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However, the president did take to social media to complain about ‘too many non-working holidays’

Donald Trumpfailed to mark Juneteenth, commemorating the ending ofslaveryin the US, until hepostedon Thursday night that there are “too many non-working holidays” in the country.

The US president has put out statements previously as president and even tried to take credit for boosting awareness of the significance of 19 June before it became a federal holiday under the Biden administration.

But on this year’s Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, the garrulous president kept silent on all platforms about a day of particular importance to Black Americans until his late post.

Asked earlier on Juneteenth whether Trump would commemorate the day in any way, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters: “I’m not tracking his signature on a proclamation today. I know this is a federal holiday. I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We’re working 24/7 right now.”

Asked in a follow-up question whether Trump might recognize the occasion another way or on another day, Leavitt said: “I just answered that question for you.”

On Wednesday, Black community leaders from across the country, senior Trump administration officials and other individuals met at the White House to discuss improving coordination between the leaders and federal, state and local partners, according to a senior White House official.

The US housing secretary, Scott Turner, and Lynne Patton, the White House director of minority outreach, were among those who attended, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a private gathering.

Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States by commemorating 19 June 1865, when Union soldiers very belatedly brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas. Their freedom came more than two years after Abraham Lincoln liberated enslaved people in the Confederacy by signing the Emancipation Proclamation during the US civil war.

Trump’s silence on the issue also deviated from White House guidance that the president planned to sign a Juneteenth proclamation. Leavitt didn’t explain the change. Trump held no public events on Thursday, but he shared statements about Iran, the TikTok app and the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, on his social media site.

Then, in the evening, Trump complained on the site about “too many non-working holidays” and said it is “costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed”. But most retailers were open on Juneteenth.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Emerson Colindres had no criminal record and was attending appointment with Ice when detained

A teenage student and soccer stand-out was arrested byimmigrationauthorities four days after his high school graduation ceremony in Ohio earlier this month, and deported to Honduras this week, his family has said.

Emerson Colindres, 19, had no criminal record and was attending a regularly scheduled appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Cincinnati when he was detained on 4 June, accordingto the Cincinnati Enquirer.

His parents told the newspaper he was deported on Wednesday to a country he has not lived in since he was eight years old.

“He’s never done anything to anybody, he hasn’t committed any type of crime and he’s always done things the right way,” his mother, Ada Bell Baquedano-Amador, told the outlet.

“How is my son going to make it over there? He doesn’t know anything and the country where we come from is very insecure.”

Teachers and teammates from his soccer team at Gilbert A Dater high school, where Colindres was a standout athlete, joined protests at the Butler county jail, where he was detained until he was moved to anotherIce facility in Louisianathis week.

Bryan Williams, coach at the Cincy Galaxy soccer club where Colindres also played,told NBC News: “Sadly, he’s not the only one. I think there are a lot of Emersons in the same situation right now.

“They’re all the same story, someone who was here doing everything they were asked, trying to make a better life for themselves and their family.”

High school and college students have increasinglyfound themselves in the crosshairsof Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Administration officials insist that only criminals and those with adjudicated final orders of removal are being targeted. Recentdata showsa surge in people with no criminal history being targeted. Being in the US without legal status is a civil offense, not a crime.

However, a judge had issued a final removal order for Colindres and his family in 2023 after their application for asylum was denied, nine years after they entered the country without documentation.

“If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen,” Tricia McLaughlin, homeland security department assistant secretary of public affairs, told NBC in a statement.

Raids by Ice agents have escalated as administration officials have called for a minimum of3,000 immigration arrests daily.

Court votes to back challenge to state waiver that allows it to set tougher car emission standards than federal limits

Fossil fuel companies are able to challenge California’s ability to set stricter standards reducing the amount of polluting coming from cars, theUS supreme courthas ruled in a case that is set to unravel one of the key tools used to curb planet-heating emissions in recent years.

