Katy Perry performs onstage during The Lifetimes Tour 2025 on April 23, 2025 in Mexico City, Mexico. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Katy Perry)
Katy Perry has added another stop to her summer European festival tour, thanks to Dua Lipa.
Dua posted a video on Instagram featuring a phone call from Katy, who tells her rehearsals for her summer festival run are “intense.”
“I’m going all over Europe, June to the end of August,” she says.
“Amazing,” Dua responds. “Are you gonna be anywhere where I can come see you?”
“I’m actually gonna be in this place called Prishtina,” Katy answers, referring to the capital of Kosovo, where Dua’s family is from and where she spent part of her childhood.
“No way,” says Dua. “What are you doing there?”
“Funny you should ask,” Katy replies, grinning. “I’m actually playing this festival called the Sunny Hill Festival!”
The Sunny Hill Festival is organized each year by Dua and her father. While Dua typically performs at the event, she also books a wide variety of international talent.
“Oh my God! You’re coming to my hometown, KP!” yells Dua.
“I just wanna say thank you so much for inviting me to come there,” Katy says. “Because I have so many fans that I’m excited to meet. And of course, all of your fans as well. Are you gonna be there?”
Dua tells her, “I’m gonna be there, singing every single word!”
The Sunny Hill Festival runs from July 31 through Aug. 2, with Katy set to perform on opening night. Past Sunny Hill Festival performers have included Miley Cyrus, Calvin Harris, Bebe Rexha and Shawn Mendes.
Musical guest Violet Grohl performs on Wednesday, June 3, 2026Todd Owyoung/NBC
Violet Grohl made her solo TV debut Wednesday night on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.
The singer performed “Bug in the Cake,” a track off her recently released debut album, Be Sweet to Me.
While this may have been her TV debut as a solo artist, Violet has previously performed on TV with her rock star dad, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl.
Violet recently launched her first-ever headlining tour in Los Angeles. She’s due to play in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday. She also just added 18 new headlining shows, including stops in Boston, Milwaukee, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix and Denver. Tickets for all new shows go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. local time.
L-R: EWF’s Ralph Johnson, Philip Bailey and Verdine White and R: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson attend the ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’ opening night premiere during the 2026 Tribeca Festival, June 3, 2026 (Getty Images)
After dedicating the movie to all the members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers both past and present, “and most importantly,” to late EWF founder Maurice White, Questlove said, “I desperately wanted to figure out, how can I contribute to the chaos that we’re living in right now.”
He added, “This [film] allowed me to tell a metaphysical story about how nine individuals sort of tricked us into positivity. And that’s what I want you people to take from this.”
With commentary from Stevie Wonder, Barack and Michelle Obama, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Anderson .Paak, H.E.R., Jimmy Jam and Lionel Richie, the doc tells the story of how Maurice White, the product of a traumatic childhood, manifested his goal of creating “music for a universal audience” with a visionary blend of soul, funk, R&B, Afro-futurism, jazz and pop.
Over 100 million record sales, legendary concert tours, a string of hits and six Grammys followed, but so did financial issues and interpersonal struggles between Maurice and the other bandmembers.
The film also details EWF’s impact on fellow musicians: Stevie Wonder admits he ripped off EWF’s “Shining Star” for his own song “I Wish,” Michael Jackson showed up to EWF’s tour with a “yellow legal pad” to take notes, and Prince told EWF’s manager that after he saw the group live, he “wanted to quit.”
Following the screening, the current EWF lineup, including Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson and Verdine White, took the stage at New York’s Beacon Theatre with The Roots to perform “Shining Star,” “That’s the Way of the World” and, of course, “September.”
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung takes an oath during his inauguration at the National Assembly on June 04, 2025 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Anthony Wallace – Pool/Getty Images)
(SEOUL, South Korea) — South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party swept nationwide local elections Wednesday, tightening President Lee Jae Myung’s grip on power one year into his term, though the conservative opposition captured Seoul’s mayor’s office.
The vote drew 61% turnout, the highest for a local election in three decades.
Lee enters his second year Thursday with approval ratings around 60%, according to South Korea’s major pollsters. That is the second-highest at the one-year mark since 1987, behind only former President Moon Jae-in.
When South Koreans elected Lee a year ago, they did so in the wreckage of a constitutional crisis after then-President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, vowing to “eradicate the anti-state forces.”
He sent troops toward the National Assembly to stop lawmakers from voting it down. The attempt failed within hours, and Yoon was impeached and removed by the Constitutional Court four months later, triggering the snap election that made Lee president.
Governing out loud
Lee has made the presidency unusually public. He live-streams weekly cabinet meetings, a first in Korean history, and his office briefs on camera far more than its predecessor.
