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Emergency crews rushed Friday to rescue people trapped in flooded homes after Helene roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane in Florida, generating a massive storm surge and knocking out power to millions of customers in several states.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said at least 11 people in his state were killed. He said authorities believe there are 115 structures with people trapped inside.

At least six others died in Florida and the Carolinas, officials said.

Helene weakened to a tropical storm after it brought a large storm surge and dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern U.S.

The storm, now packing maximum sustained winds of 75 km/h, was about 50 kilometres southwest of Bryson City, N.C., and about 165 kilometres north-northeast of Atlanta, moving north at 52 km/h as of 11 a.m. ET.

‘Heartbreaking’: Florida town struck for 2nd straight year

The National Hurricane Center said Helene roared ashore around 11:10 p.m. ET Thursday near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of Florida’s Gulf Coast. It had maximum sustained winds estimated at 225 km/h.

Video on social media sites showed sheets of rain coming down in Perry, Fla., near where Helene made landfall, and siding being torn off buildings. One local news station showed a home that had flipped over. The community and much of surrounding Taylor County were without power.

“It’s really heartbreaking,” said Stephen Tucker, after the hurricane peeled off the new roof at her church in Perry. It had to be replaced after last year’s Hurricane Idalia, and the congregation was just weeks away from moving back into the newly renovated sanctuary.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene in the area appears to be greater than the combined damage of Idalia and Debby last August.

“It’s demoralizing,” he said.

Federal, state and local responses

U.S. President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency has deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late morning.

County officials immediately launched boats to reach stranded people, warning that the water could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.

WATCH l Dramatic rescue off Florida’s southwest coast:

Rescuers in Tampa also used boats to reach stranded residents.

“Flooding was what we had warned everyone about,” Mayor Jane Castor said.

More than four million homes and businesses were without power Friday morning in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.

In Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, the sheriff’s office rescued more than 300 people overnight from storm surge. Spokesperson Amanda Granit said those included a 97-year-old woman with dementia and her 63-year-old daughter, as well as a 19-year-old woman whose car got stuck as she drove in the rising water.

DeSantis confirmed two deaths in Florida: One person was hit by a falling sign in Tampa’s Ybor City neighbourhood and another was killed when a tree fell onto a home in Dixie County.

In south Georgia, two people were killed when a possible tornado struck a mobile home on Thursday night, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. Wheeler County is about 113 kilometres southeast of Macon.

Trees that toppled onto homes were blamed for deaths in Charlotte, N.C., and Anderson County, S.C.

Deluge in North Carolina mountains

The hurricane’s eye passed near Valdosta, Ga., as the storm churned rapidly north into Georgia on Thursday night. The NHC issued an extreme wind warning for the area, meaning possible hurricane-force winds exceeding 185 km/h. At a hotel in the city of 55,000, dozens of people huddled in the darkened lobby after midnight Friday as winds whistled and howled outside.

Fermin Herrera, 20, his wife and their two-month-old daughter left their room on the top floor of the hotel, where they took shelter because they were concerned about trees falling on their Valdosta home.

“We heard some rumbling,” said Herrera, cradling the sleeping baby in a downstairs hallway. “We didn’t see anything at first. After a while the intensity picked up. It looked like a gutter that was banging against our window. So we made a decision to leave.”

Many heeded mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota in Florida.

Among them were Cindy Waymon and her husband, who went to a shelter in Tallahassee after securing their home and packing medications, snacks and drinks. They wanted to stay safe given the magnitude of the storm, she said.

“This is the first time we’ve actually come to a shelter, because of the complexities of the storm and the uncertainties,” she said.

Forecasters expected the system to continue weakening as it moves into Tennessee and Kentucky and drops heavy rain over the Appalachian Mountains, with the risk of mudslides and flash flooding.

Up to 25 centimetres of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 36 centimetres more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century.

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government survived a confidence vote this week with the help of the NDP and the Bloc Québécois — but the Liberals will be facing another one very soon.

The Conservatives have said repeatedly they want to bring down the government as soon as possible and have put forward another non-confidence motion already. It’s expected to go to a vote next week.

They also have three more opposition days — when opposition motions take priority over government business — between now and Christmas. They can use those days to push more confidence votes.

The NDP and Bloc also will have one opposition day each this fall, giving them an opportunity to bring forward non-confidence motions of their own.

