This year’s Oktoberfest celebrations could have a much chiller vibe, and it’s all thanks to some weed-loving lawmakers in Germany.

Driving the news: Germany is the latest country to legalize cannabis for recreational use, a move that lays the groundwork for commercial legalization by 2030 and opens the door for Canadian producers looking to cash in on weed sales within the EU’s biggest economy. 

Nowadays, you can’t even grab a sneaky little midday Mars bar without being silently judged by a dang machine.  

What happened: Students at the University of Waterloo are revolting against Mars-owned campus vending machines after discovering the machines were scanning users’ faces without their knowledge. 

Today in news that we’re sure politicians will take in super chill fashion, the federal justice minister unveiled the first draft of a long-awaited Online Harms Act.

Driving the news: The proposed legislation covers content posted to social media platforms, live streaming services, and some user-uploaded pornography sites. If passed, it would also create a new digital safety commission tasked with upholding rules, making recommendations, and receiving user complaints.  

Got a sweet tooth? Now might be a good time to replenish your personal Strategic Chocolate Reserve, because already-high prices for cocoa-based treats are only going up.

Driving the news: The chocolate industry is grappling with a record-breaking shortfall in cocoa production that’s pushed wholesale cocoa prices to an all-time high of US$6,400 per tonne.

In what’s probably the most rational decision the company’s made since changing its name from Jet Naked, Lynx Air has decided it’s time to throw in the towel. 

What happened: Budget airline Lynx Air officially stopped flying last night, winding down operations after just two years in the skies. It's the latest discount airline to fall flat in an increasingly difficult Canadian aviation market. 

 On this week’s episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets, makes a case for why he’s bullish about the year ahead in markets.  

Perhaps Canadian NHL teams looking to win the Stanley Cup could learn something from Japan’s stock market about breaking decades-long curses. 

What happened: This week, the Nikkei 225, Japan’s largest stock market index, rose to a record high for the first time in more than 34 years. It’s become the world’s best-performing major index so far in 2024, rising about 17.5% this year, and 42.4% over the past 12 months.

Nearly five months into a war between Israel and Hamas, officials in Israel, Egypt, the U.S., and Qatar are struggling to move towards a solution. 

What happened: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put forward a post-war blueprint for Gaza that calls for an indefinite Israeli security presence in the enclave.

What are AI tokens?

The smallest units of information that AI breaks words and sentences into to make them easier to process. How many tokens an AI can process at once is called a “context window,” and it can include multiple prompts and requests, letting a system consider several things you might have told it at once.

TL;DR: Reddit is coming to the stock market.

You know what they say: bot of all trades, master of none.

Menthol cigarette bans are helping make the phrase “smoke ’em if you got ’em” obsolete. 

Driving the news: A new study on the effects of menthol cigarette bans in Canada, several U.S. states, and certain EU countries found that 24% of menthol smokers quit smoking entirely within two years of a ban, with national menthol bans being even more effective.

Google’s newest AI model may be the company’s “most capable” yet, but it might need to re-take some history classes. 

What happened: Google has paused its Gemini AI model from generating images of people after it produced inaccurate gender and racial depictions of historical figures — a flaw the company says was an unintended consequence of prioritizing diversity in the model’s training. 

Like us trying to do spreadsheets while also taking a Zoom call, Canada’s pipelines are at full capacity.

Driving the news: Sure as the sun rises in the east, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion hit yet another delay, this time due to technical issues. The long-awaited expansion is now unlikely to meet its April start date but is still on track to begin operations next quarter. 

Nvidia just had the type of earnings call that makes investors’ eyes pop out of their sockets like a cartoon wolf. 

What happened: The chip designer shattered estimates by reporting a 265% surge in quarterly revenue and a 769% increase in its net income, as demand for its industry-leading AI chips continues to soar. You don’t need a six-figure MBA to know that that’s very good. 

A new army of robots is coming… but don’t worry, they’re not trying to take over the world. They’re just here to deliver your McDonald’s. 

What happened: Starting next month, some Tokyo residents will have their Uber Eats orders delivered by an adorable autonomous robot. Japan is already known as the home to many restaurant robot servers, but it’s the first international market to adopt robot delivery on Uber. 

If you stumble across a bottle of 2024 vintage B.C. wine when perusing the liquor store this year, we recommend you pick it up. It could be a collector’s item one day. 

Driving the news: There will be “an almost complete write-off” of B.C. wine this year after a cold snap that hit the province last month wiped out as much as 99% of its wine grape harvest, according to early industry estimates.

Tech companies that want to catch an investor’s eye need to think less about flashy moonshots and more about old-fashioned returns on investment.

The problem: Climate change is thawing out permafrost. When the preserved microbes within the permafrost wake up, they begin breaking down the dead plant matter around them, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere.

The solution: Scientists at Ohio State University are researching if viruses could stop the vicious cycle.