Sometime around 2004, Rivers Cuomo went to see a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. As he flipped through the night’s program, he saw a picture of Wilson Phillips, the all-female pop group that had some massive hit singles over the previous decade.

All the members of the group were daughters of famous and rich musicians. For reasons he can’t explain, Rivers started thinking about how cool it would have been to be married to someone like that, an “established” celebrity with a home in the best part of town with all that money. He was genuinely wistful.

But when the resulting song finally came out, it turned out sarcastic and funny, which wasn’t the original intent. Just as well because “Beverly Hills” became a major single from Weezer’s Make Believe album.

 

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

When REM started work on their 1992 album, Automatic for the People, drummer Bill Berry brought in a song that had a definite country twang to it. He wrote it after hearing a story about adolescent suicide, which was turning into a full-blown mental health crisis.

His version was about a minute long. There were no chorus and no bridge, just a looping guitar part. It had potential, but no one was sure where it should go. Four different approaches were tried. In the end, they took cues from the hit “Love Hurts” by Nazareth. Bill didn’t play live drums but programmed the drum machine. And John Paul Jones was brought in to arrange the string section.

The result was “Everybody Hurts,” which became one of REM’s biggest singles ever.

 

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Some of Aiden Pleterski’s alleged victims testified Wednesday about meeting the Whitby man, giving him hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest and trusting Pleterski would do what he said he would do.

Pleterski is charged with fraud over $5,000 and money laundering and is represented. The 27-year-old has pleaded not guilty.

Braden Martyniuk testified he had read articles about Pleterski in which he described himself as “The Crypto King” and said that influenced his decision to invest.

Martyniuk said he and Pleterski shared a mutual friend. He met with Pleterski and was told if he invested, his money would go towards foreign exchange trading.

“He promised returns of three percent a week, compounding every week,” said Martyniuk who believed Pleterski was trading on a platform called Forex. “He said there was no risk to the initial investment, and all his clients were fully covered.”
Martyniuk added Pleterski told him he had a $300-million slush fund, explaining he believed that meant Pleleterski had money in reserves to protect all his clients.

Martyniuk said he wired him $250,000 and signed a contract. He said when he reached out to Pleterski see if he could get his money back in May or June 2022, he got nothing.
In his opening address Tuesday, Crown Counsel Scott Patterson told the jury that up until June 2020, Pleterski was living at his parents’ house in Whitby, worked at a rental agency and drove a Honda Civic.

“His parents supported him financially until Covid when he began receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) of $500/week,” said Patterson.

Patterson told the jury that in the middle of 2020, Pleterski began soliciting money from people and told them that he would take 30 percent of the capital gains. He told them he had a system that he would never lose more than two percent and targeted five percent gains. He also told some investors that he was incredibly wealthy.

Patterson said investors trusted him and believed he would do what he said he would do with their money.

“Instead, he used investor money to fund his lifestyle: exotic cars, private jets, lavish shopping and credit card bills that ran into the millions,” said Patterson who told the jury they will see Pleterski’s financials.

Patterson said things began to fall apart in the spring of 2022 when investors wanted to get their money out.

“But Mr. Pleterski had no money to give. As you’ll hear, he gave excuses. Delaying the return of money then telling investors that their money was frozen in his foreign exchange account. But as you’ll both see and hear in evidence, that didn’t happen. It wasn’t frozen because Pleterski never invested the money. He had simply spent it” said Patterson, who told the jury Pleterski spent investor money as if it was his own.

Stewart Wilson, who manages a high-end car rental company, said he met Pleterski when he was only 20 or 21, saying he wanted to rent a vehicle and rented him a half a dozen high-end vehicles in 2019.

He knew Pleterski lived in a house in Whitby on a cul-de-sac which he had gone to before.

Wilson said he had not seen Pleterski for a year and randomly ran into him in a parking lot downtown in the fall of 2020. Wilson testified Pleterski told him he’d bought an Audi R8 and said he was trading.

“I was happy for him. It seemed like everything was going good for him.”