The Bloc has sent the government a list of demands. It says that if they’re not met by the end of October, they’ll look to bring down the government in a confidence vote.

The Liberals also could face confidence votes on money bills, such as the supplementary estimates or the fall economic statement (if it includes new spending).

Here’s a breakdown of how the major parties would have to align in order to trigger an early election.

If the NDP and Bloc vote with Conservatives

If both the Bloc and NDP decide at any point to vote with the Conservatives and bring down the Liberal government, the result would be a foregone conclusion.

As it stands, the Liberals have 152 seats in the House of Commons, not counting House Speaker Greg Fergus, who would only vote to break a tie.

The Conservatives have 119 seats, the Bloc has 32 and NDP has 24. Together, the three party caucuses would out-vote the Liberals 175 to 152 and the government would fall.

Both the Bloc and the NDP have candidates who recently won byelections but have yet to be sworn in as MPs. Once those candidates take their seats, each party will have an extra vote.

If either the Bloc or NDP votes against a non-confidence motion, the Liberals would continue to govern.

If the NDP abstains and Bloc votes no-confidence

MPs aren’t forced to vote on every motion. They can abstain.

If the entire NDP caucus abstains from a confidence vote while the Bloc sides with the Conservatives, that could be enough to trigger an election. It would depend on how the Greens and Independent MPs vote.

The 151 seats held by the Conservatives and the Bloc would fall one vote short of defeating the Liberals.

The two Green MPs would then decide whether the Liberal government stands or crumbles.

A combination of Green, Bloc and Conservative MPs could out-vote the Liberals and trigger an election. But if the Greens choose to back the government — as they did during Wednesday’s confidence vote — the Liberals continue to govern.

The four Independent MPs also could be a factor.

Two of the Independents — Pablo Rodriguez and Han Dong — are former Liberals who voted against the Conservative motion on Wednesday.

The other two Independent MPs are Alain Rayes, a former Conservative, and Kevin Vuong, who typically votes with the Conservatives and has expressed interest in joining the Conservative caucus. Both voted in favour of Wednesday’s non-confidence motion.

Assuming the Independent MPs continue to vote as they did this week, the Greens would continue to hold the balance of power in this scenario.

Louis-Philippe Sauvé, who recently won a Montreal byelection, will eventually take his seat and give the Bloc another vote. That still would not be enough to bring down the government without the support of the Greens.

If the Greens and NDP both abstain from a confidence vote after Sauvé is sworn in, the Conservatives and the Bloc could force a tie. In that case, Speaker Fergus, who was elected as a Liberal MP, would break the tie.

In keeping with parliamentary convention, Fergus likely would vote to sustain the government. According to the House’s official guide to practice and procedure, the Speaker “normally votes to maintain the status quo,” including “preserving the possibility that the matter might somehow be brought back in the future and be decided by a majority of the House.”

A Speaker has had to vote on a matter of confidence at least once before. In 2005, Speaker Peter Milliken voted to break a tie on an amendment to the Liberal government’s budget, allowing the legislation to pass at second reading.

If the Bloc abstains and the NDP votes no-confidence

If the Bloc abstains from a confidence motion, the Liberals likely would survive and continue governing.

With a combined total of 143 seats, the Conservatives and NDP together do not have enough votes to trigger an election.

Even if the Greens decide to park their two votes with the other opposition parties, the Liberals would still be able to survive with their 152 seats.

In a less likely scenario where the Conservatives, NDP, Greens and all four Independent MPs go against the government, they would only get to a combined total of 150 votes.

The addition of Leila Dance, who won a Winnipeg byelection for the NDP earlier this month, still wouldn’t be enough to bring down the government in this case.

Dilraj Singh spent most of his high school years in India’s northern Punjab state dreaming of studying abroad in Canada, but he’s now abandoned that plan.

“Students are really suffering in Canada for getting jobs,” Singh said.

Singh, 21, said he’s also heard recent negative comments from friends living in Canada about the high cost of living and weak labour market in a country that accepts more Indians as international students than any other nationality.

“I do not know if that is a myth or a real thing,” he said. “But that’s why I don’t consider Canada as my top option now.”

He’s applying to go to Australia instead, where his older brother lives and where he might like to pursue a master’s in business administration.

A declining interest in Canada as a study destination for Indian students is a trend that’s intensifying, according to numerous Punjab-based study abroad consultancy companies that spoke with CBC News.

