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Ukraine’s first lady emerges as a staunch defender of her nation on social media

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Ukraine’s first lady emerges as a staunch defender of her nation on social media

In current weeks Zelenska has repeatedly used social media to focus on the plight of her nation, but none have been fairly as direct as her current submit, which ends with the rallying cry: “We are going to win. Due to our unity. Unity in the direction of love for Ukraine. Glory to Ukraine!”

As her husband, President Volodymyr Zelensky, has emerged because the face of Ukrainian defiance of the Russian invasion, Zelenska has change into more and more vociferous on-line as a method to assist him and bolster worldwide consciousness of their nation’s plight.

When Russia first invaded Ukraine on February 24, Zelensky declared in a video assertion that he believed “enemy sabotage teams” had entered Kyiv and that he was their primary goal. His household, he stated, was the second goal.

The whereabouts of his spouse and two youngsters are secret, for safety causes. Nonetheless, Zelenska has been enjoying an lively position on social media, inspiring her individuals and backing resistance to Russian forces, whereas garnering assist from the remainder of the world. On Instagram alone, she has 2.4 million followers.

The 44-year-old revealed the open letter Tuesday on her varied social media platforms, in addition to on the President’s official web site, in response to what she stated was the “overwhelming variety of media shops from all over the world” that had requested an interview along with her.

She started the impassioned missive — headlined “I testify” — by recalling the occasions of February 24.

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“Tanks crossed the Ukrainian border, planes entered our airspace, missile launchers surrounded our cities,” she wrote.

“Regardless of assurances from Kremlin-backed propaganda shops, who name this a ‘particular operation’ — it’s, in actual fact, the mass homicide of Ukrainian civilians.”

Zelenska highlighted the “terrifying and devastating” little one casualties, whereas additionally describing the horror of infants born in bomb shelters and roads “flooded” with refugees.

In accordance with the web site of the Ukrainian Girls’s Congress, a public platform that lobbies for gender equality in authorities and wider Ukrainian society, Zelenska was born in February 1978 and met her future husband on the Kryvyi Rih Gymnasium №95 highschool in Kryvyi Rih, the southern Ukrainian metropolis the place they each grew up. Her biography on the positioning says she then majored in structure on the Kryvyi Rih Financial Institute, graduating in 2000.

The couple married in 2003 and had daughter Oleksandra a yr later. Their son, Kyrylo, was born in 2013.

Like her husband, who has a legislation diploma, Zelenska moved away from her educational subject of curiosity and into showbusiness.

She helped Zelensky create stand-up performances for the Russian TV comedy present KVN, in accordance with Ukrainian press company UNIAN, and later turned a screenwriter at TV manufacturing firm Kvartal 95 Studio, which she co-founded.
Zelensky is not Churchill. He's a more unlikely hero.
In an in depth interview with Vogue Ukraine in 2019, shortly after her husband swept to energy in a landslide election, Zelenska described herself as a “personal particular person” who prefers to remain “backstage.”

When her comic husband first expressed his political ambitions, his spouse was none too impressed. Within the interview with Vogue, which featured a glamorous photograph shoot, she stated: “I used to be not too pleased after I realized that these had been the plans. I noticed how the whole lot would change, and what difficulties we must face.”

She spoke of adjusting to life within the public sphere, however expressed her willpower to guard her youngsters, saying: “Allow them to select how they wish to reside.”

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Within the three years since assuming the position of first girl, she has accompanied her husband on quite a few official visits all over the world, together with to the USA, Japan and France. In the meantime her place has enabled her to concentrate on quite a few points near her coronary heart, amongst them “youngsters’s well being, equal alternatives for all Ukrainians and cultural diplomacy,” she advised Vogue.

One in every of her campaigns has been to enhance meals for youngsters at college, occurring fact-finding missions to Latvia, Japan and the USA, amongst different nations.

Zelensky's heroism is coming up against Western red lines
Evidently, she is now targeted on Ukraine’s battle for survival. Earlier this month she arrange a devoted Telegram channel to offer recommendation on “learn how to act and reside in conflict time.”
Hours after publishing her open letter, Zelenska, who in 2020 was admitted to hospital with Covid-19, up to date her Instagram feed with an image of younger most cancers sufferers heading to security and remedy in Poland.

She wrote: “These are younger most cancers sufferers from Ukraine. Simply yesterday, they had been hiding from the shelling within the basements of clinics. Now they’re crossing the Polish border on the best way to seek out security and, most significantly, to proceed their therapies. No aggressor on this planet can stop them from successful the battle towards the illness!”

In her open letter she reiterated her husband’s demand for a no-fly zone, including: “Ukraine is stopping the power that will aggressively enter your cities tomorrow underneath the pretext of saving civilians.”

“If we do not cease Putin, who threatens to start out a nuclear conflict, there might be no protected place on this planet for any of us.”

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Video: How the L.A. Port got hit by Trump’s Tariffs

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Video: How the L.A. Port got hit by Trump’s Tariffs

New York Times reporter Ana Swanson reports from the Los Angeles Port, the largest port in the Western Hemisphere as well as the place that first saw the signs of Trump’s tariff war. The Port of Los Angeles is significant because of our trade relationship with China in particular, which is why The Trump administration’s 145% tariffs on the country resulted in lower volume at the port. Ana Swanson explains what the port illustrates about U.S. trade and how what’s felt at the Port of Los Angeles will soon be felt by U.S. consumers.

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Swiss central bank cuts interest rates to zero

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Swiss central bank cuts interest rates to zero

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The Swiss National Bank has cut interest rates by a quarter point to zero but did not go so far as negative rates, as it battles to restrain its currency, which has surged on global trade tensions. 

