Are banks, post offices open on Juneteenth? Here's what's closed on the federal holiday
Juneteenth, celebrated each year on June 19, marks a pivotal moment in American history — the day in 1865 when the last enslaved Black Americans in Texas were finally freed.
Though it originated in Texas, Juneteenth has grown into a nationwide celebration of freedom, resilience and African Black American culture.
In 2021, it was officially recognized as a federal holiday, prompting many government offices and organizations to observe the day with closures or special events.
This milestone was largely due to the efforts of Texas native Opal Lee, now known as the 'Grandmother of Juneteenth,' who famously walked nearly 2.5 miles every year on Juneteenth to raise awareness and advocate for the holiday's federal recognition.
Juneteenth, the newest federal holiday established in 2021 by former President Joe Biden, is observed annually on June 19.
More: When is Juneteenth 2025? Is it a national holiday? Here's what you need to know
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, were finally informed of their freedom following the end of the Civil War — two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by former President Abraham Lincoln.
While Juneteenth is a federal holiday, meaning government and federal employees typically get the day off, most private-sector workers are not guaranteed time off, especially in states that do not officially recognize the holiday.
In fact, federal law doesn't require private companies to observe any of the 11 federal holidays, though many businesses and schools offer days off or holiday pay throughout the year.
Texas became the first state to observe Juneteenth in 1980. It has been a paid holiday for state employees since.
Like most federal holidays, expect your local banks and credit unions to be closed in observance of Juneteenth.
Postal service retail locations will be closed on Thursday, and there will be no regular mail delivery — except for holiday premium Priority Mail Express — according to a U.S. Postal Service release.
UPS and FedEx will be open on June 19, with all services available as usual.
Most businesses and restaurants remain open for the holiday.
Costco will operate during normal hours on Thursday. The warehouse chain only closes on New Year's Day, Easter Sunday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Walmart will be open during normal hours. The chain closes only on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
Target will be open during normal hours. Target stores close for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but remain open the rest of the year.
The next holiday that most U.S. workers will take off is Fourth of July, which falls on a Friday this year, followed by Labor Day on Monday Sept. 1.
There are typically only 11 federal holidays, but Inauguration Day is included for 2025. However, it is only a holiday for federal employees in Washington, D.C., and certain federal offices.
Inauguration Day, which took place on Jan. 20, is not part of the regular 11 federal holidays, but because it aligned with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, most American workers had the day off.
Here's a list of the federal holidays in 2025:
Jan. 1, 2025 – New Year's Day
Jan. 20, 2025 – Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.
Jan. 20, 2025 – Inauguration Day
Feb. 17, 2025 – Washington's Birthday (Presidents' Day)
May 26, 2025 – Memorial Day
June 19, 2025 – Juneteenth National Independence Day
July 4, 2025 – Independence Day
Sept. 1, 2025 – Labor Day
Oct. 13, 2025 – Indigenous People's Day
Nov. 11, 2025 – Veterans Day
Nov. 27, 2025 – Thanksgiving Day
Dec. 25, 2025 – Christmas Day
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What's open, closed on Juneteenth 2025: Banks, USPS, UPS, FedEx
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A Scary Encounter Inspired Her to Become a Rattlesnake Wrangler. Now, She's Dedicated Her Life to Saving Them (Exclusive)
Danielle Wall has made a name for herself in Joshua Tree as a local rattlesnake wrangler. After encountering one on the road in 2018, she taught herself about the species and how to handle them While California's animal control laws require captured rattlesnakes to be euthanized, Wall sends them away from properties without harming them. She does not charge for her services at all Wall supplements her reptile management volunteer work with paid gigs handling animals on TV and film sets, and she's also gained a following of over 116,000 on social mediaIt was August 2018. Danielle Wall was in college at the time and trying to make ends meet. She worked jobs at a wedding venue and took tutoring gigs to pull in some cash. She was driving to her home in Joshua Tree, Calif., after yet another long day when something in the middle of the road made her suddenly swerve her Honda Civic. Sprawled out in the center of the street was a rattlesnake, something Wall had never seen in her two years living out in the desert. She didn't know much about snakes, but she knew she didn't want to crush it. Wall maneuvered her car directly over the reptile so the tires would pass by it on either side, but when she looked back, the rattlesnake wasn't