Adding to the turmoil for aspiring students is the recent announcement from the Canadian government that it would reduce the number of international student permits it hands out by another 10 per cent, following a temporary cap instituted earlier this year.

The policy is sowing confusion among prospective students, said Sumit Jain, director at Jain Overseas, an immigration and study abroad consultancy company based in Jalandhar, Punjab.

‘More questions than answers’

“All year, Canada has been [releasing] information in bits and pieces,” Jain said.

“They are not coming up with concrete information in one go. So every time it leads to more questions than answers.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) processed 15 per cent fewer study permit applications from India in 2023 than in the previous year.

The federal department’s most recent data shows that from January to July of 2024, there were a total of 107,385 Indian study permit holders in Canada, with a 20 per cent drop in June of this year compared to June 2023.

Jain has been in the study abroad business for 15 years and Canada has always been the most attractive option for students. But now, Jain said about 70 per cent of the students his company helps are “in limbo” and adopting a wait-and-see approach before applying to study in Canada.

Twenty per cent of his students have already crossed out Canada and opted for other countries like Germany, the United States or the United Kingdom, he added.

Modified rules

As part of the modified rules, Ottawa is putting new limits on work permits for spouses of both foreign workers and students in master’s degree programs. The government has also more than doubled the cost-of living financial requirements for international student applicants.

The moves came amid concern about the impact growing numbers of international students are having on the housing market. The number of international students in Canada nearly tripled in the past decade, to more than one million last year from around 350,000 in 2015, according to government data.

IRCC numbers show that India sends the most students to Canada, with China a distant second. There is not a lot of regulation over the industry, leading to charges that some private colleges are recruiting foreign students for their high tuition fees by offering a path to permanent residency.

Explaining the newly changed rules is a challenge for many education consultants in India.

“I know their dreams are on hold. It’s very tough to tell [students] about this,” said Jain.

The drop in interest from Indian students is consistent, said a representative from another study abroad consultant company.

“We used to send thousands of students, but right now the numbers have decreased to 25 per cent of what we used to do last year,” said Pavneet Sidhu, who works with the Chandigarh-based Gem Overseas.

“I would say 60 to 70 per cent of students have lost their interest [in Canada].”

Sidhu said many students who used to want to go to Canada are now asking about Germany, France and Finland.

“These are countries that we were not even aware that students used to talk about [going to] before.”

Dilraj Singh said countries other than Canada are top of mind for most people in his circle of friends in Jalandhar, as he works on his application to get an Australian study permit.

“All of my friends are suggesting that I don’t go to Canada,” he said. “They are also not considering Canada as their option at all.”

When Beth Marchant opened the email announcing that her ultrasound results were ready, the then-32-year-old was floored to discover it contained a breast cancer diagnosis.

“I saw the word carcinoma,” Marchant said in an interview in her home in Cambridge, Ont. “In an email — that’s not how you want to find out that you have stage 3 breast cancer.”

Jénnelle Johnson — also in her 30s — had a similar experience when she created her account on MyChart, one of the most widely used patient data apps in Canada.

“I logged in … and then that’s when I saw ‘invasive ductal carcinoma,'” said Johnson, who lives in Hamilton, Ont. “My world stopped.”

As more Canadians get online access to the results of their medical tests, what Johnson and Marchant went through reveals an emerging concern: people learning about a life-changing diagnosis on a screen, without a doctor there to explain it — and sometimes alone.

“When a patient finds out that way, it’s heartbreaking,” said Dr. Mojola Omole, a surgical oncologist in Toronto.

Omole said when patients receive a cancer diagnosis, it’s important that a health-care professional is with them to explain the next steps and their prognosis.

“Without that, people are just lost, and that’s really not fair,” Omole said. “That’s not good patient care.”

While hospitals and labs that offer online health portals can control the timing of when certain test results are released to patients, there appear to be no consistent policies across Canada about the virtual delivery of medical bad news.

Dr. Kimberly Wintemute, a family physician at the South East Toronto Family Health Team, said when a patient gets a new diagnosis, they typically have questions that can’t be answered by a few words in a test result.

“I think the hospitals have a responsibility to work with patients to prevent these kinds of events from happening, where people get difficult results in a lonely circumstance without context,” said Wintemute in an interview.