It is the first time that the Alpine country, which is one of the few globally to experiment with negative rates, has an interest rate of zero as it tackles lagging inflation and a surging Swiss franc, a haven currency that investors have bought up amid US President Donald Trump’s trade war.

The cut comes after annual inflation in Switzerland dipped to minus 0.1 per cent in May, the first negative reading in four years. The appreciating Swiss franc — up 10 per cent against the dollar this year — has slashed the cost of imports, dragging down consumer prices.

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The Swiss franc strengthened after Thursday’s expected cut, with the dollar down 0.2 per cent against the franc by afternoon trading at SFr0.817.

A minority of traders had been betting on a larger, half-point cut, according to levels implied by the swaps markets. The franc’s rally after Thursday’s decision was prompted by those bets being “unwound”, said analysts at BBH.

SNB chair Martin Schlegel said at a press conference that the bank would “not take a decision to go negative lightly”. The central bank would also have to take into account the interests of savers, pension funds and others, he said.

Traders slightly trimmed their bets on further rate cuts after Schlegel’s remarks, and were putting a roughly 60 per cent chance that the SNB will cut again to minus 0.25 per cent by March next year.

Switzerland’s two-year government bond yields, which are sensitive to movements in rate expectations, rose 0.09 percentage points to minus 0.10 per cent.

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The SNB has also repeatedly flagged financial stability risks from soaring valuations for Swiss property in a lower interest rate environment.

Schlegel did not, however, rule out a move into negative territory, with global trade turmoil possibly forcing the bank down that path in the months ahead.

“It sounds like they are going to play it by ear, which slightly dents market conviction on negative rates,” said Francesco Pesole, an FX strategist at ING.

The so-called Swissie’s sharp rise this year has complicated policymaking. The SNB is attempting to ease pressure without triggering accusations of currency manipulation from the US, which placed Switzerland on a watchlist during Trump’s first term. Analysts say rate cuts are a diplomatically safer route than direct FX intervention. 

The SNB’s decision contrasts with the Federal Reserve’s continued wait-and-see approach. The Bank of England also held rates at 4.25 per cent at its latest meeting.

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However, Norway’s central bank unexpectedly cut borrowing costs on Thursday, loosening monetary policy for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The strength of the economy in western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer had led it to keep rates higher than nearly all its neighbours, including Sweden’s Riksbank and the European Central Bank. But Norges Bank decided that the inflation outlook was subdued enough that it could cut rates by a quarter point to 4.25 per cent. 

Switzerland first introduced negative interest rates in December 2014, when the SNB set the deposit rate at minus 0.25 per cent to stem the franc’s appreciation amid safe-haven inflows.

The SNB at one stage pushed the rate down to minus 0.75 per cent, the lowest level in the world. The policy remained in place for more than seven years, also making it one of the world’s longest negative rate periods until it exited it in 2022. 

Thursday’s cut creates a potentially tricky situation for Swiss banks. They no longer earn interest on their reserves with the SNB but theoretically have less justification to pass that cost on to customers.

Daniel Kalt, chief economist at UBS, the country’s largest bank, said zero per cent was probably the most difficult scenario for banks.

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“In terms of pressure on net interest margins, it couldn’t be worse than with the situation we have today. With this, it is hard for banks to justify charging customers fees like they did during the previous period of negative interest rates,” Kalt said.

Video: Why governments are ‘addicted’ to debt | FT Film
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Despite new challenges, Juneteenth event organizers are unbowed

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Despite new challenges, Juneteenth event organizers are unbowed

Atmosphere at the 4th Annual Black On The Block Juneteenth Festival on June 15, 2025, in Los Angeles.

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Today is Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when U.S. Army troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform some of the last enslaved Americans that they were free.

They were enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Abraham Lincoln had issued more than two years earlier, on Jan. 1, 1863.

Various events were planned across the country and some took the current politically and racially charged climate into account.

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In Bend, Ore., planners of the annual Juneteenth festival said they took a different approach this year.

“Cautious. Cautious would probably be a good word,” Kenneth Adams, one of the planners, said of holding this year’s event at a public park.

He and other organizers were concerned about safety.

“Given the nationwide climate, we are heavily about making sure that people are safe,” Adams said.

They canceled the event. Another group revived it, smaller and indoors.

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In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice said state employees would no longer get Juneteenth as a paid holiday. That includes Ray Whiting, who has helped plan a Juneteenth parade and festival in Charleston for the past four years.

“I am disappointed in the governor’s decision,” Whiting said.

“So we moved the event to Friday. That way people won’t miss [it]. And all parties can celebrate.”

In Denver, Norman Harris has organized the city’s Juneteenth Music Festival since 2012. This year, it was just one day instead of two.

Norman Harris III, organizer of Juneteenth Music Festival, poses for a portrait at Brother Jeff's Cultural Center in Five Point Denver, Colorado on Friday, June 4, 2021.

Norman Harris III, organizer of Juneteenth Music Festival, poses for a portrait at Brother Jeff’s Cultural Center in Five Point Denver, Colorado on Friday, June 4, 2021.

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“We had a number of corporate partners who have been supporting us over the years who either pulled back their support or just were not there this year,” Harris said.

Still, with help from individual donors, he expected it to be “a cultural treasure chest where people are immersed in Black culture and celebrating Black excellence.”

In Nashville, organizers of the “Juneteenth615” festival say it’s their biggest year yet. Willie Sims, known as Big Fella, says skipping the celebration isn’t an option.

“So everybody, what if they cancel Juneteenth? I’m like, you can’t cancel Juneteenth. There’s been communities celebrating this since 1866. Like, when you actually go and say, we’re going to cancel it, I think you’re literally going to bring more of a light to it.”

Click the audio player to hear NPR staff read the text of the Emancipation Proclamation.

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