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Gas Prices Are Spiking Again — Here's How to Protect Your Wallet as the Iran Conflict Escalates

  Published July 20, 2026 If it feels like you're filling up more often for the same money lately, you're not imagining it. Oil markets jolted higher to start the week, and Canadian drivers are almost certain to see it at the pump in the next few days. What just happened Brent crude — the global benchmark that drives Canadian gas pricing — jumped nearly 4% on Monday to trade above US$90 a barrel, its highest level since mid-June, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate traded near US$84. The move came after the United States and Iran escalated hostilities over the weekend, including strikes on vessels attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz and an attack on an oil facility in Kuwait. That strait matters enormously to your gas bill: roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply normally passes through it. When shipping through it slows or stalls, traders price in a "risk premium" almost immediately — and that shows up at Canadian pumps within days, not weeks. What it mea...

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Google Lays Off Hundreds of Employees in Hardware, Voice Assistant Teams Amid Cost-Cutting Drive

 

Google has laid off hundreds of employees working on its hardware, voice assistance and engineering teams as part of cost-cutting measures. 

The cuts come as Google looks towards “responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” the company said in a statement. The job cuts are part of a broader effort to reduce costs and streamline operations.

Google earlier said it was eliminating a few hundred roles, with most of the impact on its augmented reality hardware team. The cuts follow pledges by executives of Google and its parent company Alphabet to reduce costs  In a post on X — previously known as Twitter — the Alphabet Workers Union described the job cuts as “another round of needless layoffs”. The union wrote, “Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!”.


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