Officials with Epic, the Wisconsin-based company behind MyChart, said that hospitals can tailor the platform to hold back the results of certain tests until a doctor gives the green light.

But not all hospitals do so.

There are some that put the onus on the patient to decide which test results they want to get online.

Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN), which introduced its patient data portal in 2017, surveyed about 30,000 patients and found that 94 per cent reported they would prefer to have their results as soon as they are complete, even if the results are worrisome, according to a hospital spokesperson.

“Patients can also choose to have notifications turned off so that they are not alerted when results come in,” said UHN’s spokesperson in an email to CBC News.

Studies in other countries — including one published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association — have found that for the majority of patients, getting real-time access to their health data reduces their anxiety, said John Kildea, who led development of the Opal patient portal at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal.

“For sure there’s a nuance between results that can be very serious and very sudden and results that are more routine,” Kildea said in an interview.

“If most patients are telling us that they’re benefiting from this, I see it as being like a medication or a drug. All drugs have some side effects for some patients, but we don’t throw out the drug because of those side effects.”

‘A conversation with an actual human being’

But Marchant and Johnson question whether it’s appropriate for someone to learn they have cancer via an online message.

“It just was not the same level of personal attention that I think that level of diagnosis deserves,” said Marchant. “At the very bare minimum, there should be a conversation with an actual human being.”

The day she got her results, Marchant couldn’t get in touch with her family doctor for hours, and she said the news sent her down a rabbit hole of frightening internet searches.

“I looked, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I have like a 50 per cent chance of dying within five years.’ As a mom of three, with a six-month-old baby, that’s horrifying,” she said of her diagnosis in 2022.

Johnson said she was devastated by her breast cancer diagnosis, which she got on her phone, alone in her bedroom.

“To get that kind of news when you’re by yourself, it’s difficult to handle,” she said. “To see it that way, it was like a gut punch.”

Johnson is now in treatment and regularly undergoes scans to check whether the cancer has spread. When those results arrive in the app, she said she doesn’t open them until she hears from her doctor.

Former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba is set to become Japan’s prime minister after winning a closely fought contest on Friday in his fifth and what he called final attempt to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

The 67-year-old political veteran prevailed over hard-line nationalist Sanae Takaichi in a run-off vote in what was one of the most unpredictable leadership elections in decades with a record nine candidates in the field.

The leader of the LDP, which has ruled Japan for almost all of the post-war era, is essentially assured of becoming the next premier because of its majority in parliament. A special session of parliament is scheduled for Tuesday to vote Ishiba into office.

“We must believe in the people, speak the truth with courage and sincerity, and work together to make Japan a safe and secure country where everyone can live with a smile once again,” an emotional Ishiba said in a speech to LDP lawmakers after the result.

Ishiba on Friday stressed the need for the country’s economy to fully emerge from deflation.

Revitalizing consumption is key for Japan to emerge from economic stagnation, he said, adding the new administration must consider the most effective means to cushion the blow to households from rising inflation.

The scramble to replace premier Fumio Kishida was sparked in August when he announced he would step down over a series of scandals that plunged the LDP’s ratings to record lows.

Ishiba, a self-proclaimed lone wolf whose contrarian views and spats with colleagues contributed to four previous failed leadership bids, has long been popular with the general public. But he said this was his “final battle.”

With the LDP facing a general election some time in the next 13 months, analysts said Ishiba’s selection suggests some in the party appear to have put aside personal grievances to harness his public appeal.

They have “gravitated toward a popular figure who does well in media appearances and isn’t afraid to criticize his own party when he thinks they’re in the wrong,” said Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies.

Challenges ahead

He must quell anger over rising living costs and simmering anger about his scandal-plagued party and navigate a volatile security environment in East Asia fuelled by an increasingly assertive China and nuclear-armed North Korea.

His approach to diplomacy with Japan’s closest ally, the United States, will be in focus given he has repeatedly called for a more balanced relationship with Washington.

In his campaign, he called for the creation of an Asian NATO, an idea that could draw ire from Beijing and has already been dismissed by a senior U.S. official as hasty.

The U.S. ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, congratulated Ishiba, posting on X that he looked forward to working with him to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance. A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, asked about Ishiba’s appointment, said Beijing hopes Japan has an “objective and correct” understanding of China.

Ishiba entered parliament in 1986 after a short banking career. His outspoken views have earned him enemies in the LDP.

