 4th floor. All 20 floors above that went up in flames in just 15 minutes. The government says the death toll stands at 79, but the names of not even half of those have been released. The true death toll is likely closer to 379. Locals are certain the death toll is being covered up. British MP David Lammy stated that the death toll is being covered up by Theresa May's party to prevent riots.The official line that '79 are dead and the toll is likely to rise' is the best the government can do to 'handle this till it goes away'.

But the fallout from this isn't going to just 'go away'.

Britain is "absolutely" ready to support retaliation by US President Donald Trump against Bashar Assad in Syria, UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has said.

The US claimed on Monday that Assad was "potentially" preparing a deadly chemical weapons attack on rebel forces, and threatened to hit back with new bombing raids.

Fallon said action should be justified, legal, and proportionate, but said in those circumstances the UK's support for US action by Trump would be unwavering. He added that the UK backed the US missile strikes in April, which Trump ordered after an alleged chemical attack by Assad.

Russian FM Sergey Lavrov has accused the US-led anti-terrorist coalition of being reluctant to bomb positions of the former Al-Nusra Front in Syria, and has urged them to ditch "double standards" for the sake of an "uncompromising" fight against terrorism.

"There is a strong impression, based on our fight with terrorism in Syria, that the so-called Al-Nusra [Front], or whatever it is called now, is every time spared by the coalition forces headed by the United States and its allies," Lavrov said, speaking at a press conference in Moscow. The foreign minister went on to say that "new evidence has emerged in the past few days" indicating that the US-led international forces continue "to take the heat off" the former Al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria.

Slamming what appears to be a reluctance by the coalition to target the terrorist group as an extremely dangerous game, Lavrov called on the US-led forces to set aside all double standards and any ulterior thoughts in favor of an uncompromising fight against terrorism.

Back on June 21st, 2017, an agreement was reached at talks in Minsk between the parties in the conflict in Donbass on establishing a ceasefire to start on June 24th at midnight. This initiative has been christened a "bread truce", i.e., a ceasefire in time for harvest season. According to the proposal discussed in Minsk, the truce is supposed to last until August 31st.

This "bread truce" is very important for the Donbass republics as well as for the adjacent regions of Ukrainian-occupied Donbass. Even without shelling, civilians can still be killed while carrying out agricultural work. For example, near Stakhanov in the Lugansk People's Republic in May, a tractor hit a Ukrainian mine, killing two people right away and injuring four women, two of whom subsequently died in the hospital from their wounds. Now that the Donbass republics are ready for harvest time, the ever-present danger is just as relevant.

I've extensively travelled the frontline areas in Donbass and seen the fields whose harvests promise to be rich. The problem, however, is that the fields in some districts of the LPR and DPR are densely planted with Ukrainian mines. Sappers from the DPR and LPR People's Militias are working to "clean up" such danger zones every day. Just last week, engineer and sapper units of the LPR's People's Militia swept an eight-square kilometer zone. One can only imagine the heightened danger if Donbass farmers on both sides of the front were to be faced with shelling from the UAF and retaliatory fire from the DPR and LPR. Therefore, the bread truce is simply necessary. Otherwise, Donbass will have no bread of its own and hunger could strike again like at some points earlier in the war.

Israel's bombing of Syrian positions in the Golan Heights is part of a strategy of creating an Al-Qaeda controlled buffer zone as Israel's strategic position deteriorates in light of the pending victory of the Syrian government in the Syrian war.

One of the most important things to have happened in the Syrian war over the last few months is that the veil of Israel's neutrality in the war has been thrown off. This veil was always very thin. It is no secret in the Middle East that the Syrian conflict has been all about breaking the 'Axis of Resistance' of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah by attacking Syria, which was supposed to be its weakest link.

The 'Axis of Resistance' of course gets its name because of its 'resistance' to Israel. It is not surprising therefore that Israel is implacably hostile to it, and has long sought to break it up. Since the 'Axis of Resistance' - and the extension of Iranian power that comes with it - is also seen as a threat by the conservative Arab Gulf States and by the US, that explains the de facto alliance between them and Israel which has been the main driver of the Syrian war.

At this stage, there is a case to be made for awarding an annual prize to the most paranoid Western journalist reporting from Moscow. A suitable title would be the "Luke Harding Award." And we have a live contender for the first gong.

In 2011, The Guardian hack released an equally hyped and ridiculed book outlining supposed intimidation he received at the hands of Moscow's security services. As I was only in my second year in Russia, and still naive enough to trust Western media coverage of the country, I read it.

From the outset, Harding's tale seemed implausible. For instance his loss-making newspaper isn't especially influential, selling about a tenth of the rival Daily Mail. And why would the FSB have wanted to target him specifically? As opposed to correspondents from the likes of the Washington Post, New York Times or Times of London. Or popular TV networks, from BBC to CNN. All of which boast far greater significance to their respective establishments.