Obama Health-Care Interview: On His Push for Reform

TIME senior writer Karen Tumulty sat down with President Barack Obama on Tuesday afternoon to talk about his work both in public and behind the scenes to push a health-care-reform measure through Congress. Here’s an excerpt of the full transcript, which will be published on TIME.com on July 30.

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Painting prostitutes, Pakistani brushes off religious hard-liners

It’s hot and sweaty in a rat-infested room in Lahore’s historic red light district, a neighborhood of narrow alleyways lined with brothels. A barefoot, long-haired woman is gyrating and twirling on the carpet, to the beat of a four-man band whose drummer sweats profusely as he pounds out a furious rhythm. The dancer, who only gives her first name, Beenish, is performing a kind of Pakistani belly-dance called the mujra

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‘Knowing’ cruises to box office victory

What started as a close and unpredictable race to box office supremacy wound up an easy win for Nicolas Cage’s latest sci-fi flick, "Knowing," which grossed $24.8 million this weekend, trumping challenges from the hearty laugher "I Love You, Man" and the Julia Roberts-Clive Owen rom-thrill "Duplicity." While I’m somewhat surprised by the outcome — “Knowing” fared much better than I, or most other box office prognosticators, expected — in the end the battle wasn’t even very close. Cage scored his third consecutive No.

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