moving. "I pulled over, and I was like, 'Oh God, did I kill it?' Because it was just laying there, not moving, not doing anything," she recalls to PEOPLE almost seven years later. But looking at it from outside of her car, she realized it was alive. With no cell service or any experience with snakes, Wall was scared. Terrified, in fact, but not paralyzingly so. Her empathy for the living creature took over. She broke off a stick from a nearby bush and returned to the road to poke the snake. After a jab, the rattlesnake took off, slithering away from the road and out of danger. "That's the grand story," says Wall, now 31. The next chapter of her life unfolded from there, the moment she simply poked a rattlesnake on the road. She's since dedicated herself to safely removing rattlesnakes from dangerous places, where they may be threatened or where they may pose a threat to others. In most scenarios, Wall explains, the latter only occurs after the former. "People think they're aggressive, but on paper, they have the same behavioral defenses as feral kittens. And a feral kitten's not going to attack a human or bite a human for no reason," she tells PEOPLE. "But if you trap it, the feral kitten's going to try to run past you before jumping on you. And the snakes are all the same ... Most bites are completely preventable." Of course, Wall didn't know that back in 2018. But when she got home after her first rattlesnake encounter in the round, she decided to familiarize herself with the species and find out how others handle such encounters. Her search yielded chilling information, findings that didn't sit right with Wall at all. California animal control's typical protocol was — and still is, legally — to euthanize found and caught rattlesnakes. The violence of it all got to her. A born nature-lover, Wall was appalled to learn that people were killing wildlife out of fear. Wall wasn't just going to sit with the horror. She felt compelled to fix the problem. "I was like, 'How hard could it be? I'll teach myself or reach out, see if anyone will teach me,'" the SoCal resident recalls. "I found no resources. And then the few people I did reach out to that answered were like, 'No,'" says Wall. "One guy said, 'Sit down, little girl, you're going to get hurt.'" Rejection after rejection, Wall resolved to just put herself out there. She educated herself on reptile husbandry and rattlesnake anatomy, reading research published by the likes of Loma Linda Medical University's herpetology department. And she watched local Facebook groups, waiting for a post by someone looking for help with a rattlesnake. Her interest was piqued by one woman's post about a snake on her property. In her caption, she specified, "I don't want it killed." The replies completely dismissed the woman's wishes. "Out of the 30 comments saying, 'Kill it,' I'm the one comment saying, 'I've moved one off the road before. I've got a stick and a bucket. Can I come try?'" Wall remembers. The woman agreed, and Wall was able to successfully, safely send off a second snake. It wasn't just how easy it was for her to catch and release the snake. It was seeing how happy and calm the woman was as Wall helped her out. "That was the pivot of, 'I can f------ do this,'" says Wall. "And then it built up from there." At first, she expected it to be a "little bit of a side thing," Wall explains, especially since she doesn't charge for her rattlesnake wrangling service at all. It's donation-based, and she was lucky enough to nab a tire sponsor after she once caught a snake for a man who owns a tire company. He gave her a $2,000 set of tires to help her drive the lengths of Joshua Tree. The new tires came at the perfect time, too, because it didn't take long before Wall's phone was constantly blowing up with requests for her to wrangle on various properties across the desert. COVID hit during year three of her business, and with so many people staying home — and plenty of city folk heading out to quieter Joshua Tree residences — they started to notice more and more snakes. "The population was getting higher. The building rates were exponential, just so many houses being built. So a lot of territory for the snakes was demolished," she explains to PEOPLE. That's not to say there were never any roaming snakes to start with, though. Snakes are all over the desert, hiding in plain sight, especially in Joshua Tree National Park, where people regularly hike and hang out without noticing any vipers. In fact, Wall nods to their widespread presence to illustrate just how mild these creatures really are. "There's no such thing as an aggressive rattlesnake towards people, because if they were aggressive, no one could live in Joshua Tree. It'd be like the movie Zombieland, but snakes," she says. "If the snakes actually decided to say, 'F--- people,' they could run everyone out of this desert." Wall continues, "They're plentiful out here, but they're so peaceful and they don't ambush us. It's nothing like that. People just think, 'Oh, well, I don't see them. So, they're not there.'" During lockdown, her phone started ringing nonstop. She was constantly dropping everything to go visit properties and remove visiting reptiles. It got to the point where she could no