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Tee Thursday: Arizona golfing offers desert views, great challenges

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

While there’s plenty of time to savor our greater New England courses (last season I played in a skirt and T-shirt the first weekend of December. Great, but the skier in me says a little sooner to wrap the regular season would be fine), it’s also time to plan those fall, winter and spring golf escapes.With that in mind, I have two words to guide you to an amazing trip; two words that, when I heard them before experiencing them last winter, terrified me.Desert golf.Also known as target golf.I’m talking about Scottsdale, a golf mecca where you can find enough courses to play to keep you coming back for a lifetime, and where, for the most part, you’ll be playing desert/target golf.What is it, and why isn’t it as terrifying as it sounds? Desert golf means patches of lush green woven into the desert landscape. It means soaring rocks (often in the middle of a fairway), sandy gullies (often just past the tee box for you to drive over), and long holes that are dotted with green – the spots ...

Steve Cohen shares thoughts on Mets’ trade deadline moves: ‘I think Billy did a phenomenal job’

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

KANSAS CITY — Steve Cohen didn’t become a billionaire by letting his emotions dictate how he runs a business. When the Mets tumbled to the bottom of the standings this season, he gave them enough runway to get the plane off the ground.The Mets failed to do so and the owner made the difficult decision to open the team up for business ahead of the trade deadline.Cohen went to Kansas City on Wednesday, one day after the trade deadline, to assuage the fears of the players that will be around long after this season. The Mets will be competitive in 2024, he insisted, much as his general manager did after the deadline passed.“I’m surprised you’d be surprised,” Cohen said Wednesday at Kauffman Stadium. “What did I say? I said I wanted sustainability and that if we were in the same position I wasn’t going to add.”The Mets added to the farm system by subtracting veteran pitchers David Robertson, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, outfielde...

Charm City Live music festival to shut down Inner Harbor access on same day of Orioles night game at Camden Yards

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

It could’ve been a crush but now Charm City Live attendees will have plenty of space to spread out when the music festival takes place at the end of the month.But what will that mean for Orioles fans?Instead of being held at War Memorial Plaza, this year’s music festival is taking over the Inner Harbor, relocating to “the heart of Baltimore, at the intersection of Market Place and East Pratt Street in the Inner Harbor, to offer guests an unforgettable live musical experience,” city officials said Wednesday in a news release.The free, one-day music festival will be held Saturday, Aug. 26, from noon to 8 p.m., ending just after the Orioles settle into a 7:05 p.m. start against the Colorado Rockies at Camden Yards. It’s also Félix Bautista Bobblehead night, part of a popular promotional giveaway that goes to the first 20,000 fans 15 and older and draws crowds.The relocation of the festival will require the temporary closure of several downtown streets...

Agence France-Presse pursues copyright case against X, formerly known as Twitter

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

PARIS (AP) — France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, says it is pursuing a copyright case against X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, in an effort to secure potential payment for its news content. The news agency said it applied Wednesday to a Paris court to compel Elon Musk’s rebranded company to provide data it says is needed “for assessing the remuneration owed to AFP.” The news agency announced the legal action in a statement. It said it is seeking payment under European Union intellectual property rules that cover “neighboring rights,” which allow news outlets and publishers to seek payment from digital platforms for the sharing of their work.France was the first EU country to adopt the rules into national legislation, in 2019.“As a leading advocate for the adoption of neighboring rights for the press, AFP remains unwavering in its commitment to the cause,” the news agency said.It described the legal action against Twitter...

Violent unrest is rising in Ethiopia’s Amhara region after attempt to disarm fighters, witnesses say

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Violent unrest is escalating in Ethiopia’s Amhara region as federal security forces clash with a local ethnic militia, leading the deputy prime minister in an unusually outspoken statement to call the situation “increasingly grave.”Ethiopia’s second most populous region has been gripped by instability since April, when federal authorities disarmed the Amhara regional force as part of the recovery from a devastating two-year conflict in the neighboring Tigray region. Authorities last year also tried to dismantle the Amhara militia known as Fano. Both forces had fought alongside federal ones in the Tigray conflict, but now the federal government wants to centralize its security powers. Many Amhara, however, are deeply attached to their regional fighters and accuse the federal government of trying to undermine their region, which federal officials reject.Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen on Wednesday called for dialogue to seek a peaceful resolution and descri...