Wilson said he ultimately set up a meeting with Pleterski in 2021 after seeing through social media that he was doing well.

“He didn’t try to entice me at all in joining which I thought was pretty cool. He was doing everything on his own,” said Wilson referring to the fact that Pleterski was living in a big house on the Lake Shore and had bought himself “very extravagant cars”.

Wilson said after learning Pleterski was trading for close friends and family, and believing people were getting good returns, he reached out to him in November 2021.

Wilson said Pleterski invited him to come by his new house.

“At that point, I went to the mansion,” said Wilson, describing it as about 8,000-square-foot on the waterfront in Burlington. “He said purchased it. I said he was crazy.”

Wilson said he had Lamborghinis, Audis and a McLaren worth about $2 million parked in the garage. “I was quite impressed,” Wilson said.

Wilson said Pleterski told him he was trading in equities and foreign exchange. “He was his strategy was simple. All he was focusing om was making one percent a day. His philosophy was totally different than what I heard before. He had a strict stop loss. If he went up, he sold. He would trade about ten different stocks at the same time.”

Wilson told court his strategy seemed simple. “Why hadn’t anyone ever thought of this?”
Wilson said he signed a contract from AP Private Equity believing his company was legitimate and wrote a cheque for $250,000.

“He was telling me his strategy. It’s impossible that the principal can be wiped out. He was showing me the profits he was making,” said Wilson, explaining that he knew others who appeared to be getting returns, though he wasn’t sure if they actually got anything back.

Wilson said he felt safe and said Pleterski told him his asset pool was between $30 million and $50 million.

Patterson showed Wilson contracts he signed. As the weeks went on, Wilson continued to write cheques totaling $900,000.

“It was a 75-25 split on capital gains. He was going to take 25 percent of the profit,” said Wilson.

He said his girlfriend also invested $300,000, with the proceeds from the sale of her condo.

When asked if he believed that Pleterski was spending his money on his lifestyle, credit cards and private jets, Wilson said definitely not.

“I didn’t even think it was a possibility. It’s the craziest thing to think you get scammed. It didn’t even cross my mind,” said Wilson.

Wilson testified things were very positive at the beginning but as March 2022, he told Pleterski he needed to take $400,000 out.

He said Pleterski started to become difficult to reach and evasive finally telling him his money was frozen in foreign accounts.

“Did you receive that money back?” said Patterson. “Nothing,” replied Wilson.

Pleterski was given a chance to cross-examine the witnesses but declined when asked by Superior Court Justice Shaun Nakatsuru.

The trial continues.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

If you score three goals in an NHL game, chances are you’ll win a lot of those games.

For the fourth straight game to start the 2026-27 season, the Winnipeg Jets hit that magic mark with just a minute to go in a dramatic 3-2 win over the visiting Colorado Avalanche Wednesday night.

The Jets took a one-goal lead to the third period before the Avs tied it up. But Kyle Connor finished off a pretty pass from Mark Scheifele with exactly 60 seconds left for the Jets third straight victory.

“Not a lot of guys can make those kind of plays,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “Then also how K.C. got it off his stick too. But yeah, your best players need to step up in those type of moments. And those two have done that a lot for us.”

The Jets remain unbeaten in regulation this season with a 3-0-1 record as they handed Colorado their first loss.

“There’s definitely a lot of guys in here, and as a team, and myself, proving that we’re still a top team in this league,” Connor said. “And you got to prove it every single night. It’s a tough league. You can’t take nights off and so yeah, it’s a good start but looking forward to the next one.”

Connor scored twice for his fourth and fifth goals of the season for 328 markers as a Jet to move into a tie with Ilya Kovalchuk for the third most goals in franchise history behind only Dale Hawerchuk and Scheifele.

Cole Perfetti had the other marker for the Jets to score for the third straight game, giving him a four-game point streak with six points in the first four games.

Stuart Skinner was marvelous in goal for his first win at the Canada Life Centre and his second straight victory. He stopped 32 shots as the Jets were outshot 34-19.