The conservative-dominated supreme court voted by seven to two to back a challenge by oil and gas companies, along with 17 Republican-led states, to a waiver thatCaliforniahas received periodically from the federal government since 1967 that allows it to set tougher standards than national rules limiting pollution from cars. The state has separately stipulated that only zero-emission cars will be able to sold there by 2035.

Although states are typically not allowed to set their own standards aside from the federal Clean Air Act, California has been given unique authority to do so via a waiver that has seen it become a pioneer in pushing for cleaner cars. Other states are allowed to copy California’s stricter standard, too.

But oil and gas companies, as well as Republican politicians, have complained about the waiver, arguing that it caused financial harm. The waiver was removed during Donald Trump’s first term but then reinstated by Joe Biden’s administration. Trump is, again, looking into whether to revoke the waiver.

The justices’ ruling overturned a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit by a ValeroEnergysubsidiary and fuel industry groups.

The lower court had concluded that the plaintiffs lacked the required legal standing to challenge a 2022 EPA decision to let California set its own regulations.

“The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court as unaffected bystanders,” conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision.

The lower court had previously ruled that the oil and gas industry didn’t have legal standing to attempt to topple the California waiver but a challenge to this reached the supreme court, which appeared sympathetic to the claim when the case was heard in April. “It’s not that high a burden,” Amy Coney Barrett, one of the justices, said about proof of the alleged harm.

California and the federal government have been allowed to “stretch and abuse” the Clean Air Act, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, one of the groups challenging the waiver, has complained.

But environmentalists and California’s Democratic leadership have defended the waiver, arguing that it has helped push forward vehicle innovation and help cut greenhouse gases. Transportation is responsible for more planet-heating pollution in the US than any other sector.

“California and other clean car states cannot achieve federal clean air standards and protect communities without reducing harmful transportation pollution,” said Andrea Issod, senior attorney at the Sierra Club. “We stand with these states to defend their well-established authority to set standards for clean cars.”

Nancy Pexton appeared at Highbury Corner magistrates court charged with murdering Jennifer Abbott

A woman has appeared in court charged with murdering her 69-year-old sister who was found stabbed inside her north London home.

Nancy Pexton, also 69, appeared at Highbury Corner magistrates court on Friday charged with murdering Jennifer Abbott, also known as Sarah Steinberg, last Tuesday.

The Metropolitan police had previously said officers were investigating whether Abbott’s death was linked to a diamond-encrusted Rolex missing from her home.

It is understood Pexton and Abbott are sisters, and Pexton is nine months younger than Abbott.

Abbott was found dead by her niece and neighbours who broke her door down at her flat in Camden last Friday, after her family had not heard from her for several days.

A postmortem examination gave the cause of death as sharp force trauma.

Neighbours said they regularly saw Abbott, a film director and author of several novels, walking her pet corgi in the area, with one describing her as “exuberant” and “vivacious”.

In a short hearing, Pexton, of no fixed address, spoke only to confirm her name and date of birth.

Deputy district judge Lee Marklew remanded the 69-year-old in custody to appear at the Old Bailey on 24 June.

He told her: “You will meet your barrister and will be given some advice in the coming weeks. This is an administrative hearing. You will be remanded in custody until then.”

Exclusive: Show at The Box in artist’s home town spans entire career and includes previously unseen works

She was a seaside landlady who left school at 14 and who, without any formal training, became one of Britain’s most popular artists. Now, 17 years after Beryl Cook’s death, her home city ofPlymouthwill this week announce a major exhibition that will include previously unseen works as well as much-loved humorous paintings with larger-than-life characters.

Cook was chronically shy and avoided her exhibition openings – and would probably have stayed away from the show atThe Boxfrom January 2026.

Spanning her entire career, it will feature loans from private and public owners, including her family. It will explore her significance in portraying “ordinary people enjoying themselves”, with both comedy and compassion.

Among the paintings that have not been publicly exhibited before is Bingo, in which a woman in a bingo hall has just won a game, raising her hand in glee as a nearby woman gives her a classic Cook side-eye.