Nintendo’s profit jumps as Super Mario franchise gets a boost from hit film

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo reported a 52% increase in net profit for the first fiscal quarter on Thursday following the success of its Super Mario movie and the new Zelda video game.Demand was strong for Nintendo Switch game software, which received a boost from the release earlier this year of the film about the jumping plumber called “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” according to Nintendo Co.The film has so far drawn more than 168 million people globally, grossing $1.3 billion.That makes it one of the top-selling animation films on record, second only to “Frozen II,” and the top animation film based on a video game. The “Lion King” 2019 remake, while it uses computer graphics and was an even a bigger hit, isn’t categorized as an animation film. Also helping lift Nintendo’s results was the popularity of “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” game, released in May, the latest in the hit action-adventure series.The Japanese video game maker’s April-June net profit totaled 181 billion ye...

Waves grow up to 13 feet tall in California as Earth warms, research finds

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Waves are getting bigger and surf at least 13 feet (about 4 meters) tall is becoming more common off California’s coast as the planet warms, according to innovative new research that tracked the increasing height from historical data gathered over the past 90 years.Oceanographer Peter Bromirski at Scripps Institution of Oceanography used the unusual method of analyzing seismic records dating back to 1931 to measure the change in wave height.When waves ricochet off the shore, they collide with incoming waves and cause a ripple of energy through the seafloor that can be picked up by seismographs designed to detect earthquakes. The greater the impact, the taller the wave is.Until now, scientists relied on a network of buoys by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that collect data on wave height along U.S. coasts, but that data along the California coast only went back to 1980.“Until I stumbled upon this data set, it was almost impossible to make that co...

Toronto home sales and prices up from last July, down from June: TRREB

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

TORONTO — The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board says home sales, listings and prices were up in July compared with last year, but activity looks to be slowing in the face of higher interest rates. The board says the 5,250 sales for the month was up 7.8 per cent compared with July 2022, while listings grew 11.5 per cent. The average selling price was up 4.2 per cent in July from a year earlier to $1,118,374, while the benchmark price was up 1.3 per cent. Sales and prices however trended lower from June on a seasonally adjusted basis with sales down 8.8 per cent and the average price down 0.7 per cent.The drop in month-over-month sales in July marked the second month in a row for lower sales, while the July price pullback was the first month since February that saw a retreat.The board says that it seems the sales momentum seen earlier in the spring has somewhat stalled since the Bank of Canada restarted its rate tightening cycle in June. This report by The Canadian Press was first pu...

Selection of Thailand’s new prime minister delayed again, to await court decision on election winner

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — A parliamentary vote to select Thailand’s new prime minister expected on Friday was delayed again after a court put off a decision in a case involving the progressive party that won May’s election, adding to growing uncertainty about when a new government can take office.The Constitutional Court on Thursday said it needs more time to deliberate on whether to accept a petition from the state ombudsman on whether it was constitutional for Parliament to bar Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, the surprise election winner, from being nominated as a prime ministerial candidate a second time.The progressive Move Forward Party finished in first place in the May election and assembled an eight-party coalition with 312 seats in the 500-member lower house. But Parliament has struggled to confirm a new prime minister, which requires a majority vote together with the conservative 250-member appointed Senate. Pita’s initial bid last month fell short by more than 50 ...

Pope Francis urges students in Portugal to fight economic injustice and protect the environment

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:28:19 GMT

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Pope Francis challenged university students on Thursday to make the world a more just and inclusive place, as he focused the second day of his Portugal trip on inspiring young people to use their privilege to combat global warming and economic inequalities.Francis received a warm welcome at the Catholic University, one of Portugal’s top institutions of higher learning, where students broke into periodic papal chants under an already bright sun on the central Lisbon campus. After the event, Francis was heading to the seaside town of Cascais to visit the local branch of his Scolas Occurrentes foundation, a movement he founded years ago to bring young people from different backgrounds and nationalities together.Francis is in Lisbon through the weekend to attend World Youth Day, the big Catholic jamboree that St. John Paul II launched in the 1980s to encourage young Catholics in their faith. Francis has picked up John Paul’s mantle with gusto as he seeks to inspi...