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Tee Thursday: Mass Golf elevates player experience

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

I’ve only been officially in the golf world for a little over a year but evidence supports this: I’m already kind of a big deal.I mean look: I can sashay into quite a number of exclusive, private clubs and play a round. I have people who keep files on my scores and help me track my improvement. They arrange fun games for me to play during rounds with friends, and they offer me all kinds of special opportunities, like cool in-person tips and lessons from renowned pros.Yep, that’s me: Kind of a big deal.OK, that’s all true, but here’s the hook: it could be you too. Because while I may have signed on as a member of Mass Golf (https://www.massgolf.org) simply as a way to track my handicap, I found out quickly that the organization, officially Mass Golf since 2018 but out there supporting golfers for over a century, is a golden ticket to the insider golf life.Mass Golf Director of Marketing and Communications Stephen Hanjack told me most of the current 110,000 Mass Golf members (they sur...

Del Mar to add more than 100 affordable housing units over next six years

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

DEL MAR, Calif. -- Del Mar’s long-term plan for housing, including affordable housing, has been officially certified by the state. It’s a process that took two years of revisions before getting to this point.The city of Del Mar is now the 12th in San Diego County to have its housing element certified by the state. Through California’s “regional housing needs allocation” process, each city and unincorporated area in the county is required to provide a certain number of housing over an eight-year cycle. The current cycle runs from 2021 to 2029.For Del Mar that means adding 175 new housing units, including 113 for low-income residents.While the city of Del Mar approved its plans in 2021 and met the deadline, it took two years of back and forth with the state to get the all clear from the State’s Department of Housing and Community Development. San Diego restaurant added to California Michelin Guide Despite that, a spokesperson for the city of Del Mar told FOX 5:“It should be noted th...

Flashpoint in Israel: Divide between religious and secular Jews heats up under Netanyahu’s rule

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

HARISH, Israel (AP) — The sound of children and music echoed down a narrow basement hallway in Israel as they scrambled in a pool of balls, climbed on a jungle gym, munched popcorn and laughed.The atmosphere changed suddenly on that Saturday last month, as at least a dozen religious men appeared and blocked the entrance, accusing the indoor playground of desecrating the Jewish sabbath by opening for business. Angry parents confronted them, scuffles broke out and in an instant, the center in this mixed city had become a flashpoint symbol of a larger battle between secular and religious Jews in Israel.“I think it represents what’s going on in the country,” said Tzipi Brayer Sharabi, a 38-year-old mother who says she was attacked and thrown to the ground during the May 20 incident. “I want my kids to live how they choose to live. I don’t want somebody to tell them how they should eat, how they should dress, what they should do on Shabbat.”Similar incidents have long u...

EU makes fresh attempt to overcome yearslong crisis over migrants

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union interior ministers on Thursday made a fresh attempt to overcome one of the bloc’s most intractable political problems as they weighed new measures for sharing out responsibility for migrants entering Europe without authorization.Europe’s asylum system collapsed eight years ago after well over a million people entered — most of them fleeing conflict in Syria — and overwhelmed reception capacities in Greece and Italy, in the process sparking one of the EU’s biggest political crises.The 27 EU nations have bickered ever since over which countries should take responsibility for people arriving without authorization, and whether other members should be obliged to help them cope.Arriving for the meeting in Luxembourg, the EU’s top migration official, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said it was an “extremely important day” to resolve what has “been a marathon” issue for Europe.“Of this marathon, we have maybe 100 meters left. So, we are so close to ac...

Pope spends first night in hospital after surgery to remove intestinal scar tissue, repair hernia

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis awoke Thursday after a good first night in the hospital following a three-hour operation to remove intestinal scar tissue and repair a hernia in his abdominal wall, problems that developed following previous surgeries.“The night went well,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement early Thursday, adding further updates would be released later.Dr. Sergio Alfieri, director of abdominal and endocrine sciences at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, said Wednesday’s operation was successful and there were no complications or other pathologies discovered. Alfieri, who also removed part of Francis’ colon in 2021, told an evening press conference that the pope was awake, alert and even joking.“When will we do the third one?” he quoted Francis as saying.The pontiff was expected to remain in the 10th floor papal suite at Gemelli for several days, and all papal audiences were canceled through June 18. The Vatican was expected to provide a medical update later Thur...

