Your World Tonight - The billionaire vying for Hudson's Bay real estate, Syria ceasefire, fish fossils, and more

Episode Date: July 19, 2025

Former Hudson's Bay workers are putting their faith in Ruby Liu. The B-C billionaire is on a hiring spree - hoping to attract workers for her own stores at former Hudson's Bay locations. The catch? The stores haven't opened - and Liu hasn't even leased out the buildings.Also: A U.S. brokered ceasefire in Syria to end violence between sectarian groups is on shaky ground. The truce also had the backing of Israel and Syria's governments. The violence has killed hundreds of people in recent days - quickly making it a massive challenge for Syria's fledgling government. And: If you went back in time to 390 million years ago to the Prairies, you wouldn't see amber waves of grain -- just waves. You'll hear about the paleontologist studying fish fossils from that period - and how those fossils can help fill in evolutionary gaps.Plus: Dozens injured in L.A. car ramming, India's judicial backlog, Japan's upper house election, and more.

You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map You battled crackens and navigated through storms Your spades struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest While you cooked a lasagna There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Marcia Young.

This is Your World Tonight. Ruby has said that she wanted to emphasize rehiring us. We really don't know if we have jobs or not. It sounds positive. Former Hudson's Bay workers are putting their faith in Ruby Liu. The B.C. billionaire is on a hiring spree, hoping to attract workers for her own stores at former Hudson's Bay locations, locations that don't yet belong to her. Also on the podcast, Syria's government struggles to maintain a shaky ceasefire.

And move over Jurassic Park. Bone, teeth, jaws, all this is so important to us. Studying this helps us understand how we got to having all these structures, that is so key. A fossilized fish helps to fill in gaps in the evolutionary record. Hundreds of jobs are up for grabs at department stores in Canada. The catch? The stores haven't opened. And it's not known if and when they will.

The woman behind the hiring spree hasn't even leased out the buildings. B.C. billionaire Ruby Liu is trying to snag more than 20 Hudson's Bay leases after the company went bust. But as Michelle Song explains, her bid is getting both support and fierce opposition. Ruby go! Ruby go! At a hotel in downtown Toronto, BC billionaire Ruby Liu held a jobs fair and a dance party. The fair had a turnout of more than 200 people,

the majority of whom were former Hudson's Bay Company employees who lost their jobs after the retail giant filed for creditor protection in March. Liu, who owns several malls and a golf course in B.C., plans to create a new department store chain named after herself. She says she is preparing for the best-case scenario. The CEO of her company, Linda Chin, translated for her. She's very confident that we're going to get the stores. Liu is trying to secure up to 25 leases of former HBC stores.

She says she wants to hire at least 60 to 70 percent of all laid-off employees. Sandy Kivetan worked for the Bay for 27 years. She's still fighting in court so we really don't know if we have jobs or not. If she pulls this off she will be a Canadian hero. But the billionaire is being met with major opposition in the courtroom. Liu signed a deal with HBC in May to obtain 28 locations, three of which she now has as they are spaces in her own malls. But court proceedings are still ongoing for the remaining 25.

And most landlords say she has a lack of experience as a retailer and needs to provide more information of her plans. Retail analyst Bruce Winder says Liu needs to give the landlords more certainty around her vision of creating a new department store. Because if you're a landlord, you know, you're looking for, for cash flow. You're looking for steady, certain, almost guaranteed cash flow from something that's going to bring traffic into your mall, right? And if not...

You and her CEO acknowledged the challenge department stores face in the era of the internet with more people now shopping online. They say they can bring Canada stores with new elements, including events and options for fine dining. Canadian retail industry needs reform, revitalization. We need change. Without change, you know, we're not going to have a promising Canadian retail industry. But retail and marketing expert Jim Donahey is skeptical. She's got some experience renting retail space, not operating retail space.

And at this stage, at least as of the last visit to court, she didn't even have a lawyer, let alone a business plan. Earlier this week, court proceedings were adjourned as Liu did not have a lawyer present. But the billionaire says she has now found new representation. Michelle Song, CBC News, Toronto. The family of a Canadian woman detained by U.S. immigration authorities is pleading for her release. Paula Callejas is from Montreal.

