Latest news with #RobertFerguson
CTV News
28-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
Archeologist who unravelled the story of North America's only Viking site has died
Birgitta Wallace is shown in this handout photo sitting on a bucket at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland in 1976. The celebrated Swedish-Canadian archeologist was known for her work unravelling the story of the Vikings at L'Anse aux Meadows, which is the only acknowledged Norse site in North America. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO ST. JOHN'S — A celebrated Swedish-Canadian archeologist who helped unravel the story of the Vikings at the only acknowledged Norse site in North America has died. Birgitta Wallace Ferguson discovered evidence that Leif Eriksson's Vinland was briefly established at L'Anse aux Meadows, at the tip of Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula. Robert Ferguson, her husband and fellow archeologist, says she was passionately devoted to her work and the L'Anse aux Meadows site, where she felt a deep connection with the local community. He says the day before she died, she was in her hospital bed dictating comments to him about a paper she was co-authoring about the site. Adjunct archeology professor Shannon Lewis-Simpson says though Wallace Ferguson was a titan in her field, she was known for being modest, kind and generous with her time and expertise. Wallace died last week in Halifax while in hospital. She was 91. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025. The Canadian Press
Indianapolis Star
12-05-2025
- Business
- Indianapolis Star
25-story New Jersey hotel implodes, turns into dust as part of demolition plans: Watch
A Sheraton hotel located just off Route 17 north at the intersection of Routes 287 and 202 in New Jersey was brought down May 10 with plans to replace it with warehouses in the pipeline. Hundreds of people gathered in Mahwah, about 36 miles north of Newark, to watch the 25-story hotel, built in 1987, implode, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK reported, adding dozens of booms were heard as the Sheraton Crossroads Hotel building came down and turned into rubble. Many of those present on May 10 were friends or employees of the town and members of the demolition company or subcontractors involved. Video footage from the event shows the smoke and dust enveloping the rubble as the 250-feet tall building, a north Jersey landmark, came down. Township Engineer Michael Kelly told the building had been gutted with asbestos removed as part of the demolition plans, and the concrete had been tested and "determined not to have any hazardous material." Township Council President Robert Ferguson said he is looking forward to seeing the revised plan for light industrial use proposed for the site. "Demolishing the structure isn't about erasing the past, it's about honoring it by making room for progress," Ferguson said. "This will bring hundreds of jobs to the area and drive business to Mahwah's local shops and restaurants without burdening our schools or infrastructure." Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. Remembering Sheraton Crossroads: Locals reflect The 36-year hotel, which opened in October 1987, was built on the property previously held the Ford Motor plant, the largest auto processing facility in the U.S., according to the The hotel had a top-floor bar offering panoramic views of North Jersey and neighboring southeastern New York, which made it a popular spot for tourists and locals alike. Ground broke on the $90 million Crossroads in January 1986 in what was supposed to be the first phase of a $300 million International Crossroads. It included office space on floors 2-12 and hotel rooms on floors 14 to 25. Another four to seven office buildings were to be added in the next phases. However, a month after it opened, developer James D'Agostino conceded his vision, and the additional buildings were never built. Last August, the Township Council approved a proposal by Crossroads Hotel Developers LLC to increase the 140-acre site's allowable maximum building square footage from 1.7 million to 4 million square feet. But no plan has yet been put forward to develop the site, according to Contributing: Marsha A. Stoltz, Matt Fagan, / USA TODAY NETWORK
USA Today
12-05-2025
- Business
- USA Today
25-story New Jersey hotel implodes, turns into dust as part of demolition plans: Watch
A Sheraton hotel located just off Route 17 north at the intersection of Routes 287 and 202 in New Jersey was brought down May 10 with plans to replace it with warehouses in the pipeline. Hundreds of people gathered in Mahwah, about 36 miles north of Newark, to watch the 25-story hotel, built in 1987, implode, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK reported, adding dozens of booms were heard as the Sheraton Crossroads Hotel building came down and turned into rubble. Many of those present on May 10 were friends or employees of the town and members of the demolition company or subcontractors involved. Video footage from the event shows the smoke and dust enveloping the rubble as the 250-feet tall building, a north Jersey landmark, came down. Watch Sheraton hotel implode in New Jersey Township Engineer Michael Kelly told the building had been gutted with asbestos removed as part of the demolition plans, and the concrete had been tested and "determined not to have any hazardous material." Township Council President Robert Ferguson said he is looking forward to seeing the revised plan for light industrial use proposed for the site. "Demolishing the structure isn't about erasing the past, it's about honoring it by making room for progress," Ferguson said. "This will bring hundreds of jobs to the area and drive business to Mahwah's local shops and restaurants without burdening our schools or infrastructure." Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. Remembering Sheraton Crossroads: Locals reflect Hotel history The 36-year hotel, which opened in October 1987, was built on the property previously held the Ford Motor plant, the largest auto processing facility in the U.S., according to the The hotel had a top-floor bar offering panoramic views of North Jersey and neighboring southeastern New York, which made it a popular spot for tourists and locals alike. Ground broke on the $90 million Crossroads in January 1986 in what was supposed to be the first phase of a $300 million International Crossroads. It included office space on floors 2-12 and hotel rooms on floors 14 to 25. Another four to seven office buildings were to be added in the next phases. However, a month after it opened, developer James D'Agostino conceded his vision, and the additional buildings were never built. Last August, the Township Council approved a proposal by Crossroads Hotel Developers LLC to increase the 140-acre site's allowable maximum building square footage from 1.7 million to 4 million square feet. But no plan has yet been put forward to develop the site, according to Mahwah Sheraton Crossroads Hotel property timeline 1955 to 1980: Property occupied by Ford Motor Plant. October 1987: Sheraton Crossroads office, hotel and convention center opens. March 2011: Township Council votes to rezone the site from office to retail use. September 2011: Council rescinds its retail designation, returning the site to office use. 2012: Property designated an "office park" in the township's master plan. August 2013: Court ruling overturns the Township Council's rescinding, returning the site to retail. January 2014: Planning Board approves 600,000-square-foot shopping mall for the site. 2018: Property assigned 800 multi-housing units, 120 affordable, with 300,000 square feet of retail space as part of the township's fair share housing settlement. 2022: Hotel owners sue township after its Planning Board and council declared the property an "area in need of condemnation redevelopment," a designation that allowed for the acquisition of the property by eminent domain. 2023: Owners reach agreement with township officials to remove the affordable housing designation from the site, substitute a 74-unit affordable housing project off Mark Twain Way and approve the property's development for warehousing. Contributing: Marsha A. Stoltz, Matt Fagan, / USA TODAY NETWORK Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@ and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.
Irish Times
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Norway's War: Masterly account of a lesser-known part of the second World War
Norway's War: A People's Struggle Against Nazi Tyranny, 1940–1945 Author : Robert Ferguson ISBN-13 : 978-1801104821 Publisher : Apollo Guideline Price : £30 The Nazi occupation of Norway is one of the internationally lesser-known episodes of the second World War, despite it giving rise to one of the most enduring pieces of vernacular from the conflict. Vidkun Quisling, the leader of the far-right Nasjonal Samling (or National Unity) party and would-be native leader of Nazi Norway, lent his sonorously fitting name to a term for a craven traitor to one's own country. Robert Ferguson, in this invaluably comprehensive history of the five-year occupation, tells us the London Times had already converted Quisling's name into a neologism just a week into his first abortive attempt to wrest power after the German invasion in April 1940. (Though he did manage to become the figurehead of the local administration, Quisling's lack of popularity, even among his fellow fascists, meant Hitler 's Reichskomissar, Josef Terboven, wielded the real power in the country.) But Quisling is only one of the remarkable stories of the occupation, which, as Ferguson, a British-born Norwegian translator and biographer of both Knut Hamsun and Henrik Ibsen , says, turned into a low-scale civil war within the greater war. The Nazis got their local lackeys to do the more inflammatory dirty work, which many Norwegian members of the Hird, the Nasjonal Samling's paramilitary wing, willingly did, often with exceptional sadism. Norwegians, directed by their government in exile in England, resisted as best they could, and some of the key Resistance figures, such as the Christian activist Ingrid Bjerkås, the double agent and police prosecutor Gunnar Waaler, and the career criminal Johannes 'Yellow Cheese' Andersen, who struck up an unlikely friendship with the exiled King Haakon VII, are worthy of book-length narratives on their own. Perhaps the most notable thing about Ferguson's masterly account is how a society that was probably more like a contemporary European liberal democracy than any other country the Nazis occupied (it was well to the left of most countries in Europe at the time) descended into darkness and yet resisted admirably, the Norwegians showing little interest in all the nonsensical Völkish Aryan trappings the Nazis, Heinrich Himmler in particular, were determined to dress them up in. Norway's War is thoroughly recommended for anyone wishing to learn more about one of the more under-explored areas of the second World War.
