Weakest link

Good morning. We have good news for puzzle fans: we’re launching a mid-sized weekday crossword. In addition to the mini, you’ll now also get a larger crossword in your newsletter. 

We’re going to run this as a pilot for a few months to see if enough people play to justify the cost. Try it out and let us know what you think.

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Markets: Oil prices dropped substantially yesterday, a development that bolstered investor sentiments, which in turn helped Canada’s main stock index rebound from Friday’s rough outing.

Telesat’s astronomical goals are being weighed down by astronomical debt.

Driving the news: Canadian satellite operator Telesat was offered a refinancing deal from its top lenders ahead of a December 6 debt repayment deadline when it will owe them around $2.3 billion. Telesat has said it doesn’t have the operating revenue to cover this tab.

Catch-up: Telesat is building a low Earth orbit satellite constellation called Lightspeed meant to compete with Starlink. However, the debt situation has put the company in crisis. The lenders offering this deal also sued the company this year, arguing Telesat illegally moved 62% of Lightspeed equity — its top asset — to a subsidiary that the lenders can’t access.

Why it matters: Some analysts believe Telesat is at real risk of defaulting come December. That’s a big issue for Ottawa, which has put a lot of eggs in Telesat’s basket, investing billions in Lightspeed and contracting Telesat to build its Arctic communications network.

Zoom out: The Telesat situation could have ripple effects across the Canadian investment space. At September’s foreign investment summit, Ottawa promoted the company. If it proves to be an unsafe investment, it could cast a pall over other Canadian projects.—QH

More cyberattacks strike European supermarkets. Several retailers across Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden reported that the temperatures of their refrigerators and freezers were raised overnight, causing food waste. These incidents echo similar cyberattacks carried out in France last month. (Guardian)  

Lockheed Martin buys Nova Scotia defence firm. The U.S. defence giant closed its $3.45 billion acquisition of undersea defence company Ultra Maritime. The firm, originally founded in 1947, makes sonar equipment and torpedo defence systems for anti-submarine warfare. Lockheed Martin is investing heavily in Nova Scotia’s defence industry. (The Canadian Press)

Snap settles social media addiction lawsuit. Snap settled a suit brought by two teens accusing it of addictive design that contributed to their depression and eating disorders. While Meta, TikTok, and YouTube had already settled similar suits with the plaintiffs, Snap was expected to go to court with CEO Evan Spiegel taking the stand. Guess they decided that wasn’t a smart call. (TechCrunch)

📡 What else is on our radar?

Cale Makar makes reading the ice look effortless. The Colorado Avalanche star says it’s anything but. “I don’t think anybody has the instincts right away.” It took years of practice to build.

Small businesses work much the same way. Through Intuit QuickBooks’ partnership with the NHL, Makar has met plenty of owners building something from scratch, and he gives them a whole lot of credit. Nobody gets there alone, and nobody gets there overnight.

In our latest feature, you’ll find:

62% of Peak readers plan to start a business in the coming year. Consider this your sign.

Grab a coffee and read the full story here.

“It's been a hell of a year,” is how Ellen Ellis described her and her three crewmates’ 378 days spent in isolation on NASA’s simulated mission to Mars. Between October 19 of last year and this past Saturday, the crew spent all of their time in a 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed habitat simulating mission tasks as if they were really flying 225 million kilometres away. 

Why it matters: Insights gleaned from this mission, and the previous one, which occurred between 2023 and 2024, will help NASA prepare future astronauts for real long-duration missions — first to the moon (NASA is aiming for early 2028) and, eventually, Mars itself.

Screen time probably isn’t great for adult brains (scroll TikTok for an hour and see how you feel). A new study is adding to a growing body of evidence that it’s really bad for kids’ brains.

What happened: Researchers at Western University tracked language development and screen time habits in 70 Canadian toddlers and found that more screen time at the age of 2 was linked to weaker language skills. 

Why it matters: Research pointing to the harmful effects of screens on children’s development is piling up, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting parent behaviour much so far. 

Zoom out: There’s a growing push around the world to do something about kids and screens. France has made it illegal for daycares to expose kids under 3 to screens; Sweden’s schools are taking devices out of the classroom and moving back to physical textbooks; and Los Angeles has banned screens from classrooms before Grade 2.—TS

At Obasan’s Toronto showroom, you don’t have to buy one of their $6,000 organic mattresses on the spot. Instead, you lie down in a nap room, leave your email, and decide at home. It’s one way the independent Ottawa-based company is trying to do things differently in the rapidly consolidating, $3 billion mattress industry.

Read the full story.

Reusable rockets grab headlines. Starlink’s 13.6 million subscribers show SpaceX’s commercial scale.

If you're investing because you believe in SpaceX's future, Global X SpaceX PowerStock ETF (SPCP) provides ~33% additional exposure to that view. 
 
Built-in leverage gives you more exposure without a personal margin loan. CAD hedging helps reduce currency impact. Unlike income-focused ETFs, SPCP doesn’t use covered calls that may limit upside participation.

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Welcome back to The Peak’s Assignment Desk, where our readers (that’s you!) get a say in the stories we publish. At the start of each month, we’ll give you three feature ideas, and you get final say on which one gets written. Think of it as your turn in the editor’s seat, and it’s open to all of our subscribers for the first few rounds. After that, it will be a Premium-only perk.

🤑 US$17 billion. Anthropic’s reported revenue for last quarter, a staggering twelvefold increase from the same period last year. Perhaps even more staggering is that Anthropic unveiled its plans to spend $895 billion in the coming years. These numbers were disclosed in an updated IPO filing; the company plans to go public before American Thanksgiving.

^{*This is sponsored content.}

It’s time to play the mini-crossword, the daily sudoku, Codebreaker, and Who’s Who! And don’t forget to try our new mid-sized crossword, too!