He was sidelined by outgoing Prime Minister Kishida, becoming a dissenting voice in the party who enjoyed broad support from LDP rank-and-file members as well as the public.

Ishiba has rebelled on policies including the increased use of nuclear energy, a contentious subject due to the devastating meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011, and has criticized his party for supporting Japan’s ban on married couples using separate surnames.

Ishiba, who has also served as agriculture minister, promised to move some ministries and government agencies out of Tokyo to help revive Japan’s moribund regions.

To solidify his rule over a fractured party, Ishiba will need to draw from a wide base to form his cabinet, said Rintaro Nishimura, an associate at The Asia Group Japan.

“If he just rewards the people who supported him, that’s going to cause a lot of trouble with the people who supported Takaichi and the people who dislike him,” Nishimura said.

Ishiba is expected to announce his cabinet after Tuesday’s parliament session.

Suva Beauty founder Shaina Azad announced the end of her company’s wild ride to international acclaim six months ago in a YouTube video that was met with a mixture of sadness and Reddit threads lamenting the loss of dazzling eyeshadow one fan called “a gamechanger.”

Azad — a Surrey-based makeup artist who cut her chops in film and TV — turned a passion for pigmentation into products carried in the world’s ritziest stores. But she said the bankruptcy of a major retailer and a family member’s health issues had “shifted her priorities.”

“And the world since then has continued to reveal its truths,” Azad told her followers. “And the time has now come for me to say goodbye.”

Nowhere does Azad mention a Federal Court battle that may turn out to be a lasting legal legacy for other entrepreneurs, influencers and creatives who rely on social media to make their marks.

Sony Music Entertainment Canada is pursuing Suva for millions allegedly owed for the unauthorized use of music by some of the world’s most popular artists in videos Sony claims Suva produced to build its brand.

Suva denies the claim, saying Sony doesn’t have the right to assert damages on behalf of performers like Beyoncé and Doja Cat and arguing any music used “did not comprise a substantial, vital or an essential part of the videos.”

“We’re a makeup brand,” Azad told a Sony lawyer during one deposition reviewed by CBC.

“Jingles don’t sell makeup. Makeup sells makeup.”

‘Smudge proof and transfer resistant’

According to Suva Beauty’s website, Azad started the company in 2015 — taking the name of her creation “from the vibrant and lush capital of Fiji.”

Suva’s signature product was a “smudge-proof and transfer resistant” ‘Hydra Liner’ that burst into public consciousness through the vibrant make-up artistry of the HBO teen drama Euphoria.

According to Sony’s notice of claim — Suva “largely eschewed traditional advertising,” relying instead on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok “to promote its products and build its brand.”

The lawsuit takes aim at what Sony describes as videos pairing images of Suva’s products with at least 88 separate “commercially-released sound recordings” by artists like Travis Scott, Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus.

“The videos often depict Azad demonstrating SUVA Beauty products … In each case, the visual images are set to the soundtrack of an excerpt from a Sony Recording that generally runs the full length of the Infringing video,” the lawsuit says.

“Suva Beauty and Azad have used the Sony Recordings to enhance the appeal of Suva Beauty’s products and the commercial impact of the Infringing Videos, and thus to increase its sales and revenues.”

In separate legal proceedings, Sony claims damages could top $18 million.

The Colonel Bogey March

The lawsuit against Suva mirrors a case brought in Florida last year by Sony Entertainment against OFRA Cosmetics — another makeup brand whose popularity Sony claims has been “driven by its use of social media.”

“There’s a problem with OFRA Cosmetics’ approach,” Sony claims.

“It regularly exploits (or materially contributes to the exploitation of) videos that contain unlicensed sound recordings and musical compositions owned by record and music publishing companies.”

Intellectual property law expert Myra Tawfik says the means of communication have changed, but claimants have been making similar arguments over the unauthorized use of music since the 1930s.

The copyright owners of The Colonel Bogey March successfully sued Paramount Films in 1934 over 20 seconds of the song used in a newsreel.

A U.K. court set the standard for infringement in that case by finding Paramount had used a “substantial, a vital, and an essential part” of the song — a whistling earworm recognizable from The Bridge On The River Kwai (Dah-dum, da da da DAH DAH dum).

“Music is hard because we love it; it’s so ubiquitous, and whatever music we love is part of who we are, and it reflects us, but there is a line,” Tawfik says.