“It was nice to get a lot of shots early,” said Skinner. “That’s normally a good feeling for a goalie. They definitely had their push, and it gave us a little bit of time, and we had our push, so, it was good.”

But the win came with a price as Josh Morrissey left the game with what appeared to be a hand injury. He was hurt after missing a hit along the boards at the tail end of the first period. He had just one shift in the second period and then left the game for good.

“Just an upper-body (injury),” Arniel said. “We’ll check on it tomorrow and see how it is.”

In Morrissey’s absence, Dylan Samberg logged a game high 25:25 of ice time.

The game got off to a fairly even start with each side registering four shots on goal over the first seven minutes.

But over the final 13 minutes of the opening frame, Colorado outshot the Jets 13-2, thanks in part to a dangerous power play that came close to opening the scoring.

Skinner stood tall, stopping all five shots on that power play, including a stellar cross-crease save on Martin Necas.

Winnipeg got a power play look late in the period, generating one shot but they too were unable to break the deadlock.

Skinner further endeared himself to Jets fans early in the second when, after giving up a big rebound, he made a sprawling save to deny Necas again.

But it wasn’t too long after that save that Colorado opened the scoring. Fedor Svechkov had the puck along the boards with Samberg pressuring him. Svechkov then harmlessly sent the puck to the slot where it hit Viggo Bjorck and skittered into the high slot where Dylan DeMelo over skated it. That allowed Jaden Schwartz the time and space to rip a snapshot top shelf at the 2:51 mark.

Just over a minute later, the Jets answered back when Connor tipped a Neal Pionk point shot through Mackenzie Blackwood for his fourth of the season.

Colorado nearly regained the lead seconds later as Nathan MacKinnon got free on a two-on-one and ripped a shot off the post.

The Jets were having a tough time slowing down the Avalanche attack, and to make matters worse, Morrissey went into the boards awkwardly in the first and was seen shaking his hand without his glove on.

But Skinner continued to hold down the fort, allowing Winnipeg to take the lead in the waning minutes of the period.

Scheifele collected the puck behind Colorado’s net and carried it around to his right before sliding it back to the point to Samberg. He let a shot fly that glanced off the stick of Brock Nelson in front before banking off one of Perfetti’s shin pads and into the net for his third of the season.

With the secondary assist, Scheifele earned his first point of the season.

Winnipeg wound up outshooting the Avalanche 11-10 in the second, including 7-2 over the final 11 minutes.

The Jets continued to do a good job suppressing the Colorado attack as the third period rolled along, leading to Winnipeg’s second power play of the night with 11:41 to go, though they didn’t do anything with it.

Two goals didn’t feel like it would be enough to get the job done, and that became even more clear when Colorado tied the game with 7:25 remaining.

The initial shot from Brett Kulak at the left point missed the net and bounced off the end boards right to the stick of Schwartz, who passed it in front to Svechkov for a tap-in as the Jets defenders chased the play.

It looked like the game was destined for overtime but with a minute left, Winnipeg’s top line got the job done once more.

Scheifele carried the puck across the blue line and drove along the wall before sending a pass to the slot to Connor, who wired it past Blackwood for his second of the night. It was one of just two shots for the Jets in the third period.

Colorado didn’t have much time to get something set up with the goalie pulled and they failed to get a shot on goal before the final horn sounded.

Blackwood turned aside 16 shots in defeat.

Winnipeg  will look to keep their season-opening point streak going Friday night at home against Anaheim.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

More details have emerged about the U.S. suspect accused of encouraging and advising the B.C. teenager who shot and killed multiple people in Tumbler Ridge earlier this year.

Court documents reveal the 30-year-old from Bellingham, Wash., was closely connected to the shooter online for months.

Global News knocked on the door of the unit where James Cody Bryant lived, but the person living there responded from behind the door, saying they did not want to comment.

Bryant, who according to authorities is trans and identifies as female, was arrested at the complex in Bellingham by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday.

“I guess I’m kind of stunned,” neighbour Preston Coffelt said.

“It’s not something I’d expect to happen two buildings down.”

Bryant appeared in a Seattle courtroom on Tuesday on a federal felony charge of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country.

