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World News

Deliberate Israel Coalition Brings Palestinians Aid however No Rejoicing

Planned Israel Coalition Brings Palestinians Relief but No Rejoicing

The agreement on a coalition that would oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and include an Arab party in government has prompted indignation and relief in roughly equal measure among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Indignation because Naftali Bennett, who will become prime minister until 2023 if Parliament approves the proposed eight-party coalition, is a right-wing leader aligned with religious nationalists in strong opposition to a Palestinian state.

Relief because Mr. Netanyahu, while sometimes courting Israeli Arabs of late, has often used their presence to generate fear among his base, famously warning in 2015 that they were voting “in droves.” He has fanned division where possible and declared that Israel is “the nation-state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people.”

These provocations, and the passing of a nation-state bill in 2018 that said the right to exercise self-determination was “unique to the Jewish people,” contributed to the anger evident in violent confrontations in several cities last month between Arabs and Jews.

That a small Arab party known by its Hebrew acronym, Raam, agreed to join the government so soon after the clashes reflected a growing realization that marginalization of Arab parties brings only paralysis. It also suggested a desire among some Palestinians citizens, who account for 20 percent of the Israeli population, to exert more political influence.

Raam, with four seats in the current Parliament, would be the first independent Arab party in an Israeli government, although it would not have any cabinet members.

“I do not think that the two-state solution or reconciliation with the Palestinians will be achieved in the coming year or two,” said Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Center, an advocacy group for Arab citizens of Israel. “But I do think that it is an opportunity for the Palestinian community in Israel to become a game changer.”

Others were more sceptical. “I have debated Bennett, and he says quite openly, ‘You are not my equal,’” said Diana Buttu, a prominent Palestinian lawyer based in Haifa. “Did I want Netanyahu out? Yes. To the extent of wanting Bennett as prime minister? No.”

Alluding to Mansour Abbas, the leader of the small Arab party that signed an agreement to join the government, she added: “He has done this to make his mark, but he will not get anything. He is effectively backing a government led by an ultranationalist who wants to expand settlements.”

How Mr. Bennett would exercise power in a coalition with many members well to the left of him, including the chief architect of the agreement, Yair Lapid, remains unclear. But Mr. Netanyahu’s hold on Israeli society and the Israeli imagination has been such over the past dozen years that his eventual departure inevitably seems synonymous with new possibility.

Commenting in the newspaper Yedioth, Merav Batito wrote: “Abbas’ signature is much more than a formal token of agreement. It symbolizes the possibility of a return to normalcy of Israeli society.” She added, “The first concrete wall built between Arabs and Jews by the Parliament deep in Israeli society has been breached.”

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Health

Semaglutide Brings Vital Weight Loss in Overweight Sufferers

Semaglutide Brings Significant Weight Loss in Obese Patients

For the first time, a drug has been shown to be so effective against obesity that patients can avoid many of its worst effects, including diabetes, researchers reported Wednesday.

Novo Nordisk’s drug Semaglutide is already marketed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. In a clinical study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago tested semaglutide at a much higher dose as an anti-obesity drug.

Nearly 2,000 participants in 129 centers in 16 countries injected semaglutide or a placebo weekly for 68 weeks. Those who received the drug lost an average of nearly 15 percent of their body weight, compared with 2.4 percent of those who received the placebo.

More than a third of the participants who received the drug lost more than 20 percent of their weight. Symptoms of diabetes and pre-diabetes improved in many patients.

These results far exceed the weight loss seen in clinical trials with other anti-obesity drugs, experts say. The drug is a “game changer,” said Dr. Robert F. Kushner, an obesity researcher at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, who led the study. “This marks the beginning of a new era of effective obesity treatments.”

Dr. Clifford Rosen of the Maine Medical Center Research Institute, who was not involved in the study, said, “I think it has great potential for weight loss.” The gastrointestinal symptoms among the participants were “really marginal – nothing like weight loss drugs in the past,” added Dr. Rosen, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and co-author of an editorial that accompanied the study.

For decades, scientists have been looking for ways to help a growing number of people with obesity. Five obesity drugs currently available have side effects that limit their use. The most effective phentermine causes an average weight loss of 7.5 percent and can only be taken for a short time. After stopping, this amount of weight is also regained.

The most effective treatment to date is bariatric surgery, which allows people to lose an average of 25 to 30 percent of their body weight, noted Dr. Louis Aronne, an obesity researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, who advises Novo Nordisk and studies semaglutide.