Australian man sentenced to 9 years in prison for gay American’s 1988 manslaughter

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

SYDNEY (AP) — An Australian man who admitted to killing a gay American by punching him off a cliff top in Sydney in 1988 was sentenced on Thursday to nine years in prison.Scott Phillip White, 52, had pleaded guilty in the New South Wales state Supreme Court to Los Angeles-born Scott Johnson’s manslaughter.White had pleaded guilty last year to the then-27-year-old’s murder — a greater crime — and had been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison. But he changed his mind and had the murder conviction overturned on appeal.Manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of 25 years.Having already served part of his sentence, White will be eligible for release on parole in 2026.“Not much is known of the death beyond a punch on a cliff, a fall from a cliff and decades of pain and grief that followed,” Justice Robert Beech-Jones said during sentencing on Thursday.On Dec. 10, 1988, White met Johnson at a pub and the pair went for a walk around North Head, which was known at the time to be a popula...

Israel demolishes home of Palestinian suspect in Jerusalem attacks that killed 2

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli army said on Thursday that it demolished the West Bank home of a Palestinian involved in twin bombings in Jerusalem that killed two and wounded at least 18 others in November.Israeli authorities arrested Islam Faroukh in December on suspicion of carrying out the bombings, part of a more than year-long surge in violence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.The army released video footage showing troops closing off the area and carrying out small controlled explosions, destroying an apartment in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah early on Tuesday. The army said people threw rocks and fire bombs at troops, who returned fire. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported one Palestinian was moderately wounded by Israeli gunfire and treated at a local hospital.Israel demolishes the homes of attackers in an attempt to deter others, a tactic critics say amounts to collective punishment.The attack in November came after months of relentless violence in the West B...

France's last surviving D-Day commando joins 79th anniversary beach landing

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

Leon Gautier, the last surviving member of the French commandos who stormed the Normandy beaches defended by Hitler's troops in 1944, on Tuesday (6 June) joined President Emmanuel Macron at a seafront ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the D-Day landings.Gautier, 100, presented a student marine commando with his green beret at a passing out parade at Colleville-Montgomery, near where a 21-year-old Gautier had landed on Sword Beach in a hail of enemy fire.Gautier was one of 177 French green berets under the command of Captain Philippe Kieffer who took part in the Normandy landings. More than 150,000 allied troops invaded France to drive out Nazi Germany forces.At Tuesday's ceremony, the young marine knelt down on one knee to allow Gautier, sat in a wheelchair to Macron's side, to straighten his beret.In 2019, Gautier recounted on the occasion of the 75th D-Day anniversary how French troops had been the first to wade chest-deep onto Sword Beach."Your honour," Gautier recalled Br...

1 dead, 2 hospitalized after car jumps curb, crashes into Chase Bank building

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

Personnel with the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles where a vehicle drove onto the sidewalk, struck several pedestrians, killing one of them, before crashing into a building. Crews were dispatched to 6161 West Pico Boulevard, near La Cienega Boulevard at around 5:28 p.m. after receiving calls about the crash.  At the scene, firefighters found at least two of the three pedestrians pinned beneath a black Hyundai sedan after the driver jumped the curb onto the sidewalk, striking the three victims and crashing into a Chase Bank building. A 48-year-old female and a 51-year-old male were taken to the hospital in serious condition. The man later succumbed to his injuries. A 19-year-old male was also taken to to the hospital in fair condition, according to an LAFD news release. "They are all family members, all related," Cpt. Ben Fernandes, with the Los Angeles Police Department, said of the three victims. The driver of the vehicle...

French pension reform opponents push for repeal bill but are unlikely to succeed

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

Opponents of French President Emmanuel Macron’s retirement reform have tried mass protests, damaging strikes and constitutional challenges to stop it. Now they are trying one last move: a new bill to repeal it. But Macron’s centrist party is trying to outmaneuver the opposition, whose proposal has almost no chance of success.On Thursday French lawmakers are debating an opposition bill which aims to return the retirement age to 62 — it went up to 64 with Macron’s unpopular reform. Legislators from centrist opposition group LIOT proposed the text, supported by leftists and the far-right.Macron’s centrist party doesn’t have a majority in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, but it has allied with some Republican lawmakers to push back the opposition’s efforts. As a result, the key article stipulating the retirement age was removed from the bill when it was reviewed by the Social Affairs Committee last week.Opposition lawmakers planned to restore the previous retirement...