Lee also uses social media to announce policy, rebut coverage he disputes, take questions and air his opinions — often without the vetting a formal statement would get. Aides call it a deliberate effort to reach citizens directly rather than through the traditional layers of staff that usually filter a president.
“Unlike politicians before him, he’s citizen-friendly — clearly distinct,” said Park Myoung-ho, a political science professor at Dongguk University.
His style has drawn criticism, however. In May, Lee used social media to attack Starbucks Korea over a promotion that critics linked to a 1980 massacre of pro-democracy protesters, branding the company “low-grade profiteers” guilty of “gutter-level behavior.”
“Given how much power a president holds, it’s too direct and too unfiltered,” said Lee Hyun-woo, who teaches political process at Sogang University and warned that the president’s posts are often misread because Koreans are used to presidents speaking in measured, formal language.
A record-breaking market
The benchmark KOSPI, which bottomed out near 2,300 in April 2025 after President Donald Trump’s tariffs, has surged to a record high above 8,700, blowing past Lee’s campaign pledge to reach 5,000. The rally has been catalyzed by a global boom in semiconductors and AI infrastructure that has lifted companies like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
But rising share prices have not reached many ordinary households across the country and home prices around Seoul are starting to climbing again and is testing one of Lee’s central promises.
Walking the line between Washington and Beijing
Lee’s central foreign-policy bet has been that South Korea no longer has to choose between its U.S. alliance and its largest trading partner, China — an approach his government calls “national-interest-centered pragmatism” — and within seven months of taking office, he had held summits with the leaders of the United States, China and Japan.
“On foreign policy, he’s done better than expected,” said Shin Yul, a political science and diplomacy professor at Myongji University.
But the results have been mixed. Lee repaired ties with Japan, but his January state visit to Beijing largely fell flat.
His pragmatism faced a major test in February when the war between Iran and a U.S.-Israeli coalition threatened the Strait of Hormuz, the route for much of South Korea’s oil imports.
Lee’s government leaned on national reserves, increased purchases of U.S. crude and secured replacement supplies from outside the region. A senior presidential official said the effort, together with the market’s resilience, helped keep Lee’s approval ratings steady through the spring.
Two presidents, two reckonings
In February, a Seoul court sentenced former President Yoon to life in prison for the martial-law attempt; his former defense minister got 30 years. To Lee’s supporters it was accountability for an assault on democracy. To Yoon’s base, it felt like political revenge.
But Lee carries his own legal shadow. He took office facing five criminal trials, including corruption, subornation of perjury and illegal fund transfers to North Korea, which were all frozen once he became president.
His Democratic Party then went further by pushing a special counsel that could cancel the charges against him outright — a move Lee declined to endorse or oppose publicly.
To Shin, the silence was strategic. Lee’s side, he said, “will try to get the charges dropped,” likely using the special counsel “to pursue cancellation of the cases against him.”
The push drew public backlash and many analysts read the local-election result as a warning from voters wary of a governing party clearing its own leader.
“This may be President Lee’s Achilles’ heel,” said Park. “I suspect he himself feels a real burden over it.”
For Lee Hyun-woo, the principle is simple: “Serving well and being remembered as a great president, and paying for crimes committed in the past, are entirely separate matters.”
ABC News’ Hakyung Kate Lee contributed to this report.
(FAIRFIELD, Calif.) — A teenager was killed and three people were wounded, including an 11-year-old, when gunfire erupted outside a high school graduation ceremony in Northern California, according to police.
The shooting took place at about 7:15 p.m. local time Wednesday in the parking lot of Fairfield High School after a ceremony ended there for Sem Yeto High School graduates, the Fairfield Police Department said.
Four victims were shot, police said. An 18-year-old died while an 11-year-old, a 20-year-old and a 25-year-old were injured, police said.
It’s not clear if the 18-year-old was a graduating student.
There is no ongoing threat to the community, police said.
Authorities did not immediately comment on the suspect or suspects involved.
The Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District said in a statement, “Our thoughts are with the individuals affected and as soon as we have more details we will share that.”
ABC News’ Bennett Garcia contributed to this report.
Fuel prices are displayed at a gas station in Brooklyn on June 01, 2026, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORKI) –Drivers stung by high gas prices have enjoyed some welcome relief over the last couple of weeks, even as the impact of the Iran war continues to choke off oil supply.
The national average price of a gallon of gas stood at $4.26 on Wednesday, marking a decline of 30 cents, or 6.5%, since a recent peak on May 21.
Still, prices remain well above where they clocked in before a historic oil shock set off by the war. In late February, the average gallon of gas ran less than $3.