longer keep up with her busy lifestyle, balancing school and full-time paid work. She dropped out of college and pointed all her efforts toward snake wrangling. In place of a steady income, she picks up odd jobs on the side, usually cleaning houses. She used to offer classes on rattlesnakes, charging people $150 to attend a session, but wrangling got in the way of that, too. "I'd book an hour-and-a-half class, then 10 minutes in, I'd get a snake call. I send my assistant, and then two minutes later, I get another call," she says. "It got to the point where the anxiety I was getting trying to schedule classes to make money was making it so I couldn't go save the snakes, which is my whole purpose." Legally, she's not able to officially turn her work into a business, but even if she could charge for rattlesnake wrangling, Wall says she wouldn't. She looked at non-profit options, but the California Department of Fish and Wildlife doesn't grant third-party permits. She's come to terms with the unsteady income, but even with acceptance, Wall admits that times do get tough. "I struggle financially, big time. People have no idea. They have no f------ clue, and maybe I should be a bit more transparent about it," she tells PEOPLE. "I've had my electricity cut off because I'm more worried about making sure there's gas in my car to go and get snakes instead of paying my own bills." In place of money, however, Wall soon gained something else: notoriety. "You post one picture of a small tattooed chick holding a rattlesnake," she chuckles, admitting, "It got a lot of attention, and I didn't anticipate that." Wall's Instagram page, @High_Desert_Dani, has over 116,000 followers. The attention has paid off in a literal sense, too. She works in the entertainment business every so often, with sets hiring her to handle snakes featured in film and television. "I can charge upwards of a thousand dollars a day. So, if I get two or three really good set gigs over the year, it'll help me make my bills," Wall explains. "But I'm still in the red every year on terms of upkeep on just the snake stuff." It's an uphill battle, but it's worth it to the California native. She wants to see the state's animal control laws evolve toward a more humane approach. Other parts of the country don't require the vipers to be killed when caught. Elsewhere, there are wildlife facilities that offer rattlesnake relocation training classes and seminars. "There's other states that are already doing this, and that's how California should be. It shouldn't be that it is just me," she says. 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Westbrook Juneteenth celebration honors Black history and inclusivity
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Plastic lid finally removed from bear's neck after 2 years
The Brief A black bear was first spotted with lid on its neck in 2023; the bear was trapped and rescued in June 2025. The lid caused scarring but the bear was in better health than expected. The object may have been from from a bait container used by hunters or landowners. Michigan wildlife experts were finally able to remove a plastic lid that had been stuck around the neck of a young black bear – for two years. Images were released by Michigan's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and showed the bear with the lid on its neck. Other images show DNR staff with the immobilized bear after it was captured on June 2, the extensive scarring on its neck, and the bear after the lid was removed. What they're saying "It's pretty incredible that the bear survived and was able to feed itself," state bear specialist Cody Norton told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "The neck was scarred and missing hair, but the bear was in much better condition than we expected it to be." Officials also said it was unclear how the bear got his head stuck in the "5-inch hole in the lid." "The blue plastic lid is similar to those that fit 55-gallon drums used by hunters to bait bear and by landowners to store materials that can attract bears, such as chicken feed," DNR said. The bear weighed 110 pounds, which is fairly typical for a 2-year-old. Angela Kujawa, a wildlife biologist who was at the scene, said she wondered about the bear's ability to climb trees with the uncomfortable accessory. "And he probably laid more on his back or side when he was resting," she said. The backstory The bear first turned up on a trail camera as a cub in 2023 in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. After that, the DNR was on the lookout for the animal with a hard plastic lid around the neck. "Container openings of a certain size can result in bears and other wildlife getting their heads or other body parts stuck in them, leading to injury or death," Norton explained. RELATED: Dog comes face-to-face with bear inside Monrovia home The bear appeared again on a camera in late May, still wearing the barrel lid, and the DNR responded by setting a cylindrical trap and safely luring him inside. The bear was immobilized with an injection and the lid was cut off in minutes on June 3. The bear eventually woke up and rambled away. The Source This story was reported from Los Angeles. The Associated Press, Storyful contributed.
