VIDEO: On June 19, 1865, enslaved men and women in Texas finally learned that they were free — more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the South. Every June 19th since, African Americans across the nation have held celebrations commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

ON THIS DAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed after being convicted of spying for the Soviet Union two years earlier. Specifically, the couple was accused of leading a spy ring that led to the leaking of secret information about the atomic bomb. The Rosenbergs professed their innocence until the end, but most Americans at the time felt their sentence was just, particularly given the backdrop of an intensifying Cold War between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. The two were electrocuted in the same electric chair just minutes apart. Their two sons survived them.

U.S. President Donald Trump kicked off his re-election campaign at a rally in Orlando, Florida, one of the swing states that fueled his poll-defying victory in 2016. The crowd greeted him with “USA” chants as he recalled the “movement” he started four years ago.

VIDEO: Last week, the Ebola virus crossed from the Democratic Republic of Congo into Uganda. As VOA reports from the Ugandan town of Bwera, the virus has not only claimed two lives, but also brought trade along t hat border region to a virtual halt.

President Trump on Wednesday bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, on economist Arthur Laffer. The move that sparked controversy between those who view the Yale and Stanford-educated economist as a visionary, and those who see him as the economic equivalent of a snake-oil salesman.

After days without access, internet users in Ethiopia can once again get online. Ethio Telecom, Ethiopia’s sole provider, restored service Tuesday after intermittent outages left most of the country’s 16 million internet users unable to access the web or social media for the past week.