The dropoff in gas prices owes to a decline in oil costs over the latter part of last month, which coincided with a slump in demand following Memorial Day weekend, some analysts said.
Still, they cautioned, gas prices may rise again as oil prices jump and the war shows little sign of an imminent resolution. If the war continues, some analysts said, gas price could top $5 a gallon by next month.
“It’s so volatile,” Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University, told ABC News. “If the war ended, prices would likely go down. But if it continues, you’ll see prices go up.”
In Georgia, the state with the lowest average gas prices, a gallon costs about $3.79, AAA data shows. In all, the AAA data says six states currently sell gas at or below an average price of $4 per gallon.
By contrast, the cost of a gallon of gas in California stands at $5.99, making it the state with the highest prices, AAA data shows. Even in California, however, the average price has fallen about 10 cents over the past week.
At the outset of the war, gasoline prices surged in response to Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime trading route that facilitates the transport of about one-fifth of global crude supply.
Oil prices began to fall in mid-May, however, as Iran and the U.S. appeared willing to strike an agreement that would reopen the strait. Crude oil is the main ingredient in auto fuel, accounting for more than half of the price paid at the pump, according to the federal U.S. Energy Information Administration.
On Friday, U.S. oil prices fell as low as about $86 a barrel, marking a drop of about 20% over a 10-day stretch.
“Gas prices have seen a big push because crude prices have dropped. Crude prices have dropped largely because the president has been indicating that we’re close to an agreement with Iran,” Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston, told ABC News.
The U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum, meaning the country produces more oil than it consumes. But since oil prices are set on a global market, U.S. prices move in response to swings in worldwide supply and demand.
Oil prices have ticked up in recent days, but they remain below $100 a barrel. As long as oil prices remain under that benchmark, gas prices may continue to hold steady or even decline, Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at Dow Jones Energy, told ABC News.
A near-term drop in gas prices appears possible because gas sellers are holding onto unusually large profit margins, meaning they could reduce retail prices even if their input costs maintain current levels, Cinquegrana said. Over the past two years, the average margin for sellers came in at about 34 cents per gallon, he added, but it currently stands at 50 cents per gallon.
“There’s still some room for gas prices to move down,” Cinquegrana said.
Looking weeks or months into the future, however, analysts cautioned about a rise in oil and gasoline prices unless normal tariff resumes in the Strait of Hormuz.
“It’s still possible later this summer, even ahead of July 4, we could see the national average pass $5 a gallon,” Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, told ABC News Live on Monday.
“We could be seeing much higher gas prices in very short order if the strait doesn’t reopen,” he added.
Herd of cows on the field (Kinga Krzeminska/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins confirmed the detection of New World screwworm in a cow in Texas after the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned Wednesday that the parasitic fly may have arrived in the mainland U.S after moving north from countries in Central America and Mexico, which have been dealing with an outbreak in livestock since at least 2022.
Rollins said that the screwworm was detected in a three-week-old bovine in Zavala County, Texas. According to the Department of Agriculture, the larvae were identified in the animal’s umbilical area, and said that, so far, “there have been no further detections” of the screwworm in the U.S.
“USDA and Texas Animal Health officials are taking immediate action to contain and eradicate NWS from the area,” Rollins added. The Department of Agriculture confirmed that they formed a unified Incident Command Team with the Texas Animal Health Commission and is deploying personnel to the area.
New World screwworm (NWS) is a species of parasitic flies that feed on live tissue — typically livestock. Human infections are quite rare and U.S. health officials have previously noted the risk to public health is very low but spread to livestock could decimate the cattle industry.
The name refers to the way in which maggots screw themselves into the tissue of animals with their sharp mouth hooks, causing extensive damage and often leading to death.
In August 2025, the U.S. reported the first human case of NWS in the country in an international traveler. The individual recovered and there was no evidence of further spread.
Screwworm was largely eradicated in livestock for decades in the U.S. through a technique in which male screwworm flies are sterilized and then released into the environment to mate with females until the population dies out. The U.S. officials are currently releasing 100 million sterile flies a week in the U.S. and Mexico.
Since eradication in 1966, the flies have been spotted domestically in isolated outbreaks through the American southwest in the 1970s and the Florida Keys in 2016.
People who travel to outbreak areas, spend time among livestock animals, sleep outdoors and have an open wound are at greater risk of becoming infested with screwworm, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes.
According to a press release from the Department of Agriculture, actions will include a 12.5-mile “infested zone” around the detection area, along with quarantines, movement controls and additional surveillance.