However, surgery is an invasive solution that permanently changes the digestive system. Only 1 percent of those who qualify do the procedure. Instead, most obese people try diet after diet with disappointing results.

The semaglutide study confirms what scientists already know, said Dr. Kushner: Willpower is not enough. In the new study, the participants who received the placebo and the diet and exercise counseling could not find any significant difference in weight.

In general, insurers have refused to pay for the weight loss drugs on the market. Semaglutide is likely to be expensive. The lower dose used to treat diabetes has an average retail price of nearly $ 1,000 per month. (Insurers usually pay for diabetes medication, Dr. Kushner noted.)

Dr. Caroline Apovian, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a member of the Novo Nordisk advisory board, said semaglutide’s effectiveness is “phenomenal” and the trial results may lead insurers to cover it.

Semaglutide is a synthetic version of a naturally occurring hormone that acts on appetite centers in the brain and intestines, causing feelings of satiety. A high-dose regimen of the drug hasn’t been studied long enough to see if it has serious long-term effects.

And it is expected that patients will have to take it for a lifetime to prevent weight loss from returning.

Qiana Mosely, who lives in Chicago, has tried dieting and drugs for years to lose weight, but to no avail. Then Ms. Mosely took the semaglutide study and lost 40 pounds, about 15 percent of her weight.

Ms. Mosely did not know until recently whether she was receiving the drug or the placebo. Although she tried to eat well and exercise, her weight “dropped too quickly,” she said. “It had to be the drugs.”

She said she didn’t experience any side effects. But when the study ended and she stopped receiving the drug, the weight came back. “I was so sad,” she said. She will endeavor to resume taking the medicine as soon as it becomes available.

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Business

WandaVision brings again Pietro Maximoff performed by Evan Peters

WandaVision brings back Pietro Maximoff played by Evan Peters

Elizabeth Olsen plays Wanda Maximoff in “WandaVision” on Disney +.

Disney

Kevin Feige warned us that the Marvel series on Disney + would have an impact on the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. And he kept that promise.

The fifth episode of “WandaVision” hit the streaming service on Friday, bringing with it a big cameo that made viewers think a lot before episode six comes out next week. The reveal not only impacts the sitcom-based TV show, but the entire Marvel Universe … or should I say Multiverse.

Now would be a good time to look the other way if you haven’t seen the latest episode of “WandaVision”.

** Spoiler ahead **

The fifth episode, entitled “On a Very Special Episode …”, our ragged team of FBI agent Jimmy Woo, Dr. Darcy Lewis and Captain Monica Rambeau, take a step closer to understanding the Westview anomaly.

Meanwhile, Vision, which is still part of the simulation but is now set in the 80s, is getting more and more suspicious of the world around him. The neighbors have started acting strangely, his twin sons are aging at their own will, and his wife Wanda trying to resolve his concerns only makes them grow.

Just as the newly minted husband and the newly minted wife are prepared for an overpowering argument, the doorbell rings. Wanda, confused by this phrase, answers. Pietro Maximoff is at the front, just not this Pietro Maximoff.

Elizabeth Olsen plays Wanda Maximoff in “WandaVision” on Disney + with special guest Evan Peters as Pietro Maximoff.

Disney

It’s Peter Evans, not Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who appears on the other side of the door. The actor portrayed the mutant Mercury in several X-Men films that were owned by 20th Century Fox until 2019.

It is implied that Wanda did not plan on including her brother in her sitcom simulation. After all, just a few scenes earlier, Wanda refuses to bring her sons’ deceased puppy back from the dead.

“You can fix anything, mom, fix dead,” notes a son. After the demise, even the nosy neighbor asked Agnes, who is believed to be pulling at least some of the strings in Wanda’s simulation, if she could actually do that.

“I’m trying to tell you that there are rules in life,” Wanda explains to her two boys. “We can’t just accelerate aging because it’s convenient and we can’t undo death no matter how sad it makes us. Some things are forever.”

This statement raises two questions: is Vision dead or did Wanda (or someone else) bring him back? And did Wanda accidentally bring back another Pietro or did someone else?

Both of these will likely be answered in a few weeks before the credits roll in for the final episode.

Audiences got a glimpse of what had happened prior to the Westview anomaly at the beginning of the episode when Wanda appeared on surveillance cameras and stole Vision’s body from a secret laboratory. And there are likely still many Easter eggs to be discovered that provide further clues.

Welcome to the multiverse

What about this new Pietro?

Before Disney acquired Fox’s $ 71 billion in entertainment brands, the two studios signed an agreement. Disney could use Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, but not point out that they were mutants or children of Magneto. That’s why Wanda and Pietro in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” derived their powers from an infinite stone and not genetically.

