Numlock News: June 30, 2026 • BTS, Drones, Cyborgs,

Jun 30, 2026

By Walt Hickey

BTS

BTS has notched their second consecutive month as the top tour in the world as of May, grossing $127.8 million selling 641,000 tickets across 12 shows entirely in North America, with nine shows in the United States and three in Mexico. Though this particular chart only goes back to 2019, they have now beaten out the Rolling Stones for the biggest monthly gross by a group. So far since the Arirang World Tour kicked off in April, the tour has grossed $204 million and sold 1.1 million tickets. It has more than 50 shows to go in the year and is probably just days away from beating the $213.9 million notched in BTS’s Love Yourself World Tour in 2018-19.

Eric Frankenberg, Billboard

Equestrian

Former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt left baseball to bet on a different horse in the sports investment space, putting his weight behind the Premier Jumping League, an equestrian competition. The league announced on Monday that it has managed to sell its very first franchise for an eye-popping price of $50 million. Even among nascent sports leagues that cater mainly to rich guys, that number stands out: SailGP franchises were selling for $5 million to $10 million in the series’ first two seasons, the Pro Padel League’s New York team was valued at $10 million in 2025 and Major League Pickleball only recently got its franchise expansion fees into the eight figures when the Palm Beach Royals paid $16 million to join.

Justin Birnbaum, Sportico

Drone Shows

It’s an exciting time for the companies competing in the drone show business, as technical and equipment advances and robust audience interest have combined for a fiercely competitive industry catering to entertainment in the sky. Even the American industry concedes that a lot of the action is in China — currently the largest drone show record is being traded between Chinese outfits, and stands now at 33,615 drones — but all kinds of events are buying up drone programs, from municipal holiday celebrations to church events. The cost of this kind of show scales with the number of drones flying that day, and generally comes in at $150 to $200 per drone.

Sheon Han, Wired

Cyborgs

In 2021, researchers first demonstrated that Madagascar hissing cockroaches could be remotely controlled by electrodes implanted in the cerci organ, and by 2024 the team was able to get a swarm of 20 such cyborg insects to coordinate, with the goal of developing biological robots that could be released after natural disasters to search for survivors. Cockroaches, while not exactly lovable, could be viewed as a bit of an out-of-the-box platform for such applications, the authors argue. Now the Nanyang Technological University team has taken things further, and developed a way for the roaches to operate underwater. They’ve 3D-printed a watertight resin suit with a tank of hydrogen peroxide and manganese dioxide that links to the spiracles that enable the cockroaches to breathe the oxygen that results from the reaction. This means that the roaches can move underwater with remarkable speed; on land they clocked the cyborg roaches going 87.5 millimeters per second, and in the water, the roaches moved at 78.4 millimeters per second. That will be an important figure to remember when things goes terribly wrong and technologically-empowered insects attempt to enact their revenge.

Matthew Sparkes, New Scientist

Colorado River

Four states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — that constitute the Upper Basin states of the Colorado River have pumped the brakes on a deal that would bring water from the river to Native American communities that are owed a share of the river. It has been 118 years since the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government indeed owes tribes water, but as it stands, there remains the single largest outstanding unresolved claim to the river’s water for the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe and San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe. Currently, 22 tribes have recognized rights to use 3.2 million acre-feet of water, which comes in at 22 percent to 26 percent of the water; many tribes don’t fully use that recognized right while these other tribes have negotiated, sued and bargained for years to get the water they are owed. A deal was struck between the Navajo and Hopi — who have had a somewhat contentious relationship in the past — and Arizona, but the Upper Basin states balked at the proposed settlement and have since worked to stymie a resolution in Congress.

Mark Olalde, ProPublica, and Alex Hager, KJZZ News-Phoenix

Romance

For years, first-run romance television content was evenly split between scripted romance television and unscripted stuff, but lately the scripted stuff has been on a tear, accounting for 83 percent of commissions in the first half of 2026. Of those, 40 percent are literary adaptations. Romance popularity is up seven percentage points to 49 percent as of 2026 among audiences 18 to 24. The shift lately has been the literal switch away from reality and towards fantasy. It seems audiences are drawn to the fully-plotted bodice ripper (or hockey sweater-ripper, depending on your tastes) adaptations and away from the messy, built-in-the-edit gamified reality show romances where 25 people who want Instagram followers pretend to compete for the affections of someone who we will soon find out posted something heinous in 2017.

Erik Gruenwedel, Media Play News

Russia

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is beginning to have serious ramifications domestically within Russia, as new Ukrainian tech that can destroy Russian infrastructure even in Moscow has led to economic and psychological ramifications, capped off by a mid-June attack that disabled the largest oil refinery in the capital through 2027. Ukraine’s efforts have reduced refining capacity by an estimated 700,000 barrels per day, and over half of Russia’s regions are rationing fuel. This has caused other issues: high inflation, a labor shortage for the first time in modern history, inevitable government spending cuts and residential construction down 40 percent in Q1. It’s all warning signs for economic trouble that has rattled many among Russia’s elite. Complicating matters further is that ending the war might not actually solve this problem, as the economic shock of cutting all the government money that had been pouring into defense industries might cause an even larger problem.

Peter Frankopan, Foreign Policy

If you subscribe, you get a Sunday edition! It’s fun, and supporters keep this thing ad-free. This is the best way to support a thing you like to read:

Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today.

Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news.

Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement.

Previous Sunday subscriber editions: Overflowing Cups · Entangled States · Landslide · Mycorrhizal · James Bond · Divination Equipment · Planet Money ·