The department also said it would expedite the targeted release of sterile New World screwworm files from the ground, a tactic that was used successfully to stop the 2016 outbreak in the Florida Keys. The department said this would be in addition to the 4 million sterile flies per week currently being released by air in the area.
Earlier on Wednesday, Rollins assured Americans that the “food supply is 100% safe” amid potential disruptions to the U.S. cattle supply due to NWS.
A horse, named Detail, who was unable to compete due to a stabbing injury. (Obtained by ABC News)
(LAS VEGAS) — The teenage girl accused of stabbing three horses is due in court for a hearing on Thursday as prosecutors hope to move her case to adult court.
The girl — who was in Las Vegas for the National Barrel Horse Association’s Professional’s Choice Vegas Super Show — is accused of attacking three horses in a barn early Saturday, according to Las Vegas police and the NBHA.
She allegedly had access to the barn and authorities believe she may have used a knife to wound the horses, authorities said.
The horses’ injuries were non-life-threatening but the wounds did keep the animals from competing in the event, which took place over the weekend, according to police.
The teenager was arrested for 12 counts of willful/malicious kill/maim/torture animal — horse and three counts of felony malicious destruction of private property over $5,000, authorities said.
The Clark County District Attorney’s office said Tuesday that it wants the teen charged in adult court.
“These allegations involve deliberate acts of extreme cruelty against defenseless animals and have had a significant impact on the victims, the owners, and the broader equestrian community,” DA Steve Wolfson said in a statement.
A separate hearing will be scheduled for a judge to determine if the case should be moved to adult court, the DA’s office said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, during a dinner Wednesday evening, announced his intent to nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the post permanently.
In a video shared on social media by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, Trump is seen in the Rose Garden saying that he will instruct his team to start the process to formally nominate Blanche to the post on Thursday.
Earlier, Trump’s announcement was confirmed to ABC News by two sources at the dinner.
Blanche, who was once Trump’s personal attorney, served as the Department of Justice’s deputy attorney general until the president tapped him to serve as acting attorney general following Pam Bondi’s ouster.
Trump hinted at the move in a pre-taped interview with the program “Pod Force One” on Wednesday, saying that he thinks Blanche will be nominated to the attorney general position.
“I wanted to see how he’s received, you know, we put him as acting, and he’s done a very good job, but I’ve known him a long time,” Trump said.
In recent weeks, Blanche has been at the center of the controversy over the Justice Department’s so-called $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” ostensibly established to benefit the president’s allies.
On Tuesday, Blanche told Congress that the department was “not moving forward with the fund.”
The move came after heavy pressure from Republican congressional leadership and marked a significant defeat for Blanche, who had spent the past two weeks seeking to defend the $1.776 billion fund while refusing to rule out the prospect that settlements could be paid out to defendants who joined in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — including those who had been convicted for assaulting law enforcement.
But on Wednesday, the president himself admitted he did not know what the fund’s future would be after a federal judge temporarily blocked it.
“I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know,” Trump said when pressed on whether the plan was truly dead.
“The weaponization fund, as far as I’m concerned, was a beautiful thing,” he added.
Before Blanche told lawmakers the administration was nixing the fund, several Senate Republicans had balked at the plan, telling him they would not be able to pass Trump’s legislative agenda until the issue was resolved and even raised concerns about losing in the upcoming, high-stakes midterm elections as a result of the controversial settlement fund.
As acting attorney general, Blanche also secured the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over his post of seashells that the Justice Department claims amounted to a threat against the president.
Blanche has shrugged off the suggestion that he would use the Justice Department to more aggressively target perceived foes of the president.
Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe are rolling along into a new collaboration. Deadline reports Groff has joined the cast of the Vietnam War thriller Trust the Man, where he’ll act alongside Radcliffe. This reunites the actors after they starred and both won Tonys for their performances in the most recent Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. Trust the Man will be written and directed by Will Graham …
The trailer for Anya Taylor-Joy’s new limited series Lucky has arrived. Apple TV is set to release the show’s first two episodes on July 15, and will follow with new episodes every Wednesday until the Aug. 19 finale. Lucky is based on The New York Times bestseller by Marissa Stapley, which follows a multimillion-dollar heist that goes sideways. Starring alongside Taylor-Joy are Annette Bening, Timothy Olyphant, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Drew Starkey …
Tickets for Supergirl are now on sale. DC Studios co-head James Gunn made the announcement in a post shared to Instagram on Wednesday. “Get tickets now and tag who you’re bringing to see #Supergirl,” he captioned his announcement post. Milly Alcock plays the titular cousin of Superman, Kara Zor-El, in the new film, which is directed by Craig Gillespie. It flies into theaters on June 26 …
