US House

Multiple Chinese planes and ships were detected around Taiwan Strait, simulating an attack on its main island, the defense Ministry said on Saturday adding that some of them have crossed the median line.

Taiwan blasted its "evil neighbour next door" on Aug. 5 after China encircled the island with a series of huge military drills that were condemned by the United States and other Western allies.

During Thursday's military exercises, which continued Friday, China fired ballistic missiles and deployed both fighter jets and warships around Taiwan.

China's People's Liberation Army has begun military exercises involving live fire on the waters and in the airspace around the island of Taiwan, Chinese state television reported on Thursday.

China's largest-ever military exercises encircling Taiwan kicked off on Aug. 4, in a show of force straddling vital international shipping lanes after a visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi left Taiwan Wednesday after a trip that defied a series of stark threats from Beijing, which views the self-ruled island as its territory.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, the first by such a senior US official in 25 years sparked anti-US vitriol on Chinese social media.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen thanked US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is currently on a visit to the country, for her concrete actions in support of Taiwan at this critical time.

She stressed that the island will not back down in the face of increased military threats.

Former US president Donald Trump campaigned on July 9 in Alaska for Sarah Palin, the northern state's former governor whose ascendency many view as the populist precursor to Trump's anti-elite movement.

The two firebrand politicians have both been key figures in the Republican party's shift over the past decade to target the aggrieved working class.

Members of the lower house of the American Congress accused Trump of inciting a rebellion before the intrusion of part of his supporters into the Capitol Hill complex.

Vandals in the US have attacked the homes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

Fake blood and a severed pig's head were reportedly left outside Democrat Ms Pelosi's California house, which was also daubed with graffiti.

The words "where's my money" and some expletives were scrawled on Republican Mr McConnell's house in Kentucky.

Paul Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat who served in the US Congress for more than three decades, helped clean up the Chesapeake Bay and corporate scandals and pressured Richard Nixon to resign as president, died on Sunday at 87.