“The internet is not the wild west. It’s not a free space for people to just take the copyright works of other people and assume that they can do what they want with them just because they’re influencers or they’re on social media platforms.”

‘Have you seen a cow before?’

According to the Federal Court filings, Sony’s lawyers grilled Azad and  Suva’s chief financial officer — Azad’s husband, Trevor Haynes — at length about the use of music in the brand’s videos.

The couple maintained any music was simply “background” as a means to cover up noises in the company’s offices during recording, dismissing any suggested links between song content and product placement.

A Sony lawyer asked Azad about a video featuring the song Rubber Band Man by A$AP Ferg in which she allegedly appeared “wearing large hoop earrings that have rainbow feathers” immediately after the lyrics “diamonds shining like a rainbow.”

“You then proceed to apply makeup to your eyes drawing sort of a blended rainbow line around each of your eyes,” the lawyer said.

“I’m going to suggest to you that having heard the lyrics to the song, you went and chose jewelry and makeup to match; is that correct?”

Azad disagreed — calling Suva a “rainbow brand,” famous for its connection to the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

At another point, Haynes was asked his thoughts on correlations between content and the lyrics of the Doja Cat song Mooo!: “Bitch, I’m a cow. I’m not a cat. I don’t say meow. Bitch, I’m a cow.”

“The video is showing someone putting a line of white makeup over their eye and adding black spots to it. Do you agree it looks kind of like a cow? What she’s painting on her eye?” a lawyer asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Haynes answered.

“Respectfully, Mr. Haynes, have you seen a cow before?” the lawyer countered.

“Would you agree that most cows are white with black spots?”

‘There will be a lot of lawsuits like this’

Jon Festinger, an adjunct professor at the University of B.C.’s Allard School of Law, says Canada has advanced laws protecting the rights of internet users — but there is a limit.

“It’s not a free-for-all. Just because you can take something off the net and move the digital bits over very easily into your YouTube video or something else doesn’t mean that’s OK,” he says.

Festinger says the same advances in technology that make widespread access to copyrighted material available have made it easy for copyright holders to scrape the internet for violations.

Copyright law is complex, he says, and most people aren’t aware of its intricacies — until they break it.

“And you’re going to get schooled in it by very powerful companies that have very deep pockets and are going to enforce their legal rights,’ he says.

The copyright claims have been playing out at the same time as Suva Beauty saw the bankruptcy of retailer Morphe — a cosmetics giant that filed documents listing Suva as a creditor it owed $400,000.

Suva Beauty appears to have removed all the videos at the heart of the battle with Sony from its various media channels, and lawyers for Azad and the company did not respond to requests for comment from CBC.

In a separate B.C. Supreme Court claim last month, Sony alleged Suva and the music giant have been in mediation for the Federal Court case.

But the music company claims Suva paid nearly $2 million in dividends last year to shareholders in a bid “to delay, hinder or defraud” creditors.

Suva has not responded to that claim. Azad could not be reached, but at the close of her video, she said farewell to fans of her brand.

“This is not goodbye forever,” she said. “It’s just a goodbye for now. And I hope to see you on my next adventure.”

Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89.

Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital.

“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs.

Smith was frequently rated the pre-eminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.

She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that “when you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.”

Smith dryly summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques,” including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my pension.”

Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of Suddenly Last Summer, said she was “intellectually the smartest actress I’ve ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith.”

Reputation for upstaging

Jean Brodie, in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969.

Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for California Suite in 1978, Golden Globes for California Suite and Room with a View, and BAFTAs for lead actress in A Private Function in 1984, A Room with a View in 1986, and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne in 1988.

She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in Othello, Travels with My Aunt, Room with a View and Gosford Park, and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in Tea with Mussolini. On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for Lettice and Lovage.

Her work in 2012 netted three Golden Globe nominations for the globally successful Downton Abbey TV series and the films The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Quartet.

Smith had a reputation for being difficult, and sometimes upstaging others.

Richard Burton remarked that Smith didn’t just take over a scene in The V.I.P.s with him: “She commits grand larceny.” However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasn’t “remotely difficult unless she’s among idiots. She’s very hard on herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be hard on other people, too.”

‘I don’t tolerate fools’

Smith conceded that she could be impatient at times.

“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.”

Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of Lettice and Lovage, praised Smith as “the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as ‘Have you no marmalade?’ until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde.”

Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line — “This haddock is disgusting” — in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever.

“But unfortunately the critics mentioned it, and after that it never got a laugh,” she recalled. “The moment you say something is funny it’s gossamer. It’s gone, really.”

Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on Dec. 28, 1934. She summed up her life briefly: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting.”

Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theatre studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship.

“I did so many things, you know, round the universities there … If you were kind of clever enough and I suppose quick enough, you could almost do weekly rep because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times,” she said in a BBC interview.

Maggie was her stage name

She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theatre.

Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of Othello.

Smith said two directors, Ingmar Bergman and William Gaskill, both in National Theatre productions, were important influences.

Alan Bennett, preparing to film the monologue A Bed Among the Lentils, said he was wary of Smith’s reputation for becoming bored. As the actor Jeremy Brett put it, “she starts divinely and then goes off, rather like a cheese.”

“So the fact that we only just had enough time to do it was an absolute blessing really because she was so fresh and just so into it,” said Bennett, who also wrote a starring role for Smith in The Lady in the Van.

Intensely private

However extravagant she may have been on stage or before the cameras, Smith was known to be intensely private.

Simon Callow, who acted with her in A Room with a View, said he ruined their first meeting by spouting compliments.

“I blurted out various kinds of rubbish about her and she kind of withdrew. She doesn’t like that sort of thing very much at all,” Callow said in a film portrait of the actress. “She never wanted to talk about acting. Acting was something she was terrified to talk about because if she did, it would disappear.”

Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, in 1990.

She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his leadership strained by conflicts on two fronts, took to the UN General Assembly podium on Friday and said he had decided to travel to the New York session to refute what he characterized as “lies and slanders” he had heard from other leaders this week from the same podium.

Netanyahu, armed with visual aids, forcefully defended his nation’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks led by Hamas on Israel that triggered a military operation that has devastated the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu said Israeli forces have destroyed “90 per cent” of Hamas’s rockets and killed or captured half of its forces.

“We are winning!” he said of Israel’s response.

He added that any role in a post-war Gaza for Hamas, considered a terrorist group by several Western nations, must be rejected.

Netanyahu said the operation in Gaza is being guided by the “sacred mission” of returning all hostages taken to Gaza nearly one year ago. The prime minister said that 154 hostages have been repatriated to Israel, though 37 from that number were no longer alive.

“We will not rest until the remaining hostages are returned, too,” he said.

The Hamas-led attacks also killed about 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government, including citizens from several countries, including Canada.

Warning to Iran

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministry, part of Gaza’s Hamas government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of 2.

Netanyahu repeated his assertion that Israel is not deliberately targeting civilians in densely populated Gaza, though South Africa has brought a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing of it committing genocide against the Palestinians there.

Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, accused Israel from the same rostrum on Thursday of destroying Gaza and making it unlivable. Abbas also said that his government should govern post-war Gaza as part of an independent Palestinian state, a vision that Israel’s government rejects.

Abbas has had little influence in Gaza since Hamas overthrew his forces and seized power of the territory in 2007.

Netanyahu insisted that Israel wanted peace, pointing to the positive strides made in the relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia in recent years. 

He saved much invective for Iran, the country he again blamed for being behind many of the problems in the region, as is supports Hamas and Hezbollah. The UN for too long had “appeased Iran,” he alleged.

He warned of a muscular response if Iran repeated an attack such as its unprecedented missile salvo toward Israel in April.

“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel can’t reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East,” he said.

As he spoke, the seats in the Iran delegation sat empty. Outside, protesters against Netanyahu and Israel’s policies demonstrated behind police barricades.

Addresses campaign against Hezbollah

In recent days, Israel has turned its attention to the border with Lebanon, where it is targeting Hezbollah militants and has inflicted civilian casualties as well. Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after Oct. 7, and ongoing fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border.

Netanyahu referred to the estimated 60,000 who fled as “refugees in their own home land.” Israel is vowing to step up its attacks on Hezbollah until its citizens can return safely to their homes.

He repeated his assertion made more than once this week that Israel’s objections are not with the Lebanese people.

“Don’t let Hezbollah drag Lebanon into the abyss,” he said.

Late Wednesday, the United States, France and other allies jointly called for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire on the Lebanon front to allow for negotiations as fears grow that the violent escalation in recent days could grow into an all-out war.