Back in April, she was detained in Florida by ICE agents. That was after she posted bail on a battery charge. Callejas was living in Florida while trying to grow her swimsuit business. Her family says her visa expired earlier this year. But they say when she applied for an extension, it was rejected on a technicality. An ICE spokesperson tells the Canadian press that Callejas had violated the terms of her admission to the United States and that she will remain in custody until her immigration proceedings are complete. According to Global Affairs Canada, there are about 55 Canadians in ICE detention.

Still ahead, Japan has relatively few immigrants, but an upstart political party there says the country is facing a silent invasion. It's rallying voters with a message of Japan first, and in an election this weekend it could cause trouble for Japan's ruling coalition. That's later on Your World Tonight. The Democratic Republic of Congo has signed a declaration of principles with Rwandan-backed M23 rebels to end decades of fighting. Representatives from both sides signed the declaration at a ceremony in Qatar. The agreement includes the restoration of state authorities in eastern cities under rebel control.

Fighting between Congolese forces and M23 rebels has led to the deaths of thousands of people. Millions of others have been displaced. A final peace agreement is expected to be signed by August 18th. A U.S. brokered ceasefire in Syria may have collapsed almost as quickly as it started. The truce also had the backing of Israel and Syria's governments. Sectarian violence has killed hundreds of people in recent days. It's the biggest challenge yet to the credibility of Syria's fledgling government. Chris Reyes tells us the latest.

On the streets of Sweda in southern Syria, the sights and sounds are that of battles. Heavily armed fighters from warring tribes shoot at each other. Men from the Druze and Bedouin communities openly exchanged fire in broad daylight. By end of day, Syrian security forces say they cleared the city of Bedouin fighters. Ravina Shandasani is a spokesperson for the UN's Human Rights Office and described the toll from the clashes. Credible reports that our office has received indicate widespread violations and abuses, including summary executions and arbitrary killings, kidnappings, destruction of private property and looting of homes in the southern city of Sueda.

It's the latest escalation between the two sides which have flared on and off for many years and most recently as the country attempts to stabilize following the fall of long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad last December. Leaders of the Islamist rebel forces that pushed al-Assad out soon took over. Bedouins have loosely supported them, the Druze fighting against. Sajjan Gohel is a security expert at the Asia Pacific Foundation. He explains what triggered this latest round of violence. About a week ago when a Druze man was attacked and robbed on a highway,

Druze militias then detained people that they believed were involved. That provoked retaliatory events, including Bedouins kidnapping members of the Druze community. And then suddenly the situation spiraled very quickly out of control. The fighting continues despite a newly brokered ceasefire supported by the U.S. between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharah, who was appointed in January after Al-Assad was ousted. This week Israel launched airstrikes in Syria claiming to be protecting the Druze population. Gohel explains their connection.

As Israel occupies the Golan Heights, there are also members of the Druze community within there, as well as within Israel itself. Some of them serve in the Israeli military. So there are strong historical and political ties that have been fostered to the Druze community. A member of the Bedouin tribe explains they're fighting for control of the Syrian state and

against not the Druze people, but their leadership. This fighter says even if Wada turns into graveyards for tribes, we are not leaving. In a post on X, US Special Envoy to Envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, called on the warring tribes to put down their weapons to build a united Syrian identity. A tall order for a country still reeling for more than a decade of civil war and now contending with a post-Al-Assad reality. Chris Reyes, CBC News, New York.

In Gaza. Children and other injured people are rushed out of ambulances and into the hospital in Jabalia. An Israeli airstrike in central Gaza killed at least 10 people. Meanwhile in southern Gaza, health officials say Israeli forces shot and killed at least 30 Palestinians near an aid distribution site. Israel's military says its troops fired warning shots at approaching people. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation runs the aid sites. It denies there were any incidents or fatalities.

On Tuesday, the UN said, over the past six weeks, 875 Palestinians have been killed near aid sites. weeks, 875 Palestinians have been killed near aid sites. In Colombia this week, a dozen countries from Latin America, Africa and Asia announced a series of measures aimed at pressuring Israel to end the war in Gaza. But as Manuel Rueda reports from Bogota, critics say the countries don't have much in the way of leverage. Activists cheer for diplomats exiting Colombia's foreign ministry. Delegates from 32 countries met in Bogotá this week to discuss the steps governments

can take to stop Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza. Luis Carlos Dominguez, a pro-Palestinian activist, described the conference as a historic moment. This is a small step taken by countries from the global south, but I think it can encourage others to take action. Following the talks, 12 nations signed a declaration saying they would cut military ties with Israel, as well as review procurement practices. The announcement says it's to ensure that public funds are not supporting, quote, Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory.

Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, and Colombia were some of the signatories. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said it's the duty of his country and others to stand up against the quote genocide in Gaza. The world is being ruled by tyrants, he said. Delegates say they're trying to comply with a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last year, which calls on Israel to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. There's also an International Court of Justice opinion that says the occupation is illegal.

Crispin Firi is a member of South Africa's delegation. He says the sanctions adopted at the conference send an important message. We have to preserve the international law system or else we'll live in a society where it's the law of the jungle, where some can do whatever they please at the expense of smaller countries. So absolutely this conference is essentially about preserving international law and finding its enforceability. Israel denies its commitment genocide, calling last year's UN resolution a distorted decision

that's disconnected from reality. In Colombia, many are skeptical about the measures announced at the conference and whether they could actually change Israel's policies, especially because these sanctions will be applied by nations that have little economic leverage. Sanctions and these kind of trade barriers and all these kind of things, they rarely succeed in changing the behavior of states. Oscar Palma is an international relations professor, Bogotá's Rosario University. So I don't think that Israel is just going to change its behavior because a group of countries, especially from the Global South, are just saying we're going to press on Israel to do X, Y or Z.

Still, those who participated in the conference say they can't afford to sit on the sidelines when it comes to the war in Gaza because there's simply too much at stake. Not just the lives of the people there, but the idea that there should be consequences for those who breach international law. Manol Reda for CBC News, Bogota. In northern Vietnam, rescuers are searching Ha Long Bay for survivors from a tourist boat that capsized in a storm. At least 34 people are dead.

Most of those on board were tourists from Hanoi. Heavy rain has hindered search efforts, but 11 people have been pulled from the water alive. Police are investigating a horrendous car ramming outside a Los Angeles nightclub. At least 30 people were injured when the vehicle struck the crowd early Saturday morning. Steve Futterman is in Los Angeles with more on this incident and Steve what do we know so far about the timeline of what happened? Well all this happened at around two o'clock this morning outside a very popular nightclub. It's called the Vermont nightclub. It's at the corner of Vermont and Santa Monica, a very popular location.

And people were sort of ending their evening there when suddenly all this happened. Now, according to eyewitnesses that we spoke to, the suspect, the alleged person who ran into the people here, he left the club after being told to leave. He apparently had been disruptive, may have been intoxicated. And initially he drove away from the scene, but then suddenly made a U-turn and then smashed into this congregation of people that were standing just outside the entrance. Now, as you mentioned, some people have been critically injured.

Among the people that were hurt were these people who sometimes if you've been to a sports event or a music club, they have these food carts where they'll sell you hot dogs or some Mexican food in this case. Some of those people were hit by the vehicle. Also the gentleman who handled the valet parking, he was among the people hit by the vehicle. Also the gentleman who handled the valet parking, he was among the people hit by the vehicle. Now Los Angeles police officer Jerry Lee says

after the crash, the bystanders actually confronted the driver. Officers arrived, the driver of that vehicle was being physically assaulted by bystanders and during that altercation, somebody produced a firearm and shot the driver of that vehicle. And the driver, the suspect in this case, the person who allegedly ran into this group of people, he is now in the hospital and we are told in somewhat serious condition. What more information are police looking for regarding the driver? Well they're talking to anyone who was an eyewitness, they're talking to people who were in the club, they're talking to anyone who was an eyewitness. They're talking to people who were in the club. They were talking to people who saw this person

ejected from the club. They're trying to find out, did he say anything? Did he express some anger or anything like that? Detectives are looking into a number of things. Again, this is the LA police officer, Jerry Lee. The primary focus is going to be what led to this. Well, what caused this driver to plow into this crowd? Was it intentional?

Was it not intentional? Was it DUI related? Was it personal? We don't know, but detectives will look at all those angles. Now, no charges have been filed. However, police say they're leaning now in the direction that they feel. Again, they've not made any conclusion yet, but they feel that it's looking more and more like this was an intentional act.

Now, if there is a criminal charge connected with this case, it could be charges including assault with a deadly weapon, the deadly weapon being the vehicle, or possibly attempted murder. Thank you, Steve. My pleasure. That is Steve Futterman in Los Angeles. Outsider parties could upset Japan's political establishment. Half of the seats in the country's upper house are up for grabs in an election Sunday.

