King Charles appoints actor Helen Mirren to a select group in his birthday honors list

LONDON (AP) — Helen Mirren, one of the world's most acclaimed actors, was added Friday to a very select group of people recognized by King Charles III for their “major contribution” over the years to British life.

The 80-year-old was named a “Companion of Honour,” one of the highest awards the king can bestow to citizens in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth, limited to only 65 people at any time.

Mirren's elevation to the group, which also includes British environmentalist David Attenborough, Canadian author Margaret Atwood and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was one of the highlights of Charles' latest award of honors.

The honors, which aim to reward individuals for their contributions to British life, are awarded twice a year to celebrities and public figures as well as ordinary people, once at New Year’s, and then in June, to mark the king’s birthday.

Nearly 1,200 people received honors in the king’s 2026 birthday list,

Mirren is no stranger to awards and has for decades been a star on stage and screen, as well as a powerful advocate for female actors.

She has tackled numerous classical parts in theater — both in the National Youth Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company from the 1960s — before winning roles in movies such as “The Long Good Friday,” “Excalibur,” and “The Madness of King George.”

She also wowed British television audiences with her portrayal of Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison over seven seasons of “Prime Suspect.”

At the Oscars in 2007, she won best actress for her performance in “The Queen," a film that follows the late Queen Elizabeth II in the aftermath of the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Introduced in 1917 by King George V, the "Companion of Honour" recognizes people who have made “a major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government" over an extended time period.

They remain members until they die, when a replacement is then added. A new member will likely be named at the next honors list in the new year following the death Thursday of David Hockney, one of the most popular and critically lauded British artists of the last century.

Others recognized on Friday include British author Julia Donaldson, who last year surpassed Harry Potter writer JK Rowling as U.K.’s all-time top author, with more than 50 million books sold worldwide. She was named a dame, the female equivalent of a knighthood, for services to literature, a title that Mirren herself was awarded in 2003.

“Receiving this honor has been a very happy surprise,” said the 77-year-old author of such books as “The Gruffalo, " and “The Highway Rat.”

“It’s really gratifying to have children’s books recognized in this way," she added.

Success in sports was also recognized on Friday, with Kevin Sinfield knighted for his glittering rugby league career and subsequent fundraising exploits to aid research and support families affected by motor neuron disease, a neurological disorder.

The 45-year-old has raised over 11 million pounds ($15 million) since being inspired by his friend and his teammate Rob Burrow, who died from the disease in 2024.

Golf's two-time Ryder Cup winning captain Luke Donald was handed the Order of the British Empire. He will attempt to become the first person in Ryder Cup history to lead a team to three consecutive wins against the United States next year in Ireland.

Chloe Kelly, who scored the winning penalty for England's women's soccer team in Euro 2025, became member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, along with six other teammates.

Other notable recipients were Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi for services to music and charity nearly a year after the death of the band's legendary lead singer Ozzy Osbourne. Broadcaster and the former lead singer of Catatonia Cerys Matthews was recognized for her services to music.

The array of awards are chosen by civil servants’ committees based on nominations from the government and the public. They are usually given out by the king or a senior royal acting in his place, increasingly at Windsor Castle where Charles largely resides.

The honors don’t just reward people in the public eye.

Debbie Lewis, who set up the bereavement support group COVID-19 Families U.K. after her father died in 2020 of the coronavirus, just four months after her mother’s death.

Lewis first wrote on Facebook that her father had just died and she was on her own, hoping to connect with others going through something similar. Within a week, 40 people had contacted her.

Six years on, there are more than 4,500 people in Lewis’s support network.

“I’m still a little bit in shock,” the 56-year-old said of her honor on Friday. “I know it’s a huge achievement and I’m just a little bit overwhelmed at the moment.”

FILE - England's Chloe Kelly gestures during the Women's Euro 2025 final soccer match between England and Spain at St. Jakob-Park in Basel, Switzerland, Sunday, July 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)

FILE - Welsh singer Cerys Matthews poses during a photocall to launch the inaugural Festival of Voice, in London, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, file)

FILE - Tony Iommi of British heavy metal group 'Heaven and Hell' on stage during their concert in Oslo, Norway on Thursday June 4 2009. (AP Photo/ Terje Bendiksby, Scanpix )

FILE - Queen Camilla, right, speaks with author Julia Donaldson during a reception to celebrate the centenary of BookTrust, at Clarence House, London, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (Aaron Chown/PA via AP, Pool)

FILE - Helen Mirren arrives at the Golden Globes Golden Eve on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, at The Beverly Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — The Treasury Department moved Friday to enlist the nation’s banks more deeply in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including issuing fresh guidance that lets banks rapidly share information about suspected customers and an advisory steering them to flag signs that one of their customers may lack legal immigration status.

These changes are part of the administration’s push to remove undocumented workers from the nation’s banking system without explicitly mandating that banks do so. In order to get banks to participate, the administration has framed these actions as a crackdown on fraud and crime, not explicitly about immigration.

“The information in your purview can help stop a cartel financier, disrupt a money laundering network, uncover labor exploitation, or protect taxpayers from fraud,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in prepared remarks at a banking conference in Houston.

Bessent's remarks and the Treasury Department's new guidelines come from an executive order signed in May by Trump that requires banks to take a closer look at the citizenship of their customers as well as directs bank regulators and government departments to look for signs that people without legal status are opening accounts or obtaining loans or credit cards. But that executive order did not include an explicit mandate that banks collect citizenship information, which the industry for months lobbied against.

Banks have long been able to share information about their customers with other banks under the Patriot Act program when they suspect money laundering or fraud, part of the post-9/11 effort to combat terrorism and other crimes.

Friday’s actions widened that system on two fronts. Banks can now share such information in real time and more freely.

Secondly, the Trump Administration is giving banks a wider variety of reasons to share information, which now include flags historically tied to immigration status. One example is a customer having an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN), which are disproportionally used by undocumented immigrants when applying for work.

Bessent told bankers that the new guidance is simply part of what the banking system needs to do as part of their routine operations.

“The advisory does not ask banks to become immigration officers,” Bessent said. “It asks banks to do what they do best: know their customers, identify risk, recognize suspicious patterns, and report illicit activity when they see it.”

Bankers have been wary about sharing customer information with the federal government as part of immigration enforcement. Bankers never collected citizenship information on their customers, so any effort to do so would require a massive effort by banks and significant amounts of paperwork. There's also the fact that banks send millions of what are known as Suspicious Activity Reports to the federal bank regulators under the Bank Secrecy Act. Last week, the Treasury Department expanded the reasons why a bank might file a SAR to include potential undocumented workers.

“The administration is saying they don't want banks to be immigration officials, but they are trying to get as close to the line as possible,” said Nicholas Anthony, who focuses on bank regulation issues at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.

Immigration advocates have previously said any order that would order banks to collect citizenship information would likely result in undocumented immigrants moving out of the financial system, increasing the number of “unbanked” individuals.

The White House has taken other measures to discourage undocumented workers from using the financial system. The Treasury last November announced that it would reclassify certain refundable tax credits as “federal public benefits,” which bars some immigrant taxpayers from receiving them, even if they file and pay taxes and would otherwise qualify.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent applauds during an event about Trump Accounts for children in foster care at the Department of Treasury, Thursday, June 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)