First Capitol rioter to face trial gets 7 years, longest sentence so far
A federal judge Monday sentenced Guy Wesley Reffitt, the first defendant to go on trial in the Justice Department’s sprawling criminal inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack, to more than seven years in prison, the longest sentence to date in a case stemming from the Capitol riot. After a six-hour hearing, Judge Dabney Friedrich handed down a sentence at the low end of the guideline range. She noted that was still significantly longer than any given so far to any of the more than 800 people arrested in connection with the riot, many of whom have struck plea bargains. A jury found Reffitt guilty on five felony charges in March.
2 found dead in charred car within California wildfire zone
At least two people have died from a raging California blaze that’s one of several menacing thousands of homes Monday in the Western U.S. The Siskyou County Sheriff’s Office says two bodies were found inside a charred vehicle Sunday in a driveway of a home near the remote community of Klamath River in Northern California. The area is where the McKinney Fire has burned out of control since last Friday. Authorities say more than 100 buildings, including some homes, have burned and more are under threat. Thunderstorms in the area brought much-needed rain Monday but the uncertain weather is also bringing a chance of lightning that could spark new fires.
In Kentucky, more rain complicates recovery as death toll rises
One round of rainstorms after another blew through eastern Kentucky on Monday, deepening the misery of an already desperate region. Floodwaters again swallowed the roads that had recently reopened to allow emergency workers to scour the remote hills and valleys for survivors; creeks once again swelled into the streets of small towns where people had just begun the gloomy work of emptying houses of their waterlogged contents. Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky confirmed Monday that the death toll from last week’s floods had risen to 37, but warned that countless people were still missing. “There are hundreds of unaccounted for people, minimum,” he said at a news briefing.
Man charged in fatal stabbing during river tubing confrontation in Wisconsin
A 52-year-old Minnesota man was charged Monday with killing a teenager and stabbing four other people at a popular summer tubing spot in Wisconsin in a confrontation with a separate group that, according to the man, began as he searched the river for a lost phone. The man, Nicolae Miu, of Prior Lake, Minnesota, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the Saturday killing of the teenager, identified by his family as 17-year-old Isaac Schuman of Stillwater, Minnesota. Miu also faces four charges of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, a felony, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in the Circuit Court of St. Croix County, Wisconsin.
UN peacekeepers kill 2 and wound 15 in Congo
United Nations peacekeepers opened fire at a border crossing in Congo on Sunday, U.N. and Congolese authorities said, killing two people and injuring 15 others in violence that punctuated weeks of tensions over the agency’s role in Africa’s second-largest nation. Protesters have escalated their calls for U.N. forces to leave, saying the soldiers have failed to protect civilians against a surge of violence carried out by militant groups. The killings Sunday come just days after at least 19 people, including three U.N. peacekeepers, were killed and 60 others injured, in demonstrations against the peacekeeping mission in the cities of Butembo and Goma.
Ukraine seeks to retake the south, tying down Russian forces
Even as the Russian war machine crawls across Ukraine’s east, trying to achieve the Kremlin’s goal of securing a full control over the country’s industrial heartland of the Donbas, Ukrainian forces are scaling up attacks to reclaim territory in the south. The Ukrainian troops have made inroads into the Russian defenses and used U.S.-supplied rocket launchers to strike bridges and military infrastructure in the south, forcing Moscow to divert its forces from the Donbas to counter the new threat. With the war in Ukraine now in its sixth month, the coming weeks may prove decisive for the outcome of the conflict.
By wire sources
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