LOCAL telecommunications company Smart Communications has named K-pop boy group BTS as its newest endorser, continuing its trend of having popular Korean celebrities as brand ambassadors.

THERE is no doubt that we live in challenging times. But challenges can also lead to opportunities and lessons about how we might live our lives differently. Referencing the life-changing moment in which we are living, author and activist Arundhati Roy writes: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”

IN LINE with its ongoing exhibit “Cone of Concern,” the first solo exhibition of the South Korean artist Haegue Yang, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde presents an online workshop, free and open to the public.

FOR its 55th anniversary, local recording company Vicor Records is reissuing vinyls of Original Pilipino Music classics including those from Ric Segreto and VST & Company.

STREAMING services WeTV and iflix are opening 2021 with their newest Filipino original, Section St. Valentine: the Disappearance of Divine, a mystery thriller set within a fictional Manila International School where a group of students try to solve the sudden disappearance of one of their classmates.

LOS ANGELES — Rock producer Phil Spector, who changed the sound of pop music in the 1960s with his “Wall of Sound” recordings and was convicted of murder for the 2003 murder of a Hollywood actress, has died at age 81 of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to authorities and media reports.

WASHINGTON — The US Justice Department’s top antitrust official said on Friday that the administration will not scrap decades-old agreements with music licensing groups ASCAP and BMI that hold down costs for Spotify and others.

LOS ANGELES — If time is a flat circle, then it’s only fitting that a second Liam Neeson movie is ruling over the US box office during the pandemic. Months after his action thriller Honest Thief led domestic charts, another Neeson (you guessed it!) action thriller The Marksman has debut at No. 1 with $3.2 million in ticket sales.

Spotify offered the promise that, in the age of digital downloads, all artists would get paid for their music, and some would get paid a lot.

BEGINNING Jan. 18, GMA News TV’s drops its first locally produced daily primetime show, The Lost Recipe, a series headlined by Mikee Quintos and Kelvin Miranda.

FASHION’S power as social commentary has never been more evident than in this year’s first fashion show series, Milan Men’s Fashion Week Fall-Winter 2021. It’s ongoing until Jan. 19, all democratically shown through cameramoda.it, the website of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion. Every seat in the world thus becomes a front-row seat.

ONE CHAMPIONSHIP and Bruce Lee LLC have teamed up for a limited-edition collection of lifestyle and performance wear celebrating the life of the iconic martial artist.