The devastating wildfires and deadly flooding that plagued Nova Scotia last year have resulted in $490 million in insured losses, the Insurance Bureau of Canada said in a report released Thursday.

Jennifer Stam, a lawyer for the Toronto-based Fiera Private Debt Fund, made the statement Friday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court, where Justice John Keith later approved a motion to extend the media companies' protection from creditors until Aug. 8.

Housing Minister John Lohr says that over the next four years, 1,445 public housing tenants about 13 per cent of the total will start paying rent based on their household income, which means they could be paying more or less than they are now.

There's growing evidence that the number of great white sharks is on the rise along Canada's East Coast, where plans are in the works to post warning signs for beachgoers for the first time.

Vicky Levack, who sits on the board of the Disability Rights Coalition, says the government's one-year progress report shows it is moving in the right direction, but she says the province can't ignore the fact that it failed to reach a key deadline earlier this year.

Almost 10 years after an armed man killed three Mounties in Moncton,the RCMP has yet to fully implement a key recommendation from a 2014 review aimed at preventing such deadly encounters.

A new report on flooding last year in Nova Scotia that killed four people says the municipality of West Hants faced several challenges in transmitting timely emergency alerts to the public.