It was acquired last year by The Box, whose collections include a film and television archive, on which its curator, Terah Walkup, has drawn, linking Cook’s images to actual places.

She has, for example, identified the Plymouth bingo hall and the exact moment of inspiration for Bingo: “It was from a news clip on local television about the popularity of bingo. In one scene, a woman throws her hands up in the air celebrating a winning card, while women behind her cast a side-eye …

“Beryl had a notoriously photographic memory, so it could have been that she remembered this particular scene or seeing it on the local television. It changes the way that we might think about this classic humorous work.

“This particular film clip wasn’t just about bingo halls. It was actually about the sociability of older women. It was about how women found space in order to meet each other, socialise, spend money and have a sense of independence in the 1980s.”

The artist had in fact worried that her caricatures would offend the real-life people who had inspired them, according to her daughter-in-law, who in the early 1970s lived in the basement of Cook’s modest terrace house on the Hoe.

Teresa Cook told the Guardian: “She did worry to start with. She was nervous. Actually, that’s why the fan letters helped so much. People can recognise themselves or they feel they’ve seen somebody that looks like that … Beryl realised that there was no offence in the art and people were genuinely so happy to see her art.”

Sophie Cook, the artist’s granddaughter, said that because the caricatures were never cruel, “people loved being in the paintings.”

Recalling an earlier exhibition, she said: “The major comment from every staff member was the laughter that everyone could hear … You can be having a bad day, you go and have a look at a Beryl Cook exhibition and I guarantee your day just got better.”

She spoke of a new fanbase for Cook’s art, that the family receives correspondence from people – particularly young people – who love it.

The family hopes it is only a matter of time before the Tate shows her properly. Despite her popularity with the public, the gallery’s former director declared in 1996 that “there will be no Beryl Cooks in Tate Modern,” although she was in a 2010 group show at Tate Britain.

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Julian Spalding, former director of galleries in Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow, criticised modern art museums “who wouldn’t go near Beryl with a barge pole, even though part of their job is preserving art history”.

In his 2023 bookArtExposed, he argued: “Beryl’s work merits a place in any public collection.”

He was among her earliest fans, after seeing her painting of two weary middle-aged women in a museum cafe, “easing their sore ankles out of the pinching heels of their shoes, with blissful relief spreading across their faces”.

He observed: “No troubling art to look at any more, just a cup of tea and a seat. What an earthy response to a gallery visit … She was, I thought, a genuine artist of our time.”

Teresa Cook said: “She did a few paintings of me, and I loved them all.”

They include Elvira’s Café, about which Cook once said: “This is a picture of my son and daughter-in-law’s cafe, in which they serve sausage sandwiches, amongst other things … Here you see one about to be tackled by the lady in front, with Teresa enjoying the view she had of one of the many handsome marines who frequent the cafe, for they are stationed in barracks just around the corner. In the summer they sometimes arrive in sporting gear, like this vest and tiny shorts.”

Walkup noted that the Tate had been supportive of this exhibition: “This is the most extensive exhibition of Beryl Cook’s work to date, a landmark show.

“It’s all about recasting Beryl’s career and showing that she’s quite radical, particularly to do with identity and representation. Beryl was painting those who have been overlooked by society.”

The exhibition draws on Cook’s previously unpublished letters. In one, she wrote: “Instead of doing housework, I go upstairs and start painting.”

Regulator says it has ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect company breached groceries supply code of practice

The UK’s grocery industry watchdog has launched an investigation intoAmazonover allegations that the retail and technology company is failing to pay its suppliers on time.

The Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) said it had “reasonable grounds” to suspect that Amazon had breached a part of the groceries supply code of practice, which mandates that there should not be delays in payments made to suppliers.

The investigation into Amazon comes almost a year after the GCA told the online retailer itneeded to take “swift and comprehensive action”to improve its compliance with industry rules designed to protect suppliers.