And if the polls are correct, Japan's ruling coalition could lose its majority. Casbo Avin reports from Tokyo. Take a walk in Tokyo's Shinjuku Central Park and you could meet a dozen people with as many distinct political leanings. people with as many distinct political leanings. Personal trainer Yuya, 29, is voting social democrat because he likes their platform of helping those in need.

40-year-old Hirata, at the park with her kid, likes a party called Reiwa Shinsengumi because it supports tax cuts. Twenty-three-year-old university grad Ginga hasn't made up his mind yet, but he's leaning Communist Party. None are expected to overtake Japan's long-reigning liberal Democrats, but they are chipping away after LDP Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, in office less than a year, failed to tackle stagnant wages and soaring prices. There's also another concern this election cycle.

Here's Ginga again. He's worried about the hate building toward immigrants. The Sanseito Party, formed five years ago, is campaigning with a nationalist agenda. It wants to reverse the rise in foreign workers being allowed in, claiming they're sucking up jobs and leeching off social safety nets. It could win enough seats to present bills in Japan's national legislature. Sanseito and some of the other parties are set to be inspired by Trump. Political scientist Koichi Nakano says he doesn't expect the party to become a major

force. Rather, he sees it as a flash in the pan, preying on people's fears that they're getting left behind. Not because the foreigners are now dominating Japan. That's entirely bogus. But it is true in the sense that the sovereign people of Japan are perhaps not so sovereign anymore because the elected representatives do not necessarily respond to or even respect the voters' views. Nakano expects a reckoning for the ruling party, adding Ishiba may step down. I don't see it yet.

I'll vote in a different place. At Shinjuku Station, 47-year-old Kosaku says he used to support the LDP, but he's voting differently this time, because the economy has him worried about the next generation. And down the road, 52-year-old Yoshida also fears for the future, saying the LDP government is selling Japan. As for the direction he hopes for his country... Japanese first. Kaz Buave, CBC News, Tokyo.

It is said that justice delayed is justice denied. Well, for Indians, that delay could be centuries. India's justice system is backed up with tens of millions of cases. And there's currently no solution to the problem. As Salima Shivji reports, an artificial intelligence company is promising actual results for India's overburdened courts. This is simply chart sheet number one. Sanjay Ghol wrestles through the large stack of documents in front of him and pulls out another bundle.

A painful reminder of the fight for justice, he's been waging since 2003, when his mother, Canadian doctor Asha Ghol, was brutally murdered while visiting family in Mumbai. It's like Groundhog Day. Files have disappeared. Files have been found months later. The case appears open and shut.

There's a confession from one of the attackers, DNA evidence. And yet, 22 years later, Goal is still flying back and forth from Vancouver to Mumbai for hearing after hearing. His is just one case out of India's more than 52 million, both civil and criminal, wending their way through the country's judicial system. A docket that would take several hundred years to clear fully. It weighs heavily on Sudhir Dawale too. He's now able to sing this protest chant

freely at home. But the longtime activist, accused of inciting caste violence, spent six and a half years behind bars just waiting for bail. And even though Dawale finally got bail in January after a judge ruled he had suffered an inordinate delay, his trial is still looming. Gautham Patel, a retired Bombay High Court judge, has seen India's overburdened judicial system first hand. Bombay High Court judge has seen India's overburdened judicial system firsthand. One case landed on his desk after 17 courts had already weighed in on the exact same question of law.

I was the 18th in a row. What a colossal waste of time this is. India's archaic court system inherited from the British prioritizes oral arguments with no time limit, all of which need to be transcribed. Plus, there are long written submissions and piles of handwritten witness testimonies. The other main issue is that there are only 15 judges for every million Indians,

with no urgency to fix that dismal ratio, says retired Supreme Court Justice Madan Lokar. Even if recommendations are made, the vacancies are not being filled up. And at the high court level, it's 40% vacancy. Roughly 40%, yeah. Artificial intelligence could make a dent, says Patel. Since leaving the Bombay High Court, he's been experimenting with a new program that

can transcribe court proceedings in real time. My initial reaction is, where have you been all my life? It saves an incredible amount of time. But Patel says it will take much more to actually start to chip away at the staggering backlog in India's courts. And with each aborted hearing, the toll on Sanjay Goel and his family deepens.

