AFP

A Texas militia member was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Monday, the longest jail term yet for a participant in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of former president Donald Trump.

Guy Reffitt, 49, was convicted in March of bringing a gun to Washington, interfering with police and impeding an official proceeding — the certification by Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election.

Reffitt, a member of a right-wing militia called the Texas Three Percenters, was also found guilty of obstruction for threatening his teenaged son and daughter if they spoke to law enforcement about his involvement in the attack on the Capitol.

Reffitt’s then 18-year-old son did go to the FBI despite his father’s warning that “traitors get shot” and delivered emotional testimony against his father in court.

US District Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced Reffitt to 87 months in prison, the stiffest sentence meted out to a Capitol riot defendant so far.

Two men who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers were sentenced previously to 63 months in prison.

US Attorney Matthew Graves said Reffitt’s sentence “holds him accountable for his violent, unconscionable conduct.”

“Guy Reffitt came to the Capitol on Jan. 6 armed and determined to instigate violence,” Graves said in a statement. “He and others contributed to the many assaults on law enforcement officers that day, putting countless more people — including legislators — at risk.”

Reffitt, an oil industry worker from Wylie, Texas, was the first person to go on trial on charges stemming from the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress.

Dozens of other participants in the Capitol riot have been sentenced after entering into plea agreements.

Video of Reffitt confronting police on the steps of the Capitol and urging on the pro-Trump crowd was played for the jury during his trial.

Prosecutors also displayed text messages from Reffitt in which he promised to drag lawmakers out of Congress “by their hair.”

Reffitt was wearing body armor and a helmet, carrying zip-tie handcuffs and armed with a .40 caliber handgun when he arrived at the Capitol, according to prosecutors.

More than 850 people have been arrested for their roles in the January 6 attack and around 330 have pleaded guilty to various charges.

The storming of the Capitol left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured and followed a fiery speech by Trump to thousands of his supporters near the White House.

Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House after the Capitol riot — he was charged with inciting an insurrection — but was acquitted by the Senate.

A man has been arrested after he was found with an assault rifle outside the New York City home of an Iranian-American journalist who has been critical of Iran’s regime.

The journalist — 45-year-old Masih Alinejad — was the target of a kidnap plot by Iranian intelligence agents last year, according to US prosecutors.

On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, suspect Khalid Mehdiyev was spotted acting suspiciously outside a house in Brooklyn, the FBI said in documents filed in a Manhattan criminal court.

He was apprehended by New York Police Department officers who found in his Subaru car a loaded AK-47 and approximately 66 rounds of ammunition, the report added.

Feminist activist Alinejad was not named in the documents but confirmed on Twitter that the man had been outside her home.

“These are the scary scenes capturing a man who tried to enter my house in New York with a loaded gun to kill me,” Alinejad wrote, posting CCTV footage of a man on her porch.

“Last year the FBI stopped the Islamic Republic from kidnapping me. My crime is giving voice to voiceless people. The US administration must be tough on terror,” she added.

Mehdiyev was charged with one count of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number and was ordered detained without bond by a judge.

Dual US-Iranian citizen Alinejad is known for her criticism of Iran’s clerical regime, including its requirement that women veil themselves.

She founded the My Stealthy Freedom movement, which encourages women to remove their hijabs.

In July last year, the US Justice Department revealed charges against four Iranian intelligence agents, who had allegedly planned to seize the dissident and smuggle her to Iran.

According to the indictment, intelligence officers had first tried in 2018 to force relatives of their kidnap target to lure her to a third country to be arrested and brought to Iran to be imprisoned.

They then moved to surveilling the victim and other members of her household in Brooklyn “on multiple occasions in 2020 and 2021,” the Justice Department’s statement had said.

A fifth person in California was accused of financing the alleged operation. 

Iran called the US charges “baseless and absurd.”

Beyonce will remove a derogatory term for disabled people from her new song “Heated,” a spokesperson said Monday, after its use was condemned as offensive by campaigners.

The US pop megastar will re-record the track from her latest album “Renaissance” on which she originally sang the lyrics “Spazzin’ on that ass, spazz on that ass.”

“The word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced,” a spokesperson for Beyonce told AFP via email.

Co-written with Canadian rapper Drake, the dance track appears to use the word “spaz” in the colloquial sense of temporarily losing control or acting erratically.

But disability campaigners noted that the word is derived from “spastic.” 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spasticity is a movement disorder involving stiff muscles and awkward movement, suffered by 80 percent of people with cerebral palsy.

In June, US singer Lizzo re-recorded her song “Grrrls” to remove the same term following complaints that it was derogatory.

Australian disability campaigner Hannah Diviney said the inclusion of the word by Beyonce “feels like a slap in the face to me, the disabled community & the progress we tried to make with Lizzo.”