U.S. authorities have released months of alleged online correspondence between Bryant and B.C. teenager Jesse Van Rootselaar before and during the massacre on Feb. 10 in which eight people were killed.

The claims have not yet been tested in court.

The two had met online about three years earlier, investigators said. Van Rootselaar was about 15 at the time, while Bryant was about 27.

They met on the now-defunct Omegle messaging app, which enabled conversations with strangers but was closed down not long afterwards over lawsuits about child safety.

The two fell out of contact when Van Rootselaar was institutionalized after setting their room on fire. After that, they spoke daily in the six months before the murders, the FBI said.

“One thing that surfaced pretty soon after the shooting occurred was the company Discord identified some connections between the shooter and an individual in the United States, and notified the Canadian authorities — the RCMP,” said W. Mike Herrington, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Seattle.

“RCMP reached out to U.S. authorities, and we immediately began looking into this individual in the United States to see, you know, what was going on there.”

Discord is an online messaging and chat platform in which users can create different communities, like a hybrid between Slack and Reddit. It was initially built for gamers but is now used for many different purposes, such as social group communications.

Discord’s website says it collects certain information from users, including content users created.

“What Discord identified was a series of conversations that were dating back months or even years, where the shooter and the individual in the United States had ongoing discussions — a rather voluminous amount of discussions,” he added.

“This was their primary means of communicating, and they communicated quite regularly.”

Herrington said the FBI interviewed Bryant two days after the shooting in Tumbler Ridge.

The U.S. complaint against Bryant alleges the two spent months discussing tactics, locations and weaponry for the attack on Discord before they attempted to livestream the murders on Twitch.

The FBI said Van Rootselaar communicated online with Bryant, even sending photos on Discord showing what they were wearing for the attack.

Neighbours and coworkers say Bryant, who has asked to be identified as female in court proceedings, presented as one in everyday life.

“When you’re dressing like a girl, you’ve got your long hair and your fingernails done, you just assume,” neighbour Rodney Green said.

Bryant’s boss at a local McDonald’s said they were a reliable employee who worked at the fast food location for several years.

The manager told Global News their staff are shaken by the FBI allegations that Bryant entertained Van Rootselaar’s musings on achieving mass shooter notoriety and causing maximum damage.

Bryant was allegedly more concerned about not being caught, telling Rootselaar, “I think we should find a way to delete all our messages.”

“What we did see was, at some points, a bit of mixed feelings about this,” Herrington said. “But ultimately, Bryant was fully supportive to the point of providing, not just emotional support, but advice, financial support, material support to purchase items.”

“As well as ultimately, when it came down to it, made a very strong and repeated commitment to Van Rootselaar to conceal this plan and the impending attack from law enforcement before it occurred.”

Eight people, including six children, were killed in Tumbler Ridge before Van Rootselaar died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

They were Abel Mwansa, Ezekiel Schofield, Kylie Smith, Zoey Benoit, Ticaria Lampert, Shannda Aviugana-Durand, Emmett Jacobs and Jennifer Jacobs.

With files from The Canadian Press

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Cybersecurity experts warn artificial intelligence is making fraud nearly impossible to detect.

“With AI powering these scams, it’s just like rocket fuel, making them faster and more sophisticated,” said Chester Wisniewski, a cybersecurity specialist at Sophos.

“We don’t see hardly any of these poorly crafted scams anymore.”

Wisniewski has 30 years of experience in the cybersecurity industry and says scammers are targeting their victims at every angle via social media platforms, text messages, emails, voice cloning, and phone calls.

However, it’s the ease with which criminals are stealing personal information that experts say is alarming.

“They are just breaking in and stealing databases. Hundreds of millions of records are stolen every week from hacked websites where many of us have shopped or done business with,” Wisniewski told Consumer Matters.

When it comes to protecting your personal information, Wisniewski says a healthy paranoia goes a long way. He recommends avoiding anyone who reaches out to you unsolicited, asking for personal credentials.