I'm trying my best, but it's tiring. Even through the exhaustion and the frustration, Goel says he feels lucky he even has the means to keep pushing to see his mother's killers behind bars. But his father is now in his late 80s. And I it's hard to look at him and say, Dad, I've I've done what's expected. Have you? You know, I made a promise.

And I need to fulfill that promise as best I can. The pain of justice not yet served, sometimes too hard to bear. Salima Shivji, CBC News, Mumbai. If you went back in time to 390 million years ago to the prairies, you wouldn't see any amber waves of grain, just waves. And in that vast and ancient sea, you would find now extinct sea creatures among them, a fish that a University of Manitoba paleontologist says can help fill in evolutionary gaps. Karen Pauls explains.

This is where El Moste was found. Molina Jobbins and her team are studying a geological map. They're going rock hunting in this old quarry about two hours north of Winnipeg in Manitoba's interlake region. This is the Devonian, then we get older and then a little older and then it's... But they're not just looking for any rocks, they're looking for 390 million year old fossils, specifically of an extinct fish they recently identified and named Elmostias londarensis. It swam in what was once a vast inland sea. We're hoping that we can look for more of these fish,

and more of the placoderms, more of Elmo and its relatives as well. It was a source. We found it? No, it found us. When you think of prehistoric fish, the terrifying and giant sea creature from the Jurassic Park movies probably comes to mind. But the remnants of the fish Jobbins is looking for

is about 150 million years older than the dinosaurs and only about the size of a large Chinook salmon. So what we have here is the piece of a jewel. In the 1990s, researchers at the University of Manitoba discovered some ancient fossils in the quarries near Lake Manitoba. Jobbins carefully takes the mud of their cases in the University Museum to show them to us. We have a front tooth. We also have a lateral tooth as we say. It's one of the first fish to develop body armour, jaws and teeth,

helping researchers understand how all of this evolved. Bone, teeth, jaws, all this is so important to us. Studying this helps us understand how we got to having all these structures, that is so key. After finding a few more fossils and filling in some of the gaps, Jobbins realized this was a brand new fish. She renamed and reclassified it.

Her work published this month in a scientific journal, but she still wants to know more. Which is why she and her team are doing field work at more quarries. Humor bits will allow us to have an even better understanding of what the animal looked like, what the features were of the animal. Kirsten Brink teaches paleontology at the University of Manitoba. Manitoba is a great place for finding fossils because we actually have a lot of different ages of rocks. Also a lot of the rocks that are exposed in Manitoba

are because of mining or old mining activity. So people have come in and dug up the rocks and just kind of exposed all these fossils by accident, which is really great for us paleontologists. The local Reeve is delighted by all of this. Virgil Johnson grew up around here. We used to find all these little fossils when they're crawling around out here and going swimming and stuff so it's actually pretty neat that when you get the experts out here and kind of show

you exactly how old things were and what they are. Sifting through these dusty rocks looking for clues in our past to give us some insight into how we got here and maybe where we're going. Karen Pauls, CBC News near Lendar, Manitoba. We're the kids in America We're the kids in America Everybody lives for the music around

We'll leave you tonight with a bit of nostalgia. The movie Clueless turns 30 years old and Sharona Nazarian, the mayor of Beverly Hills where the movie is set, has declared July 19th the first ever Clueless Day. It's a feel-good movie that appeals to generations and there's so much about Beverly Hills in this iconic movie. Every time you watch it there's something new and it's exciting. Clueless is a coming-of-age rom-com loosely based on Jane Austen's Emma. Its opening scene shows Cher Horowitz using her mix-and-match computer program to come up with the iconic Jean-Paul Gaultier yellow plaid skirt suit.

Every scene is a fashion show including the extras in the background. Three decades later, the styling from that movie keeps coming back. And even in dolls, the Bratz Clueless doll wearing that yellow skirt suit is sold out online. That movie also made Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, and the late Brittany Murphy household names. The dialogue in Clueless turned high school teens into people who had witty conversations, and the comebacks are being passed down like classic handbags. Oh, as if! Hello, it was his 50th birthday. Whatever! In Beverly Hills, there will be an outdoor screening of Clueless and a

costume contest and the costume designer says she's working on a new drama series with Alicia Silverstone and a book about the fashion of Clueless due out this fall. And we'll leave you with something more from the platinum selling coolest soundtrack, This is Tenderness, by General Public. This has been your World Tonight. I'm Marcia Young. Thanks for listening.