The GCA is responsible for regulating the relationships between the UK’s 14 largest grocery retailers – including the biggest supermarkets Tesco and Sainsbury’s – and their direct suppliers.

The investigation into Amazon’s grocery retail arm is its third since the GCA was established in 2013 after inquiries into Tesco and the Co-op. The watchdog has the power to fine a company up to 1% of turnover if it is found to have broken the groceries code.

The adjudicator, Mark White, said: “Delays in payment can significantly harm suppliers. The alleged delays could expose Amazon suppliers to excessive risk and unexpected costs, potentially affecting their ability to invest and innovate.”

The company sells groceries in the UK through its Amazon Fresh branded stores and online retail operation, as well the Whole Foods chain, which itbought in 2017 for $13.7bn(£10.2bn).

Suppliers raisedmore issues with Amazon than with other retailers, according to a survey for the GCA carried out in 2024.

After the warning to Amazon last July, the GCA said it had monitored the retailer’s actions and heard detailed evidence about suppliers’ experiences.

The GCA said on Friday it had grounds to suspect Amazon had breached paragraph 5 of the groceries code between 1 March 2022 and 20 June 2025, but would focus its investigations on the period from the start of 2024 to gain the best understanding of Amazon’s current practices.

The watchdog is calling on suppliers to send in evidence by 8 August. It added that all responses would remain confidential.

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The GCA said it had also received information about other issues at Amazon, adding that it would “not hesitate” to launch further investigations if required.

It has previouslyreprimanded Tesco over its treatment of suppliers after a year-long investigationbut said it was not able to fine the supermarket chain because the alleged offences were committed before the government handed the GCA extra powers in 2015, allowing it to fine companies in 2015. It alsoinvestigated Co-opin 2018.

Amazon said it took “the groceries supply code of practice incredibly seriously” and added that it would “cooperate fully with the adjudicator”.

The spokesperson said: “While we are disappointed with this decision, we welcome the opportunity to further demonstrate our ongoing compliance with this particular section of the code.“We have already made significant improvements to our grocery supplier experience, including to payment practices, with supplier contacts on this reducing year-on-year.”“We will continue to listen and work with our grocery suppliers as we roll out further changes.”

Exclusive: Dubai-based property developer has filed claims challenging trademark registrations, including the phrase ‘Bond, James Bond’

The owners ofJames Bondhave called the attempt by an Austrian businessman to take control of the superspy’s name across Europe an “unprecedented assault” on the multibillion-pound global franchise.

In February,the Guardian revealedthat a Dubai-based property developer had filed claims in the UK and EU arguing that lack of use meant various protections had lapsed around James Bond’s intellectual property, including his name, his 007 assignation and the catchphrase “Bond, James Bond”.

Nearly all of the nine trademarks being challenged relate to the merchandising of goods and services under the Bond name, which can be challenged after five years of “non-use”.

Josef Kleindienst, an Austrian who isbuilding a $5bn (£3.7bn) luxury resort complexcalled the Heart of Europe on six artificial islands off Dubai, hasargued the trademarks have been commercially underexploited.

Lawyers representing Danjaq, the US-based company which controls the rights to worldwide James Bond merchandising in conjunction with the UK-based production company Eon, have hit back, aiming to vigorously defend the 007 franchise.

“James Bond is a trademark of the highest reputation in the EU,” said Rudolf Böckenholt at Boehmert & Boehmert, one of the largest intellectual property (IP) law firms in Europe, representing Danjaq. “The trademarks are also licensed for numerous consumer products and merchandise products, ranging from very luxurious products to everyday products, as well as further services.”

“These goods and the corresponding services are covered by a number of trademarks that have been challenged and attacked by the claimant Josef Kleindienst in an unprecedented assault,” he added.

It has also emerged that Kleindienst has extended his attempt to try to take control of the spy’s various brands by also submitting his own trademark for James Bond in Europe.