The United Nations says over 90,000 people have been displaced by five days of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, bringing the total to 200,000 people who have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas.

Abdallah Bouhabib, Lebanon’s foreign minister, decried Israel’s “systematic destruction of Lebanese border villages” in his Thursday address at the same venue.

“The crisis in Lebanon threatens the entire Middle East,” Bouhabib said. “We wish today to reiterate our call for a ceasefire on all fronts.”

Shortly after Netanyahu finished his address, the Israeli military said it carried out a “precise strike” on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut. The Israeli army’s spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, made the announcement in a televised address after the explosion in Beirut sent massive clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies on Friday afternoon.

Disturbance before speech

As Netanyahu took the stage, there was enough ruckus in the audience that the presiding diplomat had to shout, “Order, please.”

The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu on Friday each made a point of calling out Israel for its actions.

“Mr. Netanyahu, stop this war now,” Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, speaking just before the Israeli leader, declared of Gaza: “This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine.” He thumped the rostrum to audible applause.

More than 550 people who attended the P.E.I. International Shellfish Festival last weekend reported getting sick, according to the province’s chief public health officer. 

“This is the biggest gastrointestinal illness outbreak we have on record,” Dr. Heather Morrison told CBC News on Friday.

Stool samples taken from people who ate food at the festival have tested positive for norovirus, Morrison said.

“That makes sense to us given all the information that we have.” 

The illness caused four people to go to emergency departments, and one person to be hospitalized, Morrison said. 

Norovirus is transmitted in a number of ways, like eating contaminated food, touching contaminated surfaces, or contact with someone who has the virus, she said. 

The CPHO began its investigation earlier this week after people began reporting symptoms including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps and fever after attending the event, which was held Sept. 19-22 in Charlottetown.

Organizers said over 3,200 people attended the shellfish festival on Saturday alone, and the four-day attendance was over 9,000.

Anyone with symptoms was advised to fill out an online food questionnaire in an effort to help track the extent of the outbreak and determine the cause. 

“It was more people than we had initially even thought,” she said.

“I would venture [to] guess there were probably more people that were sick than even responded to the questionnaire.” 

The Chief Public Health Office also contacted the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and other health-care staff to remind them to take stool samples from anyone who presented with symptoms. 

Despite the highly contagious nature of norovirus, hospitals have not reported a recent spike in cases, Morrison said.  

Future guidance

“With these kinds of outbreaks, everyone learns and no one wants anyone to get sick,” Morrison said. “It’s a reminder I think these … things can happen.” 

As part of its investigation, the CPHO made six recommendations to lower the risk of gastrointestinal illness outbreaks at future events: 

1. Additional health inspections before and during the festival.

2. Enhanced sanitation of food preparation areas and common touch surfaces to prevent potential cross-contamination of foods.

3. Develop a policy to exclude staff and food handlers from working when ill and have a dedicated staff person to check daily with staff and food handlers about illnesses.

4. Have easily visible hand washing stations available at all washrooms and develop a policy to ensure they are checked and re-filled during the event.

5. Work with a sanitation company to ensure decontamination of common touch surfaces in the washrooms daily.

6. Maintain samples of prepared foods in cold storage for a minimum of 48 hours after the event has ended.

Going forward, Morrison thinks the shellfish festival and similar events will be “safer than they ever have been,” based on what was learned from this incident. 

Morrison said the CPHO will work with the shellfish festival’s organizers next year, and do more inspections before and during the festival. 

Shellfish festival organizers are “fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all attendees and will continue to actively implement recommendations of the CPHO,” the health authority said in a news release.

The union representing longshore workers at the Port of Montreal says work at two terminals could come to a standstill next week as the union served a 72-hour strike notice on Friday.

That could potentially lead to dockworkers walking off the job as of 7 a.m. Monday and lasting until Thursday.

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The union says in a statement that only two terminals would be affected by the work stoppage owned by Termont Montreal.

At the Port of Montreal, negotiations continue with the Maritime Employers Association to renew the longshore workers’ collective agreement, which expired in Dec. 31.

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Earlier this week, the 1,150 longshoremen at the Port of Montreal rejected the latest offer from the Maritime Employers Association by 99.63 per cent while also giving themselves a strike mandate.

The union local, affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, is holding a news conference this morning to provide an update on negotiations.

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