“If you got a phone call from your bank, be suspicious. Hang up and call the bank back, verify it’s your bank. That needs to be the case with everything right now,” said Wisniewski. “Anytime something involves a financial transaction or a password, you need to have initiated the transaction; never allow someone else to initiate it.”

Guarding your email password is also a critical line of defence. Wisniewski says it’s the digital skeleton key to your accounts. He recommends using password managers to generate complex and unique passwords or passkeys to protect your identity.

Passkeys confirm your identity using facial recognition or a fingerprint to gain access to your accounts.

“I think you do have to give up on the idea your information is not going to be stolen. Unfortunately, we have to share our information with many organizations and a large percentage of them get broken into,” said Wisniewski.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

With 37 candidates competing for eight seats on Kelowna City Council, some candidates are taking unconventional approaches to getting noticed.

Brady Rogers is one of them, using humour to stand out.

“Do I enjoy politics? No. Do I know what I’m doing? No. But am I qualified? Also no,” is what his introduction states on his campaign website.

The 33-year old business owner has also been taking to social media with self-deprecating comments, such as, “I barely want to do this.”

But he says the messaging is intentional and not an indication that he doesn’t take the job seriously.

“I’m being a little bit tongue-in-cheek when I say I’m unqualified,” Rogers said. “I’ve never been a politician, but I certainly have experience that I think is very relevant and helpful.”

The campaign has been getting a lot of attention

Rogers said one of his posts was picked up by a U.S. social media account, with a significant following.

“It’s been crazy,” he said. “It resonated locally quite a bit, but then somebody in the U.S. picked it up on Instagram, and now it’s all over.”

Teresa May is also taking a different approach to the campaign.

The longtime Kelowna resident  posted a video of herself wake-surfing on Okanagan Lake while wearing a suit jacket and high heels.

“I want to look still professional enough to look like a city councillor and at the same time, it was to be sort of outside the box,” May said. Thinking a little differently to attract the youth, especially through social media.”

She hopes her campaign encourages more people to come out and vote.

“With only 30 per cent of the population out voting the last time, that’s not good enough,” May said.

Across the bridge in West Kelowna, Garrett Millsap is taking a more furry approach.

His campaign signs feature his 10-year-old Beagle, Cooper, alongside the message “re-elect my human.”

Millsap jokes that Cooper may actually be getting more attention than he is.

“I’m hoping they’re not confusing me with Cooper,” Millsap said. “He’s a little bit better looking, a little more handsome than me.”

For Millsap, the humour is meant to make political campaigning more approachable.

“I want to engage people, let them see something different, give them a chuckle, and hopefully it engages them to vote,” he said.

Christopher Schneider, a sociology professor at Brandon University and former UBC Okanagan sociology professor, says these types of campaigns fit into a broader shift in how people present themselves online.

He describes it as the “mediated self,” a concept associated with influencer culture and the performance of identity through media.

Schneider said social media has created an increasingly crowded environment where people compete for attention.

Candidates, he said, are effectively creating personal brands—and unconventional behaviour can help them stand out, but he warns there is also a downside.

“There’s always a danger in a democratic society like Canada, where you have people who might be casting ballots for just names on a ballot sheet and not having a full idea or understanding of what that person is campaigning on,” Schneider said.

Municipal elections in B.C. are scheduled for Oct. 17.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

All a Calgary couple wanted was to renovate the front hall of their southeast Calgary home but instead, they lost thousands after falling victim to contractor fraud earlier this year.

Homeowner Crystal Arnold — who lives in Deer Ridge — says she’s reminded of the $8,000 loss every time she walks up and down her stairs.

“We remember we got ripped off, and we didn’t get everything done that we wanted to get done,” Arnold said.

Arnold and her husband had been in the market for the renovation and after putting it off for the past ten years, and said they finally went all-in after finding a contractor they only knew as “Ralph” from a website that connects homeowners with contractors and renovation experts this past spring.

“He was really nice,” she said. “He came in (and) he seemed super knowledgeable. He gave us a price that worked within our budget,” Arnold said.

They were quoted $16,000 for the project and paid a $3,000 deposit.