He has not, however, done the same in the UK.

The European IP law firm Withers & Rogers said this was likely to be because the “intention to use test” that applications were submitted to was more stringently applied by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office than its continental equivalent the EU Intellectual Property Office.

“Danjaq would be more likely to object to the registration [in the UK] on the grounds of ‘bad faith’,” said Mark Caddle, a partner and trademark attorney at Withers & Rogers.

Danjaq’s lawyers are putting together evidence to prove the trademarks are still being commercialised, while at the same time arguing that Kleindienst’s “non-use” challenges “represent abuse of process”.

Kleindienst was approached for comment.

“The plot thickens,” Caddle said. “Opting for an ‘abuse of use’ defence suggests that Danjaq could believe that the cancellation attempt is not legitimate, and specifically, that the challenger may not be intending to use the marks commercially. While it is impossible to say for sure what the challenger’s motives are in this case, the James Bond trademark portfolio and its legacy value does make it an enticing target for opportunists, and further cancellation attempts can’t be ruled out.”

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Daniel Craig’s last outing as 007, No Time to Die, was released in 2021 and with no announcement yet of his replacement or timeline for production of the next film, the franchise is on track to beat the previous longest gap between instalments of six years and four months.

Danjaq also co-owns the copyright to the existing Bond films, along with MGM Studios, which wasacquired by Amazon for $8.5bn in 2021. Days after the report of Kleindienst’s legal challenges, it emerged that Amazon hadpaid more than $1bn to gain full “creative control”of the franchise from Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, the longtime stewards of the Bond films.

With creative control, Amazon now has the power to move forward with new films and potentially TV spinoffs, without approval from the two British-American heirs to the film producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, who had overseen the integrity of the character originally created in 1953 by the author Ian Fleming.

In March, Amazon confirmed thatAmy Pascal and David Heymanwould steer the next Bond film, although no release date or lead actor has yet been named.

Pascal has experience with the Bond series in her previous position as Sony’s chair of film, overseeing Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. She also had producer credits on the latest Spider-Man series.

Heyman is best known as the producer of the Harry Potter films as well as the Fantastic Beasts franchise and is now in pre-production onthe HBO TV series adaptation of the stories. He is the second most commercially successful film producer of all time, with credits including Gravity, Paddington, Barbie, Wonka and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.

There are fears the crackdown against ‘outsiders’ is driving widespread persecution as expelled Indians are returned by Bangladesh border guards

The Indian government has been accused of illegally deporting Indian Muslims toBangladesh, prompting fears of an escalating campaign of persecution.

Thousands of people, largely Muslims suspected of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, have been rounded up by police acrossIndiain recent weeks, according to human rights groups, with many of them deprived of due legal process and sent over the border to neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

Indian citizens are among those alleged to have been deported illegally, according to lawyers and accounts by deportees. Those who tried to resist being “pushed back” were threatened at gunpoint by India’s border security force, according to several accounts.

About 200 people have since been returned to India by Bangladeshi border guards after being found to be Indian citizens, with some forced to walk miles across treacherous terrain to get home.

“Instead of following due legal procedure, India is pushing mainly Muslims and low-income communities from their own country to Bangladesh without any consent,” said Taskin Fahmina, senior researcher at Bangladesh human rights organisation Odhikar. “This push by India is against national and international law.”

Bangladesh’s foreign ministry said it had written letters to the Indian authorities urging them to stop sending people over the border without consultation and vetting, as was previous official procedure, but they said those letters had gone unanswered.

Among those deported and returned was Hazera Khatun, 62, a physically disabled grandmother. Khatun’s daughter Jorina Begum said they had documents to prove two generations of her mother’s family had been born in India. “How can she be a Bangladeshi?” said Begum.

Khatun was picked up by police on 25 May and the next day was pushed into a van with 14 other Muslims who were then driven to the border with Bangladesh in the middle of the night. There, Khatun said officers from India’s Border Security Force (BSF) forced them to cross the border.

