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Global News, a Canadian news outlet, reported that astronomers detected an explosion over fifteen times the size of our galaxy. This makes it the biggest blast ever recorded.

The massive explosion occurred hundreds of millions of light-years away, where a supermassive black hole emitted large amounts of energy and matter while devouring a galaxy, blowing a hole in space that’s 2.58 million light-years across. It wiped out trillions of stars and tore through the surrounding galaxies. Researchers spotted the hole from the colossal gap it left in the middle of a cluster of galaxies.

The blast occurred in the Ophiucus cluster, a collection of galaxies some 390 million light-years away. It’s unclear exactly when the explosion happened, but researchers say it was definitely millions of years ago.

The cashless economy has become increasingly prevalent in developed countries such as the U.S. and Japan. Consumers are incentivized to use debit or credit cards through discounts and freebies, and banks and credit card companies collect information on people’s spending habits.

Some stores in the U.S. have decided to stop accepting cash from customers altogether, which has resulted in a backlash. Millions of people, most of whom live below the poverty line, do not have a bank account and only deal in cash. Advocates have argued that the cashless economy discriminates against poor people and the homeless.

American cities and states have started banning cashless stores on the grounds that they are discriminatory. San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New Jersey have recently passed legislation forcing stores to accept all types of legal tender.

The Japan Times reports that the number of hikikomori in Japan, or those choosing complete withdrawal from all social interactions, has grown over the past few years. Psychiatrist Tamaki Saito, an expert on the subject, has stated that there might be some 2 million hikikomori in Japan, more than the official government estimate of 1.15 million. He also warned that the total number of Japanese foregoing social interactions might be as high as 10 million.

Official government estimates state that 613,000 hikikomori are between the ages of 40 and 64, raising the question of just how many elderly hikikomori will survive after their parents, who provide for all their daily needs, become ill or pass away.

For nearly a century, Kowloon Walled City stood out as a rare modern example of an ungoverned territory. When Great Britain took Hong Kong from the Chinese, they left a Chinese enclave in Kowloon, near Hong Kong island. As the 20th century unfolded, consecutive Chinese governments neglected the governance of the enclave, the British refused to get involved, and it took on a life of its own.

By the 1980s, nearly 50,000 people lived in 300 illegally built structures connected together by an interconnecting maze of passageways and staircases. Drugs and prostitution were common in the walled city, and people from nearby neighborhoods would come to visit cheap unlicensed doctors and dentists. Residents cooked and baked goods that they sold to vendors outside the enclave.

The Japan Times reported that most world leaders chose to fly to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, but Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg made headlines for deciding to sail instead.

This has prompted a gathering of tourism executives to ponder how to address the fact that flying adds to the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming. According to data cited by the Air Transport Action Group, in 2019, commercial flying accounted for about 2 percent of global carbon emissions and about 12 percent of transport emissions. By 2020, emissions from global international aviation are projected to be about 70 percent higher than in 2005 due to rising travel demand.

Goldman Sachs has instituted a new diversity program based not on quotas but on hard data trends that uncovered why even progressive recruitment out of college hasn’t solved the problem. Women and minorities, it turned out, even when hired at the same rates as their white male counterparts, kept falling out of the pipeline. Attrition was enormous.

According to the data, both populations were more likely to quit than their white male peers and were simultaneously more likely to be replaced by white men moving laterally from another company. Additionally, they were less likely to be promoted and less likely to even be considered for promotion.

You've probably heard that automation is becoming commonplace in more and more fields of human endeavor. You may also have heard that the last bastions of human exclusivity will probably be creativity and artistic judgment. Robots will be washing our windows long before they start creating masterpieces. Right?

I visited Rutgers University's Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where Ahmed Elgammal's team has created artificial-intelligence software that generates beautiful, original paintings.

I found these examples of robotically generated art to be polished and appealing. But something kept nagging at me: What happens in a world where effort and scarcity are no longer part of the definition of art?