📈 The Peak on Saturday

Good morning. Canadian alt-rock icon Alanis Morissette was named as one of this year’s inductees to the Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside Taylor Swift, Kenny Loggins, Tricky Stewart, and Kiss’s Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. 

Anyone who can pen a diss track as powerful as You Oughta Know deserves a spot in the annals of songwriting history. 

—Quinn Henderson, Taylor Scollon

🏥 Hospitals using a remote-controlled surgery robot could save ~$2 million a year, cutting the costs of flying in specialists. (Remote Surgeons)

🪖 Ottawa’s $82 billion defence spending commitment could trickle down to secondary industries, per a recent TD report. (Invest In Defence)

🏒 Average NHL ticket sales on SeatGeek jumped 24% between the week of Heated Rivalry’s premiere and the week of its penultimate episode. (Heating Up)

🚗 Chery is angling to become the first Chinese automaker to sell mainstream passenger vehicles in Canada following the lifting of punitive tariffs. (EV Pie) 

🤳 Snap settled a social media addiction lawsuit just a week before it was set to face a landmark trial alongside Meta, TikTok and YouTube. (Algorithm Trial)

After more than a decade on the lam, Ryan Wedding is finally in police custody.

What happened: The former Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin was arrested by Mexican authorities on Thursday night. Wedding, who was one of the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives, faces a litany of charges in the U.S. related to drug trafficking and murder — including allegedly ordering the killing of a federal witness who had turned on him.

Catch-up: Wedding’s story is ready-made for a future Netflix miniseries. Born into a family of elite skiers, he was a snowboarding prodigy and represented Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics. But after placing a lacklustre 24th in his event, he left it behind for a life of crime.

Why it matters: Authorities estimate Wedding’s operation moved 60 tonnes of cocaine and 60 tonnes of fentanyl annually to L.A., with product making its way to Canada. A former drug enforcement agent told CBC News that his arrest is “a blow to the drug trade.”—QH

🇨🇺 The U.S. wants to install a new leader in Cuba. The Trump administration is looking to replicate its Venezuelan intervention in Cuba, and is actively searching for government insiders who could replace the island’s current leaders. Cuba’s economy has been struggling for years, and U.S. officials believe it is nearing collapse. (Wall Street Journal)

🇺🇦 Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia are meeting this weekend. Officials from Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. are in Abu Dhabi for negotiations to bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The discussions this weekend are reportedly focused on Russia’s territorial demands, which include the entirety of eastern Donbas, a key Ukrainian industrial region. Ukraine has refused to turn over any territory it still controls. (Reuters)

🇪🇺 The EU voted to delay a trade pact with South America. European lawmakers voted to postpone implementing a free trade deal with the Mercosur bloc of South American countries, potentially adding years of delay to an agreement that’s already been in the works for 25 years. Once implemented (if ever!), the pact would create one of the world’s largest free trade zones, encompassing more than 700 million people. Despite the parliamentary vote and staunch opposition from European farmers, an EU diplomat said the deal could take effect provisionally in the spring. (Reuters)

🇵🇹 Portugal is banning Polymarket. Portugal’s gambling regulator ordered Polymarket to shut down in the country, saying it was operating without a licence and facilitating wagers on political events, which is illegal in the country. More than 30 countries have now banned or restricted Polymarket, including Singapore, Belgium, and Italy. (CoinDesk)

🇮🇩 67,800-year-old rock art discovered in Indonesia. Archaeologists say the outline of a hand found on a cave wall in Indonesia could be the world’s oldest known rock art. Scientists say the print was most likely made by the ancestors of Indigenous Australians, and that the finding is evidence that northern Australia was settled at least 65,000 years ago. (Guardian)

Cambodia is feeling the heat to wind down one of its top industries: scamming.

Driving the news: Thousands of people are estimated to have escaped from multiple Cambodian scam compounds throughout the past week, according to Amnesty International. The compounds are hubs for online fraud, especially crypto and romance-investment scams. 

Zoom out: Cambodia has grown to become, as one report put it, "likely the absolute global epicenter” of cyber-fraud in recent years. The industry is run by organized crime groups that lure unwitting job hunters to compounds where they’re then kept against their will. 

Why it matters: The recent flood of escapees comes as international powers push Cambodia to eradicate an illegal industry that generates, per one 2024 estimate, over US$42 billion in ill-gotten gains annually.

Yes, but: Even under mounting international pressure, Cambodia may be reluctant to get rid of an industry that has grown so lucrative — particularly when so many officials from its authoritarian government enjoy ample kickbacks.—QH

Eat a Greek yogurt ‘cheesecake’. This viral hack is an easy way to parlay your sweet tooth into some extra protein. And we mean easy: it’s just putting Biscoff cookies in Greek yogurt and refrigerating it overnight. But close your eyes and you can imagine it’s cheesecake. Here’s the recipe. 

Read The Elements of Power by Nicolas Niarchos. In what’s shaping up to be one of the most impactful business books of the year, this debut tome sets out to detail the unsavoury inner workings of the modern mineral supply chain as nations race toward electrification.

Watch the year's Academy Award nominees. Oscar season has begun, and you’ve got until March 2 to catch up on all (or at least some) of this year’s nominees. From a ping-pong drama to a dissident dispatch from Iran, this guide tells you where you can watch every one.

Listen to Extra Strength by Only God Forgives. The sophomore album from this Toronto lo-fi indie outfit is, quite simply, a really fun time — a tidy collection of deceptively catchy jangle punk and slacker rock tracks imbued with a strong sense of playfulness.—QH

Congratulations to the winners of last week's cartoon caption contest and thanks to everyone who submitted!

Want to see this week's cartoon and try your hand at another caption? Click here and give us your best witticism.

Get ready for a game bonanza: The Peak’s Saturday Crossword, the daily sudoku, and a bonus mini — please keep reporting any bugs!

Then, a fake headline has escaped containment and you need to track it down. 

Keep scrolling for the answer.

Hey baby, get hep to the fact that #2 is a sham headline.