Celebrating Michael Williams and 10 years at WPTV

From day one, Michael Williams had a big presence at WPTV and that's not simply a reference to his towering height.

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  • Saint Vincent residents describe what it was like to wake up to a volcano eruption and share how the country is coming together to rebuild

    The volcano remained active throughout the weekend, exploding again on both Monday and Tuesday morning. Monday's was the largest eruption yet.

  • Chinese man kidnapped and killed in elaborate body-swap scheme

    The scheme was devised to grant a dying man's wish to avoid a ban on traditional burials.

  • McConnell: Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan ‘a grave mistake’

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said a Biden administration plan to remove all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September is a “grave mistake” that would abandon the allied global fight against terrorism.

  • This Hialeah restaurant serves one of the best sandwiches in the world, Time Out says

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  • W Galen Weston, retail tycoon behind Selfridges, dies aged 80

    W.G. Galen Weston, the entrepreneur who built an Atlantic-spanning business network that made him one of the richest Canadians, has died. He was 80. Weston died on Monday “peacefully at home after a long illness faced with courage and dignity,” the Weston family said in a statement. “In our business and in his life he built a legacy of extraordinary accomplishment and joy,” his son, Galen G. Weston, chief executive officer of George Weston Limited, said. His daughter, Alannah Weston, the chairman of Selfridges Group, added: “The luxury retail industry has lost a great visionary.” A friend of Prince Charles and lover of polo and art, Weston oversaw and expanded a high-end family retail empire that includes Selfridges, Canada’s Holt Renfrew, Brown Thomas in Ireland and de Bijenkorf of the Netherlands. Through George Weston Ltd., the company named for his grandfather, the family holds the biggest stake in Canada’s largest food retailer, Loblaw Cos. Willard Gordon Galen Weston was born in Buckinghamshire, England, on Oct. 29, 1940, the youngest of nine children in a prominent family. His father, Willard Garfield Weston, had helped expand the family’s bakery company into a multinational food empire, and served as a member of Parliament during World War II. One brother, Garry H. Weston, who died in 2002, was one of the richest people in Britain, and chairman of Associated British Foods Plc. In 1962, Weston graduated from the University of Western Ontario and moved to Ireland where he met Hilary Frayne, an Irish fashion model; they married in 1966. With financial help from his grandmother, according to a 2014 article in the Irish Times, he bought a grocery store, building it into the Power Supermarkets chain, and then began acquiring clothing stores. At his father’s request, Weston returned to Canada in the early 1970s, taking the helm of Loblaw Cos., which he is credited with saving from near-bankruptcy and subsequently turning into the country’s largest grocer. Weston, who had two children, continued to make business a family affair. His son Galen G. Weston became executive chairman of Loblaw in 2006, and CEO at George Weston Ltd. in 2017 – the fourth generation to lead the business. His daughter Alannah Weston has also served as a director on George Weston’s board, as well as deputy chairman of Selfridges Group Ltd., which Weston acquired in 2003 and under which the family’s other luxury department stores are held. Weston had a net worth of $10.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth sometimes came at a cost. In 1983, police tipped off Weston and his family about a planned kidnapping attempt at their estate in Ireland. During a police ambush, several members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army were reportedly shot and captured. Despite his prominence in society circles on both sides of the Atlantic, the incident led Westin to keep a low media profile throughout much of the rest of his life. He has continued to lease the historic Fort Belvedere in Windsor Great Park in southeast England, a 17th-century “folly” where Edward VIII abdicated. In 1989, Weston and his wife founded Windsor, a wealthy resort community in Vero Beach, Florida, helping design the lay-out of the community, golf course and polo field. A 2013 article in Toronto Life described the enclave as a “plutocrats’ playground,” where a tight-knit group of jet-setters convene in a not-quite-retirement community to “play polo, hit the links, plan corporate takeovers and party.” The Westons also maintained ties to Toronto, keeping a house in the tony Forest Hill neighbourhood where members of the royal family sometimes stayed when they visited Canada. The couple worked in philanthropy, and Hilary Weston served as lieutenant-governor of Ontario – the Queen’s representative in the province – from 1997 to 2002. “He and Hilary were an incredible team,” Nixon said. “He did so much for his country.”

  • USCB plans to join the NCAA in 2022 and add 2 new sports teams. What will they play?

    Here’s what you need to know about the University of South Carolina Beaufort’s Wednesday announcement.

  • Afghan pullout could be risky for Biden

    The political risk is minimal in the short-term but there could be problems on the horizon for Biden.