“Guess I’ll just keep telling the whole industry to ‘do better’ until ableist slurs disappear from music,” she tweeted.

Beyonce’s eagerly anticipated seventh solo studio album “Renaissance” was released Friday, drawing mainly positive reviews with its nods to disco and electronic dance.

Other collaborators on the album — which leaked online in the days prior to its official release — include Nile Rodgers, Skrillex, Nigerian singer Tems, Grace Jones, Pharrell and Beyonce’s rap mogul husband Jay-Z.

In an Instagram post published soon after the album’s release, Beyonce said creating the album “allowed me a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world.

“My intention was to create a safe place, a place without judgment,” she wrote.

“A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking. A place to scream, release, feel freedom.”

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday kicked off an Asia tour that has been shrouded in secrecy following an escalation in tensions with China over Taiwan.

With no word if Pelosi will visit the island, she stopped first in Singapore, where Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urged her at a meeting to strive for “stable” ties with Beijing.

Her itinerary also includes Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, but a possible Taiwan visit has dominated attention in the run-up.

Reports about a plan to visit the island have enraged Beijing and caused unease in the White House, with President Joe Biden trying to lower the temperature.

Beijing considers self-ruled Taiwan its territory — to be seized one day, by force if necessary — and said it would regard a Pelosi visit as a major provocation.

Pelosi’s office confirmed her Asia trip in a statement Sunday once her plane was in the air, following days of US media speculation and the speaker refusing to confirm her itinerary.

“The trip will focus on mutual security, economic partnership and democratic governance in the Indo-Pacific region,” it said, referring to the Asia-Pacific.

The statement did not mention Taiwan. But visits by US officials there are usually kept secret until delegations land.

And as speculation mounted, both foreign and local media cited unnamed sources Monday to report that Pelosi does indeed plan to include the island on her Asia tour, while the Financial Times said she would meet with President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in Taipei.

– ‘Bury all enemies’ –

The Global Times, China’s state-run tabloid, suggested that Pelosi might use “emergency excuses like an aircraft fault or refuelling” to land at a Taiwanese airport.

“If she dares to stop in Taiwan, it will be the moment to ignite the powder keg of the situation in the Taiwan Straits,” Hu Xijin, a former Global Times editor and now commentator, tweeted.

And the Chinese army’s Eastern Theater Command shared footage on social media site Weibo featuring a combat-ready army with fighters and helicopters taking off, amphibious troops landing on a beach and a stream of missiles raining down on various targets.

“We will bury all enemies who invade our territory,” a short text accompanying the footage read. 

“We’re ready to fight,” it added. “Advance towards a joint combat and a victorious war.”

Taiwan’s 23 million people have long lived with the possibility of an invasion but the threat has intensified under Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The United States maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” over whether it would militarily intervene were China to invade.

While it diplomatically recognises Beijing over Taipei, it also backs Taiwan’s democratic government and opposes any forced change to the island’s status.

American officials often make discreet visits to Taiwan to show support but a Pelosi trip would be higher-profile than any in recent history.

Taiwan’s government has remained silent on the prospect of a Pelosi visit and there has been minimal local press coverage. 

“I really hate what the Chinese are doing,” Hsu Ching-feng, a fruit vendor in Taipei, told AFP.

“But there’s nothing us common folks can do about it but ignore them. I will just ignore them.”

– ‘Wrong target’ –

As House speaker, Pelosi is second in line to the US presidency and one of the country’s most powerful politicians.

The last House speaker to visit was Newt Gingrich in 1997.

Biden and Xi had a tense phone call last week clouded by disagreements over Taiwan.

Xi issued an oblique warning to the United States not to “play with fire” over the island.

Speculation about Pelosi’s Taiwan plans has coincided with an uptick in military activity across the region.

US officials have sought to downplay the significance of a Pelosi visit, urging calm from Chinese leaders.

Kharis Templeman, a Taiwan expert at the Hoover Institution, said Beijing “misread US politics and screwed their signalling up” with its intense reaction.

“They picked the wrong target. Biden doesn’t control the Speaker or any other member of Congress,” he tweeted Sunday.

“They’ve drawn the line at the Speaker of the House, on a visit rich in symbolism but of limited practical value. And now it will be politically costly for either Pelosi not to go, or Xi not to respond with something dramatic.”

In Taiwan, there have been mixed views about the prospect of Pelosi visiting, but figures from both the ruling party and the main opposition have said the island should not cave to Chinese pressure.

“If Pelosi were to cancel or postpone the trip, it would be a victory for the Chinese government and for Xi as it would show that the pressure it has exerted has achieved some desired effects,” Hung Chin-fu, from Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University, told AFP.