Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday

Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday

Oct 2, 2019

The staggering value of K-pop band BTS

Erica Pandey, author of @Work

BTS performs in Las Vegas at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards. Photo: Todd Williamson/NBC/Getty Images

The uber-popular Korean pop boy band BTS accounts for $4.65 billion of South Korea's GDP, per the Hollywood Reporter.

Why it matters: That makes the band as valuable to South Korea's economy as multinational giants like Samsung and Hyundai.

A couple more crazy stats:

BTS sold 300,000 tickets for a U.S. tour in minutes, crashing Ticketmaster. And the seats cost an average of $452 each, notes the Hollywood Reporter.
The band's twitter account generates around 4 times as much engagement as President Trump's account, reports Axios' Neal Rothschild.

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Felix Salmon, Ina Fried

1 hour ago - Economy & Business

The ransomware pandemic

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

"We are on the cusp of a global pandemic," said Christopher Krebs, the first director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in Congressional testimony last week. The virus causing the pandemic isn't biological, however. It's software.

Why it matters: Crippling a major U.S. oil pipeline this weekend initially looked like an act of war — but it's now looking like an increasingly normal crime, bought off-the-shelf from a "ransomware as a service" provider known as DarkSide.

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Sara Fischer, author of Media Trends

1 hour ago - Economy & Business

Hollywood's wakeup call

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Decades of failures around diversity and inclusion finally caught up with Hollywood Monday, when NBC made the unprecedented decision not to air the Golden Globes next year following backlash against the group that hosts the show.

Why it matters: NBC has been airing the event exclusively for decades. Its decision to pull back speaks to how big the backlash against the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) has become.

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Erica Pandey, author of @Work

1 hour ago - Health

There's a frenzy for summer school, but it may not be enough

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

Kids across the country have fallen behind after more than a year of interrupted, unstable and inequitable virtual school. And they'll need to go to summer school to catch up.

Yes, but: It's not that easy. Kids are demoralized, teachers are exhausted, and it'll take more than one summer to fix the pandemic's damage.

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