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Treat Williams: Everwood and Hair actor dies in road accident
Actor Treat Williams, who starred in the film musical Hair and the US television series Everwood, has died in a road accident aged 71.
Williams was thrown from his motorbike in Vermont on Monday after being hit by an SUV turning left, police said.
He was airlifted to hospital with critical injuries, but pronounced dead on arrival.
The actor recorded over 130 screen credits in a career that spanned almost 50 years.
“As you can imagine, we are shocked and greatly bereaved at this time,” a family statement published by Variety magazine said.
“Treat was full of love for his family, for his life and for his craft, and was truly at the top of his game in all of it.”
Williams’ agent of 15 years, Barry McPherson, described him as “the nicest guy” who was “so talented”.
“He was an actor’s actor,” McPherson told People magazine, adding that Williams had been at “the heart of Hollywood since the late 1970s”.
Actor Wendell Pierce described Williams on social media as a “passionate… creative man” whose “adventurous spirit was infectious”.
Following his 1979 breakthrough in Hair as hippie George Berger, Williams appeared in Steven Spielberg’s 1941 (1979), Once Upon A Time In America (1984), Dead Heat (1988), Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (1995) and Deep Rising (1998).
He was also known for his stage acting, with roles in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies and as Danny Zuko in the original Broadway production of Grease.
In the early 2000s, Williams appeared as widowed Dr Andy Brown in four series of the US TV drama Everwood, and he also took on roles in Chesapeake Shores, Blue Bloods and Chicago Fire.
He was nominated for an Emmy award for his work in the 1996 TV movie The Late Shift, and received three Golden Globes nominations during the 1980s.
Born Richard Treat Williams in Connecticut in 1951, he is survived by his wife Pam Van Sant, whom he married in 1988. The couple had two children.
Credit: BBC
Hundreds of street children received a special treat during the Christmas festivities as a result of a collaboration between the management of the La Beach Hotel and the Street Academy in Accra.
It was part of the Hotel’s current arrangement to provide lunch for the children of the Academy every Friday.
Courtesy that partnership, management of the La Beach Hotel feted hundreds of street children housed by the Street Academy, creating a partying moment for the children.
According to officials of the Hotel, the gesture was to let the children feel part of the festivities and not left out.
The children enjoyed delicious meals and snack after which they danced as they enjoyed the moment.
According to the Hotel officials, “the season represents one that every parent gathers their children and shower them with gifts and others to make them happy but sadly, these unfortunate children are left on their own, having no one to care for them.”
“This is an event we intend to make an annual one. Through this, we hope to put some smiles on their faces. It is not proper to leave them on their own.”
The Executive Director of the Academy, Ataa Lartey, expressed gratitude to the management of the hotel, saying that, “this has gone a long way to excite the children and make them feel part of the celebration.”
He said due to the number of children that join around this time of the year, it becomes difficult for the Academy alone to shoulder this responsibility.
“It is not easy to organise such activities alone because it draws a lot of children, that is, those in the Academy and their friends that follow them but with such cooperate supports, we are able to bring them together to share in moments like this,” he told The Spectator.
By Spectator Reporter
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A 30-year-old surrogate mother has delivered a set of quadruplets at The Walking Egg Medical and Fertility Centre at Pokuase in Accra, in a rare surrogacy success that has brought renewed attention to assisted reproductive care in Ghana.
The babies-two boys and two girls- were delivered through a caesarean section in the early hours of Tuesday at 36 weeks and weighed an average 2.5 kilograms each, a weight doctors say was healthy for a multiple pregnancy.
IUI stands for Intrauterine Insemination, a common fertility treatment where healthy sperm are collected, ‘washed’ and concentrated in a lab, and then directly inserted into a woman’s uterus around ovulation using a thin catheter to help sperm reach the egg for fertilisation, often used for unexplained infertility, cervical issues, or mild male factor infertility, and is less invasive than IVF.
Speaking to The Spectator after the surgery, the Medical Director of the Centre, Dr Nana Yaw Osei, said the pregnancy was achieved through Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) and was not planned to result in multiple births.
“With IUI, you introduce prepared sperm into the uterus and have no control over how many eggs fertilized.”
“Unlike IVF, where embryos are formed outside the body and the number transferred can be controlled, this outcome was left entirely to nature,” Dr Osei explained.
He said unlike IVF which could result in multiple babies, this is “possibly the first IUI leading to quadruplets in Ghana.”
He revealed that the surrogacy arrangement was necessary because the intended mother had lost her uterus during surgery to remove fibroids, making it medically impossible for her to carry a pregnancy.
“She had no womb of her own, through no fault of hers,” Dr Osei said, adding that “Surrogacy was the only option available for her to have a biological child.”
When scans later showed that the surrogate was carrying four fetuses, the medical team considered fetal reduction, a procedure sometimes used to reduce risks in multiple pregnancies. However, the option was rejected.
“As a strong Christian, fetal reduction is abortion to me,” Dr Osei said. “After discussions with the intended parents and the surrogate, we all agreed to continue with the pregnancy.”
Despite concerns commonly associated with multiple pregnancies, Dr Osei noted that the surrogate experienced no major complications, and the delivery was smooth. Paediatric assessments conducted after birth confirmed that all four babies are healthy.
Dr Osei again indicated that surrogacy, though still widely misunderstood, is recognised under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 2020 (Act 1027).
He urged the public to engage the subject with greater understanding.
“Surrogacy is not about convenience,” he said. “It is about restoring hope to people who have lost the ability to carry a child.”
Describing the moment of delivery, he added, “I was in tears in the theatre. It reminded me why I chose this profession.”
By Esinam Jemima Kuatsinu
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