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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Anne Ball reporting.
Panic in Hawaii Saturday morning when residents received a false alert to an incoming missile threat. The message told residents to seek shelter adding "This is not a drill." David Ige, Governor of Hawaii, says it was a mistake. "This should not have happened, we are investigating the sequence of events that occurred. An error was made in emergency management which allowed this false alarm to be sent." He said an employee pushed the wrong button. The White House said Friday it will continue to waive sanctions on Iran that targeted its nuclear weapons program. But Trump officials warn this is the last waiver the U.S. will issue. VOA's Bill Gallo has more. Another step toward dismantling agreement Donald Trump has called the worst ever, the White House says it will leave the Iran nuclear deal unless France, Britain and Germany agree to modify it. Trump, in October, decertified the agreement but stopped short of re-imposing sanctions that would have effectively ended it. This time, Trump warned he could re-impose nuclear-related sanctions at the next deadline in about 90 days. Washington's European partners say the deal is still working and it's not clear if they are open to re-negotiating without Iran's involvement. According to the White House, any new Iran deal would have to cover Iran's ballistic missiles and limit its nuclear breakout period indefinitely. In a separate move, the U.S. Treasury Friday placed new sanctions on 14 Iranians, including the head of Iran's judiciary. Bill Gallo, VOA news, Washington. The bodies of two more crew members of an Iranian oil tanker have been recovered after a collision last week between the tanker and a Chinese cargo ship. This is VOA news. There's continued backlash after reports that President Trump used a vulgar term to describe [Haitian] Haiti and African nations and El Salvador. Statements have been acknowledged by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin who was in an Oval Office meeting when the president used an expletive. "I cannot believe that in the history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday. You've seen the comments in the press. I have not read one of them that's inaccurate. To no surprise, the president started tweeting this morning denying that he used those words. It is not true. He said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly." Durbin spoke to reporters on Friday, and the comments were made during a presentation by Durbin and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham about bipartisan legislation to protect from deportation those immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children by their parents. They also spoke about border security. The president denies making any of those comments. Researchers say climate change is responsible for the vast majority of green sea turtles in the northern Great Barrier Reef off Australia being female. The scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the temperature at which turtle eggs incubate determines the sex of hatchlings, and they warn that warmer conditions are creating a dangerous gender imbalance. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports. Almost the entire green turtle population in parts of the northern Great Barrier Reef in Australia is now female. A study of about 200,000 animals in the reef's northern waters found them to be overwhelmingly female. The research was published in the journal Current Biology. There are concerns that the future of the endangered reptile is increasingly precarious. In the southern Barrier Reef, where conditions are cooler, about two-thirds are female. Researchers say that while they hope for some milder years to produce more males, they expect temperatures to continue to rise. Pope Francis visits Chile and Peru next week, a trip that was meant to focus on the concerns of indigenous people. But it is likely to be overshadowed by the churches sex abuse scandal in Chile and political troubles in Peru. Only a few days ahead of the trip, there have been vandals that firebombed Chile's three churches in Santiago. I'm Anne Ball in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA. |