  • ‘Congress itself is the target’: Capitol police overlooked intel and were ordered to hold back during riot, report finds

    Days before attack, law enforcement officials were warned Stop the Steal campaign could attract ‘white supremacists, militia members’ and other violent groups

  • Kim Potter: Former police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright arrested on manslaughter charges

    Killing of 20-year-old Black man has sparked protests and unrest in Minnesota city

  • Louisiana capsizing: 12 lost at sea after ‘microburst’ storm hits coast

    State senator ‘praying for everyone’ caught in strong winds that capsized a 129-foot vessel on Tuesday

  • Japan to release Fukushima water into sea

    Japan says it will release more than a million tonnes of contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear station into the sea.On Tuesday, the government announced a plan to begin releasing the water in about two years.The plant's operator, TEPCO, will filter the water to remove harmful radioactive isotopes.Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga again made his country's argument that the water must be released to decommission the Fukushima plant."We will secure safety which is far above the regulation standards, and the government as a whole will conduct exhaustive measures against harmful rumours. We've judged that oceanic release is a realistic (option)."One isotope that has sparked anxiety is called tritium, as it is difficult to separate from water.However, it is considered to be relatively harmless because it does not emit enough energy to penetrate human skin.Suga says that even still, its concentration in the water Japan dumps would be reduced to around one-seventh of the drinking water standard defined by the World Health Organisation.Other plants around the world routinely pump water with lows levels of tritium into the ocean.But local fisherman have opposed dumping the water for years.And neighbours aren't happy either.China called the move 'extremely irresponsible' on Tuesday, and spokesman for South Korea called the decision unacceptable.Japan has been working closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency since the meltdown.Despite the outrage, the government has pointed out there is simply no more room at the site in the huge tanks that hold waste water.The Japanese government has been keen to stress the filtering and dilution processes.A senior government spokesperson emailed media outlets on Monday to request the term "contaminated" not be used in reporting, arguing it was misleading.

  • NATO to match US troop pullout from Afghanistan

    NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance has agreed to withdraw its roughly 7,000 non-American forces from Afghanistan to match U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to pull all American troops from the country starting on May 1. Stoltenberg said the full withdrawal would be completed “within a few months” but did not mention the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks set as a goal by Biden. There are between 7,000 and 7,500 non-U.S. NATO troops currently in Afghanistan.

  • Swift Afghanistan troop withdrawal loomed after Trump lost election — but some special forces could remain

    Joe Biden had long argued against large-scale troop numbers in Afghanistan

  • Iran says it will enrich uranium to highest level ever after apparent Israeli attack on key nuclear facility

    Iran, which now plans to enrich uranium to 60% purity, has vowed revenge on Israel over Sunday's act of sabotage on the Natanz nuclear complex.

  • Britain will ‘drawdown’ troops from Afghanistan after Biden confirms pullout by 9/11 anniversary

    456 British troops were killed in Afghanistan before UK combat operations ended in 2014

  • Italians seen increasingly reluctant to accept AstraZeneca shots

    The head of healthcare management in Italy's largest region, Lombardy, said on Wednesday there was a growing reluctance amongst residents to accept AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine because of safety fears. Public confidence in the vaccine has been battered worldwide since reports emerged linking it to very rare but potentially fatal blood clots in the brain. "It is a phenomenon that in recent days is becoming more serious than we might have thought," Giovanni Pavesi told the regional health commission in Lombardy, which is centred on Italy's financial capital Milan.

  • Trump-era spike in Israeli settlement growth has only begun

    An aggressive Israeli settlement spree during the Trump era pushed deeper than ever into the occupied West Bank — territory the Palestinians seek for a state — with over 9,000 homes built and thousands more in the pipeline, an AP investigation showed. If left unchallenged by the Biden administration, the construction boom could make fading hopes for an internationally backed two-state solution — Palestine alongside Israel — even more elusive. Satellite images and data obtained by The Associated Press document for the first time the full impact of the policies of then-President Donald Trump, who abandoned decades-long U.S. opposition to the settlements and proposed a Mideast plan that would have allowed Israel to keep them all — even those deep inside the West Bank.

  • The Ever Given is fit to sail again, official report concludes - but it still can't go anywhere because Egypt impounded it

    The Ever Given is "suitable for onward passage" - at least up the Suez Canal - but can't move thanks to Egypt's $900 million damages claim.

  • McManus: The pandemic won't end anywhere until it's under control everywhere

    The world's failure to deliver vaccines to needier countries is more than a scandal; it's a crisis. And it could come to haunt us all soon.