“They treated us like animals,” said Khatun. “We protested that we are Indians, why should we enter Bangladesh? But they threatened us with guns and said, ‘We will shoot you if you don’t go to the other side.’ After we heard four gunshots from the Indian side, we got very scared and quickly walked across the border.”

The group were taken into custody by Bangladesh’s border guards, and held in a makeshift camp in a field. However, Khatun said the authorities in Bangladesh would not allow the group to stay as their documents showed they were Indian citizens. They were driven a truck to the border and told to walk to India.

“When we returned, it was terrible,” said Khatun. “We had to walk through forests and rivers … We were so scared, we thought if the BSF officers found us coming back, they would kill us. I was sure we were going to die.” Eventually she made it back to her village on 31 May. According to her family, she was covered in bruises and deeply traumatised.

The escalating crackdown against so-called “illegal Bangladeshis” by the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government comes in the wake of an attack by Islamist militants in the Indian-administered region of Kashmir in April whichkilled 25 Hindu tourists and a guide, after which the BJP government vowed to expel “outsiders”.

The mass detentions increased with the launch of Operation Sindhoor in May, when India launched strikes at neighbouring Muslim-majority Pakistan, which it blamed for the Kashmir militant attack and vowed to wipe out terror groups targeting India.

Over its 11 years in power,the BJP government has been accusedby rights groups and citizens of persecuting, harassing and disenfranchising the country’s 200 million Muslims as part of its Hindu nationalist agenda, charges the government denies.

The most widespread targeting and deporting of Muslims in recent weeks has been in the north-eastern state of Assam, as the BJP-run state government has escalated its long-running campaign against those it calls “infiltrators”. About 100 people who have been recently detained in the state are missing, according to activists.

The expulsions were described by activists as a worrying escalation of along-running exercisein Assam to expel “illegal infiltrators”, in which Muslims are routinely called before “foreigners tribunals”, quasi-judicial courts, to prove they were born in India, or arrived before 1971. Acontroversial citizenship surveyalso took place in the state in 2019, resulting in thousands being put into detention centres.

Only Muslims have to prove their citizenship after Hindus, Sikhs and other religions were made exempt from the exercise by the state government.

This week, the hardline BJP chief minister of Assam, Himanta Sarma said it was now a policy of the state to automatically expel “illegal foreigners”. “This process will be intensified and expedited,” he said.

Not all those deported who claim to be Indian citizens have been able to return. Among those still stuck in Bangladesh is 67-year-old Maleka Begam,67, from Assam, who was detained by police on 25 May.

Speaking over the phone from a Bangladeshi border village in a state of distress, Begam – who is physically infirm and cannot walk unassisted – said she had been the only woman in a group of about 20 Muslims sent over to Bangladesh in the middle of the night on 27 May. She said they were ordered at gunpoint by the BSF to cross the border.

Begam’s son Imran Ali said his mother had documentation to prove she was born in India, and that all seven of her siblings also had proof. “Her deportation to Bangladesh is completely illegal. However, I cannot understand now how we can bring her back from Bangladesh. She is old and sick. We are very anxious about her,” said Ali.

Assam police and the BSF did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Hundreds of people, mostly Muslims, have also been deported from the capital, Delhi, as well as the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. In Gujarat, the police claimed to have detainedmore than 6,500suspected “Bangladeshi citizens”, and thousands were paraded through the streets, but it was later declared that only 450 of them were found to be illegal. Last week, Bangladesh’s border guards turned backfour Muslim menpicked up by police in Mumbai and deported, after it was found they were Indian migrant workers from the state of West Bengal.

Maj Gen Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, director general of Border Guard Bangladesh, condemned India’s pushback policy as “a deviation from humane governance”.

“It contradicts international law and the dignity of the affected individuals,” said Siddiqui. “Acts such as abandoning people in forests, forcing women and children into rivers, or dumping stateless refugees at sea are not consistent with human rights principles.”