In a surprise move, Canada’s southern neighbour is pumping the brakes on its booming natural gas business. 

What happened: U.S. President Joe Biden is pausing approvals for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities in the country, a move that is expected to have a ripple effect on the Canadian energy producers that rely on the U.S. to export their natural gas globally.

Electric car racing might not be popular enough for its own Netflix show (yet), but Formula E cars are blossoming into stars for the legacy automakers that own them. 

Driving the news: As the hype around Formula One continues to dominate the racing world, its less exciting but environmentally friendly sibling Formula E is becoming ground zero for the innovations that are fuelling the EV race off the track, according to Reuters.

 On this week’s episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we sat down with Dr. Allison Sekuler, the Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Rotman Research Institute and Vice-President of Research at Baycrest Health Sciences, to talk about how to slow our brains’ aging process.  

Between the U.S. S&P 500 and China's CSI 300, which major stock index would you guess is up 20% in the past year, and which one fell by 20%?  

Answer: The CSI 300 has lost more than a third of its value since 2020 and is entering its fourth consecutive year in the red.

Intrepid sailors, like Henry Hudson before them, are trying to make commercial Arctic shipping a thing. 

Driving the news: Drought in the Panama Canal and Houthi rebel attacks on cargo ships trying to pass through the Suez Canal have sent cargo deliveries plummeting and shipping costs skyrocketing. All of this turmoil has led to renewed interest in Arctic shipping routes. 

What is RSS?

A feed of content that users customize with updates from their favourite websites. They’d do this with a few lines of code provided by websites that could be added to something called an RSS reader. If you’re over 30, you might remember an orange-and-white logo on a lot of news websites and blogs — that’s where the code would be found. This helped outlets get stories in front of readers without them having to check a bunch of individual home pages.

The dollar signs tech companies once saw in video games are turning into pink slips.

What happened: Microsoft laid off 1,900 staff from its gaming division. Activision Blizzard — which Microsoft acquired in October after a long review by regulators — got the brunt of it, with smaller cuts at Xbox and ZeniMax, which operates developer and publisher Bethesda.

Ad agencies are moving fast and spending big to be some of AI’s early adopters.

What happened: Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s biggest advertising and communications holding companies, announced a €300 million AI investment over the next three years. That includes building Core AI, its own platform for creating and targeting ads, as well as adjusting strategies in real-time.

Canada’s relationship with India is getting icier than a car windshield post-snowstorm. 

What happened: For the first time, India has been publicly named as a potential foreign meddler in Canadian politics — with federal investigators now looking into the government's possible interference in the past two Canadian federal elections, according to Bloomberg.

After hitting more speed bumps than a driver in a school zone, the completion of the Trans Mountain pipeline (TMP) expansion is near. 

Driving the news: After narrowly avoiding a crushing regulatory blow, the TMP expansion will begin filling up with crude oil for the first time next month and is expected to start transporting oil in early April. By year’s end, it’ll be running at full capacity.

Thousands of Canadians have been left like a young Ashton Kutcher, dejectedly asking, “Dude, where’s my car?”

Driving the news: Authorities in Italy recovered 251 stolen vehicles from Canada — ready to be shipped to the Middle East — after completing a bust at one of Europe’s busiest ports. 

Here’s a brain teaser for you: Why are environmental and Indigenous groups rallying against a project that aims to be a key part of Canada’s net-zero transition? 

What happened: A Québec court is ruling on whether or not to stop the construction of Northvolt’s $7 billion EV battery plant outside of Montréal. The legal hurdle comes from an environmentalist group claiming the plant will harm important wetlands. 

The Bank of Canada’s path to its 2% inflation target seems to be getting a little clearer.

What happened: The BoC held the key interest rate at 5% again yesterday. According to Governor Tiff Macklem, the narrative is shifting from if the BoC will lower borrowing costs to when, with some economists predicting rate cuts by late spring. 

Like a super spy who awakens from a long cryogenic slumber (sorry, we just re-watched Austin Powers), Canada Post needs help getting with the times. 

Driving the news: Canada Post is selling Innovapost, its in-house IT wing, to Deloitte for an undisclosed sum. The move comes as the national mail carrier looks to improve its digital operations and capabilities, and find some way to stop hemorrhaging cash. 

COVID-19 vaccines gave mRNA research a big boost, and scientists have been exploring how it might be used to prevent and treat other diseases. But that’s trickier when it comes to cancer: things that kill cancer cells are generally pretty bad for all cells, and your fatty tissues deliver RNA throughout your body, instead of targeting it.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said numerous times that there aren’t enough computer chips out there to match his company’s goals, and it looks like he might be taking matters into his own hands.

Two people who seem eager to understand AI and how it will impact their work: Peak Tech readers, and Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne.

What happened: The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) released a new strategic plan, laying out its priorities for the next five years, and a key theme is improving the OPC’s understanding of emerging technologies like AI. The intention is to not only help the OPC better respond to the concerns of Canadians, but also provide better guidance to ensure privacy is considered as tech is developed — a framework known as privacy by design.

Taking a page out of a vaccine developer’s playbook, a Boston biotech company is making major strides towards a breakthrough cancer treatment. 

Driving the news: More than three years after the messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule gained popularity for its role in COVID-19 vaccines, Strand Therapeutics will test a cancer-fighting mRNA treatment that can more precisely treat cancerous tumours, according to WIRED.

Accepting a new pal into your friend group can sometimes be a weird process. Sweden and Turkey know this from experience.   

What happened: Turkey has voted to approve Sweden’s NATO bid after playing hardball for about 20 months over the presence of Turkish separatist groups that are operating in the country. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to sign the decision into law this week.