Interested viewers might have noticed in the Friday episode that Tyler Hayward, the director of SWORD, asked if Wanda had a nickname like some of the other Avengers that she didn’t. Wanda wasn’t named Scarlet Witch in any of the MCU films.

As for Fox, the studio was allowed to use Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in their films as long as there was no evidence of the Avengers. In fact, Peters’ mercury goes from Peter and not Pietro.

Elizabeth Olsen plays Wanda Maximoff in “WandaVision” on Disney + alongside Paul Bettany as Vision.

Disney

Rumors have been circulating in the past few months as Marvel executives hired some familiar faces to return in future MCU films.

Disney has already confirmed that Jamie Foxx will return as Electro from “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” with Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. And Alfred Molina, who portrayed Doctor Octopus as the famous web slinger during Tobey McGuire’s play, is also confirmed to appear in the film.

Dr. Strange by Benedict Cumberbatch will also appear.

There has been speculation that other characters from the MCU or even from previous iterations of Spider-Man will join the cast, but Disney has not confirmed those rumors.

The return of Pietro in the form of Peters signals that Marvel is already well on its way to explore the multiverse. This was teased during San Diego Comic-Con in 2019 when Marvel announced that the sequel to Doctor Strange would be titled “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”

For the stranger, the Marvel Multiverse is just a fancy way of saying a collection of alternate universes. They are similar to each other, but with slight differences. It’s a very popular concept in comics as it allows writers to reinvent characters and storylines for new generations.

With Wanda already confirmed as part of the Doctor Strange sequel and Doctor Strange as part of “Spider-Man 3”, it’s no surprise that Marvel is throwing breadcrumbs over it early on. After all, the seeds of the infinity stones appear in “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger” long before they are called such.

Marvel used the gems of mind, power, reality, soul, space and time over the course of a decade to weave new characters and situations that ultimately led to “Avengers: Infinity War” and the highest-grossing movie of all time. ” Avengers: Endgame. ”

The introduction of the multiverse in “WandaVision” works on several levels for Disney. Not only are they paving a path for future MCU movies and shows, the company is also making its streaming content a must-see television program. Fans need to watch these shows if they don’t want to miss any storylines or character introductions that are incorporated into feature films.

WandaVision may have been the first Marvel project since Spider-Man: Far From Home in July 2019, but it won’t be the last in 2021. Disney + will soon be followed by “The Falcon and” The Winter Soldier “in March,” Loki “in May and the animated series” What if …? ” in summer.

Marvel will debut “Black Widow” on May 7th, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” on July 9th, “Eternals” on November 5th and “Spider-Man 3” on November 5th. December.

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Politics

Xavier Becerra Brings Environmental Justice to Forefront

Xavier Becerra Brings Environmental Justice to Forefront

Esther Portillo, interim executive director of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, one of the groups involved in the fight against San Bernardino, said winning would not mean stopping development. Instead, she said, it would be “to look closely at the environmental impact we are going to have and minimize that impact as much as possible”.

Although jobs are usually the biggest selling point for new developments, a union chapter, Teamsters local 1932, has joined the fight against airport expansion. Randy Korgan, the local’s secretary and treasurer, said, “Well, bring the jobs with you, but make sure you deal with the environmental and community impacts – make sure these people have good benefits that they will be able to live and buy houses in the area. “

The court of appeal for the ninth circuit will hear the airport’s case as early as February.

The attorney general’s involvement in local disputes can upset those who firmly support the development. Steve Brandau, a Fresno district manager, served on the Fresno City Council during some heated dispute over camp expansion plans. “It’s crazy that the AG’s office, Attorney General Becerra, is stepping in and coming down even harder than the local lawyers,” he said. Citing a long-standing conservative refrain, he said that in the long run, such activities “result in business being completely out of state”.

Mr. Mataka acknowledged the friction in Fresno. “They thought we weren’t on our trail,” he said. “Unfortunately, the attorney general is responsible for enforcing California’s Environmental Quality Act. We were on our track. “

Mr Becerra said his office was working carefully with the local government before ever filing a pleading on a case and was looking for ways to compromise. Some churches, he said, don’t understand that their old ways of doing business leave churches underserved. They say, “We did this 20 years ago, why can’t we do it now?” he said.

He cited his experience as a 12-year-old congressman when he argued that he saw the role as a negotiator rather than a fighter. “They’re always looking for voices,” he said, “even across the aisle. I don’t want people to be blind. “