Nine vessels from the U.S. Navy, along with ships from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others, are monitoring the waters near Yemen. They're prepared to intercept the Iranian ships, if necessary. An Iranian Naval official says Iran's ships in the area are there legally to fight piracy and protect commerce.

 

All this is raising tensions between the U.S. and Iran weeks after an international agreement was announced concerning Iran's controversial nuclear program.

 

Next today, from the presidential palace to prison, Egypt's former leader has received a 20-year jail sentence.

 

Some background. In 2012, Mohamed Morsy became Egypt's first democratically-elected president. He's a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and political group which many Egyptians feared was trying to dominate the Egyptian government. Late in 2012, protests began against then President Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsy and 14 others on trial were accused of inciting violence and torturing the protesters in December of 2012. The defendants were all found guilty of that, but acquitted of murder charges in some of the protesters' deaths. Morsy was overthrown in a military coup in July of 2013. Yesterday's sentence came in one of several cases he's standing trial in.