Iran is studying ways to keep exporting oil and other measures to counter U.S. economic sanctions, state news agency IRNA reported Saturday. Since last month, when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal that lifted most sanctions in 2015, the rial currency has dropped up to 40 percent in value, prompting protests by bazaar traders usually loyal to the Islamist rulers. Speaking after three days of those protests, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the U.S. sanctions were aimed at turning Iranians against their government. Other protesters clashed with police late Saturday during a demonstration against shortages of drinking water. “They bring to bear economic pressure to separate the nation from the system … but six U.S. presidents before him [Trump] tried this and had to give up,” Khamenei said on his website Khamenei.ir. With the return of U.S. sanctions likely to make it increasingly difficult to access the global financial system, President Hassan Rouhani has met with the head …

A senior U.S. diplomat for Asian affairs is leaving State Department at the end of July amid ongoing and critical negotiations with North Korea, weeks after the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea met in Singapore. “Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton has announced her intention to retire from the Foreign Service at the end of July,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Saturday in a statement. “We particularly appreciate her dedication to department and interagency colleagues, her extraordinary leadership, especially as acting assistant secretary over the past year and a half,” Nauert added. Thornton was formally nominated by President Donald Trump as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs last December. She began serving in the position in an acting capacity soon after Trump took office. Thornton’s nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, has been blocked by key Republicans, including …

U.S. President Donald Trump discussed trade and other economic issues late Friday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Saturday. The phone call between the two leaders was the first to be publicly disclosed since Trump blasted Trudeau as “very dishonest and weak” at the end of the Group of Seven leaders meeting in Canada this month. Trump has repeatedly suggested Canada was profiting from U.S. trade, and his blistering comments after the G-7 meeting drove bilateral relations to their lowest point in decades. On Friday, Canada struck back at the Trump administration over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, vowing to impose punitive measures on $16.6 billion ($12.6 billion U.S.) worth of American goods until Washington relents. During the call, Trudeau told Trump that Canada had no choice but to announce reciprocal countermeasures to the steel and aluminum tariffs, according to a separate statement issued by Canada late Friday. The two leaders agreed to stay in close touch on …

For evangelical Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell Jr., this is their political holy grail. Like many religious conservatives in a position to know, the Liberty University president with close ties to the White House suspects that the Supreme Court vacancy President Donald Trump fills in the coming months will ultimately lead to the reversal of the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade. But instead of celebrating publicly, some evangelical leaders are downplaying their fortune on an issue that has defined their movement for decades. “What people don’t understand is that if you overturn Roe v. Wade, all that does is give the states the right to decide whether abortion is legal or illegal,” Falwell told The Associated Press in an interview. “My guess is that there’d probably be less than 20 states that would make abortion illegal if given that right.” Falwell added: “In the ’70s, I don’t know how …

The U.S. ambassador to Estonia says he has resigned over frustrations with President Donald Trump’s comments about the European Union and the treatment of Washington’s European allies. In a private Facebook message posted Friday, James D. Melville wrote: “For the President to say EU was ‘set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,’ or that ‘NATO is as bad as NAFTA’ is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it’s time to go.” Melville is a senior U.S. career diplomat who has served as the American ambassador in the Baltic nation and NATO member of Estonia since 2015. He has served the State Department for 33 years. The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn did not immediately comment. …

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he had received assurances from King Salman of Saudi Arabia that the kingdom will increase oil production, “maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels” in response to turmoil in Iran and Venezuela. Saudi Arabia acknowledged the call took place, but mentioned no production targets. Trump wrote on Twitter that he had asked the king in a phone call to boost oil production “to make up the difference…Prices to (sic) high! He has agreed!” A little over an hour later, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported on the call, but offered few details. “During the call, the two leaders stressed the need to make efforts to maintain the stability of oil markets and the growth of the global economy,” the statement said. It added that there also was an understanding that oil-producing countries would need “to compensate for any potential shortage of supplies.” It did not elaborate. …

The National Security Agency is deleting more than 685 million call records the government obtained since 2015 from telecommunication companies in connection with investigations, raising questions about the viability of the program. The NSA’s bulk collection of call records was initially curtailed by Congress after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing extensive government surveillance. The law, enacted in June 2015, said that going forward, the data would be retained by telecommunications companies, not the NSA, but that the intelligence agency could query the massive database. Now the NSA is deleting all the information it collected from the queries. The agency released a statement late Thursday saying it started deleting the records in May after NSA analysts noted “technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunication service providers.” It also said the irregularities resulted in the NSA obtaining some call details it was not authorized to receive. That points …

A comedian made a prank call to the White House and within two hours received a call back from President Trump who was on Air Force One. John Melendez, the comedian, had told the White House he was Senator Bob Menendez, who is a Democrat from New Jersey. Melendez, who is known as Stuttering John, said on his podcast that he talked to the president for about three minutes and never told Trump that he was not the senator.   The comedian said he has talked to Trump at least 20 times as Stuttering John on The Howard Stern radio show and could not believe Trump did not recognize his voice. “I was just talking in my Long Island accent,” he said. In a recording of the conversation on the comedian’s podcast, the president who thinks he is talking to the senator, offers his congratulations on the politician’s acquittal in …

