Nancy Pelosi

Ms Pelosi left on Wednesday after a brief but controversial visit to Taiwan, which China regards as a breakaway province.

In response, China announced five days of "necessary and just" military drills, which will begin on Thursday.

Taiwan said 27 Chinese warplanes had already entered its air defence zone.

On Wednesday, Taiwan's defence ministry said it had scrambled jets to warn them off.

China has said the exercises will take place in some of the world's busiest waterways and will include "long-range live ammunition shooting".

Leonard Edwards said his father died Thursday night in his sleep at his home in Carmel.

"It was a fully productive life," Leonard Edwards said Friday. "You really can't ask for more than 100 years and all of the things he did, and he passed away peacefully, which is a blessing."

Tributes rolled in for the man who passionately fought for the rights of minorities and women, and helped create an urban wildlife refuge at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Pelosi said a figure of 5,000 more refugees suggested by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry "is far too low." Kerry told members of Congress in a meeting Wednesday that the U.S. will boost its worldwide quota for resettling refugees from 70,000 to 75,000 next year, adding that the number could rise. A fraction of those would be from Syria.