Arnold says she started to get a bad feeling when “Ralph” asked for an additional $5,000 to order the supplies for the job.

Everything went south when she confronted him, she said.

“He started pulling out and telling me that I was difficult to deal with, when I was demanding a date,” she said.

“He said he was gonna come, and then he no-showed on that day, and then he didn’t respond to text messages.”

Arnold said when they asked “Ralph” where he was ordering the supplies from, they were given a fake store name before he gave them the name of another store.

They would not only learn that their contractor never put in an order for supplies, but his name wasn’t even Ralph.

His name is Omar Ghandour, said the Calgary Police Service. Its officers investigated over several months after they determined Arnold “had paid a total of $8,000 upfront to a contractor she hired online.”

The investigation also found that Arnold and the contractor “reportedly agreed to not proceed with the work, and the woman requested her money back but did not receive the full amount of the funds despite repeated efforts to communicate with the contractor.”

Ghandour was arrested by Calgary police on Sept. 30 and charged with fraud over $5,000.

The Consumer Investigations Unit with the Alberta government issued a consumer protection alert in 2021 to warn Albertans about Ghandour.

“No one deserves to get ripped off,” the Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction ministry said in a statement.

“Albertans should always be vigilant when hiring a contractor, and our Consumer Alerts page is an important resource to help people protect themselves. Consumer alerts are issued for a reason, and Albertans should take them seriously,” the statement said.

The accused is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 29.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says as of June 30, nearly 10,000 people have fallen victim to fraud in Canada with more than $350 million lost.

Calgary police urges anyone who has suffered a financial loss or has had their personal information compromised because of fraud to report it to CPS or Crime Stoppers.

Anyone who’s received a fraudulent text, email or phone call without a financial loss is asked to report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the fact the provincial election authority is helping voters correct errors in about 3,000 mail-in ballot packages shows the system is working.

It comes after Elections Alberta announced those referendum ballot packages were returned with either declaration forms missing or with other errors, like missing the required copies of identification.

At an unrelated news conference Wednesday, Smith said the ability for electors to correct the necessary documents in time for their vote to be counted shows Elections Alberta is managing the situation as expected.

“I think that’s a sign the system works,” she said.

Smith and Elections Alberta also noted the problematic ballot packages represent a small number of those that have been sent back by voters — only 1.2 per cent of around 250,000.

Maia Hanrahan at Elections Alberta said in an email Wednesday they’ve contacted those whose packages had problems and are helping voters make the necessary fixes.

“Similar to an in-person voting experience where an election officer would assist the elector in making sure their information was correct and complete, that is what is happening with these special ballots – we are assisting electors in correcting their errors,” Hanrahan wrote.

She said voters are able to provide the required information via email, but if they do not, their special ballots will be rejected.

“Already we have had many people respond and provide the required information.”

Albertans are to vote on a series of questions on Oct. 19, including whether to stay in Canada or begin the process to hold a second, binding referendum on leaving Confederation. The other nine questions pertain to immigration and the Constitution.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

The premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan are shutting down a suggestion from U.S. tech titan Elon Musk that the two provinces should split from Canada.

The trillionaire tech businessman and former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump said on his social media platform X that Quebec would benefit from independence, as would the two Prairie provinces.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2107888889629483404

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe had a concise response to Musk on social media: “No.”

Moe has said he’s a true Canadian but wouldn’t halt a public vote on separation in Saskatchewan if residents petitioned for a plebiscite.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who states she’s voting to stay in Canada in an upcoming provincial referendum, says she also strongly disagrees with Musk’s opinion.

On Oct. 19, Albertans go to the polls to decide if the province should stay in Canada or whether there should be a second binding referendum on separation.

While born in South Africa, Musk holds Canadian citizenship and has lived in several parts of the country.

His mother was born and raised in Saskatchewan, where the tech titan spent time working on a family farm as a teenager.

He moved on to Vancouver before attending Queen’s University in Ontario, where he met his first wife.

With files from Karen Bartko, Global News

© 2026 The Canadian Press