As Americans debate the Trump administration’s hardened immigration policies, one group of citizens has first-hand experience with the process: the more than 43 million Americans who lawfully immigrated to the country. VOA reporters in Los Angeles spoke with a range of immigrants from all around the world about the Trump administration’s policies, the treatment of children who enter the United States illegally with their families, and the rights of asylum seekers. While many remain divided on the issues surrounding illegal immigration and Trump’s handling of it, these foreign-born citizens who make up some 14 percent of the U.S. population said legitimate refugees and asylum seekers should get the help they need. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee contributed to this report. …

The National Security Agency is deleting more than 685 million call records the government obtained since 2015 from telecommunication companies in connection with investigations, raising questions about the viability of the program. The NSA’s bulk collection of call records was initially curtailed by Congress after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing extensive government surveillance. The law, enacted in June 2015, said that going forward, the data would be retained by telecommunications companies, not the NSA, but that the intelligence agency could query the massive database. Now the NSA is deleting all the information it collected from the queries. Program questioned, defended The agency released a statement late Thursday saying it started deleting the records in May after NSA analysts noted “technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunication service providers.” It also said the irregularities resulted in the NSA obtaining some call details it was not authorized to …

American political divisions are deepening, and so is the debate over acceptable political speech. Americans deeply value the constitutionally protected right to speak their mind, but are there limits? White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara explores the debate. …

Most of the primary elections in the U.S. are over, but a handful still remain in states such as Florida, Georgia and Wyoming. So campaigning by candidates from both parties, Democrat and Republican, continues as they seek support from voters to be elected as their party’s candidate to run for office in the midterm elections in November. Mariia Prus looks at how candidates in primary elections go about seeking voter support. Joy Wagner narrates. …

Just days before the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports are set to go into effect, trade analysts are watching for ripple effects across the automotive, manufacturing and technology sectors. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more from Washington. …

U.S. intelligence agencies believe North Korea has increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months and may try to hide these while seeking concessions in nuclear talks with the United States, NBC News quoted U.S. officials as saying. In a report Friday, the network said what it described as the latest U.S. intelligence assessment appeared to go counter to sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after an unprecedented June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that “there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” NBC quoted five unidentified U.S. officials as saying that in recent months North Korea had stepped up production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, even as it engaged in diplomacy with the United States. The network cited U.S. officials as saying that the intelligence assessment concludes that North Korea has more than one …

Quietly clutching candles or hoisting #AnnapolisStrong signs, more than 1,000 people streamed through Maryland’s capital, remembering five people slain in a newspaper office not just as gatekeepers of the news but as a crucial piece of their tight-knit community.   Friends, former co-workers and people who felt connected to the victims took part in a strikingly silent candlelit march Friday night to honor the employees of The Capital newspaper who were killed a day earlier in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history.    Melissa Wilson, who came to the vigil with her husband, Benjamin, their 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, said many Annapolis residents have “one degree of separation” from at least one victim.    “The people who made our newspaper are people we felt we knew, even if we had never met them before,” Benjamin Wilson said.   Melissa Wilson’s employer has offices in the …

U.S. President Donald Trump said he expects a second tax overhaul to be unveiled in October or a bit earlier, and he is considering cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 21 percent. In an excerpt of a Fox Business Network interview to be broadcast Sunday, Trump said: “We’re doing a phase two. We’ll be doing it probably in October, maybe a little sooner than that.” “One of the things we’re thinking about is bringing the 21 percent down to 20, and for the most part the rest of it would go right to the middle class,” he said. In December, Trump signed the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in 30 years, slashing the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent and giving temporary tax relief to middle-class Americans. The sweeping bill passed the Republican-controlled Congress over the opposition of Democrats, who decried it …

A personal assistant to Paul Manafort granted the FBI access to a storage locker, allowing the government to secure evidence that President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager is trying to suppress, according to testimony on Friday in a federal court hearing in Virginia. FBI special agent Jeff Pfeiffer made the disclosure at a hearing to consider whether evidence from the locker and a separate search of Manafort’s home, both in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Alexandria, could be used in a Manafort trial set for July. Manafort’s lawyers have sought to suppress the searches as part of a broader attempt to discredit the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing whether Trump’s campaign worked with Russia to sway the election. Manafort, who is now in jail, has been charged mainly for financial crimes not related to the campaign. Pfeiffer testified that the FBI initially learned about the storage …

U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the coming U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, his chief of staff, the upcoming summit with Russia, tariffs and NATO on Friday while aboard Air Force One en route from Washington to his private golf club in New Jersey. Trump said he plans to announce his nominee for the high court on July 9 and that he has identified five finalists, including two women. He also said he may interview two contenders for the nomination this weekend. He said he will not ask candidates whether they would overturn a 1973 ruling in the Roe v. Wade case, which established a woman’s right to an abortion, nor would he discuss gay rights with them. The president’s nominee must win confirmation by the Senate. Republicans control the chamber but only by a slim majority, making the views of moderates, including some Democrats, important. Trump met Thursday with senators from …

Somali officials say the United States has deported 84 Somalis, including four women, back to their home country. Two planes carrying the Somalis arrived at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport on Friday. A spokesman for Somalia’s Security Ministry, Abdulaziz Ali Ibrahim, told VOA’s Somali service the deportees had “been taken to the headquarters of the Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency for further questioning.” He said the detainees would be released after the security agencies complete their questions and paperwork. It was not clear whether all the deportees would be freed. Ibrahim said if the returnees wanted to stay in Mogadishu, they would be able to do so, and if they wanted to return to other parts of Somalia, the government would help them with their travels. Ibrahim did not say why the Somalis were deported, but U.S. and Somali officials have previously said that Somalis returned from the United States …