Automakers navigating their electric transitions need a bit of tech support.

Software issues forced Volvo to delay deliveries of the EX30 electric SUV. Though the unspecified glitch has been resolved, new vehicles were held back by roughly two weeks. This was after production on Volvo’s high-end EX90 was pushed from late last year to mid-2024 to give it more time to ensure its complex software worked properly.

Just like the sober-curious crowd, western provinces are partaking in Dry February… though not by their own choice. 

Driving the news: Alberta is talking with major water licence holders to sign water-sharing deals as dried-up rivers and reservoirs are primed to devastate the agricultural sector. 

As the war in Ukraine nears the two-year mark, fighting on the battlefield has evolved into a fight for funding. 

What happened: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán OKed the EU’s proposed four-year €50 billion aid package for Ukraine after initially blocking it in December.

A new housing report has confirmed a tough truth: Canada’s rental market has become more crowded than a gym’s weight room in early January.  

Driving the news: According to new data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, both rent prices and the number of empty rental units reached new records last year, creating the tightest rental market the CMHC has ever documented in Canada.

A recent court ruling had Elon Musk advising his 170 million X/Twitter followers to never incorporate a company in Delaware (relatable).

Driving the news: Tesla CEO Elon Musk will not cash in on a US$55.8 billion pay package that had been agreed to by the company’s board back in 2018, after a Delaware judge ruled that Musk “dominated” the pay negotiation process to secure “unfathomable” compensation. 

Finding the perfect banger to soundtrack your next TikTok vid just got a lot harder.

What happened: Universal Music Group (UMG) — the world’s biggest music company — is pulling its entire catalogue from TikTok after the app failed to extend its licensing agreement.

The latest supply shortage to hit Canada: newborns. The country’s fertility rate fell to its lowest level on record in 2022, with a paltry 1.33 children born per woman that year.

Driving the news: Fertility rates have been dropping since 2009, but briefly spiked in 2020 and 2021 when everyone was stuck inside with nothing better to do than hunker down and… you know 😏. When the world re-opened in 2022, it led to the steepest year-over-over drop since 1972 (which was spurred by the decriminalization of contraception and abortion).

Lids get stuck. Sometimes it’s a pickle jar, and sometimes it’s a container full of dust from a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid. That latter is what NASA faced last fall when it recovered the canister from a space rock named Bennu. NASA uses sterile environments so samples don’t get contaminated by Earth air, but none of the tools approved for the locked-down boxes could remove the final two of 35 fasteners.

If you don’t trust Elon Musk to stick stuff into your brain, the good news is he’s not your only option.

What happened: Musk’s Neuralink implanted its first chip into a human brain. The company has not made a formal announcement, but Musk posted on X that the recipient is “recovering well” with “promising neuron spike detection,” presumably referring to activity between the cells that send messages throughout the body.

Despite being identified as a problem more than six years ago, methods to fight deepfakes have not kept up with the AI used to create them.

As the old saying goes, “No pain, no gain.” However, if you ask Big Pharma, the saying should really go, “No pain, lots of gain.” 

What happened: VX-548, an experimental painkiller from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, has been proven in test trials to safely and effectively reduce pain, according to the company.

While it seems like layoffs are happening left, right, and centre these days — because, well, they are — some companies are going to great lengths to retain workers.

Driving the news: Walmart managers in the U.S. can now make upwards of US$400,000 a year after the world’s biggest retail store granted them the opportunity to earn up to $20,000 in annual stock grants and bonuses of up to 200%, in addition to increasing base salaries. 

In a not-so-romantic Canadian pairing, an insurance giant and grocery conglomerate have officially announced they are exclusive. 

What happened: Manulife Financial, the largest insurance provider in Canada, will only offer coverage for certain prescription drugs at Loblaw-owned pharmacies, including Shoppers Drug Mart, according to The Canadian Press. 

Boeing is having such a bad month that it’s taking all of our restraint to not make a tasteless joke comparing its performance to the door that flew off Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. 

What happened: Aviation industry officials “increasingly believe” workers at the Boeing factory forgot to put on the bolts meant to secure the door plug that blew off the 737 MAX 9 jet carrying Alaska Airlines passengers earlier this month, per The Wall Street Journal. 

Like a boxer hanging on by a thread, one of China’s biggest real estate developers is being forced to throw in the towel. 

What happened: A Hong Kong court ordered China’s Evergrande, now the world’s most indebted real estate developer, to sell off assets to pay off its humongous debt of US$300 billion owed to foreign and domestic creditors — after two years of failing to restructure it. 

After 115 years in business, Leon’s Furniture is getting into the house-building game. No word yet on whether homes come fully furnished with brand-new pieces from the showroom.

What happened: Leon’s, the Canadian furniture chain best known for letting shoppers ho-ho-hold the payments, has received approval to rezone the 40 acres of land around its Toronto-area headquarters and build as many as 4,000 residential housing units. 

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.